slovakia's elected a new president — peter pellegrini is a nationalist who's sceptical of sending military aid to ukraine. he won by a greater margin than expected, defeating the pro—western candidate ivan korcok. and as millions prepare for the solar eclipse in north america we look at how to safely watch the total blackout as the moon blocks the sun's light. now on bbc news, laura kuenssberg and paddy o'connell chew over the week's political news in newscast. newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello, it's paddy in the studio. and laura in the studio, and.... hello, i'm injerusalem. it's great to have you with us. so it's hard to know where to start, isn't it? the story is so enormous. shall we start with what's been happening in the last 2a hours? there's an awful lot going on at the moment. i mean, there are loads of strands to this. first of all, inside israel,

big demonstrations because the two movements, one to free the hostages and the other one to get rid of benjamin netanyahu, they've come together now, they're jointly organising. and the thing to remember is that these are not "end the war" demonstrations. israelis support the war. they don't support netanyahu and they feel that he is deliberately prolonging things and not doing the deal that could be done to get those hostages home. and they've just found the body of one of the hostages from kibbutz nir oz, in fact, which is where i think we'll be hearing some of the interviews i did there as well. and as well as that, as well as the war in gaza, as well as the destruction there, as well as the need to try to get humanitarian aid in because of that imminent famine — oxfam said that in northern gaza since january, 300,000 people have been existing on roughly 240

calories a day, the equivalent of a small tin of beans — as well as all of that, don't forget, there's the wider middle east and it was only last monday that the israelis assassinated a leading senior iranian general when they hit their diplomatic compound in damascus. and the iranians have since then repeatedly said that they will take their revenge. it is absolutely like a hailstorm of international geodiplomacy, geopolitics, because also you've had the allies, israel's allies, repositioning their public pressure on benjamin netanyahu, asking for an audited trail of new aid — notjust promise it, they've said they want it to be measured, the crossings to be open, the water to be turned back on. the uk now sending a royal navy ship from cyprus. jeremy, i mean, you put this in a sentence and you led our coverage on radio 4 today. it seems the past seven days has

brought a crossroads together of world news, diplomacy, warfare, talks and also hunger and calls for action. yeah. you know, one of the things when you're covering, especially as wars become more protracted, is that sometimes week after week, they seem more or less the same, the issues are the same, the killings the same. but a lot of things have become fluid this week. and while a lot of people may think it's really unfair that after more than 32,000 palestinian deaths, the deaths of seven aid workers, only one of whom was palestinian, the other six were westerners, has had this galvanic effect on israel's allies — well, it has. i mean, that's just... i think it's the way power works in the world. and i think there was a sense in which it was the last straw. sojoe biden put a lot of pressure on netanyahu to open up more borders. things that netanyahu had said for months were impossible, like bringing aid in through the ashdod container port, which is only half an hour north of gaza,

have become possible. so pressure on israel, it seems, can work. there is more pressure that can be applied to israel. and there's been a debate also in america, and they haven't done anything right yet, to attach conditions to the use of american weapons in gaza. they attach conditions to the use of american weapons in ukraine in terms of hitting certain russian targets. so that's one big lever that biden hasn't pulled yet. but i think they're saying that they're being cautious because sometimes netanyahu says things and he doesn't do them. here in israel, he doesn't have a great reputation for being always fully correlated with the truth, shall we put it that way? and so netanyahu, his promises need to be measured. that's what they want. and there are pretty straightforward measurements

in terms of how many palestinian civilians are dying in gaza and whether that imminent famine — and there's an international group called the ipc that puts together all the stats on this. it's apolitical, highly professional. it applies to food crises all around the world, and in their scale, this is really, really bad. and a group of aid agencies had a big zoom call a few days ago here injerusalem, and these are all experienced people who've been all over the world in some terrible places, and they're all saying this is absolutely dreadful, appalling, we've never seen anything like it, the scale of it in terms of the humanitarian catastrophe in gaza. and that message, i think, has been heard by politicians here in the uk. david cameron this morning has told the sunday times that there is an imminent risk of starvation. he uses that word. and clearly, as you were saying aboutjoe biden, uk politicians' language has shifted

