close your eyes. the kids are crying and screaming. there is no electricity. there is no internet. and so, you feel you could be next. this bomb could be on top of your home, on top of your apartment. and thatis home, on top of your apartment. and that is the latest we are getting from someone who is in gaza city. a doctor who spoke to the bbc earlier. the palestinian health authority has said so far, it believes up to 370 palestinians have been killed in the air strikes by the israeli defence forces since yesterday. a further 1800 to 2,000 people known to have been injured according to the palestinian health authority and are being treated in various areas for the injuries. retaliatory israeli air strikes are set to continue. the israeli government has said that it will be coming down on the hamas militants in gaza city with its full force. we will bring you more on that as and when we get it. but let's talk more about what happened on the other side. dozens of israelis have been taken hostage by hamas militants, others were shot dead by those militants who breach the gaza border into villages in southern israel. here's the story of one woman who was at a festival when it was interrupted by gunfire. they were just next to us, all over the place with automatic weapons. i was staying and then i was running out and i saw two policemen at the festival. so we had policemen in the festival, they were standing next to the cars, starting to shoot. so i realised it is very easy to get killed by these policemen because everyone was going everywhere. the terrorists were coming from four or five places, not like one direction. so we did not know where to go here. so then i got into my car again, i drove a little bit more, i got some people... i left the car and i started to run. i saw a place with many trees, many trees, like it was 200 trees, ok? so i was going in the middle, just in the middle and i was lying on the floor, and they were just all around me. they were going tree by tree and shooting, bang, bang, everywhere, from two sides. and i saw many people, people were dying all around. i did not do anything. i was very quiet, i was like, i did not cry, i did not do anything. but i was on one hand, i said, ok, i am going to die, it is ok, just breathe and close your eyes because it was shooting everywhere, very close to me. also, then i heard the terrorists, i heard them, they opened a big van, they were where i was hiding. they opened a big van and they got more weapons from this car. they were in the area for three hours, no—one was there, no—one, a policeman from the party, yes, i saw, but they were on one side, the other side, i was sure the army will come. i heard some helicopters, i was sure soldiers will come down the roads and go into this field and save us, but no—one was there. all these terrorists. and yes, so they were very close to me so i could not control myself, my leg was like this, i tried, i did my best, i moved a little bit, they were talking arabic, when they were on this side, i moved to the other side and started to try to be much under the tree. so maybe when the shooting will come, they will not touch my face. so, yes, i was lying there for three hours. and did you know what happened to your friend? i was sure she was dead. i was just thinking about my kids, my friend, about everything. and i said, it is not the time to die for me, not yet. and then i started to hear some hebrew from one side and arabic from three different sides, so i realised that we have some soldiers, a little bit, five soldiers, six soldiers. and then i started to go and decided to go to these soldiers. meanwhile, there are still terrorists around, but i was going to them, with my hands up so they will notice me and not terrorists. and some was putting me in a car and telling me, you can go away. and they took us, me and another someone that was coming and all the time, i was worried about my friend. and then when i was coming, there was a girl here, showing photos that we took, we took to the hospital, she is ok, but until now, i did not contact her, i am sure she is alive. it was a shooting in her stomach. i do not know yet, i am waiting. maybe she is, maybe having surgery or something? and then my boyfriend just came with his motorbike through all these things and picked me at some point. i was the first one to go out of the field. still, people taking two or three hours to go out, and all of the way, people were dying, on the road, young people, it is a festival for young people. many people were dying in the road. whoever tried to run away, they were shooting from both sides, so best to hide. that was a witness to the attack after the music festival on the gaza border with israel. hundreds of young people are celebrating a music festival and she is just describing what exactly happened to her. we will have more on that later. the fate of the hostages is something that is, of course, dominating the minds of many israelis. earlier, i spoke to daniel levy, the president of the us middle east project and a former israeli negotiator. he told me about the possible ways of returning the hostages. well, of course, heartbreaking to hear amit. of course, the israeli deterrence was caught by surprise, the israeli military was caught by surprise, the israeli intelligence — considered to be one of the most highly vaunted and respected in the world — caught by surprise. this, of course, has to be about making sure that all of those civilians who've been taken can return safely, but i fear that if we end the conversation there, maryam, we may have a similar conversation sometime in the not—too—distant future. because what we haven't talked about is, why is there a popular resistance movement, a militant movement in gaza amongst the palestinians, resorting to these kinds of tactics? and the sad truth is that, yes, war is terrible, war is terrible anywhere, but the solution is not going to be a military one. the solution is going to have to be a political one, which takes care not only of amit�*s friend, but also addresses the fact that israelis have woken up to a horrific reality yesterday and today. palestinians live without all the basic freedoms, the basic things that you and me take for granted, they live under a permanent occupation for approaching six decades. it's been called an apartheid regime. there can be, sadly, no security, not for amit, not for his festival—going friends, as long as palestinians are deprived of their most basic rights and freedoms and dignity. so if we zoom out, as difficult as it is to do on a day like today and after listening to amit, if we zoom out, we're going to have to have something which not only addresses that question you just raised, but addresses the absence of any horizon of hope for millions of palestinians notjust this weekend, but every day of every year for decades. but given the extent of this attack, daniel, given the ferocity of the attack, given the make—up of the israeli government right now, how likely is it that things are going to change? very unlikely indeed. but let's not have a time horizon of days or months in front of us. the appeal to the international community has to be an appeal that includes sending a signal to palestinians that they have another way. you know you have a palestinian movement which, 30 years ago, last month, it was 30 years ago, recognised israel, signed an agreement with israel, made a deal to pursue negotiations, and since that time, the number of illegal israeli settlers has quadrupled. since that time, all those things that you just said, all the indignities that israelis saw yesterday are visited on palestinians every day. now, the reason, i think, that you can have an israeli government of such extremity is that israelis have been given the message, and this plays into how this happened, how come this huge failure? israelis have been given the message by their friends in america, britain and the west that it's ok, you can do anything to the palestinians and we'll have your back. and that leads to israel making the wrong decisions, it means israel has avoided the hard choices, it means israel has told itself that it can deal with this. the palestinians are not a real problem, the world is ok with it. and that leads to the kind of hubris, the kind of ignoring of the reality which i think has led to a deep decomposition within the system. and today and yesterday, israelis are waking up to a psychological confusion and shock the likes of which is unprecedented. and as people, take a deep breath, come to terms with this, i'm afraid we're going to see horrific scenes coming from gaza when it comes to what israel is going to do there, but at some stage, if we actually want hope and we don't want to have these conversations in the future, that is going to have to include all a wall—to—wall change in the policy that's taken towards the palestinians, because unless palestinians have security, israelis won't have security, and war is appalling for everyone caught in it. we we re we were showing you live pictures of gaza city because we have had more strikes by israeli defence forces. we saw more plumes of smoke rising from the horizon around gaza. look at that building, it has been almost completely destroyed by an air strike. now, we know from speaking to our reporter who is there that the israeli defence forces do send warnings to people in the vicinity of where they are going to strike and they warn them to get out of the area, they give them a few minutes warning beforehand. but we know from the palestinian health authority that 370 people at least are known to have died in the strikes and 2200 are known to have been injured in the strikes by israeli defence forces. we have had a few lines coming in specifically from recep tayyip erdogan, the turkish president, who has said turkey is determined to ramp up diplomatic efforts to achieve calm in israeli and palestinian conflict. he has also gone on to call for some sort of peace. he said regional pieces only achievable with a state solution to israeli and palestinian conflict. turkey could potentially end up being a big player in any peace negotiations between the factions —— pieces only achievable with a two state solution. the conflict is complex and has a lot of history. we've been answering some of the questions you might have about what's happening. i've been speaking to our security correspondent, frank gardner, and ourarab affairs editor, sebastian usher. i started by asking sebastian to explain more about where this is happening, starting with more detail about gaza. it's a tiny enclave on the coast. it has, i think the late estimate of 2.3 million people squeezed into it. it was given, israel left it back in 2005, but rather than having any time to establish its own political unity, very swiftly after that, there was a major fracture between the two main factions, hamas and the palestinian authority. hamas won elections across the palestinian territories and the palestinian authority reacted against that. hamas, as you know, is prescribed by many countries, is regarded as a terrorist entity, by the us, the european union, etc. and hamas was strong enough militarily to defeat fatah and take over control. it's been in control of gaza since 2007. and in response to that, the conditions already bad in gaza got even worse, israel created a full blockade around its border with gaza and egypt did something similar. so gaza became what many activists and many people from there describe as the world's largest open—air prison. so politically, economically, socially, in so many ways, it has failed, it has been unable to build itself into a proper kind of entity. and we have seen regularly conflicts between hamas and between israel, not on the scale we're seeing now, and that means that each time it happens, there is major infrastructure damage to gaza, as well as the terrible impact on civilians there. so there's never really been a moment where gaza has been able to settle into any livable reality since israel left. frank, many people have been e—mailing into the bbc saying, what exactly is hamas, who are they, what do they want, and why are they doing this? hamas is an acronym. it stands for harakat al—muqawama al—islamiya, which is the islamic resistance movement. and it started nearly 20 years ago as exactly that, an armed resistance movement. an alternative to fatah. fatah is the name of the party of yasser arafat which became the palestinian authority. it is an armed alternative which does not recognise the state of israel. it is in a permanent state of war — either active or inactive — with israel, which is why it's a prescribed terrorist entity by many people. now, that makes it incredibly difficult to deal with, and whereas there are reasonably normal relations between the eu and the us and britain with the palestinian authority in the west bank and ramallah, there are not those normal relations with hamas. and on several occasions prior to this, hamas has sent rockets into israel. and every time that happens, peace talks stop, violence pushes it back, because most israeli leaders say, we will not negotiate with a gun held to our heads. let's talk about the fighting specifically, because many people have been asking, why has this most recent escalation happened and what's the history behind that? well, history, partly, as we've both been saying, the situation in gaza, really the possibility to live a reasonable life there, which that pressure builds. and hamas hasn't faced an election since it took over. so although hamas is the ruling entity in gaza, it's not necessarily popular with all the people there. it is unable to come to, despite many efforts, many mediation efforts by other arab countries to come to a settlement with the palestinian authority, so those two factions within palestine can unite again. and that has meant, as frank said, that essentially, governments — the us, the eu, etc, which were a major part of what we talked about for so long as the peace process, but essentially came to a standstill, didn't want to engage. because the palestinians essentially included hamas, and that's a terrorist group. so what hamas says, the main reason that it's given for what it's doing now is notjust what it sees as the subjugation of its people, the blockade making their lives very difficult from israel, but also issues like the al—aqsa mosque — known as the temple mount — injerusalem. that has been, in 2021... the tensions that were building over that with jewish and israeli politicians who were going there, which is not allowed under the way that the al—aqsa compound is managed. that became the reason why tensions would have been building in general and suddenly exploded then. and again, this is what hamas is saying about this particular eruption, but there's far more to it than that. there's the sense the palestinians, hamas, the palestinian authority to an extent and the generation of younger palestinians who feel disenfranchised from both have a sense they are no longer being listened to, their voices are no longer being heard in terms of what happens to their future. they have seen the abraham accords take place with several arab countries under president trump first and now president biden is moving towards that, was moving towards that potentially with saudi arabia, which would be a major shift within the region. and they felt they've been sidelined. and essentially, for a long time, they were the central issue, if not always in reality, but rhetorically and certainly on the street amongst the people in the arab world, if not always with their governments. their governments may have mouthed than they were supporting the palestinians and will go to the very end for them and maybe they never really meant that. but i think the feeling still amongst the majority of people in the arab world still is that. so i think part of what would have motivated hamas is this sense they wanted to change the equation, they wanted to show they couldn't be left out, that rather than just having these regular confrontations with israel that don't really change the dial, they would do something which would and would mean that they couldn't be ignored, that that had to be taken into account again and israel could no longer feel safe. frank, from what sebastian says, this was a build—up, wasn't it? however, from hearing from people talking to me through the day, a big surprise is the way in which it happened on saturday, the number of weapons. the sophisticated way in which hamas managed to do this. israelis are shocked and surprised and i think quite angry with their government and the military because they thought they'd got this. they thought they had this border secure. israel has one of the most sophisticated and well—resourced intelligence apparatus in the world. they've allegedly been able to assassinate nuclear scientists in other countries. get trackers into various militants' vehicles. they've assassinated people they don't like by drone strikes and, in some cases, by exploding mobile phones. and yet, with all of the surveillance they have on the gaza strip — possibly the most heavily surveilled bit of real estate in that part of the middle east — they didn't see this coming, and israelis want to know why. i think the reasons, if i can offer them, are twofold. one is, first, it was a religious holiday, it was simchat tora, one of the holiest days in the jewish calendar. it was coming right at the end of the jewish holiday of sukkot, first of all. most of the attention, was on the west bank, where the conflict in the last few months that sebastian was referring to, a lot of that humiliation the palestinians have on a daily basis from israeli police and settlers takes place in the west bank. but also, i suspect there were warnings and they were ignored. whoever was taking responsibility for this was asleep at the wheel, they probably thought, there is always trouble in gaza, they will never go for a big attack, and they got it wrong. there has always been in israel this rift overjudicial overhaul and we have had warnings from the military and from the israeli army, where many who serve in the army and the reserves, which israel's identity and security is based on that, were saying they wouldn't serve if this went through. and they warned many times, and there were warnings from a huge number of military personnel that israel might not be prepared to face a war on this kind of front if it came. that was security correspondent frank gardner and sebastian usher, our arab frank gardner and sebastian usher, ourarab affairs frank gardner and sebastian usher, our arab affairs editor talking to me a bit about what is happening in the area. lots of questions coming in from many of you on bbc news. to keep those questions coming. pope francis has called for an end to the attacks in israel and gaza. speaking in his weekly address to crowds in st peter's square, he said that terrorism and war would not solve any problems, but only bring further suffering and death to innocent people. he said he was following events with apprehension and sorrow. let's ta ke let's take you live to gaza to look at the pictures we are getting. at the moment looking a little bit quiet. but over the last few hours, we've seen a number of strikes by the israeli defence for is hitting various parts of the gaza city. we have also had pictures coming in earlier in the day. in particular, i wanted to show you these, artillery movements just outside the border with gaza city. there has been a lot of international reaction to what has been happening, comments from the us secretary of state antony blinken who has reiterated his support for israel. comments also from the turkish president recep tayyip erdogan who has said that peaceis tayyip erdogan who has said that peace is the only way forward for the two sides. we will leave you with these pictures, the sun setting over the harbour at gaza city. i am back at the top of the hour with more on this developing story, stay with us on bbc news. hello there. good afternoon. a weekend of contrast across the uk. of most concern has been the heavy rain across parts of scotland. some sites have recorded most of a month's worth of rainfall. take a look at the bbc website for more information. but the met office warnings of heavy rain expiring this afternoon. further south, dry weather, hazy sunshine, certainly warm here. this weekend's rainfall in scotland will be felt all the way into the start of the coming week. but out there today, the met office amber warning is in force around the grampians, towards the moray coast. it's here where they expect the greatest risk of further flooding and disruption, but there will be further impacts elsewhere. there will be some clear skies around, but misty and more keyed towards irish sea coast into monday morning, so quite a grey start here, but very mild, temperatures in double figures, 13 to 15 celsius for many. on monday, i'll start to the day, great towards those irish sea coast, the mist will slowly burn back, lots of sunshine around and a much drier day for scotland, perhaps cloud and outbreaks of drizzle across western scotland still. temperatures will feel milder here. 16 to 18 celsius. but further south and east, 2a or 25 degrees. on tuesday, there is another met office weather warning out for west of scotland, some heavy persistent rain here, falling on saturated ground, it could possibly be more flooding. also some rain across northern ireland and moving into north—west england. more cloud here. but the best of the sunshine hangs on towards the south east of england and east anglia, where again, temperatures will rise into the low to mid 20s. but that is about to enter. the heat. because we have a cold front sinking slowly southwards, that is going to produce quite a bit of rain on wednesday and parking itself towards the south coast on thursday. introducing much cooler feeling air across the board. so here is the outlook for our capital cities as we head through the week. milder air capital cities as we head through the week. milderairagain capital cities as we head through the week. milder air again creeping into the south east, but with some rain on friday. goodbye. live from london. this is bbc news. a day after hamas militants stormed into israeli territory — the death toll from the fighting has risen to more than a thousand. israel's military says residents near gaza will be evacuated within the next 2a hours — as it intensifies its response to saturday's attack. we hear from a friend of an israeli woman, who believes she was kidnapped by hamas fighters at a festival near gaza. we also speak to one eyewitness who fled for her life when the assault by hamas fighters began. they were going three by three and shooting. everywhere. from two sides. and so many people were dying all around. hello. i'm maryam moshiri. welcome to bbc news. the total number of dead from the conflict between israel and the palestinians has risen to more than a thousand, a day after hamas militants stormed into israeli territory from gaza. the israeli military says the country is "still at war... in its efforts to take full control of israeli territory and communities from hamas". here are the key developments this hour. israeli tv is now putting the number of israeli civilians dead at more than 600. the health ministry in gaza has said 370 palestinians have been killed by israeli airstrikes there. the israeli army also says more than 400 palestinian militants have been killed after infiltrating southern israel, with dozens more captured. israel says it is still trying to regain full control of eight

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