yevgeny prigozhin seemed determined to march his men to the top of the hill. then, he marched them down again. political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation. this is southern israel and that is gaza, and the war here has dominated the news agenda since early october. tragic and polarising, it's one of the biggest stories of 2023 and one that i have followed here and reported on throughout, speaking to people in israel and in gaza about how they're living through it. the year has seen many important and profound stories, from the war in ukraine

to donald trump's legal affairs in the us and for india, a successful moon landing. i'm going to bring you just some of those moments. we begin in turkey and syria and the devastating earthquake that struck early on the sixth of february. these images show the moment the first quake hit. with a magnitude of 7.8, it destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed thousands of people. a second powerful tremor hours later increased the death toll even further. i was one of the firstjournalists to reach the epicentre, travelling through the devastation towards the city of kahramanmaras and broadcasting from my phone. this was one of my first live reports. what we're talking about here in maras, right at the epicentre of the quake, is notjust single individual collapsed buildings, we're talking about whole city blocks. when i arrived here,

we drove down a street and the whole of one side — nine, ten, 11 buildings — had just completely collapsed. the red cross estimates that more than 55,000 people were killed in turkey and syria, with double that injured. the high number of buildings that collapsed was blamed on poor building safety standards. president erdogan defended his government's response to the disaster and as survivors prepared to spend their third night out in the cold, they told me how desperately they needed tents and help. and just to warn you, this report, like others you'll see during the programme, contains images that you may find distressing. the devastating power of the earth seen from the air. swathes of this city lie in ruins. buildings, homes, lives have been destroyed. when the rubble shows a sign, the digger stops.

behind this blanket, an arm reveals a body. slowly, carefully, it's uncovered. and then, the moment of realisation. screams near the syrian city of aleppo, this boy, ahmed, screams. near the syrian city of aleppo, this boy, ahmed, was pulled to safety by the local voluntary civil defence group, the white helmets. millions of people in north—west syria had already fled their homes during the civil war and were living in makeshift tents when the earthquake struck. in ukraine, there was real hope that 2023 might be the year its country's forces took back swathes of territory snatched by russia. do you want british fighterjets next, sir? but progress proved slow

as president zelensky continued his appeals for stronger world support. in the early hours of the sixth ofjune, the kakhovka dam was breached. as waterfrom the dnipro river started spilling across the land, putting thousands of lives at risk, our ukraine correspondentjames waterhouse rushed to the scene. a breach of a barrier designed to protect. this is the major kakhovka dam, failing to contain a reservoir resembling a sea. the waters of ukraine's dnipro river surged downstream, towards dozens of towns and villages. this is effectively a front line which separates territory ukraine controls and russia occupies. close to the dnipro�*s mouth is the city of kherson. officials are worried this flooding could become catastrophic. what we're seeing is a humanitarian relief effort taking place in an active war zone. half an hour ago,

a shell landed close by. and there is a military dimension to this, too, because the nearby dnipro river, which has come a whole lot closer, is a front line. it separates ukrainian controlled and russian occupied territory. ukraine is in the early stages of a counteroffensive. it was thought that it could mount such attacks from here. that task has just got a whole lot more difficult. then came a shocking moment that looked like it might change the whole course of the war. yevgeny prigozhin, a powerful russian and head of the wagner group, appeared to be launching a military coup. 0ur russia editor steve rosenberg explained the extraordinary twist. this is how the day began in the russian city of rostov — armed men and armour on the streets and tanks outside key buildings. in control here, the mercenary group wagner. closely linked to the state, they'd fought for russia in ukraine,

but this looked like mutiny. their leader, yevgeny prigozhin, seemed to have gone rogue. at a military h0, he told russian generals, "we've come "for the defence minister and the chief of the general staff. "if we don't get them, i'll blockade the city "and head to moscow." translation: our actions to defend the fatherland from this _ threat will be harsh. tension rose as reports came in of wagner convoys moving north to moscow. was this heading towards confrontation in the capital? then, out of the blue, a message from mr prigozhin. to avoid bloodshed, he said, wagner would turn around and return to base. this is one of those moments where you just have to put up your hands and say,