since the attack on the convoy. we're going to talk about that a bit later on. butjeremy, i think, first of all, just to give us a sense of what it's like for people on the ground, you've been to kibbutz nir oz right on the border with gaza. i think we can hear a snippet of some of your conversations there. butjust tell us what it was like going there. well, it's like going to a time machine, a time capsule, because no—one's really...only one or two people even sleep there now. people do visit for an hour ortwo there. people in israel are still very shaken. six months after the attacks, it's a bit like going back into a time machine because all the damage is still here. and the reason for that is that in this kibbutz, nir oz,

one in four of the population of more than 400 people was either killed or taken into gaza, which is about a mile away, the border, as hostages. looking around at the damage here and hearing the stories, too, of what happened — hamas came in about 6:30 in the morning and they were here till early afternoon, undisturbed, going from house to house until the army arrived. distant battery fire the war still going on. that's outgoing fire from an israeli battery near into gaza. this is now one of the typical houses in this kibbutz — abandoned, burnt—out. six months on, it still smells of burning. on the sofa over there, there's some neatly folded laundry,

perhaps done the evening before october 7th. going around this place, you can understand why israelis believe very strongly that they're fighting a just war in gaza. of course, their allies feel the same. their quarrel is with the methods that israel has been using that have cost so many innocent palestinian lives. and as for the family who lived here in this house, they're dead. and i can't imagine what it must have been like to be there hearing those stories first—hand, jeremy, and imagining what that day must have been like. and we go back really to why we're talking about the six—month war. in the 20th century, we had the six—day war. we now have this, the six—month war. and we know it's going to be longer, the worst attack on israel and we know it's going to be longer. the worst attack on israel in its history since 1948. and jeremy led our coverage on radio 4 today.

and ijust want to go back to the fact that around the world, people are marking the murder and taking of hostages that happened on october 7th. and here is yamit avital speaking about bringing people home. amit, you're from here? yes, i'm from here. so you survived, your family survived. my family survived. so that's the wall? yeah. do you think you could come and live here again? i don't know. it's too early to ask. i have too many- friends there in gaza. so is that the most important thing for you now to bring the hostages back? yes, it's enough. we suffered enough and they suffered enough. . jeremy, back to what you told me about, or told laura about the fact that don't confuse the polarised position for benjamin netanyahu, for people not supporting the crushing of hamas, which did this.

the israeli population wants hamas crushed. absolutely. there is overwhelming support for the war. there is also not much concern for what's happening on the humanitarian front in gaza. there's quite a lot of denial that there is any kind of hunger issue not least because the israeli government's pr machine has been until very recently pushing that idea that if there is a problem there, it's caused by hamas and caused by the un failing to distribute the aid. but in fact, you know, from joe biden downwards, it's clear that they don't buy that argument because there are legions now of very experienced ngo, un aid agency types there who have documented the way that israel has stopped notjust their capacity to import the kind of aid that they need, but also their capacity to distribute it within

the gaza strip because israel is the occupying power there. if they want to say take something up north from the south, they have to get israel's permission, they have to coordinate. and as we saw with the world central kitchen, that isn't necessarily a foolproof enterprise because they coordinated their trip and they ended up dead. so it's a very dangerous process. and quite often the israelis just don't give them the permissions that they need. so there is a manmade famine imminent there. this has been documented and it's clear that that famine is being caused by the fact that food isn't getting in, medical aid isn't getting in. gaza used to produce a fair amount of its own food, but all that farmland is now being churned up by israeli tanks and is in their command, so the agricultural sector has collapsed for this harvest. so they are in a dreadful,

dreadful state. just to stick on this question of israel's responsibilities under the law and how they are treating the civilian population in gaza and how they are behaving — so this has become a huge political debate here in the uk. and the reason it's become a political debate is notjust the horror that people have reacted with seeing what's happening in gaza and the upset about what happened to israel on october 7th, but also because according to the law, the uk can only be selling arms to israel if israel is following its legal obligations, and that applies to getting food in — because their occupying power, they have that responsibility. it applies to how they are choosing their military targets. so it applies to all sorts of things. and this morning we asked oliver dowden, the deputy prime minister, if he thinks israel is acting within the law. i think that israel is conducting a legitimate campaign and it is doing so in a very,

very difficult environment where it is facing hamas, a terrorist organisation that hides amongst its civilian population. now, in terms of the united kingdom government's assessment of that, the way that we undertake this, indeed, we are required by law to periodically review compliance with arms export controls, and that happens to all nations. now, the way we do that is for the foreign secretary to take advice. he then advises the business secretary about whether we should be able to continue those arms exports. now, the foreign secretary's advice in respect of that has not changed. so currently you believe israel is acting within the law? you say the advice has not changed so currently it is your belief israel is acting within international law? the position of the government is that we don't publish our legal... that's not my question.

