BBC Verify Live: New satellite imagery shows damage from attack on Iran missile base
Update:
Date: 09:27 BST
Title: Good morning from BBC Verify
Content: Rob CorpBBC Verify Live editor
Welcome to Tuesday's live page.
We're now into the fifth day of missile and air strikes by
Iran and Israel as the conflict between the two sides continues.
We're using open-source intelligence techniques to get a
clearer picture of the situation on the ground in both countries - the team is
currently looking to:
We'll also keep across the latest from Ukraine following a
major overnight drone and missile attack by Russia which is reported to have
killed at least 15 people in Kyiv.
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31 minutes ago
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BBC must reveal if money for axed Gaza film ‘ended up in the hands of Hamas'
BBC bosses are under pressure to establish whether licence payers' cash used to make a cancelled Gaza documentary ended up in the hands of Hamas. MPs and peers said the broadcaster must launch an investigation into the money spent on commissioning the film Gaza: Doctors Under Attack. The show was pulled from the schedules on Friday after its director branded Israel 'a rogue state that's committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing'. It is the second documentary about Gaza that the BBC has been forced to cancel, amid accusations that it is 'biased' against Israel in its reporting. The corporation was forced to apologise in February after it aired a 'propaganda' film that was narrated by the son of a leading Hamas minister. In light of that controversy it had already delayed the planned release of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, and has now said it will not be shown at all. In a statement, the BBC said it had cancelled the show because it ' risked creating a perception of partiality ' about its coverage of Israel. Stuart Andrew, the shadow culture secretary, said the decision ' raises yet more serious questions over its coverage of events in Gaza'. 'The BBC must provide a full accounting of how it ended up commissioning the abandoned documentary and whether any money ended up in the bloody hands of Hamas terrorists during the production process,' he said. Lord Austin, a former Labour MP, said that staff responsible for commissioning the cancelled documentary should face disciplinary action if any wrongdoing took place. 'What we need to know is whether the makers of this programme paid Hamas terrorists or anyone linked to them,' he said. Call for 'urgent investigation' 'There must now be another urgent investigation to find out what has happened. When is the BBC going to start sacking those responsible for these appalling failures?' Baroness Deech, a crossbench peer, added: 'An urgent investigation is needed to assure the British public that its licence fee hasn't ended up in the hands of Hamas terrorists. 'Questions must be urgently answered. What went wrong at the BBC, whether Hamas received money for granting access to Hamas-run hospitals, and whether the national broadcaster has breached counter-terrorism legislation by funding a proscribed terror group.' The decision to pull the documentary came after Ramita Navai, its director, appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme to discuss it. She said: 'Israel has become a rogue state that's committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass-murdering Palestinians'. Last month, a letter signed by 600 people, including Harriet Walter, Miriam Margolyes, Maxine Peake and Juliet Stevenson, called for the release of the film. In a statement on Friday, the BBC said: 'For some weeks, the BBC has been working... to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our platforms. 'Yesterday, it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. 'We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC. 'Impartiality is a core principle of BBC News. It is one of the reasons that we are the world's most trusted broadcaster.' Gaza: Doctors Under Attack is the second film to have been pulled by the BBC, coming after controversy over Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. That programme, created by production company Hoyo, was aired, before being removed from the BBC's iPlayer amid huge controversy. BBC bosses apologised after it emerged a major contributor was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, a Hamas minister, which was not disclosed to viewers. The corporation insisted it was not aware of the Hamas link, but Hoyo later claimed it was. A BBC spokesman said: 'We can confirm that no money spent on this documentary has been paid to Hamas. As we said yesterday, production of the documentary was paused in April, and any film made will not be a BBC film.'