"what on earth was that about?" i mean, just a few hours ago, yevgeny prigozhin seemed determined to march his men to the top of the hill. then, he marched them down again. we may never know what agreements were or weren't reached between the key players of this bizarre drama. it appeared to throw president putin's leadership into doubt. could he be losing control? eight weeks later came this breaking news. this coming in from the russian federal agency for air transport. they say that wagner mercenary group boss yevgeny prigozhin was on board an aircraft that crashed in russia in the tver region. first a friend, then a challenger. now, yevgeny prigozhin was dead. in august, we saw some of the most dramatic pictures of the year — eight people, including six children on their way to school,

dangled precariously inside a broken cable car high above a steep ravine in northern pakistan. a careful rescue effort involving helicopters and makeshift zip lines took 14 hours. to the delight of the large crowds, everyone was saved. when a migrant boat capsized off the coast of greece, 82 bodies were recovered but it's feared around 500 more may have lost their lives in the tragedy, and doubts were cast on the greek coast guard's account of what happened that night. nick beake investigated for bbc verify. new footage of the fatal journey. the packed migrant boat leaning precariously. bbc verify has confirmed this video is genuine. here's why. look at the much bigger vessel in the background. we've identified it as the faithful warrior, which we know came to provide food and water. its shape matches and its tracking

data also places it in the area at the time. we believe this video was filmed by the greek coastguard, which continues to claim at this point, the migrant boat was not in danger. in the uk, the issue of small boats carrying migrants across the english channel became a political challenge. for the conservative government, the answer was to send some asylum seekers to rwanda for processing, but not everyone agreed and the supreme court was asked to decide, as our deputy political editor vicky young explains. prime minister rishi sunak has made stopping the boats one of his priorities. his government believes that sending some asylum seekers to rwanda will deter others from making the dangerous journey across the channel and help break up the criminal gangs who help them. this year, almost 30,000 migrants have arrived in england by boat. the first flight to rwanda was ready to take off back in the summer of 2022 but was cancelled

at the last minute after legal challenges. while courts can't directly overrule parliament, they can decide whether a policy conflicts with other existing laws and international treaties. this is the supreme court — the highest court in the united kingdom — and in november, it ruled that the rwanda policy was unlawful. the main reason it gave was that asylum seekers sent there could then be returned to their home countries, where they might face harm. in response, the government signed a new treaty with rwanda and proposed new uk laws, declaring that it's a safe country and ordering britishjudges to ignore some sections of the uk human rights act. but many of rishi sunak�*s mps are unhappy. some of them want him to go even further and pull out of the european convention on human rights. but dozens of conservative mps, the opposition parties and the house of lords would try to block such a move, so it could all lead to some close votes here

in parliament in the new year. so far, the plan has cost £240 million, even though no asylum seekers have actually reached rwanda. 2024 will bring the next us presidential election and the campaigning has already started. us presidentjoe biden says part of his motivation to run for a second term is to prevent the return of donald trump. mr trump is the frontrunner to become the republican candidate, even as he faces both civil and criminal cases against him, as our north america correspondent nada tawfik explains. donald trump might be riding high in the polls but he's already faced a number of legal defeats and setbacks. in april, amid a massive security and press presence here, he became the first president in history to be arrested and to appear in court on criminal charges. the new york state case stems from hush money payments made before the 2016 election to the former pawn

actor stormy daniels. the 2016 election to the former pornn actor stormy daniels. many see it as the weakest of all the cases. things only got worse from there over the summer with the announcement of long—anticipated indictments. trump pleaded not guilty in court in two federal cases in florida and washington, dc, both stemming from the special counseljack smith's investigations. the first was tied to the fbi's raid of his mar—a—lago resort, where agents recovered more than 100 classified documents. it's a political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation. the second case was tied to the january sixth capitol riot, which occurred when congress was meeting to certinyoe biden�*s presidential election. special counseljack smith called it an "unprecedented "assault on democracy" and accused president trump of working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. we'll have to wait and see

if the trial takes place when it's due in a few months�* time. and then, there was georgia, which led to the first ever mugshot of a former us president. there, he's also criminally charged with scheming to illegally overturn his 2020 presidential election loss, including with the infamous phone call to the secretary of state, where he urges him to find the 11,000 votes trump needs to beat joe biden in the state. donald trump claims this is all a witch—hunt and election interference. these are incredibly serious charges. and while the public may have already made up their mind about his guilt or innocence, now donald trump needs to convince at least one juror in each case of his innocence to avoid punishment or jail time. mission control: soft landing on the moon. i india is on the moon. celebrations as india made space history. its moon mission in august became the first ever to land in the tricky lunar south pole region.

