at least 157 people. houses are destroyed and people are digging through rubble to rescue others. and russell brand faces a fresh allegation of sexual assault. the claim is made in a civil lawsuit filed in new york and dates back to 2010. hello. i am anna foster, this is bbc news, live from jerusalem. israel s military has again urged civilians in gaza s north to leave the area. it reopened one of the strip s main highways. allowing people to drive south. strip s main highways. the road was scheduled to be open for three hours and that window was due to close just moments ago. the rafah crossing to egypt is also closed at least temporarily. no one has used the crossing so far today. we are hearing that gaza border authorities will not permit foreign passport holders to cross into egypt until the injured people in gaza s hospitals are allowed to travel to rafah. hundreds of foreign citizens have escaped gaza through the crossing in the past few days. our bbc arabic corresp
justified by its claim of self defence. he said the entire region was sinking into a sea of hatred that could define generations to come. the egyptian foreign minister, sameh shoukry, said his country is making every effort to deliver aid and treat injured gazans and joined the call for an immediate ceasefire. the numbers of people who were killed from civilians in gaza over the last few weeks, including working in relief and journalists cannot be justified any way. and in this regard, we are still asking for an immediate ceasefire and that israel would stop hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid. and we also demand an international investigation for these violations of the international law in this war. and finally, what we are witnessing of an escalation and the human tragedy and suffering of civilians as a result of not addressing the deep root of the problem and to address the rights of the palestinian rights. i reject any attempts to liquidate the palestinian cause
we will bring you more from our correspondent outside a hospital in a moment. a leading think tank, the institute for fiscal studies, has accused the main political parties of a conspiracy of silence over the economic reality behind plans set out in their election manifestos. the ifs analysed how the policies could impact the public finances and what that could mean for household incomes, public services and taxation. in its scathing assessment it said the parties were ducking the issues, by relying on faster growth to deliver more tax, which it said was far from guaranteed. it also warned the next government faced having to find new ways to raise taxes, or leave some public services exposed to billions of pounds worth of cuts. this a flavour of what the director of the ifs, pauljohnson, had to say. low growth, high debt, high interest payments mean we need to do something quite rare over the next few years just to stop debt spiralling ever upwards we need to run primar
that situation reversed. and he will hope to hear concrete commitments from him to work on that problem. our north america correspondent nomia iqbal has more on the talks. mr yoav gallant is here for the second time in washington, dc. last time he was here in march, he is meeting his counterpart, the defence secretary lloyd austin and you mentioned the secretary of state antony blinken as well as the head of the cia and he will be discussing the next phase of the war in gaza, but also those increasing tensions on the lebanese border, which is of huge concern for the americans because of concern about what that might open up in the middle east. the prosecutor for the international criminal court has requested an arrester for yoav gallant, alleging he is responsible for war crimes in gaza and crimes against humanity but the us has rejected that, and they see yoav gallant as a crucial voice and a crucial ally, especially since mr vote once a day voice and a crucial ally, espec