at least 15 people have been killed in israeli air strikes on rafah in southern gaza. israel is continuing air raids on the city, where 1.5 million displaced palestinians are sheltering. prime minister benjamin netanyahu said on sunday that israel "will deliver additional and painful blows" aimed at hamas. he has for weeks threatened to start a ground offensive on rafah, claiming hamas members are hiding there. gaza's health ministry, which is run by hamas, says more than 35,000 people have been killed by israeli military action since the start of the war in october. as fergal keane now reports, while there are concerns about a wider war between israel and iran, the suffering in gaza continues. a warning, this report contains distressing scenes. air-raid sirens blaring the eyes of the world were on a bigger drama, played out in the skies above israel. but in gaza, nothing changed.

this was rafah today, after 15 children from one family were killed in an airstrike. translation: show me one man among them. l they're all children and women. you can see my identity is completely erased with the deaths of my wife and children. a pregnant woman was among the dead. her baby daughter was saved in an emergency operation. a child born to a mother

she will never know. there is the story of everyday death, and the story of what follows for the families caught in the shadows of death. nawara's husband, abdulrahman, was one of more than 70 civilians killed in an israeli raid to rescue hostages in february. these were the couple's children in the aftermath of their father's death. we went back to see nawara, now eight months pregnant with her dead husband's child, and in grief, awaiting the arrival of a new life. nawara's words — the elegy

of a wife and mother for all that's been lost. in central gaza, israeli forces hunt hamas. they're still launching attacks from tunnels and buildings. and thus the war rages on, sickness and hunger haunt gaza. these children in central gaza are queuing for food to try and feed entire families. many are weak, listless. the un says less than half the amount of food needed is reaching the population. translation: we have been coming here for six months, l and we are completely dependent on the food charity. we come here to take food, to eat and feed the other children. in the north, where the threat of famine is most acute.

amjad kanu, age three, suffers from kidney disease exacerbated by malnutrition. his six—year—old brother, ahmad, provides comfort for the youngster. souad has more than one sick child. her older boy has suspected cancer and in war—ravaged gaza can't get the proper treatment. such are the days and lives of gaza after six months of war. fergal keane, bbc news, jerusalem. civil defence teams in gaza have uncovered dozens of bodies buried at al nasa hospital in khan younis. it comes two weeks after israeli forces withdrew from the city. the world health organization previously said

hospital staff had no choice but to bury the bodies of dead patients while under israeli siege, but palestinians accuse israeli forces of killing some of the victims. the israeli military said it is checking reports about the bodies recovered from the mass grave. israel accuses hamas of using medical facilities as command centres, which hamas rejects. earlier, i spoke with dr zaher sahloul who leads the ngo medglobal that sends emergency medical teams to gaza. thank you so much for being with us this evening. dr sahloul, you were in gaza injanuary. there have been four medical missions from your organisation. what have you been seeing, what have you teams been seeing? what are your colleagues telling you they saw there when they come back from those missions? thank you for having me. what i have seen is something that i have never seen in my professional life. i have been going into disaster areas in countries like area,

——syria ukraine, yemen. i have been in gaza multiple times before but what i saw injanuary is heartbreaking, destruction, systematic destruction of the healthcare system of hospitals, of clinics, huge displacement of the population. i was located in rafah but also al—nassr hospital in khan younis and i have seen tents everywhere, abouti million people are displaced in rafah which is the centre of the ngo's operations and many clinics we have are operating there. i've seen children come in mass casualty event after mass casualty event, children injured with severe injuries. one was 12 years old who had brain injury and abdominal injury after a missile hit a distribution centre near the hospital that led to 32 injuries coming to the hospital — half of them are children.

i have seen doctors and nurses who are overwhelmed this year, more than 73,000 people have been injured so far and was of them have moderate to severe injuries. i have seen a lot of death among children. one in 100 children in gaza have been killed which is the equivalent of half a million americans being killed in six months. this is unprecedented, this is catastrophic and it should stop. talking about the impact on children, tell us more about the physical brunt of this that they are bearing, a lot of children losing limbs, if they don't lose their lives, and then the mental toll here as well, so many children being orphaned as well. i mean, as we know, now there is an additional problem which is the acute malnutrition among children. one—third of the children in gaza have acute malnutrition which will lead to irreversible impact on your physical

