Transcripts For BBCNEWS Al Fayed 20240929

Translation the state of Israel Yesterday eliminated the Mass Murderer Hassan Nasrallah. We settled accounts with the one responsible for the murder of countless israelis and many citizens of other countries. Nasrallah was not another terrorist, he was the terrorist. Israel claims this is a historic Turning Point. For many in beirut, its a time of fear. Plenty were fleeing the city today, clinging to the hope of finding safety somewhere. But Theres Danger in every direction in lebanon. We travelled through dahieh, the Hezbollah Stronghold now looking anything but. It has been bombed time after time. This is just one of the locations that has been hit. Theres smoke still rising here. Theres ash in the air and you can smell the explosives, and i can hear a drone now overhead. The strike here happened overnight, and since then, theres been no letup. In beirut� s martyrs� square, many slept in the open and remained there today, new homeless from The Middle Easts newest war. The governor of beirut, who has no connection with hezbollah, fears for his city. What do you think is the israeli plan here, what are they trying to do . I dont know, but israel want to kill and to kill and to kill. You cannot predict what israel can do. But you fear the worst . May god protect this country. It seems a very sad moment for you. Its the saddest moment in my life. Thank you. And a moment of Grave Dangerfor Lebanon and The Middle East. Israel says its work is not finished. No one can be sure what will come next. Orla guerin, Bbc News, beirut. Lets hear now from our Correspondent Anna Foster in beirut she gave me a sense of what the atmosphere is like in the lebanese capital this evening. This time yesterday, we still had the confusion and the fear and people trying to work out what had happened after that very, very large Air Strike that we felt and we heard and we saw the plume of smoke, just a few kilometres away. We saw people fleeing from the southern suburbs of beirut and we have seen them again when it got like this morning, and people with children, trying to find somewhere to shelter. Along the Seafront Area here, the mediterranean, some of those people again have been out on the streets. When they heard the news of the death of Hassan Nasrallah, again we saw pictures of people incredibly emotional because of what had happened because as frank was describing, he was very much seen as the hero, as a totemic figure of hezbollah. In other parts of The Middle East region, certainly in israel, in theory as well and by people here in lebanon, lets be clear, he was very much a person who brought Terror And Destruction to thousands of lives. What people here are now really concerned and fearful about is what will happen next because as we have been reflecting, there are so many different scenarios, so many different scenarios, so many different groups, organisations, countries, people, who are now trying to decide what they want to do next, if they want to send a response, if they want to escalate, if they want to talk about things. And one thing that has been particularly notable here over the last Week Orso notable here over the last week or so now is that every morning people wake up without a sense of what the day will bring. And i think for a lot of people here, that Fear And Confusion and uncertainty has been incredibly destabilising and certainly anybody who you will speak to, Notjust In Beirut but across lebanon, will tell you that they remember 2006, they remember the civil war, and they hope that some kind of solution can be found to try and ease the tensions in what is an incredibly, a maelstrom of a region right now. And a reminder that we have a live Page Online with the very latest from our correspondents across The Middle East after israel killed the Hezbollah Leader. You can find that on the Bbc News website or app. Lets take a quick look at whats making the headlines on the front pages of some of the first editions of the sunday papers. And its no surprise that the situation in lebanon dominates. Iran threatens vengeance over hezbollah Chiefs Assassination is the headline in the observer. The paper has a photo of a demonstrator in beirut holding a framed photo of assassinated Hezbollah Leader, Hassan Nasrallah. That story also appears on the front of the sunday times. It says israel has struck a huge blow but now braces for revenge. The Sunday Telegraph quotes us president Joe Biden who says the death of Hassan Nasrallah brings justice for thousands of his victims. But the telegraph leads on the resignation of Labour Mp Rosie Duffield. Shes accused the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, of presiding over sleaze, nepotism, and apparent avarice that is off the scale. And the Sunday Express features comments from conservative leadership contender, kemi badenoch. The tory Party Conference begins this weekend and she says shes ready to tear up Human Rights Laws to stop migrant boats crossing the channel. Well, lets stay with politics and get more on the news that the mp, Rosie Duffield, has quit the Labour Party over what she says are sir kier starmer� s cruel