the point is, no one essentially gets to that point... let's unpack what he said a little bit there. he's correct in saying that under international law, it is a legal war. there are two legal reasons to go to war. one of them is in self defence. the other is if there is a un resolution under chapter seven of the of the un charter, so this falls under self defense. but it is also clear in international humanitarian law that however grievous the wrong that was done to you, it does not give you any kind of a blank cheque to put international law to one side when you are prosecuting your military campaign. and international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, say very clearly that military action should be proportionate to the threat that they face. and it also has categories of people who are known as protected persons, and aid workers and civilians are among those people. so what that means is that

while there's an acceptance that people will get killed in war, there's also the prescription and the obligation for people who follow those laws — and israel signed up to them — to target in such a way that they minimise those kinds of casualties. the complaint against israel is that to go after maybe quite a small target, they were using 1000—lb or 2000—lb bombs, which may hit the target, but would also vaporise everybody within 50 or 100 yards of where it impacts. and also, there's a chilling chain of comment in the british sunday papers today, which is that do we think hamas was deliberately provoking israel? yes, we do. do we think that there's a risk of overreaction seen in recent history? yes, we do, because even president biden has hinted at this after 911 and the attacks on the united states, the invasion of afghanistan was

followed by the invasion of iraq. the invasion of iraq did not have a post—invasion plan, tens of thousands... this is ridiculous for me to be talking tojeremy. tens of thousands of civilians were killed by the british and the american allies. this is what happened there — splitting the left in the united kingdom, making it difficult to see wars of intervention. david cameron led the attacks on libya. that also did not leave civilians untouched. so we know there's a track record in this, jeremy, and now bringing the strands together in one six—month period. but actually we can trace this back. it's been 20 years of our recent history, this question of how to respond to non—state actors that deliberately provoke you. yeah. you think a few lessons might have been learnt, but i think they probably haven't been. i think israel — on day one, netanyahu spoke about taking a great vengeance, and they've certainly done that. but what he has not done, and this is another reason why

there are very large demonstrations against him, he hasn't delivered on his otherwaraims, which are set rather high, bringing all the hostages back and essentially wiping hamas off the face of the earth. hamas killed four israeli soldiers in combat in gaza in the course of last night, for example. they are still operational. that is clear. so after six months, they're not able to do that. and, you know, israelis notice these things and they're saying, where's that victory? netanyahu talks about total victory. where's that total victory that you promised us? israel in the process has become very isolated. it's in the dock in the international court ofjustice in the hague, facing what the court says are plausible allegations of genocide against the palestinians. so this is really, really serious. and all those wars you talked about, paddy, the thing is that they turned into asymmetric warfare. in other words, the war

of the weak against the strong. and the thing about that is that if there's a really tiptop modern army like the americans or the british or the israelis, then for them to win, they really have to win. they have to make sure that their enemies are not able to hit them back. but for the weaker side to say we're not beaten, theyjust need to be able to keep on shooting. and so at the moment in gaza, the way that the hamas guys appear to be popping up behind the israelis and coming back into areas which the israelis have announced they've cleared and then they pull back, then you know what that feels like? it feels like an insurgency, the beginning of that, which is what the invaders of iraq, the british and the americans and their allies had to deal with and also in afghanistan. so, you know, israel has bitten off a great deal here.

