hello, i'm samantha simmonds. we start with the latest on the israel—gaza war. the israeli military is keeping up its offensive across the gaza strip, with southern and central areas now the main focus of attack. over the past day, israel says it carried out strikes on at least 200 hamas targets in gaza. hamas, which is holding about 130 people hostage in gaza, is designated a terror organisation by the uk and us. the hamas—run health ministry says at least 195 people were killed as a result of those strikes. the united nations human rights office has said it's deeply concerned about the continued bombing of gaza's middle area. in a further sign of the conflict's wider reverberations,

turkey's president has lashed out, comparing israel's actions in gaza to atrocities committed by the nazis. in the red sea, the danish shipping company maersk says it is prepared to resume sailings despite the threat of attack by houthi rebels in yemen who are supporting homes. our first report is from our correspondent shamaa khalil. a warning, you may find some elements distressing. no funeral, no dignified burial, no tombstone. a bulldozer carries their bodies into a mass grave. their final resting place. israeli forces are expanding their ground offensive into the densely populated urban refugee camps in central gaza. and this is the scene at the neighbouring al aqsa hospital. overwhelmed, they've had to treat the injured on the floor and in hallways. across gaza at the moment, health capacity is at about 20% of what it was 80 or so days ago.

so almost all of the hospital beds, almost all of the hospital services have stopped functioning. on foot, donkey carts are crammed onto the back of trucks. those who fled from northern gaza have come here for safety, but the war has chased them out again. heavy bombardment continues in the south, and there aren't many places left to go. israel says the war will last for months and insists the aims are clear. we can't destroy hamas's ideology, unfortunately. that's not realistic. but we can remove them from power. we can prevent them from having control over this territorial enclave, and that will do a lot to save lives and prevent future conflict in the region. in the west bank, an israeli air strike killed six palestinians. the military says they were armed militants. locals deny it. this, as the palestinian president, mahmoud abbas, has warned that the area could implode.

a new refugee camp has now been set up for those twice displaced, first from northern gaza and now from the centre. this man lost six family members. "our houses have been destroyed," he says. "this is what's left. it's worse than hell here." more than 21,000 people have now died in gaza according to local health officials. those who've survived are running out of places to flee. shaimaa khalil, bbc news, jerusalem. we mentioned incendiary comments from the turkish president, recep tayyip erdogan. at an event in ankara on wednesday, he said this about israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu. translation: all the values of humanity have been - destroyed before our own eyes for the last 80 days. we saw israel's nazi camps in the stadiums, right?

they are, in every sense, the way we were talking about hitler. how does benjamin netanyahu and hitler differ? is there anything that netanyahu does that is less than hitler? no. mr netanyahu hit back, saying mr erdogan was in no position to preach morality, accusing him of trying to commit genocide against kurdish people and imprisoning journalists. nathan thrall is the former project director of arab—israeli conflict at the crisis group. i asked him about the escalation of violence in the occupied west bank and northern israel. israel is now using drones to attack targets in the west bank. that is a development that we hadn't seen for some years, really going back to view second intifada.

on the border with lebanon, we have a low—intensity war that has already broke out and is at risk of spiralling into a full—fledged war on a huge scale. and, of course, everywhere in the region we see now that this war is threatening to expand. what is your assessment of israel, more specifically in gaza and how likely it is to reach its goals of the short and longer—term? we've heard from the idf in recent hours saying they think their operation could last several more months. we've also heard from marc regev there, netanyahu's spokesperson or certainly one of his advisers, now that the ideology of hamas can't be wiped out, that the aim on playing on wiping out its leadership.

what is your assessment of the time that could take? it is a welcome development that mr regev has started to walk back at the unattainable goals that the israeli government has put forward. they keep repeating that they wish to eliminate hamas, and there is zero chance that they will achieve that. if you look at public opinion polls, hamas is stronger than it has ever been. hamas exists in the west bank, it exists in gaza, it exists in the diaspora. so no matter what israel does militarily to degrade hamas in gaza, hamas will remain a very powerful political force. and at the end of the day, israel doesn't want to occupy gaza indefinitely. and it will need palestinians to control gaza. and that means it will have to negotiate with hamas, one of the two largest political parties, over the future of gaza and the west bank. the united states' top diplomat, antony blinken, is having talks with the mexican president on how to deal with a surge

in the number of people trying to reach the united states. mr blinken will be accompanied by the us homeland security secretary when he meets president lopez obrador in mexico city. the meeting takes place as a reported new influx of migrants, estimated at around 6000 people, are walking through mexico from tapachula to the us border. at stake for mr blinken�*s boss, presidentjoe biden, is securing some means of easing the wave of people trying to cross the us southern border. both democrats and republicans are calling for practical solutions. live now to our correspondent shingai nyoka, who's in washington. tell us more about the importance of this meeting and what they hope will come from it. figs this meeting and what they hope will come from it— come from it. as you mentioned there, come from it. as you mentioned there. this _ come from it. as you mentioned there. this is — come from it. as you mentioned there, this is a _ come from it. as you mentioned there, this is a high _ come from it. as you mentioned there, this is a high level- come from it. as you mentioned i there, this is a high level meeting between america and mexico, and it comes amidst this unprecedented surge in the number of migrants making their way from mexico into the united states. to me and people so far have crossed this year, and in the last week also there were

about 10,000, in the last week also there were about10,000, an in the last week also there were about 10,000, an average of 10,000 people, that were crossing, and that's double the number that were crossing during the pre—covid—19 era. as of thatjust gives you a sense ofjust how overwhelmed it both countries are with what's happening at the border. and you asked what it is that they want to come out of this meeting. well, the us has been trying to put pressure on mexico to do more to ensure that mexico stops the migrants before they crossed the border into the us. and what has happened over the last couple of weeks or so is that several border crossings have been closed, including railway claw sinks, as the us has deployed patrol officials across this 3000 km border at some of the illegal point to try to stop the migrants from coming in. on the other hand, mexico says that it's doing well it can but it hopes that some kind of an understanding can be reached during the meeting

thatis can be reached during the meeting that is taking place. but it also says that the us needs to look at addressing broader issues. many of these migrants are coming from countries like venezuela and cuba, countries like venezuela and cuba, countries that the us has imposed sanctions on and which according to them have created economic crises. many of these migrants that are coming from a latin america are economic refugees, and so this is where they stand is that while the us would want to see mexico doing more, mexico also wants to make some demands in return. find more, mexico also wants to make some demands in return.— demands in return. and this issue is sure to increase _ demands in return. and this issue is sure to increase in _ demands in return. and this issue is sure to increase in importance - demands in return. and this issue is sure to increase in importance as i sure to increase in importance as president biden heads towards the election next year?— election next year? yes, it is. and it's a massive _ election next year? yes, it is. and it's a massive area _ election next year? yes, it is. and it's a massive area of— election next year? yes, it is. and it's a massive area of concern - election next year? yes, it is. and| it's a massive area of concern here in the us amongst the public. in fact, it's the third most important concern by the electorate, and asked the us goes towards elections, there

is increasing attention on this particular issue. and conflict between the republicans and democrats about how to address president biden would want to see additional measures, including a package to increase border patrols, but the republicans are a lot more radical. they believe that the biden administration is too lenient on the migrants when they come across, even when they do that irregularly, they are still process and they want to see a more radical approach where some of the asylum—seekers art returned or deported. and so it continues to be a contentious issue, but one that i think mexico is hoping will escalate the sense of urgency in trying to get more aid from the us to try to address this issue on its side of the border. qm. issue on its side of the border. 0k, thank yom — one of the largest newspapers in the us, the new york times, is suing the companies behind chatgpt, openai and microsoft. the times alleges that the powerful artificial intelligence program used millions of articles for training without permission.