policies and hypocrisy over his acceptance of gifts. In her resignation letter, she criticised the Prime Minister for accepting expensive personal gifts of Designer Suits and glasses while scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment and keeping the two child benefit cap. Live to our political correspondent, damian grammaticas, who is in the newsroom. How significant is this decision . Well, i think it is important, of course, and it is significant because it comes so soon into Sir Keir Starmer� s time as Prime Minister, less than three months since eve walked through the doors of Downing Street, one of his own mps has chosen to stand down and with a blistering attack in this letter which she released publicly to the newspapers. So, designed to wound. And it is worth going through some of those quotes in that. You heard some of it there. She criticises Sir Keir Starmer she says for his leadership, she says for his leadership, she says it has never been true or inspiring leadership. She criticises him for his policies, particularly those cuts that hes bringing in which she says are cruel and unnecessary and will affect hundreds of thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable people. And she criticises him for his personal behaviour, his personal decisions, accepting gifts, sleaze, nepotism, avarice, of the scale, which she says tarnishes and humiliates The Party. She has been speaking to sunday with Laura Kuenssberg At The Bbc and this is what she has told the programme. We all had our faith in Keir Starmer and a labour government, and i feel that voters and activists and mps are being completely laughed at and completely taken for granted. Now, it is worth saying that Rosie Duffield has had a long and difficult relationship with Keir Starmer, Withjeremy Corbyn and even some in her local party branch. She has been a vocal campaigner on issues such as Anti Semitism and womens rights, she says she has faced abuse, threats internally, even investigation which totally exonerated her, but she complained that the leadership never supported her in those times. The problem here for Keir Starmer is it is not those issues, it is his leadership that she is attacking. There is no sign that other Labour Mps are likely to follow but we do know she is tapping into a vein of discontent amongst some of The Party at about his leadership, and while Downing Street and Keir Starmer are desperate to move on from the rows about gifts to living on the promises they promised but what i think will be difficult for them is that this very public resignation simply perpetuates that criticism, that discussion, and in the five hours since she released her letter, we have heard nothing from Downing Street, a sign perhaps of how difficult they are filing this. find Sign perhaps of how difficult they are filing this. And Rosie Duffield, they are filing this. And Rosie Duffield. An they are filing this. And Rosie Duffield, an mp they are filing this. And Rosie Duffield, an mp since they are filing this. And Rosie Duffield, an mp since 2017, l duffield, an mp since 2017, what reaction has there been so far from elsewhere . What reaction has there been so farfrom elsewhere . We what reaction has there been so far from elsewhere . Far from elsewhere . We have heard from far from elsewhere . We have heard from the far from elsewhere . We have heard from the conservative l heard from the conservative party, Tom Tugendhat, one of the leading candidates for The Party has said that Rosie Duffield has said it all and that this is, this has been, if you like, a gift to Labour Partys main biggest political opponent who are just gathering for their annual conference which begins tomorrow. So all of Rosie Duffields criticisms you will hear i am sure repeated over the next few days by conservative mps, conservative politicians, so many labour will feel she has handed a stick with which to beat Sir Keir Starmer to the conservative party, internally inside the Labour Party there have been some who have not wanted to comment on the record but saying they are deeply concerned about the policies, the cuts in particular to benefits, to the Winter Fuel Support that goes to pensioners, and the fact that thatis pensioners, and the fact that that is being removed. And they want Downing Street to change tact but Sir Keir Starmer and Downing Street have insisted that this is something they have to do to balance the budget this year and that they have always said they are prepared to make difficult decisions and look like they want to press ahead with it. Damian, thank you very much. And you can see the whole of the interview with Rosie Duffield on Laura Kuenssberg here on Bbc News and Bbc One at 9am tomorrow, so do tune in for that. Staying with politics. The conservative party is gathering in birmingham for its annual conference for the first time since their defeat in julys General Election. The conference will be a chance for The Partys final four candidates to rally support for their bids to become the next leader. Robertjenrick, kemi badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat will have a chance to make their pitch to take over from