in damascus that killed five iranian revolutionary guards. norfolk police refers itself to an independent watchdog for not responding to an emergency call from a house where a man, a woman and two young girls were laterfound dead. and felix tshisekedi is sworn in for a second term as president of the democratic republic of congo after an election his opponents described as a sham. hello, i'm kylie pentelow. saturday has seen missile attacks in syria, lebanon, iraq and yemen — fuelling fears of the war in gaza triggering a much wider regional conflict. iran's president has vowed to punish israel for an air strike on the syrian capital, that killed five members of tehran�*s elite revolutionary guards.

ebrahim raisi promised revenge attacks — saying iran will not leave israel's crimes unanswered. syrian activists say at least ten people were killed altogether in the strike, which destroyed a building used as a base by iranian military advisers in damascus. israel has not commented. here are two witnesses describing what they saw. translation: l was - using my asthma inhaler. my little granddaughter, who is three years old, was sitting beside me. i swear, ijumped and the inhaler hopped too. i tried to protect the little one like this. during the earthquake, it didn't happen like that. three huge sounds shook the whole area. within seconds, israeli missiles descended in a terrifying manner with a sound beyond description. a building collapsed instantly, cars were shattered, buildings demolished. it is a crime of the most heinous kind. it comes as hamas health officials in gaza say the overall number of palestinians killed in the war

so far is approaching 25—thousand. israel continues to bombard hamas — which is designated a terror organisation by the uk government. that's despite growing pressure on prime minister benjamin netanyahu to find a peaceful solution. these pictures are from an anti—war protest by israelis in haifa on saturday. our middle east correspondent mark lowen reports from jerusalem. in gaza's skies, where bombs have rained down, not an israeli attack, but an israeli appeal — for information on the hostages seized by hamas. around 130 are still not home. how many are dead is unknown. the subtext from israel — "this is why we're "still on the offensive." but in israel, at the prime minister's residence, angerfrom families of the missing who want him to do more to get them back. polls show most think benjamin netanyahu should be prioritising their release. many here still feel failed

by a state created to protect them. translation: | want to - have a country that cares for us, because our prime minister and the war cabinet doesn't. splits have spread to the top. gadi eisenkot of the war cabinet accused mr netanyahu of dishonesty by vowing total victory over hamas, adding that he was responsible for leaving israel open to its attack. a war cabinet at war with itself spells trouble for israel's leader. benjamin netanyahu's growing unpopularity at home is increasingly echoed abroad — publicly rebutting the us by rejecting a two—state solution with a future palestinian state, and refusing allies' calls to ease the offensive in gaza. israel's great political survivor is looking isolated and vulnerable. after speaking to israel's prime minister, president biden tried to sound positive. could a possible future demilitarised palestinian state be discussed 7

there are a number of types of two—state solutions. there's a number of countries that are members of the un that still don't have their own military. a number of states that have limitations. so, i think there's ways in which this could work. fears continue over the spillover of this war. and today, it hit damascus, where syria and iran say an israeli airstrike killed members of the iranian revolutionary guard. israel doesn't comment on its attacks abroad. and so, as israeli troops pushed deeper into southern gaza, fires are being lit in different parts of this tinderbox region. and as the conflict escalates, the question is how far the flames will spread. mark lowen, bbc news, jerusalem. elsewhere in the region, an american official said a missile or rocket attack had injured us personnel at a base in iraq.

the us also said it had targeted a missile the iran—backed houthis in yemen were aiming at shipping in the red sea. and an air strike on southern lebanon has killed a member of the powerful armed group hezbollah and another lebanese national. israel has been accused of targeting hezbollah and its ally hamas, in strikes on southern lebanon in recent weeks. nomi bar—yaacov is an associate fellow of the international security programme at chatham house. i began by asking for her reactions on the attack in damascus. i think it is a further escalation of the war, and i think at some point or other, unless there is a comprehensive end to the war, a comprehensive ceasefire and release of the hostages and a plan for an end game ending with the two state solution living side by side in security and peace, we will reach a point of no return where the escalation is no longer under control.

