aid into gaza through the rafah crossing, after israeli forces took control of the gaza side of the border with egypt. hamas has warned that the israeli incursion there aims to undermine efforts to secure a ceasefire. on monday night, hamas announced it had accepted proposals drawn up by international mediators, but the deal was rejected by israel as inadequate. paul adams reports from jerusalem. this a deal may now be tantalizingly close. but in rafah, israel's military pressure is relentless. today, severing gaza's last link with the outside world, the crossing point into egypt. and raising theirflag, sending an unmistakable message to hamas. the noose is tightening. the sounds of approaching war echo among the displaced.

hundreds of thousands of palestinians living in the sand against the egyptian border. or next to the sea. "i don't know where to stay," ahmed says. "people are fleeing from rafah "and i have my children with me." gazans have been on the move since yesterday morning, heeding israel's latest warnings, not knowing if the coming days will bring relief or despair. translation: after what we've witnessed, they've said - multiple times that there will be a ceasefire. but we're frustrated and we have no hope. there's no big hope. only a small one. for aid agencies already struggling to cope, the prospect of a full—scale israeli operation in rafah is alarming. as the operation will progress, we will lose progressively more areas to the fighting.

and i'm afraid that this will also affect our warehouses, health facilities, hospitals. and there are very, very few sites where we have the ability to give medical support. for the families of israeli hostages, these are also moments of acute anxiety. john and rachel's son, hirsch, was abducted and badly injured on 7 october. no sign of life until this hamas video two weeks ago. his parents nowjust daring to hope. when we heard the news that maybe there's a deal, we were cautiously optimistic and we remain cautiously optimistic. it's scary to have - military actions going on. they're innocent civilians, including our son. - we just, we just need this- to come to an end and we need

the mediators on all sides and the two main partiesl tojust sit in the room and hammer this outi and don't come out of. the room without a deal. away from the quiet dignity of the hostage families, friends and supporters are determined to make as much noise as possible, demanding the government do more to rescue hirsch and all the others. these israelis protesting in the heart ofjerusalem tonight feel that a deal to end this terrible war has never been closer. and so, as they protest close to the prime minister's official residence, their demands are becoming more and more urgent. israel's defence minister says the rafah operation won't stop until hamas is eliminated, or the hostages start to return. talks are continuing, a successful outcome

still far from guaranteed. trail�*s closure of the two crossings in gaza is alarming the humanitarian community. i have been speaking to save the children's rachel cummings, the internet connection is that she is in these interviews when she describes the conditions there. you were in rafa, this morning and you have reached deir al balah where civilians have been asked to evacuate to. first, in rafah what are conditions like for the 1.4 million people crammed into that city. the situation is unbelievable and extraordinary what is happening to the people in rafah, remembering they have been displaced already many times. yesterday evacuations orders were issued by the israelis to the population in rafah. enforcing the movement

of children, and families, and last night, the bombardment in rafah were extraordinary. something we have not experienced before, the intensity and proximity of the bombs dropping we could hear the firing from the tanks as they came into rafah. this morning we activated our relocation plan, we had planned for the scenario as save the children to try to ensure some degree of safety for our 58 palestinian colleagues and 12 staff to allow for the population displaced and where ever possible to continue programme operations for the people in rafah. but, of course that situation is very difficult and extremely dangerous for all people in rafah. as aid workers, you had a plan, a way to get your

local staff out. what is the situation like for those who don't have that option, who remained behind in rafah now? exactly. the situation is desperate and some of our own staff have remained, there is very little space for people and some people cannot leave, they have elderly parents and people with disabilities and are unable to pick up and move. so it's very, very challenging. as we were driving out this morning, we saw trucks and donkeys, people just carrying what they could on the road trying to move out of these zones that had been issued with evacuation orders. again, there is nowhere safe in gaza for people to move to. so these choices that people are facing, they are impossible choices. you mentioned the journey out of rafah to deir al balah, talk to us about that. people and the movement and the congestion was extreme

and it reminded me of being in rafah in february, with that massive displacement of people. people desperately looking for food, water, we saw children on the side of the road, for children. looking for food and water, and somewhere to stay. there is nowhere to protect children in gaza and families are desperately trying to dojust that. israel says it has a humanitarian zone in the area where you are. did you see that? what does it look like? no, i have not seen that, and again there is nowhere safe in gaza for children and their families. people are being displaced into deir al balah and khan youmis

these areas are not adequately supplied to support people in terms of essential life—saving services like clean water and adequate sanitation, like food and healthcare services and any learning and in education services for children. we drove through open sewers with children with no shoes walking through the streets, women carrying things on their backs without adequate protection. there is no humanity in gaza currently, it is a desperate situation. israel says there has been an increase in aid getting into gaza, however we have seen the closure of the crossing at rafah and kerem shalom. how is your aid getting in, what have you seen about that? the crossing has closed, kerem shalom and rafah, which is the main arteries of supplies into gaza. last week, the crossing at erez opened but that has only had maybe 50 trucks that have passed in the last week.