prime minister narendra modi exclaimed, "india is now on the moon." this success belongs to all of humanity. and at that moment, a delighted nation applauded their huge achievement. september saw morocco experience its worst earthquake in over half a century. more than 3,000 lives were lost and many more were injured or left homeless. but there was more. in 2023, natural disasters across the globe focused the world's attention on climate change. extremes of weather and temperature had a devastating impact. wildfires in the north and west of canada forced thousands from their homes, and the smoke they produced made the air quality plummet in major us and canadian cities. nearly 100 people died in hawaii when an inferno destroyed the town of lahaina, making it the deadliest wildfire

in modern us history. in greece, they hit at the height of the country's tourist season. the blaze in rhodes forced 19,000 people to be evacuated off the island. and in 2023, our oceans hit their hottest ever recorded average surface temperature of 20.96 celsius, breaking a previous record high from 2016. it is so decided. in december, days of negotiating at the un climate summit in dubai led for the first time to a call for all countries to move away from using fossilfuels. it didn't go as far as to actually phase them out, though, which was something many governments had wanted. a huge swathe of the eastern libyan city of derna was washed away in the aftermath

of storm daniel in september. dams that should have held the water back collapsed and there were accusations of poor maintenance. thousands of lives were lost and whole neighbourhoods destroyed. what i saw when i arrived there was a wasteland. this is what it looks like here in derna at the moment. and you can see some of the destruction already. but if ijust turn this way and look down the valley, you can see how everything has just been completely ripped away. june, and the world watched and waited for news of five people aboard the titan submersible, which vanished on a trip to the titanic. after a huge search operation, parts of the vessel were eventually discovered thousands of metres underwater on the sea bed. an rov, a remote operated vehicle, from the vessel horizon arctic, discovered the tail cone of the titan submersible

approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the titanic on the sea floor. none of the passengers survived the implosion. let's look at some more stories that made news in the last 12 months. taylor swift was named time magazine's 2023 person of the year. she became a billionaire in october, and herfans packed out stadia across the world for her eras tour. in cinemas, two very different films were released on the same weekend back injuly, sparking the cultural phenomenon that was barbenheimer. you are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves. barbie and 0ppenheimer broke box office records and boosted cinema revenues that had been dented by the pandemic. hollywood came to a halt as both writers and actors went on strike,

costing the us economy billions of dollars. alongside pay and conditions, one key concern of union members has been the industry's use of artificial intelligence, which began to hit the mainstream in 2023. ai bots like chatgpt and google's bard gained millions of users. in northern india, marathon efforts finally freed 41 miners who'd been trapped in a collapsed himalayan tunnel for 17 days. after various setbacks, rescuers eventually drilled the final section by hand to free the workers. samira hussain was at the scene. these are the ambulances with the first workers that have come out from inside the tunnel. 17 days they have spent inside that tunnel and now they are finally out and in those ambulances.

translation: i am very happy. i am 55 and i have seen life. but my son is very young. he has a long life. as 2023 started to draw to a close, one of the year's biggest stories happened here in the middle east. yolande, you woke up that morning and it was you who was trying to make sense of this for, for all of us. we didn't have much detail at first, but we knew very quickly that it was huge, that it was unprecedented, and that it was going to change everything. and what is the latest that you're hearing not only about those killed, but the numbers of people injured? really extraordinary numbers. at least a0 israelis have been killed and 740 injured. that's the latest report that i have seen quoting the israeli sort of medical services. and on top of that, you know, it's still not clear exactly what's happening in southern israel.

that morning, as it turned out, thousands of hamas fighters broke across the border. it was a brutal attack. more than 1,200 people in israel were murdered and there were some 240 hostages who were taken back to gaza. we heard the screaming. we heard the...obviously all the fire that was going on. we saw the smoke and we smelled the smoke. kfar aza was taken by surprise, like everywhere else hamas attacked. the kibbutz guard — armed civilian volunteers — died fighting back. siren wails gunfire. there's a huge barrage going on overhead just at the moment. we have taken cover. this is...it�*s actually a memorial building. you can see we're all here. jeremy bowen: late this afternoon at kibbutz be'eri, regular units and some of more

than 300,000 mobilized reservists were preparing for the order to move in, that most israelis believe will come. over a million gazans were forced to leave their homes in the north of the strip, and thousands were killed in israeli strikes. the attack on jabalia camp looks to be one of the biggest single palestinian losses of life so far in this war. jabalia is in the far north of gaza, where israel has been pushing forward. as electricity was cut off, premature babies in the hospital had to be taken from their incubators. our colleague rushdi, who's from gaza, was bravely reporting at the same time as he was trying to keep his own family safe. the humanitarian situation is also getting worse and worse, with israel not allowing

food and medicine. i have seen people struggling to find water. here in the hospital, people are struggling to find fuel to run the generator and work in the...in the hospital. translation: i spend four or five hours every day in the queue - and at the end i only get one portion of bread. _ we have been living on one meal a day. i sometimes we sleep hungry. around the globe, people took to the streets... ada, 75 years old... ..and world leaders came to stand with israel while at the same time warning of the consequences of an escalation. we will continue to have israel's back as you work to defend your people. we'll continue to work with you and partners across the region to prevent more tragedy to innocent civilians. the evidence of our own eyes tells us that the death toll, and particularly the death toll

among women and children, isjust overwhelming. we have seen so much that it is hard to dispute the fact that many, many, many thousands of people have been killed. intensive diplomacy led to an agreement to pause the fighting and release hostages and prisoners. there's a bit of a shaky start. we did hear some continuing fire, some continuing small arms fire and mortar fire for about the first ten or 15 minutes. but things are now a lot quieter there, quieter than they've been really for weeks here in southern israel. and i think we can say at this point that the ceasefire is firmly holding, from what we're seeing and hearing in southern israel. more aid started to pass from egypt into gaza, but it still wasn't enough. for the first time, a large group of hostages were released from captivity in gaza. we now have that confirmation. it was getting closer and closer.

it's clearly an emotional moment for you. i can't believe it, it'sjust, it's so, it's so happy to know that they're here in israeli territory. i feel as if part of my family came back. and some 240 palestinian prisoners were released from israeli jails. this is a small victory for palestinians in a war that has already exacted a very heavy price. to israel, the prisoners being released tonight are a security threat. to those gathered here to receive them, they're victims of israel's occupation, and their release is a symbol. the deal lasted for seven days, but then it fell apart. then israel's military campaign moved further south. the fighting started all over again with renewed intensity. the last 12 months has seen change

notjust here in the middle east, but right around the world, from wars and natural disasters to points of light in the darkness. the impact of this year will be felt into 2024 and beyond. hello there. i think you could call the boxing day weather the calm before the storm as things are set to turn very unsettled through tomorrow as storm gerrit,

another named storm, hurtles across the country, bringing a mixture of rain, gales and heavy snow certainly across scotland. and it remains windy on thursday with further heavy showers at times. and this is storm gerrit winding itself up out in the atlantic, heading towards our shores as we move through this evening and overnight. so the rain piling into southern and western areas, winds picking up, too. ahead of it, a cold night to come. subzero values with some frost and ice before the rain arrives, with increasing amounts of snow certainly to the hills here. so it'll be very cold to start wednesday here, milder further south. storm gerrit then fully in control of our weather on wednesday. lots of isobars on the charts, close together, hence the gales, outbreaks of heavy rain and some concerning amounts of snow falling over fairly modest hills across scotland through the morning and into the afternoon. up to 15 centimetres in places, maybe more than that. when you factor in the wind, we will see drifting and also blizzards. so some treacherous weather to come throughout the day on wednesday. heavy rain, strong winds elsewhere.

maybe brightening up later in the day across some western areas, but i think most places staying cloudy. it will be very gusty, strong winds around the coast through the english channel, severe gales developing across north—east scotland and the northern isles later. gusts perhaps up to 75—80 mph here. double figure values for most in the south, cold across scotland, but it won't feel like that because of the strength of the wind. as we head into thursday, we keep low pressure close by. lots of isobars on the chart again, so another windy, blustery day to come. plenty of showers rattling in from the south—west. some of these could be heavy at times across western areas. again, a risk of some gales. north—west england, western wales could see some disruption once again. a bit of sunshine here and there and some wintriness over the hills in scotland again. temperatures 9—12 degrees. so the weather on wednesday and thursday is likely to cause some disruption. a mixture of rain, snow and gales, so head online or check out the bbc weather app to see the details of all the weather

warnings in place. and it remains unsettled for the rest of the week, the run—up to new year as well. could be that on saturday we see another spell of wet and windy weather with some mountain snow in the north.

live from london, this is bbc news. a ukrainian missile damages a russian warship docked in occupied crimea. president zelensky praises his airforce for the attack. israel's army chief says the war in gaza will continue for months, as the bombardment of the region intensifies. meanwhile, in his first interview since the war began, the palestinian president calls for a full ceasefire in gaza. iraq condemns us air strikes on iranian—backed targets in its territory — the us says it was retaliating after an attack on american bases.

and for the first time, ukraine celebrates christmas on the 25th of december. we hearfrom a ukrainian singer about combining old traditions with a new date. hello, and welcome. i am samantha simmonds. ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky has said he is "grateful" to his air force for a missile attack that badly damaged a russian warship in the black sea. the novochokassk was hit during an attack on the port of feodosiya in russian—occupied crimea. local officials say at least one person was killed. ukraine said the ship was destroyed. president zelensky wrote on telegram, "the occupiers will not "have a single peaceful place in ukraine." james waterhouse reports from central ukraine. for ukraine, this was a high—value target.

the russian novocherkassk landing ship struck by a guided missile.