as you said, there have been multiple strikes on each side of the conflict since the 7th of october, where is this going? if this is now a cross regional proxy war, what does this mean in your estimation for the rest of the world? for the rest of the world, i think there are always ripple effects of war. we can already see that the economy is struggling in the region, those effects have been crystal clear. i think there is also an issue with substate actors. it is going to be very hard for governments to keep the lid on the substate actors the longer the war on gaza goes on. and the more deaths we see, the more horrors we see, the worse it is going to be for the region and for the world. do you think there are any chances of reaching any agreement at the moment in the situation between israel and gaza by diplomatic means? i think it is only diplomatic means, those are the only way forward.

it is very clear that defeating hamas entirely is not a realistic goal. it is very clear that there is a direct conflict between combat in gaza and the release of the 136 hostages who are left there. and if israel would like the hostages back alive, then the only way to move forward is to reach a diplomatic solution. the only issue with a diplomatic solution is that it is notjust a question of how to end the war, get aid into gaza, get the humanitarian situation above water, it is an absolute catastrophe at the moment, it is a question of really knowing what the endgame is altogether, because unless the endgame is known, things aren't going to work any more. we have seen too many years management of conflict, and that is why i think it will be

very important for the arab peace initiative of 2002, the late king abdullah of saudi arabia's plan, which was signed and endorsed not only by all of the arab states but also by 57 islamic states, that is the way to move forward. that is how israel could regain its security. i do not think there is any chance to have a secure israeli state unless the endgame is crystal clear. what countries have leverage in this situation? and indeed international organisations like the un, can they change anything at this stage? the un can help with humanitarian situations, in terms of actual leveraged and influence you have the us and arab league states working together, especiallyjordan and egypt, the two countries

which border with israel and have been working very hard in conjunction with qatar that has serious leverage over hamas analysts the hamas leadership. —— and hosts the hamas leadership. also in conjunction with the united states. unless you have the arabs and saudi arabia, as i mentioned saudi arabia and the uae are also key states in the arab world. so you need those leading states to work together with the united states in order to ensure that the war ends, that elections are held both in israel and in gaza, in palestine, you need a certain transition period with the support of those countries, but i think then should be very, very clear benchmark with a very clear timeline. so that everybody knows how this is going to end, because unless you are going to have a palestinian viable contiguous state

between the west bank and gaza, side by side with a sovereign democratic israeli state, you are not going to get to peace. nomi bar—yaacov speaking to me earlier there. to the uk now — and norfolk police has referred itself to an independent watchdog, saying it failed to respond to an emergency call from a house, where a family was later found dead. the bodies of a man, a woman and two young girls were discovered in cossie, near norwich on friday morning. sam read has more. 2a hours on, there is still a huge police presence on this small estate near norwich. the man who died has been named locally as bartlomiej kuczynski. the two young girls also lived in the house. the 36—year—old woman was related but didn't live there full time. police said today a 999 call was made by a man inside the property at around 6am yesterday morning. no one was deployed. officers then discovered the bodies around an hour and a quarter later

after another call from a member of the public. norfolk police has referred itself to the independent police watchdog. more than 2a hours on, people here are still in disbelief. we got an email from the school last night saying that one of the kids was at the school. so we thought it best to tell my seven year old boy about what happened this morning and yeah, i was a bit surprised, his reaction, really, he was a bit shocked. yeah, the guy had gone missing before christmas, so the police brought his picture around just before christmas to see if we'd seen where he'd gone and see if we could catch him on our camera. a local church opened today to allow people to reflect as the community here still tries to work out how four lives have been lost. sam read, bbc news, near norwich. 0ur correspondent graham satchell has been following the story. well, i think it is a significant development in this story today.