and i would not be surprised if in six months this is still going on. and that is why, therefore, the political debate around suspending arms sales is so fraught. because on one side, as we were talking about yesterday, you get politicians like borisjohnson saying, of course, you cannot suspend arms sales to israel. they are fighting these insurgents, they are fighting a terror group, they are fighting really hardcore baddies who have done terrible, terrible things. and to have any kind of equivalence between an elected democracy, albeit a controversial one under benjamin netanyahu, to have any kind of equivalence and say, well, they can't, we mustn't give them the wherewithal to fight these people, for somebody in borisjohnson�*s camp, that's sort of an outrage. and yet on the other side, there are plenty of people politically who would say we have seen enough to conclude that israel has gone far too far. but then you find, i think both our government actually and our main opposition, the labour party, sort of trying to have it both ways by saying if the legal advice changes,

then of course we will suspend arms sales. but no, we'll never publish the full legal advice because there's an important convention. and david lammy, when i asked him to sort of commit if labour would do that, he sort of said, well, yes, in a time of war we'd always publish a summary. but you know, labour is trying to bang the drum and say the government must publish everything while not actually fully committed to doing that themselves. as the government did just a few weeks ago when british troops were involved in bombing the houthis because of their actions in the red sea, they published a summary of that advice. i remember in the commons previous conflicts in libya, previous conflicts in syria. again, many, many parliamentarians were briefed on privy council terms as a result of that. hang on, david lammy, i want to be really clear that... of course, we in government would act as we're saying in opposition. so a labour government would always publish legal advice on issues of war? i've said in the circumstances... i can't foresee every circumstance over the next decade or so. but what i'm saying is i do believe

on this issue where there's so much public discussion and the debate and quite rightly british citizens are asking, i hope we're not complicit in that — you should publish a summary of that advice. when things are very, very difficult for in democracies, you can get very quickly bogged down in an argument about process. oh, westminster loves that more than anything else. when it's hard and when it's issues of substance, let's have a fight about process. where's the legal letter versus what are you going to do with a ship? are you going to make it go from cyprus to the newly built port in gaza? yes. well, apparently we are now going to do that. but that was only we only learnt that in david cameron's article in the sunday times. david cameron's not in the house of commons, neither is borisjohnson in the house of commons. so you've got this sort of psychodrama between those two famous tories and they're not even in the house of commons. and yet the principle, actually, if the government being completely transparent about its legaljustification for sending arms to israel is a really important one.

so behind every westminster psychodrama about process that might seem pointles in a sense, there is also an important principle at play. i just want to bring some newscasters views in here. steve emailed to say after listening to mr dowden, i'm totally shocked. i feel this ridiculous towing of party lines proves the tory party has lost control. three british nationals were killed. shame on the government for not suspending arms. but robert has a completely different view and lots of your messages have been on, you know, absolutely opposing sides. robert says, israel is a very important ally. britain must stand by them for their very existence. we are almost coming to a close today, but, jeremy, ijust wonder, can you give us and newscasters any hope at all? we like to try to find hope in something, even if we can't be cheerful, are there any glimmers of hope? and it's fine to say, no. if you're listening not watching, there was an absolutely amazing bowen eyeroll

at my suggestion that there might be anything hopeful there. i'm sorry. hope — you've come to the wrong place. there is no hope here at the moment, i'd say, and i speak to a lot of people. i've reported from this place for a long time. let me give you one thing that for me really was particularly depressing. i went to see halil shikaki. halil shikaki is the leading palestinian pollster. he has an international reputation. he's very respected in terms of what he does. he works very closely also with the leading israeli pollster. they dojoint surveys... he's thejohn curtice of the middle east. exactly. and anyway, shikaki, by the way, grew up in a refugee camp in rafah and he got out through education, got a master's degree, ended up being educated in america. anyway, what he said, which i thought was absolutely despairing, was that there's a growth in mutual dehumanisation between both israelis and palestinians. there's always been a bit of that, but it's really accelerated because of the impact of the war. and the way he put it was he said, look, israelis look at what happened

on october 7th, look at the killing, look at the hostage—taking, look at the sexual violence and they say, how can we ever have peace with anybody like that? and he said palestinians on the other hand, look at what's happened — entire families destroyed, entire neighbourhoods destroyed, virtually the whole of the gaza strip destroyed, 33,000 people plus, the majority of whom are civilians, many of whom are women and children dead, and they look at the israelis and they think these people are animals. how can we ever have any kind of good relations or peace with them? and he ended up by saying, look, this is incredibly depressing and worrying for the future. and also... sorry, no hope. no.