so the aid supplies into gaza, are not adequate, the two crossings that have been closed today, are absolutely the lifeline that save the children, and other agencies rely on, in order to bring an essential life—saving commodities like water, like food, like shelter. so it's a very concerning situation, we have partners and staff that are ready to provide distribution, provide items for people to maintain some dignity. you have been in gaza for some time now, you and your agency colleagues are used to working in very desperate situations. put into context for us what is the situation like in gaza now? you had to trigger that evacuation order. put into context for us how it all compares? there is no comparison. there is a complex crisis with compounding challenges, it is a public health crisis,

it is a disaster actually for children and their families and i have not seen anything like this anywhere. there is an active war going on on civilians and civilian infrastructure. there is not enough aid flowing, there are no safe spaces, there is no humanitarian access to the most vulnerable populations in gaza, including children who are the most innocent in this war. plenty more to talk about but we will leave it there for now. rachel cummings, the save the children gaza lead. thank you for speaking to us and take care. thank you very much. the white house is during information about a delay of weapons that may be used in

rafah. a report according to senior officials they paused one shipment to israel last week that included 1800 bombs and 1700 and bombs according to the official it followed discussions about the ground operation in rafah and the us requirement to support needs for civilians. here in washingtonjoe biden warned against the increasing threat of anti—semitism in a speech honouring the 6 million dues killed by nazi germany. in an event at the capitol hosted by the us holocaust memorial museum, mr biden said the hatred ofjews continued to lie deep in the hearts of too many people around the world. he condemned against anti—semitism. and anti—semitic elements of pro—palestinian protests on us college campuses, and spoke about the nearly 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage by hamas on 7 october — among them, descendents of holocaust survivors. now here we are. not 75 years later, butjust 7.5 months later.

people are already forgetting. already forgetting. that hamas unleashed this terror. it was hamas that brutalised israelis. it was hamas that took and continues to hold hostages. i have not forgotten, nor have you. and we will not forget. applause. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. there have been reports of long delays at airports in the uk due to an outage affecting passport e—gates at the border. a spokesperson for heathrow airport said they were aware of an issue with uk border systems across the country. manchester airport also confirmed they had been affected. john swinney will become scotland's seventh first minister after being nominated by parliament. the snp leader succeeds humza yousaf, who resigned

from office earlier today. his appointment will be rubber—stamped by the king before he is officially sworn in at the court of session on wednesday. mr swinney was backed by 64 msps, guaranteeing him the required majority. and rail passengers face more travel chaos on wednesday because of continuing strikes by train drivers in a long—running pay dispute. members of aslef will walk out at services running across england and into wales and scotland. services will be crippled for the day, with stations closed and few trains running. those that do run will start later and finish earlier than usual. you're live with bbc news. stormy daniels — the adult film star at the centre of donald trump's criminal hush money trial — has taken the stand to testify against the former us president in a new york courtroom. in her testimony, ms daniels discussed the $130,000 payment mr trump's lawyer michael cohen made to her.

prosecutors say that payment, made just before the 2016 election, was used to conceal a 2006 sexual encounter between miss daniels and the former president. mr trump, the first us president to be put on criminal trial, is accused of falsifying business records to cover up that hush money payment. he denies those allegations and denies having any sexual encounter with ms daniels. mr trump's defence argued that some of the details ms daniels discussed were irrelevant to the case, and asked for a mistrial, which thejudge ruled against. mr trump says the trial has hampered his 2024 presidential campaign. it is a disgrace. in the meantime, i am stuck. iam here, instead of being in georgia, instead of being in new hampshire, instead of being in wisconsin, and all the different states that we wanted to be in. we are not able to be there because we are stuck in this trial which everyone knows

is a hoax. thank you very much. discuss the happenings in court i have been speaking with anne—marie mcavoy, a former federal prosecutor. you might suppose explain for viewers around the world how remarkable it is to have a us president sitting in court, while a woman describes in relatively graphic detail a sexual encounter as we saw today? it is notjust a woman, a porn star to make it even more crazy. certainly, the testimony was incredibly salacious, it was embarrassing, i am sure for the former president trump, there was even talk about a magazine that had his picture on the cover, that she supposedly swatted his butt with. unbelievable testimony today. i don't think anybody even expected it to go that way. the reality is, most

of it was not relevant, if any of it in fact was relevant, because it is really falsifying business records and she did not have any discussions with donald trump about any of the business records or payments themselves. on that point, his defence team did make many objections about that, he is not on trial for any sexual offence, he is on trials for issues relating to that payment and falsifying business records. his team are asking for a mistrial based on the detail they said was irrelevant. but the judge refused to grant it, what was the reasoning there? the judge at this point has control of what happens in his court room. he did say that he thought the prosecution had gone further than they should have. and the judge said that what he will do is he wants to instruct the jury to ignore that testimony. you can do that in court, the reality of course is that sure, if the jurors

remember anything about this trial, it is going to be what they heard today. whether the judge instructs them to forget what they heard or not. we heard from our team reporting inside the court it is not televised, so we are relying on journalists to report to us what happened the former president was very unhappy when the testimony was testimony was delivered. he was issuing vulgarities to such a point his team was called aside to have a word with the judge about that. would that be problematic for donald trump, the judge was saying this could intimidate witnesses? it's not uncommon for people who are on trial, you try as an attorney, you try to keep them from making faces, or commenting, things like that, it is not uncommon for that to happen, especially, if it is their livelihood and their freedom at sta ke. he could go to jailfor,

3a counts, four years for each count, over 100 years he could be sentenced to. also as a former president, to listen to that kind of testimony, it is not a surprise he got upset. but it is the judge's court room and if he wants to find someone in contempt, he can, and he also threatened to throw him injail at some point if it continues or he keeps being found in contempt. apart from the titillating aspects to what we heard today. how will that testimony have either helped or hindered the prosecution or the defence, do you think? well, it would have helped probably the prosecution in the sense they have smeared the defendant, donald trump. they have made him look bad, they have had a very embarrassing testimony, and if the jurors don't

like him, and they are not supposed to make a decision based on whether they like him or not, they should be following the evidence, but they are all human beings and sometimes how somebody feels about a person can certainly affect thejudgements unfortunately they make about them and the evidence in the long run. so this could be very damaging, for the defence, it is certainly potentially a very good grounds for appeal because it can also change the jury pool to the extent he can no longer get a fair trial which is why they moved for a mistrial today. classified documents has been indefinitely postponed. separetely, donald trump's trial in florida — where he's accused of mishandling classified documents — has been indefinitely postponed. us districtjudge aileen

cannon, who was appointed by the former president, said that setting a trial date before resolving questions over evidence would be "imprudent". mr trump is accused of keeping top—secret documents after leaving office. the trial — initially set for 20 may — is now unlikely to begin before the presidential election on 5 november. bbc is working to verify large—scale attacks across ukraine. ukraine has attacked a storage depot sparking a large fire and injuring by people thatis fire and injuring by people that is according to the recently russian installed leader. we will bring you any updates from the region as we get them. ukraine says it has filed a russian plot to assassinate president zelensky. two colonels have been detained accused of passing secret information, ukrainian officials there have been multiple russian organised assassination attempts on mr zelensky. our ukraine correspondent has the details.

well, there's been no mention by president zelensky about his evening address on this attempt or this plot against his life which suggests how routine such attempts have become but his intelligence service has been very keen to talk up these two arrests of two serving colonels of the country's service responsible for keeping officials safe and be out of allegations they face is being hired as moles by the russian fsb before the full—scale invasion where there were meetings overseas where they were large amounts of money exchanged and it's alleged they tried to recruit some of president zelensky and his top officials' security guards who might be willing to kidnap and kill them and are alleged to have brought weapons to kyiv including antipersonnel

mines, drones, explosives and it looks like at the very least, quite the infiltration into president zelensky�*s inner circle. but what the security service here are saying that they monitored it throughout and they got ahead of it. but this is a wartime leader, we must remind ourselves, willing to travel around the country and faces very real risks on a daily basis and i do not think he'll be put off by this latest attempt but it shows the attempts that russia allegedly is willing to carry out alongside but it's trying to do on the battlefield. he details emerged about an american soldier arrested in russia while travelling to the far east. the us army said staff sergeant gordon black did not receive military clearance for his trip to the far east while in the us garrison in south korea. he is being held in pre—trial detention on theft charges, the russian interior ministry said a woman he had planned to visit in russia

accused the american of stealing money. the chinese president has arrived in serbia the second stop on his tour of europe, he was greeted by the serbian president, the two will hold meetings on wednesday in belgrade which has rolled out the red carpet with the capital city streets decorated with chinese flags. serbia is expected to offer a warmer welcome than his first stop france where the president pressed beijing not to support the russian war effort and resolve international trade dispute. china has invested heavily in serbia, it is or where 25 years ago its embassy was bombed by nato forces. our correspondent explains. this was bombed by nato forces. our correspondent explains.- correspondent explains. this is the brand-new _ correspondent explains. this is the brand-new china _ correspondent explains. this is the brand-new china cultural i the brand—new china cultural centre in belgrade and in 1999 it was the site of china's embassy in serbia's capital and 25 years ago to the day, it was hurt by a nato airstrike. there

is a memorial over there to the three people killed. nato has always insisted that targeting the embassy was accidental. ahead of his visit, xijinping has made it clear that feelings are still running high over the incident. he wrote an editorial for a serbia newspaper in which he said that we will never forget, chinese people cherish peace and we will never allow such a thing to happen ever again. that is the kind of rhetoric which goes down very well in serbia where the majority of people, the vast majority of people, the vast majority are strongly opposed to nato membership. there are other reasons people in serbia to feel good about xi jinping's arrival. china has been an increasingly active investor in serbia in recent years involved in everything from infrastructure like roads and railways to domestic appliances like the high sense factory. it

is no opportunity for serbia to say to people in brussels, with the eu accession process taking an interminable long time, lock we have other options.- an interminable long time, lock we have other options. from all the team thank— we have other options. from all the team thank you _ we have other options. from all the team thank you for - the team thank you for watching. do you stay with us here on bbc news. take care. hello. the weather has been gradually drying up over the past 2a hours or so, and we've got some more dry, settled weather on the cards through much of the week ahead, really. high pressure is going to be in charge over the next few days. but for the rest of the week, we will at times see weather fronts just trying to topple across the north of that high pressure. could bring a little bit of rain at times across parts of scotland in particular, perhaps the north of northern ireland. but it'll be warming up here. mostly dry elsewhere, though, with some spells of sunshine on the cards. so we are in for a relatively quiet few days of weather. we're likely to start wednesday morning with quite a bit of mist and fog around, especially so for parts of eastern england, also perhaps wales and the southwest of england.

could be some misty patches elsewhere. for most, they'll tend to lift and clear, so it'll brighten up. some sunny spells, particularly for england and wales. just the odd isolated shower. more rain moving into the northwest of scotland later on in the afternoon. so temperatures in the northwest, under the cloud, about 13 there for stornoway, but up to around about 21 for the likes of birmingham and london too. so there's that wet weather through wednesday evening. northern ireland, northern and western scotland seeing some outbreaks of rain. further south, most places staying dry, but there should be some mist and some fog that's going to be forming again into the early hours of thursday morning, but certainly mild — many places staying in double figures overnight. so, more of the same on thursday, high pressure still in charge. so a lot of dry weather, mist clearing away gradually. lots of sunshine, i think, for england and wales by this stage. there just could be the odd isolated shower. again, a little bit more cloud across the north of scotland. temperatures in lerwick only around 11 degrees, but for the bulk of the uk, we're looking at around about 18—22 degrees. and that warming trend will continue as we head into friday, too.

so, high pressure still very much in charge. i think by friday, we'll have less in the way of rain and cloud across the north of scotland, and quite widely across the uk. in those spells of sunshine, temperatures will be above 20 degrees. we could see 23 or even 2a down towards the southeast. again, a little bit cooler, especially across the north of scotland and the northern isles in particular. now, heading into the weekend, it looks like high pressure will be sitting out towards the east there. this weather front will just try and nudge in from the west by the time we get to sunday. but saturday, certainly looking dry, fine, pretty warm for all of us. just that chance of a few showers moving into the west as we head through sunday. bye for now.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. vladimir putin is again flexing his nuclear muscle in a warning to ukraine's backers in the west. russian troops have been ordered to run drills with tactical nukes. why now? well, the kremlin has clearly been irked by america's belated decision to commit $60 billion worth of assistance to kyiv and by president macron�*s refusal to rule out sending troops to ukraine.

my guest is lithuania's foreign minister, gabrielius landsbergis, one of europe's most ardent supporters of kyiv. he says he's truly worried about 202a. why? gabrielius landsbergis, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. pleasure being here. you were very candid, expressing your deep concern about 202a. why are you so worried? well, i think that there is not enough, i'd say, understanding as to what's at stake if ukraine is unable

to push russia out of its country.