the police said this morning that they had received a call on friday at 6am, made by a man in the property where subsequently four people were found dead, and critically they did not respond to that call. so the obvious question is, well, why not? and if they had responded to it, could this terrible tragedy have turned out differently? i should say at this stage i think the key thing is that we don't know the contents of that call that was made at 6am, so it may well be that there was nothing in there that caused the police any sort of alarm. and then when the second call came in at 7am from a neighbour, they responded immediately. they were there within 15 minutes, and then the dead bodies were found. so i should say that there may well have been red flags around this property, if you like, because on december the 14th police were called to the same property, there having been reports of a missing person. so there is a lot for the independent office for police conduct to ask

questions about here. yes, and they will now get involved. do we know much about that process? well, i think they will be focusing on two key things. the first is that call at 6am in the morning. they will want to listen to recordings of it. they will want to establish exactly what was said in that call and then make a judgment about whether the response from the police was adequate at 6am. there are lots of things that we still don't know about this, so, what was happening in the house at 6am? was everybody still alive at 6am? we just don't those details at the moment. postmortem examinations have not been done, but it does feel like there is a critical hour here where if there had been intervention, things may have been different. and i think the other thing the police will be... the investigators will be looking at, is where flag is raised when that initial call came in? —— were flags raised? so was there an automatic referral

back to december 14 to say you have been to this place before, you should take this seriously? they will want to establish, as i say, a lot of key things to see whether the police responded adequately. just finally, do we know much about where this happened? the kind of community it was? just a small estate on the outskirts of norwich, neighbours say they have been completely devastated by everything that has happened. a small community, quiet community. the man was 45 years old. the woman who was 36, we understand she did not live in the property. she was visiting but was a relative, and then two young girls, as you say, a very quiet family. staying in the uk — and a woman, who died after falling from a moving van in wakefield, has been named by police as leah senior. the 27—year—old from huddersfield was seen falling from a white ford transit in calder grove on wednesday night. she died at the scene. a 25—year—old man has been arrested

on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, and drug driving offences — he was released on bail. forecasters are warning the latest storm bound for the uk will bring winds of up to 80 miles per hour, and poses a risk to life. storm isha has prompted amber weather warnings for wind for much of england, wales, northern ireland and parts of scotland. the met office said there was a risk to life in coastal areas from large waves and debris being blown inland. now it's time for a look at today's sport. hello from the bbc sport centre. ivan toney scored for brentford on his return to the side following an eight—month suspension for breaching fa gambling regulations as they beat nottingham forest 3—2. toney drew his side level with his first shot of the game — a cleverly—taken free kick — after danilo had given forest a third—minute lead.

headers from ben mee and chris wood made it two apiece before a stunning neil maupay goal sealed a first win in eight matches for brentford. they climb up the table into 14th, six points clear of the relegation zone, with things looking up with their talisman back. i just visualised and manifested scoring a goal. and i managed to do that and i managed to help get the team into a winning position. i am just grateful to be back around the team and helping them get on the winning run now. it has been tough, but we don't look back, wejust look forward now. i am back here and hopefully i can concentrate on my football and put it in the past now. arsenal are back up to third in the premier league with a 5—0 win over crystal palace stopping their recent slide. it also puts palace boss roy hodgson under further pressure, they've only won once since the beginning of november and are just five points above the relegation zone. gabriel opened the scoring early on and forced the second which was an own goal.

leandro trossard added the third before gabriel martinelli scored twice in injury time to wrap up a comfortable afternoon, with arsenal now level on points with manchester city and two points behind the leaders liverpool. piero hincapie scored an injury time winner for bayer leverkusen at rb leipzig as xabi alonso's side extended their unbeaten start in the bundesliga to 18 matches. leverkusen twice trailed to hosts leipzig — xavi simons and lois openda with the goals for the home side — but efforts from nathan tella and jonathan tah drew them level on both occasions before hincapie struck in second half stoppage time. leverkusen lead bayern by seven points but the defending champions have two games in hand, beginning with werder bremen at home on sunday. ac milan goalkeeper mike maignan and his team—mates left the field following racist abuse directed at him from the stands during their match with udinese in italy tonight.