and mental health and development of the children in gaza. they will suffer for a few decades because of what is happening right now. when i said 73,000 people have been injured, most of them are children, half of them have moderate to severe injuries. they will have some type of disability, physical disability for the rest of their lives in gaza, and you can of course imagine their mental health trauma. i have seen in the clinic children so traumatised because of the sounds of explosions that happen every night, and many of them manifest that with physical illness and one of the children i have seen in the displacement centre, i ask every child, what would you like to be in the future, and they say doctors. they like to be doctors in the future, not fighters, except for one child, i saw him and he had typical ptsd, i asked him what he would like to be

in the future, and he said what future? i think it is very important for us to make sure that these children in gaza, the 1.1 million children in gaza, many of them who lost their lives and they had nothing to do with october 7, have a future. it is our responsibility as humanitarians, as western countries that can influence the situation, and that is what i shared with president biden when i met with him three weeks ago at the white house. his legacy will be determined by what he does in gaza. talking about those doctors and nurses who you said were overwhelmed there, we know under international humanitarian law, they should be protected under the geneva conventions. is that being upheld? definitely not. when we see 75% of the hospitals in the clinics stop working, many of them have been destroyed. oxygen generators being bombed. incubators stopped working because of lack of electricity. patients dying because of lack of medical supplies

and medications. the main tertiary centres, treating more than 350,000 people every year and has more than 25,000 surgeries every year, and hospital is not many patients with chronic illness will die unnecessarily, people with chronic kidney disease and heart disease and cancer, children who are suffering from malnutrition, women who are bleeding after delivery, all of them will not have access to healthcare. and what we are seeing is unprecedented attacks, systematic attack on healthcare. dr zaher sahloul, the president of medglobal, thank you so much for bringing us your perspective from the ground. we appreciate it. thank you. meanwhile, at least five rockets are reported to have been fired from northern iraq towards a us military base across the border in syria. three of the rockets

are believed to have hit the kharab al—jir base or nearby, causing minor damage. they were said to have been fired from the town of zummar. ukraine's president volodymyr zelenskyy says a multibillion—dollar military aid package approved by the us house of representative on saturday, will give his country a chance of victory over invading russian forces. the bill now goes to senators for approval before heading to the president's desk. in an interview on us television the ukrainian leader said more weapons will help kyiv retake the initiative in the two—year conflict, especially long—range missiles. ukrainian forces are facing mounting pressure against russian troops, especially on the eastern frontlines. the us assistance comes as russian forces advance in the west. they seized the strategic town of avdiivka back in february. earlier, russia's foreign ministry condemned the us aid package, saying the us is wading deeper into a war that will end in its humiliation. i spoke earlier with dora chomiak, ceo of the non—profit for ukrainian—american

human rights, razom. president zelenskyy has said the military aid package approved by the us house of representatives will give ukraine a chance of victory against russia. what do you make of it — is it enough? it is certainly very, very important and our colleagues ukraine for ten years now, have been waiting for it. we see how people in ukraine are literally standing up to defend freedom for the rest of us, and certainly the military economic humanitarian package that was approved by the house is much—needed and much anticipated. so certainly i want to express my gratitude to speakerjohnson for really showing leadership here. we have heard a lot of gratitude from people working with ukraine, from ukrainians themselves,

that this is too late? there are a lot of concerns and justifiably so, but as i speak with my colleagues and friends and family throughout ukraine, in this whole full—scale invasion, there is other choice. it is an existential war, but to be determined and work with anything you have got to defend the existence of your country. so it would have been much appreciated, much sooner, we have been calling to close the skies and a full—scale invasion in 2022 but we have seen how determined and innovative ukrainians are with what they have, and ijust holding hope that the senate will pass the bill very quickly and i do appreciate that the us military

has been preparing for this so i hope the actual physical goods ukrainians need to defend themselves will appear in the right hands as quickly as possible. if you look at how boats fail, which i'm sure you are, you have more republicans against it then are in favourite it. —— favour of it. are there any concerns in ukraine that this is too late, as thankful as people may be? the sooner the ukrainians have the tools they need — we have seen again and again they can do what needs to be done and as we work with over 500 medical institutions throughout ukraine and over 150 very local ngos, i keep seeing day in day out how determined people are and so, and they recognise the urgency

and they recognise the urgency and they recognise the urgency and the need to really finish this and push back and authoritarian invading machines. time is the big enemy here and i think it is important that congress is able to flow support to ukraine that it needs and i certainly hope this gives europe breathing room to be able to step up and continue to support ukraine because time is critical. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. uk mp mark menzies says he has quit the conservative party, and will stand down