the newspaper is seeking damages, as well as an order that the companies stop using its content and destroy the data. the defendants are yet to respond to the lawsuit. for more on this story, i spoke to new york times technology reporter ryan mac, who's in los angeles. the lawsuit was filed this morning and we reported it as of this morning, which is the new york times believes that openai has been infringing on its copyright as well as microsoft. so, yeah, we reported this story this morning. how long do you allege this has been going on? well, the complaint says that there is constant going back to as early as the 19505 that has been used in openai's training models and chat bots to develop these new technologies, and the company is enforcing

its copyright and pursuing claims under that arugment. can you tell us more about how the us law operates in terms of your expectations for this case? is there any guidance in terms of any conditions ai is required to ask before they use content? i mean, that is exactly what is at the crux of this case, companies like openai, companies who have a massive billion—dollar of valuation and billions of dollars of funding, have essentially scraped the web and taken content — a lot of it copyrighted — forfree and used it in its technologies. and the new york times is going to court to argue that that wasn't legal. so is this effectively a test case in this arena? it's one of many, yeah. there are ongoing lawsuits from other creative industries. you look at something like,

you know, actors that have sued openai, authors, fiction authors and nonfiction. and this is sort of the beginning. getty images has sued another ai company that uses its images to train generative al to create realistic images. so i think we're at the forefront of this, and it will remain to be seen what happens. yeah, well, what are the possibilities here, do you think? i think it's for the courts to decide. there could be rulings that, you know, suggest that these companies may have to pay up for these rights and to use this content. i mean, openai itself has already struck deals with some publishers, including the likes of the associated press and the publisher of politico and business insider, so there has already been some precedent for these companies is paying for copyrighted material but we will see what

the courts decide. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. nearly 90,000 nhs appointments had to be cancelled because of last week's junior doctor strike in england, according to new data from nhs england. most were hospital check—ups and operations, but some community appointments were also affected. next week, junior doctors will take part in a six—day walkout, the longest in the history of the nhs. rail passengers are experiencing major disruption to theirjourneys out of london st pancras because of a fault with the signalling system between st albans and the station. east midlands railway have cancelled all services towards luton airport. thameslink services have also been severely affected. network rail has apologised for the delays. the chancellor, jeremy hunt, will unveil his spring budget on the 6th of march in what could be his last chance to introduce tax changes before a general election. the conservative party has been hinting it could make pledges on housing and taxes, as rishi sunak struggles to turn around his party's major deficit in the polls.

you're live with bbc news. sport, and for a full round—up from the bbc sport centre, here's sarah. thank you very much. it's a busy night of football in the english premier league, with three games underway. approaching half—time in two of them. brentford trailing 3—1 to wolves, the first three goals came injust three minutes. mario lemina put wolves ahead, and hwang hee chan scored their second from the subsequent kick—off. yoanne wissa pulled one back for the hosts, before hwang added a third for wolves. at stamford bridge, chelsea host crystal palace, who are on a seven—game winless run. ican i canjust i can just see that it looks like crystal palace have just equalised there. that game is 1—1 at that moment.

hosts were ahead thanks to mykhailo mudryk. and manchester city can close the gap on leaders liverpool with a result at everton. city are eight points behind, but do have two games in hand. that one has just kicked off in the last couple of minutes. it is goalless so far. the matches coming thick and fast over this christmas period. a couple more on thursday, with two sides meeting each other absolutely ravished by injuries — brighton and tottenham, with both their managers confirming earlier more problems with their respective squads. tottenham manager ange postecoglou has revealed that vice—captain and defender cristian romero will be out for up to five weeks with a hamstring problem. it means spurs now have eight injuries in the squad as well as a number of suspensions. but potsecoglou insists it doesn't hasten his recruitment plans ahead of te january transfer window. no, it doesn't change anything. just like i said, disappointed to lose him for sure. we obviously missed him with the suspension,

and now we'vejust got him back and kind of steadied things up, but obviously with him missing again for quite a chunk of time, it doesn't change, really... you can't accelerate time, mate! still december. january the 1st stays january the 1st. the brighton manager roberto de zerbi, meanwhile, says his side have "more or less 10 injured players", the latest being kaoru mitoma who could be out for up to six weeks of action and could now miss the asian cup forjapan. brighton have just one win from their last five games. to cricket now, and australia captain pat cummins took three wickets to shift momentum away from pakistan on day two of the second test in melbourne. pakistan were 1211—1 before cummins took his first wicket, abdullah shafique caught and bowled by the aussie skipper. a couple of overs later, he dismissed babar azam. pakistan ended day two on a disappointing 194—6 given how they started the day. they trail by 124 runs. elsewhere, south africa closed day