it happened in the 33rd minute, with milan leading 1—0. maignan is believed to have informed the referee before leaving the field of play. the match was suspended for ten minutes before resuming. udinese currently lead to— one. the match is now in the second half. bahrain left it late but eventually found a way past a stubborn malaysia side at the afc asian cup. the breakthrough came in the fifth minute of stoppage time and was scored by ali madan to spark joyous scenes among the bahrain players. the win puts them third in their group, a point behind south korea — and jordan — who they face next. in the earlier game, son heung—min�*s penalty gave south korea an early lead againstjordan, but from there things became a lot harder. the first of the game's two own goals broughtjordan level, before yazan al naimat, who plays his club football in the host nation qatar, made it 2—1 tojordan, setting them up for a first ever

victory over south korea. but another own goal denied them, the 2—2 draw leaves both teams on four points. aliou cisse, the head coach of the africa cup of nations defending champions senegal, was taken to hospital on friday night after suffering stomach pain. the senegal football federation say he "is now back with the group" "and the test results from the hospital are "reassuring." on the pitch in cote d'ivoire, the third and final game of saturday is underway with tunisia taking on mali. it's a match that tunisia could do with winning after a surprise defeat to namibia in their opening match. it's currently 1—1 there in the days earlier games algeria grabbed an injury time equaliser used to draw 2-2. more reaction on the bbc sport website. and that's all the sport for now.

felix tshisekedi has been sworn in for a second term as president of the democratic republic of congo. he took the oath of office in a packed stadium in the capital, kinshasa. heads of state from across africa were invited to the ceremony. the opposition has refused to recognise mr tshisekedi's election victory last month, describing the result as a sham. bbc africa's emery makumeno was at the ceremony. there are tens of thousands of people here in this huge stadium in kinshasa, and a dozen heads of state as the inauguration takes place. the venue has been packed for hours, with singing and dancing as the crowds wait for the president. he secured a second term in office after winning last month's presidential election with 73% of the vote. a result which the opposition has rejected, citing massive irregularities. one of the opponents challenged the result by filing a petition with the constitutional court,

but the court have upheld the victory and rejected claims that the poll was rigged. even today, as the president is sworn in, the runner—up and third—placed candidate have called for protests to demand an annulment of the result and a rerun of the elections. police in kinshasa have banned any such protests. the watchdog, ofcom, is set to publish options for reforming royal mail services in the uk — which could include scrapping deliveries on saturdays. the document — which is expected to be released next week — will include evidence on how the postal service might need to evolve to meet customer needs. our business correspondent esyllt carr has more. well, this issue of scrapping saturday deliveries is something royal mail has raised before, and that is because a number of letters being delivered has fallen significantly. royal mail says the network

was designed for 20 billion letters a year and that has now fallen to around 7 billion a year, and it expects it to fall even further over the next few years. delivering six days a week is something that the royal mail has to do as part of its universal service obligation, and that is an agreement that can only be changed by parliament. that was last updated in 2011. but ofcom has been looking at this and says it wants to look at evidence to see what changes could be made to bring the service in line with the way customers are behaving now. it is expected to set out a series of options next week which could include changing the number of days royal mail has to deliver and it says it will be asking for views on those. royal mail has made its view on these issues very clear. earlier this month in a letter to mp5, the chief executive of the company that owns royal mail, international distribution services, said that maintaining the current network is unsustainable.

royal mail faces huge financial difficulties. it posted a loss of £390 million for the first half of this financial year. it says reform is urgent. but of course, ultimately, whatever ofcom comes up with next week, this decision will lie with the government. uk supermarkets and manufacturers must be more open about so—called shrinkflation, according to the consumer group which. emily brown has more. shrinkflation is the process of items decreasing in size or quantity. the consumer group, which, has said that supermarkets and manufacturers must be more open about it. these are just a few examples of recent shrinkflation which has been picked out by which. listerine mouthwash, for instance, which has been reduced from 600 millilitres to 500 millilitres. and tesco kettle chips which have reduced to 130 grams in weight. and the research also found that other products were altered to include fewer expensive ingredients.