at the next general election. the party investigated claims that menzies used political donations to pay off "bad people". it says it "cannot conclude" whether he misused party funds because the money came from a body outside of the party's remit. but it found menzies had shown a "pattern of behaviour" falling below the standards of mps. menzies has denied the allegations. british conductor sir andrew davis has died aged 80 from leukaemia. he was one of the longest—serving chief conductors of the bbc symphony orchestra. he retired from the bbc in 2000, to work with the lyric opera of chicago. thousands of people attended a vigil in sydney to remember those who were killed by a man with a knife last week. as the sun set on bondi beach, people lit candles in memory of the victims. six people were killed, including the mother of a nine—month old girl injured in the attack. 11 others were also hurt. you're live with bbc news. ecuadoreans are voting

in a referendum on proposals to tighten security in response to a surge in violence by drugs gangs. it comes as officials say that a prison warden was murdered in ecuador on sunday. measures include the expansion ofjoint military and police patrols, they'll also significantly boost gun controls, tightening regulations, and impose harsher prison sentences for "terrorism" and drug trafficking. ecuadoreans wanted abroad for organised crime—related offences could be extradited if the constitutional changes are passed. as he voted, president daniel noboa said the outcome would define state policy in fighting violence, corruption and organised crime. he declared a state of emergency injanuary and sent the army to take control of prisons, after a gang leader escaped. civilians in the north of niger celebrated reports that the united states is set to withdraw troops from two bases in the country, in consultation with the ruling militaryjunta. hundreds of people marched

to the city of agadez earlier this month, where they demanded the departure of more than 1,000 us soldiers who were sent to niger to fight islamist militants. niger was a key security partner to us counter—terrorism operations in the sahel region, until its government was removed in a military coup lastjuly, straining ties between the two countries. last month, niger's suspended a military accord with the us, and has since welcomed russian military instructors and equipment. it is one of several west african countries where military leaders cut links with their traditional western allies while strengthening ties with russia. some people in niger say the us didn't do enough for their country. 0ur presences about the americans leaving. it is just about the americans leaving. they have been in our presence now and have been doing nothing.

translation: in niger today, everyone is looking _ for a place. we're going to talk. we'll talk to anyone who wants to come. even the chinese can come. we'll talk to them. if it's in our interest, we'll go with them. if it's not in our interest, they'll go too. the land belongs to us. we're a sovereign state. that's all there is to it. a short while ago, i spoke to cameron hudson. he's a senior fellow at the center for strategic and international studies' africa program. very good to have you with us here on bbc news. we saw thousands of people coming out in the capital of niger last week, protesting against the us presence there, coming at a time of strained relations really over that relationship and then of course the us military agreeing to leave. talk to us about how that came about? i talk to us about how that came about? ~ , ., . ~ about? i think it is going back to jul about? i think it is going back to july last — about? i think it is going back to july last year _ about? i think it is going back to july last year when - to july last year when democratically elected government, which was a very close ally of the united states, was overthrown in a

military coup and has been under essentially house arrest since that time. washington has been pressuring the winter leader since then to release him and put the country back on a path towards democratic transition. those talk sabine strayed for many months and i think over time we have seen the nigerian transitional government reassert their sovereignty more and more. we have seen in the last few months outreach to russia, outreach to run back, putting distance between themselves and their traditional back of france. this is the last step in what has been a multi— month process where the winter has asserted itself and push back against the requests and demands even of washington to notjust go back to a democratic form of government

but also to allow the government of washington to remain, to keep its bases active and ongoing inside the country. active and ongoing inside the count . ~ ., ., , country. won of the things the us tr00ps _ country. won of the things the us troops were _ country. won of the things the us troops were engaged - country. won of the things the us troops were engaged with l country. won of the things the i us troops were engaged with was the ongoing fight against islamist insurgents. —— one. what you think this means for that situation? we what you think this means for that situation?— what you think this means for that situation? we have seen in the last few _ that situation? we have seen in the last few months _ that situation? we have seen in the last few months because i that situation? we have seen in | the last few months because we have to recall military assistance has been suspended since the coup d'etat. washington has been able in a limited sense to be able to operate its drones but has not shared its intelligence with the nigerian authorities. we have only seen nigerians lose ground to extremists elements in the country but what this now does is it makes washington blind to the moves that these islamists are making throughout the region. let us not forget these drones are used to operate essentially from the atlantic ocean to the red sea,

to the mediterranean. it is a huge area that washington is no longer going to have intelligence coverage over. fire intelligence coverage over. are there any other _ intelligence coverage over. are there any other plans from the pentagon? do we know about how to cover an expanse of land? gillett we have heard from the pentagon they are looking for new partners and places where they can base their drones. we know they've spoken to the leadership in neighbouring cote d'ivoire and in benin which are further south of the share. those are less than ideal simply because they are not going to be able to allow those drones to get the same reach further north, so all the way over libya and to the mediterranean, which is of course an area of great concern for washington. anything is going to be viewed as second best do the niger base it has had for the last ten years or so. let's come back to this partnership then with russia.