two on 256—5 in response to india's first innings total of 2115 in their first test in centurion. opener dean elgar going really well in this, his farewell series, 140 not out to push south africa ahead. david beddingham the only other to pass 50. and the fairytale continues for 16—year—old luke littler at the pdc world chamionship in darts. littler was in fine form beating canada's matt campbell 4—1 to make it through to the last 16 on his debut at the tournament, becoming the youngest player to do so. thejunior world champion, who says he's been playing since he was 18 months old, made headlines before christmas becoming the youngest person to win a match at the world championship when he defeated christian kist in the first round, and then went on to defeat uk open champion andrew gilding to make it to this third—round match.

and he is now made it through to the last 16 so a big name and story to watch over the next coming week or so. and that's all the sport for now. sarah, thanks very much. a major incident has been declared in scotland with long queues of vehicles stranded in the highlands. storm gerrit has been sweeping across the uk bringing high winds and heavy rain. about 20,000 homes are still without power in northern scotland. on the roads, trains, ferries and at airports, people are facing delays and hazardous conditions. shiona mccallum reports. as you can see, we are stuck on the a9 just south of dalwhinnie. thick snow and ice took grip of the a9, the main trunk road between perth and the highlands. a major incident was declared. richard was at a standstill with his wife and daughter for over six hours, trying to get home to bristol after christmas.

so, yeah, when we set off from loch laggan, it was just raining and the snow was actually melting away, it seemed to be all right. and then as soon as we got to dalwhinnie, itjust was a complete white—out. the skies opened, and within minutes it was just complete white—out. the traffic had come to an absolute halt, and we were going nowhere. away from the white—out, and it was the rain that was causing problems in cupar in fife. some residents had to be rescued from their homes after severe flooding in the town. specialist boats were brought in to help. woke up and i could hear some rustling noises, and i looked out and there was two to three feet of water, up to my bed. i'm thinking most things in the lounge are going to be gone. so obviously not what you want to wake up to just after christmas. in aberdeenshire and angus, more than 20,000 people are without power. winds reached over 85

mph in some parts. storm gerrit has mainly impacted - scotland at the moment, with around 20,000 customers without power. access proving a real challenge for our engineers, and weatherj is expected to be worse again overnight, so we are keeping| a very close eye on that. if you are in an area affected - by a weather warning, we would urge you to make preparationsjust now, but know that engineers _ and customer service teams, - thousands of people, are working around the clock to reconnect power as quickly as they safely can. - trains were hit, too. not only were services cancelled, but some passengers were stuck on board for hours. a tree fell on this line at dumbarton, and it remains blocked by flooding at bowling. our advice to passengers as always is to check before you travel. take a look at the scot rail website or download the app. disruption will continue into tomorrow in some parts of the country. two top—flight football games were postponed, including ross county's trip to ibrox. a series of met office yellow rain and snow warnings

are still in place tonight. flood warnings and alerts will also continue into tomorrow. shiona mccallum, bbc news, glasgow. let's get some of the day's other news now. former european commission presidentjacques delors, described as the architect of the modern eu, has died aged 98. he helped create the single market allowing the free movement of people, goods and services within the bloc. serving from 1985—1995, mr delors also laid the groundwork for the single european currency, the euro. donald trump will be able to contest next year's presidential primary election in the us state of michigan. the state's supreme court upheld a lower court's order that mr trump be allowed to participate despite accusations he led an insurrection. colorado's supreme court recently ruled that he could not contest the primary in that state. wolfgang schauble, a key figure in german politics for decades, has died aged 81. the former finance minister played a big role in negotiating german

reunification after the fall of the berlin wall in 1989. he survived an assassination attempt by a gunman in 1990 and was widely viewed as one of germany's most influential post—war politicians. now, is tiktok reinforcing gender stereotypes? that's the suggestion after a number of big online trends, including girl math, rat girl summer and even one called girl dinner. i spoke to our social media presenterjonelle awo—moyi, who told us more about these trends. there's been a lot of trends this year. 2023's been a big trend, and lots of people have called it "the year of the girl" because there have been a lot of trends that have been called girl dinner. you know, we've had rat girl summer, and the question here is are they promoting stereotypes. so there's an old—age stereotype about women being bad with money,

