the day starts peacefully, normally. but as dawn breaks, a massacre unfolds. explosions first, the palestinian militant group hamas fires thousands of rockets into the communities of southern israel. the barrage provides cover for a terrifying, unprecedented second phase. allahu akbar! thousands of members of the group — designated a terrorist organisation by the uk, us and other countries — break through the perimeter fence and into israeli territory. they film as they stream through. some are on motorbikes. many more are on foot. and they begin to run. just a few miles away, hundreds of people have gathered at a music festival. as the rockets fly overhead,

palestinian gunmen attack the party from several directions. it was one of the worst days in israel's history, its people killed in cold blood, hundreds of hostages dragged away, a nation traumatised. i'm anna foster and, for the bbc, i spoke to those who survived, who lost loved ones on october 7th or have family members still held hostage in gaza. this is their story. we drove, we tried to pass people running because everyone was scattered around, and we also tried to help out people to take them with us. we already uploaded most of our equipment, so we didn't have much room, but we tried to save people on the way. they were fleeing for their lives. they were trying to find a way to get out of there as fast as they could with minimum damage. at 6:30 in the morning,

gilad karplus was at the nova music festival when red alert sirens began to sound in southern israel. sirens wail it's a familiar noise and it means that rockets are being fired from gaza. israelis living in those border communities know the drill well but this time, something was different. i didn't see — i heard. it was 6:30 in the morning and we were asleep. naomi adler was with her husband and three children at home in the kibbutz of nahal oz. my three boys were asleep in their room, which is our shelter, and we woke up to ten minutes of non—stop bombings. we ran into the safe room, shut the door, the metal door, shut the metal window and just stayed there for ten minutes. non—stop.

and we live on a kibbutz. we know bombings. we know sirens. this was nothing like that. ifelt like bombs were being thrown on my head. and itjust didn't stop for ten long minutes. and my husband and i just held each other and i was just saying, "what the hell's going on? "what is this? " and it just wouldn't stop. shouting gunfire as the violent attacks started to spread, hamas�*s military wing announced in a ten—minute recorded message published online the start of what it called operation al—aqsa flood. it urged palestinians to attack israeli communities with whatever weapons they had. chanting in nahal oz, the idan family took shelter inside their safe room

but it didn't protect them from what was to be a horrifying ordeal. at the nova music festival, hamas attackers had begun to shoot and kill. more than 260 partygoers were murdered at the site. i spoke to gilad, unplanned, just two days later, on 9th october. we saw him in the street with a white bandage around his head and asked if he'd been attacked. the bullet went through here and through out here.

so, it went — yeah, you can see it. it went in and out. yeah. we got into a collision course with eight terrorists. they wore half military uniform — israeli uniform. they wore shirts — israeli military shirts — and they were ridden on motorcycles, and guns. we hit two of them with our car and they started chasing us and they shot a bullet on the side. and from the shrapnel of that bullet, it hit my head in the back. i start bleeding. i don't know what was the situation there, if i had a bullet in my skull or not, i didn't know anything — i just only knew i need to hold my head stuck here as i can, so i won't bleed out. and i also had to stay awake because i couldn't go to sleep. i knew that if i was going to sleep, i think it would be over. i didn't know what's going on. later on, we got into a kibbutz called be�*eri. at first, we honked our horn because we thought maybe there was a security guard that can give us

any information or anything like that. and firstly, we knew that there was nothing there. we found a shower bathroom unit. we broke in. we had to break the glass and get inside and hide. and because all the floor was with the glass, we had to stay super quiet because we knew that every minute, they can know where we were. by now, israelis were waking to live news reports beginning to detail the destruction. a lot still wasn't known. those who had loved ones in the south began frantically searching for information. michael levy knew his brother or and or�*s wife eynav were at the nova festival. i woke up at — the same morning at 6:34am. i still remember the exact time. i woke up to the noise of sirens and i immediately turned on the tv

to try and understand what's going on. and i saw its all over the place. i called my mother, because i saw there are sirens where they live as well and so, i wanted to see — to check on them. she said that they are ok but that or and eynav went to the nova festival and that they all texted her that they are heading back. they got there at 6:20am, about ten minutes before hell started. few minutes after, he texted her again, saying that they are hiding in a bomb shelter next to the road. we found their car day after — we saw it on one of the newspapers. one of the doors was still open. so, they ran from the car into the bomb shelter to hide.

from inside, or called my mother, terrified. my mother heard it in his voice and asked him, "or, what's going on? "is everything ok?" and the only thing he told her was, "mom, you don't "want to know what's going on here." and that was the last thing we heard from them. that was 7:39am. about ten minutes after — and i know this now because i had to watch awful videos — a group of terrorists arrived to this bomb shelter and started throwing grenades into it and shooting into it, murdering eynav and 17 other people, and kidnapping or, along with three others. our kibbutz is beautiful.

the people are amazing. what happened to it? we had — i had no idea that it happened elsewhere. i had no idea about the — about kfar aza or re'im and the party and be'eri. i have friends in all of those places. i have friends who have been murdered. i have friends whose family members are kidnapped. hours after the attacks were launched, the israel defense forces finally started to regain some control. it was a long and bloody process. in nahal oz, gali idan and herfamily were trying to survive inside their safe room. danger was getting closer.