Telegraph
42 minutes ago
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The best outcome from the Iran conflict? Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan
Two major conflicts – Ukraine and Iran – are creating seismic upheaval in the tightly meshed world of post-Cold War alliances around the world. The biggest losers in this lethal game of musical chairs will likely be smaller nations who can no longer rely on the protection and patronage of greater powers whose priorities have been radically realigned. The immediate result is a panicked race to seek new partners, a desperate rush of diplomatic blind dating in which those newly exposed smaller countries have very few cards to play other than to make painful concessions. This week's meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia – the first ever official bi-lateral visit between the heads of these two countries is a case in point. Armenia has for decades turned its back on two of its immediate neighbours – Turkey and its ally Azerbaijan, with closed frontiers and no diplomatic relations. That has only been possible because of Yerevan's ability to depend on two other major regional powers – Iran to the south and Russia to the north. Those alliances created a confidence which translated into a fatal overreach when Armenia, three decades ago, invaded Azerbaijan and occupied a fifth of the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh, forcibly expelling some 800,000 Azerbaijanis and establishing a mono-ethnic Armenian state. For a generation, Azerbaijan's attempts to regain its territory through negotiation and diplomacy, despite resounding support for their sovereign rights over Karabakh from the UN Security Council, came to nothing. Russia, the former colonial power, could always be relied on to preserve the frozen conflict in ways which maintained Moscow's grip on its 'near abroad'. Then came 2020. In that year cross-border tit for tat between the two neighbours became a full-blown 44-day conflict, with Azerbaijan liberating much of Armenian-occupied territory. In 2023 what was not returned three years earlier was finally secured by Azerbaijan. To Yerevan's utter dismay, in both 2020 and 2023 its long-standing patron and formal military ally in the Kremlin was nowhere to be seen. Russia's Western imperial ambitions had exhausted its ability to maintain its old role of Caucasian puppet master to the south. Armenia was left to sink or swim. Azerbaijan's combat victories, cemented with a ceasefire but still today without a peace treaty, can be read as definitive proof that Russia had left the stage as far as Armenia was concerned. That might have led Pashinyan to seek urgent reconciliation with Turkey. Instead, Yerevan doubled down on its relationship with its one remaining regional protector, Iran. Arguably he had no option: decades of virulent anti-Turkish domestic and international rhetoric would probably have made any pro-Ankara realignment fatal to his own government at that point. And why risk alienating your one remaining powerful friend, Iran, by reaching out to its long-standing opponent Turkey? Just as the Ukraine war provoked one crisis for Armenia, the Iran war has provoked a second. But this time Iran's troubles and dramatically exposed weakness, with the Islamic Republic itself now friendless in a world where its ally Assad has fallen and the leverage of its proxy Houthi, Hezbollah and Hamas militias has been decimated, have left Yerevan not with one but with zero dependable allies. Even Armenia's ability to call on its once powerful diaspora lobby groups in the US and France is no longer a realistic strategy in today's climate, given the deeply problematic Iran connection. This is the sequence of events which has left Armenia with literally nowhere to turn but Ankara. Pashinyan, an intelligent politician who has shown some ability to negotiate within the desperately narrow space afforded by the tensions of geopolitical reality and domestic nationalist opinion, will need every ounce of skill to emerge from the current talks with a result which has both substance and domestic credibility. For now, concessions – if he is wise to take them – are his best card. Turkey will not contemplate normalisation of still less supportive friendship with Armenia unless Yerevan formally commits to a peace deal with Azerbaijan. The country's President Ilham Aliyev has long maintained such a peace deal needs to entail a rewriting of the Armenian constitution to remove extra-territorial claims on Azerbaijan's internationally recognised sovereign territory, the establishment of a formal right to return of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia during the break-up of the Soviet Union, and agreement on a land corridor through Armenia (would earn huge income) enabling Azerbaijan and countries from Asia the swiftest land route to Europe. Some in Armenia will see these as too painful to concede. Wiser heads will see them for what they are: economic and diplomatic opportunities to move forward after over three decades of conflict. If Pashinyan can take this unpalatable medicine – and if by some miracle he can sell it to his electorate, Armenia stands to benefit. A chance of establishing new partnerships with more reliable neighbours, the enormous benefits of regional economic and energy integration after decades of impoverished isolation, a chance in fact for normalisation, peace and prosperity. The alternative is too foolhardy to contemplate.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
London protesters say ‘hands off Iran' and its supreme leader
Protesters marched through central London with placards in support of Iran's supreme leader during a heated pro-Palestinian demonstration on Saturday. Among thousands of demonstrators waving Palestinian and Iranian flags, men and women were photographed carrying signs featuring Ayatollah Ali Khamenei alongside the message: 'Choose the right side of history.' Pro-Palestinian marches have taken place almost weekly in cities across the UK since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. But this was the second consecutive weekend in which the Palestinian flag appeared alongside Iran's red, white and green tricolour at a pro-Gaza demonstration in London. The usual 'end the genocide' and 'stop arming Israel' banners were joined by those supporting the Iranian regime. 'Free Palestine, hands off Iran,' one banner said. It comes after Israel began bombing Iran's military and nuclear facilities last Friday, pushing the Middle East to the brink of all-out war. On Saturday, signs supporting Palestine Action – the activist group ministers are planning to ban as a terrorist organisation after its attack on RAF planes – were largely absent from the protest. A notable exception was a placard held up by a woman seen walking down Whitehall. The cardboard sign read: 'Support action against Israel' with 'Support Palestine Action' written beneath it in smaller text. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is preparing a written statement to put before Parliament on Monday, which, if passed, will make becoming a member of Palestine Action illegal. The move comes after two of the group's members breached security at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to vandalise two of the aircraft. Palestine Action announced it would stage a mass protest outside Parliament on Monday to oppose its imminent designation as a terror group. Saturday's pro-Palestinian march began peacefully at Russell Square en route to Whitehall. But as the protest moved onto the Strand, it was met with hundreds of pro-Israeli supporters, triggering a stand-off. Although the Metropolitan Police had separated the two groups, there was only a gap of about 10 metres between them. Protesters on both sides threw insults at each other, with some pro-Palestinian protestors breaking through lines to get closer to yell abuse at the pro-Israeli crowds. And on Lancaster Place, pro-Israeli protesters behind barricades used loudspeakers to taunt the pro-Palestinian marchers. Pro-Palestinian protesters yelled abuse back at the pro-Israel protesters as police were forced to reinforce lines to keep the crowds apart. Some protesters broke through lines to wave Palestinian flags or scream abuse at the counter-demonstration, which also included some Iranian dissidents. Police tackled or grabbed Palestinian protesters who tried to jump the barricades. Among those at the demonstration on Saturday was Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, who said politicians were seeking to 'turn people who protest against the invasion of Iran or the occupation of Palestine into terrorists'. Addressing crowds at the National March for Palestine in Whitehall, the Islington North MP said: 'We need to stop the bombing of Gaza, we need to stop the occupation of Gaza. 'I want to see a reconstruction of civilian life in Gaza and the West Bank. I don't want to see the destruction of Iran. I don't want to see the world's arms industries getting even more trillions for weapons of mass destruction.' 'Dogs of war of trying to sell us lies' Meanwhile, Humza Yousaf, the former Scottish first minister, said the Government was 'abusing' anti-terror laws against pro-Palestine activists. Addressing crowds at Whitehall, the former SNP leader also accused the 'dogs of war' of 'trying to sell us lies' and compared the current crisis to the run-up to the Iraq war. Musician Paloma Faith also told pro-Palestine campaigners that those 'who facilitate these crimes against humanity need to be made accountable'. It comes as Palestine Action called for an 'emergency mobilisation' for Monday at 12pm in response to Government plans to designate it a terrorist organisation. Palestine Action said the demonstration would 'show that the public stands with Palestine Action' and urged members and supporters to 'mobilise on mass'. It claimed 35 organisations, including Stop the War Coalition, would take part in the demonstration. 'We are all Palestine Action,' the post said. On Friday, Palestine Action shared footage of their members' attack on the RAF base. In one video, activists can be seen spraying red paint into the engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft. One of the planes has previously transported prime ministers and members of the Royal family. Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation into the incident. Once proscribed, membership or support of Palestine Action will carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison, putting it in the same category as Hamas, al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Founded in 2020 by campaigners Huda Ammori, 31, and Richard Barnard, 51, the group has carried out over 300 acts of trespass, vandalism and property damage, targeting what it calls 'Zionist' institutions, including universities, government buildings, defence contractors, banks and insurers. Mr Barnard, previously a member of Extinction Rebellion, appeared in court last year accused of encouraging criminal damage and supporting Hamas at rallies. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. The group's campaigns have seen several members arrested or jailed. In August, more than a dozen activists ram-raided the UK headquarters of Elbit Systems Horizon, an Israeli-owned arms firm, with a prison van and attacked police officers with sledgehammers, according to police. Last year, the group published a manual instructing activists on how to carry out 'an action'. The pamphlet prompted Chris Philp, who was the policing minister at the time, to warn that they were encouraging protesters to 'smash up businesses'. Mr Philp is among several politicians urging proscription in the wake of the RAF attack. 'This attack on Britain's military is totally unjustified. They are undermining the very organisation that protects us all,' he said. 'Palestine Action should be pursued, prosecuted and banned for what they have done. In this country, we settle disagreements through debate and democracy, not through acts of vandalism and violence.' Earlier on Friday, Nigel Farage, Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman and Labour MP David Taylor also called for the group to be banned over its 'illegal' and 'extremist' attack on the RAF base.