for instance, morrisons saw its own—brand guacamole reduce its avocado content from 80% to 77%. and waitrose better chicken curry lost some of its chicken content. well, which has acknowledged that the changes have all come at a time when food inflation has soared, and a british retail consortium spokesperson said retailers are trying to limit rising prices as production costs increase. and they said that prices and sizes of all products are clearly labelled so that customers can make informed decisions about their purchases. a puppy born with six legs has undergone a complex operation to remove her extra limbs. ariel, an 11—week—old spaniel, captured the hearts of hundreds after she was found abandoned in a car park in wales. aruna iyenger has the story. meet ariel, who's captured the hearts of so many. she's had complex surgery to remove two extra legs, but is taking it all in her stride. surgeons at langford vets in bristol managed to save all four of ariel's normal legs.

so, she actually had a duplication of her pelvis. so, she had an extra pelvis with an extra limb. on that extra limb she also had two additional paws, so she was quite remarkable looking. we've managed to amputate the limb at the base of that additional leg. so now, you wouldn't notice that she had anything wrong with her at all. ariel was named after disney's little mermaid character because her partially fused back legs resembled a mermaid's tail. this video was taken before the operation. greenacres animal rescue in haverfordwest cared for her after she was found. they'll be looking for a new home for ariel. but now, after the operation, she's travelling back to wales, to a foster family and, hopefully, for a few doggy treats. aruna iyenger, bbc news. stay with us here on bbc news.

hello. storm isha looks to be one of the strongest storms of the 23/21; season. it is likely to lead to transport disruption as well as probably damaged power networks. here is the rapidly deepening area of low pressure travelling beneath a powerful atlantic jet stream, and it's this combination that rapidly strengthens this area of low pressure. severe gales will be widespread, and so will a threat of disruption. we'll take a look at that in a bit more detail injust a moment. but first of all, this night, a band of rain pushes eastwards, follows by showers. the south—westerly winds bringing us relatively mild air. 4 to 7 degrees celsius, so nowhere near as cold a night as it was for many of the nights that we had last week. a mild start then to sunday, sunshine to start the day in northern and eastern scotland and across most of england and wales. northern ireland sees outbreaks of rain turning heavy quickly and this wet and windy weather will then spread its way northwards and eastwards. the south—southwesterly winds bringing very mild air. the mild air will set off a thaw of the lying snow,

which combined with the heavy rain, could bring some concerns with the localised flooding. however, it's the strength of the winds sunday evening, sunday night and into the early hours of monday morning that are cause for concern. storm isha will bring gusts of wind of around 60 to 70 miles an hour quite widely across western areas, maybe 80 miles an hour for northwest wales and perhaps parts of northern ireland. but the strongest winds will be going across scotland, where we could see gusts reaching 85 miles an hour across the north and west, maybe even a little bit stronger than that. now, the amber warning in scotland for storm isha is in the highest impact column weather—wise. if the likelihood or confidence grows, then we may well see a red weather warning follow. so, in other words, stay in touch with the latest forecasts because there could be updates to the weather warnings as we go through sunday. it then gets very windy for a time sunday night across parts of the coast of southeast england, that will likely disrupt the ferries. and then from monday, we're looking at a very blustery day. the strong winds very slow to ease down.

a day of sunshine and heavy thundery showers. some of the showers turning to snow across the high scottish mountains. it will feel a colder kind of day with temperatures ranging between eight and 11 degrees celsius. it then looks like we'll see more rain come our way for tuesday. wednesday, drier and sunnier. in the short term, though, please pay attention to the warnings for storm isha.

this is bbc news, the headlines... iran's president has vowed to punish israel for an air strike in damascus that killed five iranian revolutionary guards. syrian activists say a total of ten people were killed in the blast. and felix tshisekedi is sworn in for a second term as president of the democratic republic of congo after an election his opponents described as a sham. norfolk police has referred itself to an independent watchdog for not responding to an emergency call from a house where a man, woman and two young girls were later found dead. police forcibly entered the home near norwich on friday after a call from a concerned member of the public. british communications regulator ofcom reviews whether to allow royal mail to give up its universal service obligation, which could mean an end to saturday postal deliveries.

now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson.