Tells his story. Welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. Israel has intensified its assault on the gaza strip, with a number of explosions seen in the hamas controlled enclave. It comes as palestinians flee their homes, fearing a ground attack. Explosions lit up the sky over gaza city. The number of People Killed in gaza has now passed 100. Earlier, multiple missiles were launched by palestinian forces inside gaza, towards israel. Seven people have died in israel. Sectarian clashes between jewish and arab citizens who live side by side, on the streets of tel aviv, lod and beyond have intensified amid warnings of civil war. The bbc� s middle east editor jeremy bowen is injerusalem. Palestinian families are fleeing their homes in Northern Gaza this evening. They told the bbc they were escaping heavy israeli shellfire. Dozens of civilians were killed in their area in the 2014 war, so they left in a hurry, with their children still in their new clothes they were given for the end of ramadan. One man said the criminal occupation shows them no mercy. A renewal of the war between hamas and israel was always likely. The unexpected frontline on the streets of israel was not. Sectarian violence between Israeli Citizens brings a new and vicious dimension. Not all israelis arejews. Around 20 are palestinian arabs. Young men have been on the prowl for people to attack. Jews versus arabs, arabs versus jews, all Israeli Citizens. President warned the country should not abandon itself to civil war. As for the other war, it was a day for decisions. Among the hamas leaders assassinated by israel this week were top commanders. Will that deter another escalation . Probably not. Israel has to decide whether it wants to follow artillery and air attacks with a Ground Assault against hamas inside gaza. That has been part of the pattern during 15 years of intermittent warfare between them. Israel has called up 7,000 reservists. In jerusalem, Tens Of Thousands of palestinians came to pray at islams holiest place after mecca and medina. In this city, religion is intertwined with politics, nationalism and power. The banners that celebrate hamas and its leaders, who wanted the people there to see them as the only true guardians of palestinian rights injerusalem. It was eid al fitr, the holiday that marks the end of ramadan. It is meant to be a party. Parents tried to make it fun. There is nothing right now to celebrate for the palestinian president mahmoud abbas, upstaged by his hamas rivals. No peace, security or stability is possible, he said, whilejerusalem is occupied by israel. This War Mightjust save Benjamin Netanyahus career. He was about to lose his job last weekend. He is still in political trouble but now he has soldiers to congratulate and his rivals are quiet. The Prime Minister said the fight against hamas would take time, but israel would decisively restore quiet. It is a modest war aim, he will need more to tell israelis before this can end. Especially in sderot, the town closest to gaza. A five year boy was killed after a rocket hit his building. His neighbours have had enough. It is very, very difficult to live under these circumstances and the government should wipe out gaza, should wipe out gaza, once and for all. Right across israel and the occupied territories this week, there is serious violence. This was the town of Hebron Last Night on the occupied west bank. Young palestinians and israelis, confronting each other, another generation cursed by the failures of its leaders. Every day, india is recording nearly as many covid i9 cases as every other country in the world put together. In the past 2a hours, more than 4,000 people have hospitals in many parts of the country are being overrun. One of the states seeing the most dramatic surges is west bengal, governed by a regional political party. From the States Capital kolkata, Yogita Limaye reports. 1,000 miles from delhi kolkata. Look at this. A frighteningly busy market in a region where covid has surged nearly 80 times in the past two months. People here are scared but they have to work, to eat. And this is the cost. In the entrance of a Public Hospital nearby, people are already struggling to get basic care. All the beds here, hundreds, are already full. And the sick keep coming. I dont know how long we can continue like this, says this doctor. Even a war comes to an end, but here it is wave after wave. One in six people in the world live in india. And kolkata is among its most densely populated cities. Covid has reached places where families live together in one room homes. Distancing is impossible. Amit and aartis 63 year old father died of covid. They spent the only money they had on trying to save him. As it spreads unchecked, the virus is taking on new, more worrying forms. The highly infectious variant that is spreading through india has now reached more than a0 countries around the world including the uk. This is not an indian problem. What is happening here could affect the worlds ability to recover from the pandemic. I spoke to dr soumya swaminathan, the World Health Organizations chief scientist. Why should the world care about what is happening in india right now . This virus does not respect borders. It doesnt respect nationalities. It spreads before you know that it is spreading. If the virus keeps on replicating and multiplying, the number of variants is going to keep increasing and these variants will ultimately spread across the world. We will not be able to stop that from happening. The only way out is to immunise this vast population, but Vaccine Supply is critically low. This country will need billions of doses. Its hard to see how it can do it alone. Yogita limaye, bbc news, kolkata. The number of cases of an indian covid variant have more than doubled in the uk in the past week. More than 1,300 cases have been reported in england alone. Most of the cases are in the North West Of England and some in london. The Prime Minister says he is anxious about the rise in cases and says the government is ruling nothing out in tackling the situation. Heres our correspondent dominic hughes. All right, sharp scratch. Surge testing, and now an extra push on vaccinations is under way in bolton. This is a part of town that has seen a spike in infections. 