and some people say this trend with over 2 billion shares on tiktok alone upholds it, that is girl math and that is the logic to justify impulse spending. so one creator, syd, she's used examples of girl math in her post, joking that if she paid in cash then it's free. because it doesn't come out of the bank account. and if you return something you previously bought from a shop, then according to girl math, she's making money. girl dinner, a trend which is dinner with little bits of food laid out rather than a balanced meal. and the hashtag also has over 2 billion shares on tiktok. and one user that created the tiktok sound, the unofficial tiktok sound girl dinner, it's been shared by more than 430,000 users that played that soundtrack over their songs. and i asked the creator of girl dinner on the reliable source podcast about the role that gender plays in the trend. here's what she said. obviously, i came up with the term. i'm a girl. obviously i'm a woman, but there is something fun

and light—hearted about being able to just call myself a girl. like, i'm not a woman right now, i'm not, like, making a dinner, i'm just having my bits and pieces and i'm just a girl having an evening. but you absolutely do not need to be a girl, woman. anyone can enjoy girl dinner. i think that, you know, maybe you need to tap into a more feminine side of yourself. stay with us here on the programme, thanks for watching. hello there. storm gerrit has brought quite a bit of disruption up and down the country, with heavy snowfall, blizzards across scotland, some road closures there — certainly the a9 — some localised flooding and some trees down from the strong winds. we're likely to see further disruption from this system as we move through the overnight period. now, the strongest of the winds will be confined to the north—east of scotland, the northern isles, through the evening. but overnight, we hold on to the windy weather. in fact, renewed gales for southern and western coastal areas, bands of showers, blustery showers, spreading their way

from west to east. severe gales with further blizzards across north—east scotland, certainly for the northern isles. it'll be a little bit chillier, ithink, tonight than it was the previous night. lengthier clearer skies at times across more central and eastern parts. thursday, we've still got low pressure nearby. it's going to be another windy day, not quite as windy as today, but still gales, north—west england, north and west wales, bands of showers merging together to produce longer spells of rain as they spread towards the east. and we'll see further wintriness over the hills of scotland. and very gusty winds to come for all, but certainly around southern and western coasts. temperature—wise, 11—13 degrees. it won't feel like that because of the strength of the wind. another chilly day to come across scotland. thursday night, we see further showers rattling their way in from the west. it stays blustery. longer spells of rain across scotland with snow on the hills. turning very windy again, far north of scotland into the northern isles. and it will be cold here. temperatures ranging from around 5—7 degrees further south

with further clear spells. friday, we see this area of low pressure bring gales again to the north—east of scotland, with showers of rain and certainly some snow, so we could see blizzard conditions again here. further south, the cold air will be moving down in towards central areas, so it could turn this band of showery rain a little bit wintry on the hills. southern britain will see sunshine, a few rain showers, but it will be chillier across the board — single figure values, i think, for most of us. then we will look to the atlantic, to this new area of low pressure, deep low which will move in for saturday, and that's likely to last into new year's eve as well, we think. so it could bring some disruptive weather both saturday and sunday. again, snow on the hills in the north, gales, heavy rain. it'll be turning chillier for all areas as we move into the 1st of january.

2023 was a remarkable year for sport. up here, an historic treble. down under, a women's world cup. england and australia couldn't be separated in the ashes, whilst cricket, rugby union and netball all had

world cups of their own. golf came togetherfor the solheim and ryder cups. but the start of this sporting year was, for some, less a beginning and more a resumption. football had onlyjust returned after its unprecedented winter world cup break. also resuming, returning, the australian open once more welcomed novak djokovic, a year on from his deportation over his covid vaccination status. still no vax for novak but here he was, back and unbeatable. his was a 22nd grand slam title. for irina sabalenka, a first. saudi arabia's bid to become a major player in global sport was laid bare. cristiano ronaldo becoming a figurehead for the fledgling football league. before the end of the year, they had all but been awarded a world cup. there was shock, too, injanuary, after buffalo bills' damar hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during an nfl game. the world watched on, as he would eventually make a recovery.

here, rugby union's six nations, well, that was all about ireland.