well, i think the thing is, there's also another side to us. we're very good in the west at pouring the criticism and the analysis on our own leaders. this alliance that you spoke about with the un stoltenberg of the other guys, they aren't doing that. the populations are not holding their leaders to account. president putin, the mullahs in iran, president xi and by the way, the leaders in beijing and moscow are crushing muslim people and iran has long been seen to want to speak up for the followers of that faith of islam and yet going into an alliance with people who are actively targeting those people. so we must remember, if we do want to say anything hopeful, perhaps we are the guys that have the democratic system. we do hold our people to account and we've given some of the criticism today. so actually, there is a choice and there is a way of looking at it that says, you know, there are choices to be made about you are run by people you can vote for, you can change the outcome. that's kind of what the small letter h hope is. what you can do also is listen to journalists talk at great length about what is going on in countries where there's a free press as well as democracy.

but i think we are going to bring this sunday newscast to an end. jeremy, it's been really a pleasure and a privilege to have you with us today. i think really important to hear from you at length. thank you so much to you and also all the bbc teams out injerusalem. i know that you're frustrated for not being able to get into gaza to bear witness yourselves, but i know also there are lots of you out there who are taking risks and working extremely hard. so newscasters, we thank you and it's lovely to have you with us. newscast from the bbc. hello there. it certainly has been a weekend of contrasts — wet and windy, stormy for some, glorious for others. you had to make the most of the sunshine when you had it. after the warmest day of the year so far in east anglia, it was not a bad start to sunday morning. it did cloud over a little as the day progressed. and the week ahead is going to stay pretty unsettled, i'm afraid.

often wet and windy, a little bit cooler as well to begin with. but then there's a potential for something warmer to return from wednesday into thursday later on. more on that in just a moment. but we've got this deepening area of low pressure for monday, which is going to bring some wet weatherfor some of us. so we'll start off on monday morning with rain into the channel isles, moving up through cornwall, gradually into south wales, up through the irish sea. ahead of it, we'll have this band of showery rain developing as well. so across england and wales it's a case of quite a lot of cloud around. there will be some showery outbreaks of rain. top temperatures, though, still on the mild side, 17 celsius here. in the east, the pennines, 17 celsius and it may stay dry for much of the afternoon. heaviest of the rain through the isle of man, just fringing into northern ireland. the bulk of scotland for monday afternoon, staying fine with some sunshine, highs of ten to 12 celsius. but that rain will move its way across northern england into scotland overnight, and also the wind direction is set to change back to a north—westerly, which is going to push that milder air over into eastern europe.

a cooler air source arrives for all of us on tuesday. tuesday doesn't look a particularly pleasant day either. there'll be a spell of heavy rain which will grind to a halt for a time across southern scotland and northern england. quite a lot of cloud and plenty of frequent showers. temperatures on the whole will struggle due to the strength of the wind gusts in excess of 35 to a0 mph, so on your thermometer, probably only looking at between eight and 12 celsius as a high. wednesday will start off for some of us quite promising. we've got this little ridge of high pressure quieting things down, but the next frontal systems are waiting in the wings to move in from the west. so eastern areas seeing the best of the dry weather on wednesday with some sunshine coming through. that rain clears through to sunny spells and scattered showers in the north, but it is going to allow more heat to return in the south later on.

live from london. this is bbc news. israel says it has withdrawn more ground troops from southern gaza. the move was announced as benjamin netanyahu claims his troops are �*one step from victory�*. translation: we destroyed factories manufacturing rockets, _ control rooms, weapons, ammunition, and we continue to systematically destroy what is underground. six months on, israeli families are mourning their loved ones killed during the october 7th attack by hamas at the nova music festival site. a new round of ceasefire talks between israel and hamas

are due to begin in cairo, amid renewed warnings of famine in gaza. in other news, events are being held across rwanda to mark three decades since the beginning of the genocide against ethnic tutsis and moderate hutus. and as millions prepare for the solar eclipse in north america, we look at how to safely watch the total blackout. and a british man who has been running the entire length of africa, finally reaches the finish line. hello, i'm rajini vaidyanathan. the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, says his troops are just "one step away from victory". it's six months since hamas gunmen stormed into southern israel, massacring 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250. the attack sparked what's become the deadliest and most

destructive israel—gaza war, killing over 33,000 palestinians.