553 new cases in a week, more than doubling the infection rate. Were doing just over 300 vaccines a day. The concerns are around the unknowns, how many cases are linked to the variant that originated in india, and how far has it spread . The variant from india seemed to appear around the time that our rates started to rise. What we havent really got the full detail on is to what extent the rise is down to that thats why we are doing all the Surge Testing in part. We have lots of sites across bolton that allow people without symptoms to be tested, and we really need them to do that, because we need to get right down to the detail of what variants are in our community. Next week, most students will be able to stop Wearing Masks in schools, but not here at the academy, where the vaccinations are being carried out. In light of the spike in this local area, its really important that we continue wearing face masks for the next few weeks. I think its important we all do our bit to keep each other safe, and thats the number one priority of any principal at any school, so the masks will continue. Bolton has been here before. Only a few weeks last summer were free of restrictions. Follow the rules, wear a face covering. The worry is that areas now seeing infections surge could find themselves subject to yet more local lockdowns. It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it. It has been spreading, but we want to make sure we take all the prudential, all the cautious steps now that we could take. The latest Government Data on cases linked to the indian variant show they have more than doubled in a week to over 1,300, many of them found here in the North West Of England. Now, that figure does sound alarming and, certainly, the rise is startling, but when compared to the total number of cases, that figure is still relatively small. Weve predicted that there will be new variants emerging. And experts say there is no sign yet the indian variant poses a much greater threat. We will see variants that escape or evade antibodies to some extent, but the vaccines do a lot of things and they protect us in many different ways, so id say this is something for scientists, Public Health people in government to worry about, rather than individuals. The only thing a person in the street needs to worry about is getting vaccinated as soon as they can and, when they are offered it, to take both doses. Theres been no change in National Policy on who gets the vaccine, despite Council Leaders calling for more freedom to respond to local outbreaks. So far, vaccines remain highly effective. But new variants are the biggest threat to the path out of lockdown. You might feel a bit sore for a couple of days, all right . Dominic hughes, bbc news, bolton. Portugal has extended its coronavirus alert level until the end of may raising questions over whether people from the uk will be able to travel there from next week. Portugal is one ofjust 12 countries on the uks green list which means you dont have to quarantine on return. Our transport correspondent, caroline davies, has the latest. There are over 20 departures due to take off from the uk to portugal on monday. Lets be clear to start with, the portuguese government hasnt announced either way if it is going to let uk tourists into the country on monday the 17th. Bear in mind that isjust over three days away. As you say, the green list was announced last week, only 12 countries and territories on there, including places like australia and new zealand which are not allowing british tourists in at the moment, so the industry has really staked its hopes on portugal. We heard today that portugal has decided to extend the state of calamity, as it calls it, until the 30th of may. Non essential travel is currently not allowed into portugal and when the Cabinet Minister was asked if uk tourists would be allowed in on the 17th, she said, i have no information to give yet. What she did give information about was the Uefa Champions League final which is due to be played in portugal on the 29th of may. Anyone who is coming over from the uk will have to go in chartered flights, she said. They will have to leave within the same day, within 48 hours, and remain and what she called a bubble situation. Plenty in the Travel Industry. Plenty in the Travel Industry desperately waiting to hear of portugal is going to open up. Key thing here is how volatile this situation is for international travel. Stay with us on bbc news, still to come why elon musk and his electric tesla cars have sent the value of bitcoin tumbling over concerns about fossil fuels. The pope was shot, the pope will live that is the essence of the appalling news from rome this afternoon that, as an Italian Television commentator put it, terrorism has come to the vatican. The man they called the butcher of lyon, klaus barbie, went on trial today in the french town where he was the gestapo chief in the second world war. Winnie mandela never looked like a woman just sentenced to six years injail. The judge told mrs mandela there was no indication she felt even the slightest remorse. The Chinese Government has called for an all out effort. To help the victims of a powerful earthquake the worst to hit the i country for 30 years. The computer deep blue has tonight triumphed over it is the first time a machine has defeated a reigning World Champion in a classical chess match. Americas first legal same sex marriages have been taking place in massachusetts. God bless america this is bbc news, the latest headlines israel has intensified its assault on the gaza strip, with a number of explosions seen in the hamas controlled enclave, while multiple missiles were launched by palestinian forces inside gaza, towards israel. Over 100 palestinians and seven israelis have now been killed since monday. Official figures show more than 4,000 died in india from covid, for the second day in a row. As indias highly infectious new variant has now been found in a0 other countries. The value of bitcoin, the worlds biggest digital currency, has tumbled after elon musk, the chief executive of tesla, said the Electric Car Company would no longer accept the cryptocurrency as payment. And its all because of fossil fuels. Our chief environment correspondent Justin Rowlatt explains. There are real concerns about the Environmental Impact of these cryptocurrencies. You will, of course, have heard of bitcoin, the biggest crypto of them all. Its seen its value soar in recent years. Look at this. You could have picked up a bitcoin for 1. 70 ten years ago. Now, one would cost you more than 48,000. And thats because, in part, because of the support from elon musk, the boss of tesla. The Electric Car Company said it would accept bitcoins for Car Purchases in march this year but today, mr musk performed a screeching u turn. And its true. Bitcoin relies on the use of staggering amounts of energy, much of it from fossilfuels. That is because of the way bitcoin is produced or mined. Its like a kind of lottery run every ten minutes. Computers around the world compete to create a record of every transaction ever made in bitcoin. They also have to guess a random number. Get there first and you win the prize 6. 25 bitcoins, today worth £250,000. The idea is the more computers verifying transactions, the more secure the currency is. And with such big cash on offer, huge numbers of people are getting in on the game. The effort they are making is truly enormous. Bitcoin miners make some 160 quintillion calculations every second that is 160 followed by 18 zeros and that takes a huge amount of electricity. The uk uses just over 300 terawatt hours of electricity a year. At current rates, bitcoin is using 150 terawatts hours a year, so that is half of what the uk uses and about 0. 5 of total world electricity use. We have a system with millions of devices All Around The World that are constantly generating a whole load of useless computations and using a whole load of energy in doing that, while bitcoin is, in essence, still very small at the moment. And researchers say at least two thirds of that will have been generated from fossil fuel, which is why bitcoin is such a huge source of Greenhouse Gas emissions something you may want to consider if you are thinking of buying the so called currency. And also something that would make scaling it up to be a World Currency on a par with the dollar or the euro a real challenge. We can now speak to camilo mora whos a professor of geography and environment at the university of hawaii. He joins us from honolulu. Thank you so much forjoining us, professor. Just how detrimental to the environment is bitcoin and Bitcoin Mining . It is terrible. When i started looking into this i did not think much of it, than i made the calculations and i realised it probably needed to be taken more seriously. The amount of c02 is more seriously. The amount of co2 is something that is very concerning to most people but less than 1 of cashless transactions done globally, and a lot of energy use for something to insignificant and the potential increase of the use of this Crypto Currency is also concerning. Iii use of this Crypto Currency is also concerning. Use of this Crypto Currency is also concerning. If we were to use more . Also concerning. If we were to use more . We also concerning. If we were to use more . We decided also concerning. If we were to use more . We decided to also concerning. If we were to| use more . We decided to look also concerning. If we were to i use more . We decided to look at the wa , use more . We decided to look at the way. The use more . We decided to look at the way, the rate use more . We decided to look at the way, the rate at use more . We decided to look at the way, the rate at which the way, the rate at which different technologies have been incorporated society, from the toilet, to the internet and we get these rates. What we decided to do is find out what would happen if bitcoin was to be incorporated into any of those rate but if we chose any random rate, the emissions from bitcoin alone would make the planet heat up by two degrees or more and the concerns we have had from the Paris Agreement is nothing compared to the emissions bitcoin would consume if we incorporated. I5 consume if we incorporated. Is there a more friendly way to mine bitcoin . It there a more friendly way to mine bitcoin . Mine bitcoin . It is very interesting. Mine bitcoin . It is very interesting. One mine bitcoin . It is very interesting. One thing | mine bitcoin . It is very interesting. One thing that bitcoin has revealed is the reason an increasing need for this Crypto Currency. The fact that it this Crypto Currency. The fact thatitis this Crypto Currency. The fact that it is being used like Nobodies Business is an indication of this. I think there would be an evolution towards the use of these Crypto Currency and a new Crypto Currency and a new Crypto Currency is coming into the market are environmentally more friendly. Many of them that aim precisely at this so the market has options as do users to have less Environmental Impact. Professor camilo mora, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. ~ ,. , you for taking the time to talk tous. , ~ you for taking the time to talk tous. , to us. My pleasure, thank you very much football, and liverpool have given their chances of qualifying for next seasons Champions League a major boost, after they beat Manchester United 4 2, at old trafford. The game was supposed to have been played earlier this month but was delayed due to fan protests. There were similar scenes before thursdays match, as United Supporters continued to voice opposition to club owners, the glazer family. But the game did go ahead, and it was liverpool fans who were celebrating at the final whistle. One man who wont be happy with that result is former Manchester United manager, sir Alex Ferguson. He enjoyed extraordinary success with the club, and is now the subject of a new film charting his life and his recovery from a Brain Haemorrhage in 2018. Hes been talking to our Sports Editor, dan roan, about his career and the men who played for him. The players i inherited at aberdeen at aberdeen and Manchester United, were strong, were powerful and that has changed because its become a more protective life nowadays, you know . And i know there is social media and things like that which has created some problems but in the main, i was very lucky to inherit the kind of players i did in my earlier days, you know . Do you think that you would find it harder if starting a managerial career today, because the role of the manager seems to have shifted somewhat . Personally, i dont think so. Ill tell you why i dont think so i think its my personality. I think that i had something in me that was bound to get me somewhere in life, you know . Im not being boastful here but i think i had that personality to do well and the drive to do well and the hunger and the energy. I think there are young people out there with the drive you see with klopp for instance and the drive he has brought, hes a young man and pep guardiola, thejob he has done at city. You know, there is a place for people with the right credentials and the right material and there are obstacles, but the good ones will find a way. You gave a quote recently around the super league. The Champions League final is the climax of the movie and it builds to this crescendo, the whole film builds to that credible moment which i suspect even, what, 22 years on, you sometimes struggle to believe what actually happened that night. But the future of that tournament was obviously under threat up until recently. What did you make of that and what has happened since . Well, as a player, i played in european football, with rangers and dunfermline, and then as a manager, i took a provincial club like aberdeen to beat real madrid in a final in gothenburg. Every comp should have that dream, to achieve what aberdeen did, so that is the answer. You cannot ever forget that the real reason for football is that the smallest guy can climb to the top of everest. And that is a base where i can put that. We cannot do without that, really. Sir Alex Ferguson speaking to our Sports Editor dan roan. So how can we safely hold large scale events again, whilst Easing Coronavirus Restrictiions . Well, this is one way to put on a socially distanced gig french electro artist teho performed at an altitude of 3000 metres in the swiss alps. The dj says he had to overcome his fear of heights, and brave sub zero temperatures at dawn, to do his set from a small platform overlooking the matterhorn after a year of not being able to perform in clubs due to the pandemic. It looks a lot nicer than than it would look at any club. Thank you so much for your company. You can reach me on twitter im bbcmaryam. Hello. Theres been no shortage of wet weather this week and there is plenty more where that came from as we head towards the weekend. Thursday was a particularly soggy affair across some southern areas. You can see this curl of cloud on the Satellite Picture a slow moving Weather System that brought heavy and persistent rain. There is more cloud behind me in the atlantic another area of low pressure heading our way for the weekend. In between, well, arguably, a slice of slightly drier weather. There will still be some showers and actually, as we go through the day, the showers will tend to pop up in the areas where we develop some sunshine, so across Northern Ireland, eventually western parts of scotland, north west england, wales, the south west. It will turn into a sunshine and showers day after a dull start for some. But for Eastern England and certainly the north east of scotland, we will hold on to more cloud. Where we have more of the cloud, well, there wont be so many showers but it will feel chilly 11 or 12 degrees and there could be the odd spot of drizzle around at times. Now, as we head through friday night into saturday, some bits and pieces of showery rain will be replaced by a band of more persistent rain pushing up from the south west across england, wales into Northern Ireland by the end of the night. Quite a mild start to the weekend but it is going to be quite a turbulent weekend of weather, actually, with some very, very heavy downpours and thunderstorms, always with some sunny spells in between. Our band of rain will continue to push its way slowly northwards during saturday, perhaps getting up into the South Of Scotland by the end of the day. Behind it, sunshine and showers, but those showers really will start to turn very, very heavy for wales and the south west, with hail and thunder later on. Top temperatures between 11 and 15 degrees. And then, we head on into sunday, and this area of low pressure is going to move right across the uk. As this sits on top of us during sunday, it will allow for some very unstable conditions in the atmosphere. That means big Shower Clouds are going to develop with some hail and some thunder, frequent lightning potentially in these showers, torrential downpours of rain and some pretty squally, gusty winds. Particularly windy for coasts of Southern England and the Channel Islands gusts here in excess of 40 mph. But in any sunshine between the showers, not feeling too bad highs of 16 degrees. This is bbc news. The headlines as hostilities enter theirfifth day, over 100 people have been killed in gaza and seven in israel. Now the Israeli Defense forces say they have intensified their assault on the gaza strip but have said Ground Troops have not entered the territory. Palestinian civilians have been fleeing their homes and taking shelter outside of gaza, while sectarian clashes betweenjewish and arab citizens who live side by side has also spread to the streets of tel aviv and lod amid warnings of civil war. In india, more than 4,000 people have died from coronavirus in the last 24 hours alone, and hospitals in many parts of the country are being overrun as the country records nearly as many coronavirus cases as the rest of the world combined