rishi sunak. Heres our political correspondent, joe pike. All four contenders to be the next leader of the conservative party have arrived here in birmingham ahead of the annual Party Conference alongside the outgoing leader, rishi sunak. Now, it may have been more than 12 weeks since he announced his intention to stand down from that position. And yet the contest to succeed him only reallyjust seems to be getting started. This conference really will be crunch time for the final four. Kemi badenoch, robert jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat. All four have already been talking about what they think went wrong at the General Election and what they want to do next, but at this conference they will be making speeches, taking part in Question And Answer sessions and really pressing the flesh both with conservative mps and Party Members too. And the effort has already started this evening in the hotel behind me. Now, one significant intervention from a former leader today. Today was from theresa may, who said the conservative party wins elections from the centre and it should remain attacking labour from the centre. But even though this contest is hotting up, its not over. Any time soon. Itll be a couple more weeks before conservative Mps Whittle down the final four to a final two. And then conservative Party Members will vote. Will have a new leader of the conservative party on november the 2nd. The new leader of the Ulster Unionists has been ratified at The Partys annual conference. Mike nesbitt addressed Party Members by livestream as he is recovering from covid. Hes taking up the reins of Northern Irelands fourth largest party for the second time while also serving as Health Minister in the stormont assembly. He outlined his vision for The Party to the conference audience. The days when unionism could rely on its traditional Voter Base for success, are long gone and are not coming back. So we need to do more than wrap ourselves in the Union Flag and sing god save the king. If you want to know our constitutional preference, the clues in the title were the ulster unionist party. But visit any School Or University or Community Group and your elected representatives do this daily. The questions people want to ask are not about sovereignty. They want to know about Mental Health and wellbeing. They want to know about the environment and climate change. They want to know about what were doing, to give them a reason not to go live somewhere else, because they feel there are no opportunities for them here. So we need to be more than a party dedicated to Northern Ireland remaining part of the united kingdom. We need to be a party of policies. That is the new leader of the Ulster Unionists, mike nesbitt. Lets return to our top story. The israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the killing of the Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah as a historic Turning Point. He said israel had settled The Score with a man responsible for the murder of countless israelis, and would continue striking its enemies. Hezbollah confirmed his death earlier today. It described him as a martyr and vowed to continue its fight against israel. The bbc� s former middle east correspondent Jim Muir lives in beirut. He explained what life had been like there in the last few days. Well, in my particular area, we havent been directly hit by israeli strikes, but weve been affected by them in that obviously, we heard the huge explosions yesterday, the ones that got Hassan Nasrallah. That was unprecedented. I mean, in all my years here, ive never heard anything quite like that before. Theres a series of big explosions but rammed together in about two seconds. Quite extraordinary. So we knew something was was going on. And i actually said, nasrallah, because its the only thing i could imagine would be of that enormity. So my region hasnt been actually hit. We can hear stuff going on from time to time. But what has happened is that, especially overnight last night, theres been quite a flood of displaced people coming in from the southern suburbs because, as youll recall, after hitting nasrallahs centre, the israelis warned people in very specific areas of the southern suburbs to evacuate immediately and get get well away from certain buildings because they were going to be hit, which indeed they were during the night along with a lot of other targets in various parts of the country, so weve got an awful lot. The demography has changed basically overnight. Theres a lot of people around who we havent seen before. A lot of buildings, including my own, and the one just across the little Cul De Sac here, are now full of people from out of town, just desperate to find somewhere to stay. And thats the same in many parts. Theyve actually been sleeping out in the streets. Luckily the weather is okay at the moment for that, but if it had been earlier too hot and later its going to be wetand horrible, um, so thats the situation now. Just a lot of tension and people wondering what comes next. And jim, you talk about that hit being something that youd never experienced before. And then you said, this must have been nasrallah