have we seen, what evidence have we seen a russian military on the ground there and what think the aim of that pivot towards russia is for niger? it is not insomuch ideological as it is the fact that if they cannot get the assistance they need from washington they are going to get it from someone else. when washington suspended its security assistance and intelligence sharing assistance, when the coup happened, the nigerian authorities i think were desperate to backfill that assistance. the most logical place for them to turn right now, given that the russians are now in neighbouring countries like burkina faso and mali, was to moscow. the other important factor for washington is we have just now started to see russian military advisers arriving in niger and they have brought with them surface—to—air missiles, a missile defence system, which

niger really does not need given the terrorist threat that it faces on the ground. so i think the only other way to interpret this new arrival of missile defence is essay shot against washington and a warning to washington that if it chose to try to continue conducting drone flights that they would run the risk of being shot down by this russian air defence system.— air defence system. cameron hudson. _ air defence system. cameron hudson, senior _ air defence system. cameron hudson, senior fellow - air defence system. cameron hudson, senior fellow at - air defence system. cameron hudson, senior fellow at the | hudson, senior fellow at the centre for strategic and international studies, always great to get your insight. thank you, cameron. let's turn to some important news around the world. terry anderson, a us journalist held hostage in lebanon for six years, has died. the beirut bureau chief for the associated press was kidnapped by islamist militants in 1985. his daughter told the bbc he died on saturday and that he found quite comfortable piecing his final years.

he was 76. preliminary results from the parliamentary elections in the maldives show the pro—china people's national congress party led by president won a landslide victory. sunday's vote was seen as a crucial test against the the pro—indian opposition, in their plan to strengthen economic ties with china. stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. northern ireland was the place to be. light wind and sunny skies and it turned out to be the warmest day country so far. by by contrast, . .. by contrast,... remains cold. breeze coming in off the north sea. high—pressure close by but it is tending to edge way and thatis it is tending to edge way and that is allowing these weather fronts to bring cloud and even brain southwards overnight but ahead of that we have clear skies for east anglia and the southeast. temperatures could be close to freezing first

thing in the morning before that cloud comes in. there will be a lot of cloud on monday. we have the slight rain and drizzle affecting northern england, the midlands and wales heading towards the southwest of there could be few spots of rain heading towards scotland. not as much sunshine in northern ireland. not as warm on monday. it may make 16 degrees in glasgow but will be particularly chilly for the midlands and eastern parts of england. that area of high pressure continues to just get pushed away and these weather fronts move southwards overnight with clearer skies though following into scotland. could be an early frost around here. most of the cloud will affect eastern parts of england heading to the southeast and northerly wind follows and the odd light shower around northsea coast. cloud will tend to build up the sunny skies for western scotland, and here temperatures will be 1a, 15 degrees and it will be colder further east of there,

and for the next few days, west will be best. high—pressure is no longer with us by wednesday, but with still in that colder air stream with northerly wind bringing the odd shower down some of those north sea coast where it will feel particularly cold. may see a touch of frost here and there if cloud breaks but the cloud will tend to build up through the day on wednesday and could lead to a few showers, mainly for england and wales. looking sunnier perhaps western scotland and northern ireland but temperatures 11 degrees in belfast and that will be a typical best number on wednesday. it will be a chilly week ahead. temperatures dropping across northern areas and even the risk of frost overnight before lower pressure maybe brings rain by the end of the week.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. acting is both an art and a craft. the words are written elsewhere, the action is directed by another but, ultimately, the power of the performance rests on the actor's ability to inhabit the role. so, what does it take to succeed in this precarious profession?

well, my guest today, eddie marsan, is one of the uk's most recognisable and popular actors across stage and screen. his roots are genuinely working class and that is something of a rarity in the performing arts. why? eddie marsan, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. nice to be here. you do seem to be that rare breed as an actor, a guy who is constantly, permanently busy. how do you manage it? i just... i think when i first started in drama school, i was always the guy

who played the old man in the chekhov piece.