when you when you heard it last night. What was known about so called Hezbollah Hq . I mean, was it widely known that he might be there . And what sort of Compound Centre was it . Was it Deep Underground underneath a residential building . Well, it was in an area that apparently, according to local people in that area, was known to be a kind of Hezbollah Sort of compound, as it were. The israelis knocked down four buildings, which presumably were all related to hezbollah. Now, Who Else was in the building . We dont really know. It could be that if there were residents, because these meetings were going on Deep Underground, and thats why they had to use so many bombs to blast their way down to that level. If there were people in the building, we havent heard a lot about heavy casualties, heavy, heavy fatalities. We dont know how many that the initial Casualty Toll in the first few hours was something like two killed, you know, quite a lot wounded, injured. So we dont know how heavily populated it was, but it was known locally that this was a hezbollah area. So people who were wary would have been keeping well away from that area. How difficult is it to assess where this leaves hezbollah . Somebody i spoke to earlier talked about its been heavily damaged in terms of its personnel, but its weaponry remains pretty strong. Yeah, theyve still got a lot of rockets. And in fact, if you if you follow the the social media messages, its a lot of it is, you know, we fired this salvo of rockets in that direction and this volley in another direction and so on. So theyre still giving the impression that theyre very much in business. Um, and of course, israel is hitting notjust here in, in Southern Beirut, but all over the country in especially the Beqaa Valley in, in the east and above all, today down in tyre, around around tyre district, where a friend down there tells me there isnt a single village in the whole area, and its a big area down there and not a single village has remained unscathed. So hezbollah, hezbollah is signalling that even after all these assassinations and after the business of the Exploding Pagers and walkie talkies, which knocked out, i mean, put Out Of Business at least 1,500, maybe 2,000 hezbollah fighters, um, theyre still very much in business. But now youve got the boss gone, its very hard to see that this will not have an effect. Theyve got communication problems, they cant get immediately in touch with one another and they have command problems. Although it seems that although theyve lost a Big Raft of military commanders, they do seem to have a sort of Understudy Programme where one falls and is immediately replaced by somebody else because theres been no Let Up in their in their rocketing. And of course, israel has been redoubling its efforts to get at those rockets and get at any Hezbollah Target anywhere in the country and assassinating people as well. Even on the road to damascus, for example, a couple of people in their cars have been taken out because theyre trying to break any link between Syria And Lebanon that could mean operatives or weapons and things coming across that border. The bbc� s former middle east correspondentJim Muir talking to us earlier. I want to show you the live pictures that are coming into us from beirut because there are pictures of a huge amount of black smoke over beirut. Explosions, screams. Moments ago, the Israel Defense forces carried out a precise strike on the central headquarter of the Hezbollah Terror Organisation that served as the epicentre of hezbollah� s terror. We see Fire And Rescue workers searching desperately for survivors. Reports then emerge that Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike, but as bollaert sources tell various media that he is alive and safe. Shortly after 8pm in bape root, the pentagon announces that the us had no Advance Warning of the strike. Having no involvement, having no knowledge that the strike was actually going to occur, we are still pulling for more details and trying to understand the operation itself. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahus Office announced he would cut his trip to New York short and return to israel. 0vernight, israel launches a fresh wave of strikes on Hezbollah Targets. We see smoke and flames rising across the night sky. Beirut is under intense bombardment. In the early hours of the morning, it is unclear whether he is alive or not, according to a us official. The city wakes up to thick smoke rising from several locations in Southern Beirut suburb. Shortly before iiam suburb. Shortly before am local time, the Israeli Military Post on acts that Hassan Nasrallah in their words will no longer be able to terrorise the world. And at around 230, has pillar confirms the death of his Leader Hezbollah pledges confirms the death of its leader and found to fight on. 0ur International Editor Jeremy Bowen is injerusalem. He has this assessment on what might happen now. I was talking to a senior diplomat here injerusalem diplomat here in Jerusalem Today Diplomat Here Injerusalem Today and we were trying to work out whether there was a time in The Middle East either of us could remember or identify where the region faced such a complex and dangerous series of crisis and frankly i can think of one. Sol series of crisis and frankly i can think of one. So i think now what is going to happen, as you have been hearing, is that there are important decisions to be made by all the participants in this. Those who are left in hezbollah, and i still have formidable forces, experience, arms, they have to decide how to use those weapons. Iran has to decide what to do next, not simply militarily, but because for years now it has relied on a network of allies of which Hassan Nasrallah and hezbollah were the most prominent, the so called axis of resistance. That strategy, relying on that seems to have taken some massive blows, has a huge hole in it. Dont forget, iran has advanced nuclear technology. Some iran watchers are speculating that could this be the spur that makes iran decide to develop a Nuclear Weapon . It is not inconceivable. And as for the israelis, their objective, they have stated, is to try to get their 60,000 citizens back to their homes on the borders, killing Hassan Nasrallah on his own will not do that, they have to do more. Could that extra thing be a Ground Invasion . And if that goes ahead, i would say it is probably a more serious and testing Military Challenge for the israelis than bombing beirut. ,. ,. , beirut. Our international editorjeremy beirut. Our international editorJeremy Bowen beirut. Our international editorJeremy Bowen assessing what might happen next. That is it from me. Our coverage will continue in washington now. Here is the weather with louise lear. Hello there. Saturdays Sunny Skies will gradually be eroded by cloud and then Wind And Rain for many. As we close out sunday. Yes, its going to gradually turn wet and windy, particularly from the South And West. Now weve already, in southern england, seen some record breaking Rainfall Totals for the month, and werejust going to add to those totals over the next few days. Some areas could see another 50 to 60mm before we close out the month. So heres that area of low pressure gradually winding its way in from the southwest. Ahead of it though, clearer skies, so it will be a chilly start to our sunday morning. Some early morning sunshine, but gradually well see that cloud pushing its way steadily north and east, perhaps North East England and eastern scotland clinging on to the best of the brightness throughout the day. So as we go through to the afternoon, we mightjust see some Sunny Skies continuing. Cloudier skies out to the west, a few isolated showers, temperatures generally between 12 and 14 degrees. Not too bad in the afternoon into Northern Ireland and North East England as well, but you can see The Cloud arriving. Therell be a few outbreaks of showers ahead of it moving through the midlands, gradually the heaviest of the rain pushing into South And West wales along with southwest england, and the winds, will strengthen to Gale Force gusts with it, too. So those gusty winds will strengthen further overnight as that rain continues to move its way steadily north and east, pushing into the midlands, Southeast England and to the north of england by Dawn On Monday Morning. We keep the clearer skies in scotland. Here, still single figures, but not quite as cold to start Monday Morning with The Cloud, Wind And Rain. Potentially, the heaviest of the rain will always be across england and wales, with a few scattered sharper showers into Northern Ireland and a drier story for much of scotland. Some of that rain really quite heavy across northwest england for a time, potentially brightening up by The End of the afternoon across central and southern england, 13 to 17 degrees. The low pressure slowly starts to ease away on tuesday and then on wednesday a quieter story with a greater chance of seeing more sunshine for early october. Live from washington, this is Bbc News. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been killed in israeli strikes on beirut. Israels Prime Minister calls it an historic Turning Point, but irans supreme Leader Vows Nasrallahs Death will not go unavenged. This is the scene live in beirut, where officials say 11 people are dead and more than 100 were injured in strikes on friday. Elsewhere, at least 45 people have died and millions are without power, after Hurricane Helene hit the south eastern united states. And in westminster, Labour Mp Rosie Duffield quits The Party, accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer of hypocrisy. Hello. Im helena humphrey. It is good to have you with us. Hezbollah has confirmed that an israeli strike on a Beirut Apartment Block on friday killed its longtime leader. Hassan nasrallah led the lebanese based group for 32 years. His assassination deals a huge blow to the group he led since 1992. Israel had already killed a number of other senior commanders in recent weeks. Israels prime Minister Called Nasrallahs killing an historic Turning Point and said israel had settled The Score. In a moment, well bring you some more reaction from the region. But first, Lebanons Health Ministry said 33 people were killed and nearly 200 were injured in new israeli air