"we don't shoot, we don't shoot!

gunfire hamas gunmen held them captive metres away from maayan�*s body. then, the attackers started to livestream the family's ordeal on gali's own facebook account. eventually, tsachi is dragged away from his wife and children and taken as a hostage to gaza.

close by, in kibbutz be'eri, gilad was still hiding, hours after fleeing from the nova festival. it was a very stressful situation. the police also came with a dead body from the party and we had to evacuate it also. he was half dead, half alive. but when we got to the extraction point, he was already deceased. and then, after that, they took me to the hospital with a different ambulance. and all the way, you can see all the carnage, all the death, all the smoke. 18 hours after we went in, idf army got us out. after fearing they would be murdered, naomi, her husband and children finally emerged from their safe room in nahal oz. the way they got us out was with a neighbour who came to our window yelling our name, telling us that it's him

and telling us that he's here with the army outside, "you can get out and open the door for us". we had exactly two, three minutes to pack whatever we could think of at that moment. we remembered to bring my id but we didn't remember to bring shoes for our kids. we tried to make a list in our head of things that we could need but half of it, we forgot. but i said, "don't worry about it. "it's fine. "we'll be fine. "but we're getting out." the army came and got us out. i saw fires everywhere. it was one o'clock in the morning. n was very - — it was a scene from a movie. my car and my husband's car and our neighbour's two cars were burnt all the way down to the sheer — only the frame was left. i saw fires everywhere.

it was a full—on war zone. michael was trying to piece together information about the fate of his brother or and sister—in—law eynav. he learned that she was killed and he had been kidnapped. i started obsessively calling all the hospitals and asking if they saw someone who matches the description. and there were also a lot of lists of people that were survived, that survived the attack on the nova festival, so i started gathering those and looking for them. and i started calling friends, calling family that might have heard something. but unfortunately, i couldn't — i couldn't find them. and then, i started to work more methodically. with the help of good friends, we started to get any piece of information about this bomb shelter.

at first, we wanted to understand where it was because there are quite a few. and so, i got a video of them inside and then, i saw a painting on the wall — of the outside wall of the bomb shelter and we contacted the person who painted it to make sure there is only one painting like this in the same area. and then, i spoke to survivors from this shelter and it took us a few days to pick up all the pieces and understand what happened. at the time, we didn't know anything for sure. then, afterfour days,

they told us about eynav. and after eight days, they told us about or was kidnapped. the israeli security cabinet declared that a state of war had officially begun on the morning of the 7th. the scale of what had happened was becoming clear. buses took us to a nearby army base about 20 minutes away. i have to say that when they took us, it was almost 2:30 at night, so very dark, and i saw tanks and police blockades, barricades. i saw fires. i saw dead bodies.

when we got past all of those barricades and into the army base and i was finally able to see my neighbours and my friends, i saw one neighbour, who was just there crying and she said, "they shot my daughter. "my daughter's dead." i — she's 18. she was 18. they shot her in the head and they kidnapped her father. and everyone there in that army base at three o'clock in the morning is reunited and looking around and saying, "who's here? "who's not? "what happened ? " she's talking about gali, and the story you heard her describe is about maayan�*s murder and tsachi's kidnapping. gali was, and still is, hugely traumatised by what she's been through. when we sat and talked, she told me gently that she was

having that conversation, recalling the worst moments of her life in stark detail for tsachi, because she wanted to do anything that might free him. naomi knew how lucky she was that her family had escaped still complete. both of my sons were throwing up. i said, "great, throw up." they were shaking uncontrollably. ijust could hold them and say, "we're safe, ijust could hold them and say, "we're safe. "we're safe, we're safe." it took me days to understand what happened because even when the power came back on, i didn't open the news because i had to stay in a very small space in my head to survive, to be a good mom.

gilad was also able to tell his loved ones that he'd survived. i couldn't call him for a good couple of hours because if i would have called him, i would probably be dead. and my dad, he also — he lives in africa, in kenya. can't imagine what has been going through his mind. sirens wail what happened after our interview shows you how tense things still were two days on, on 9th october. explosions 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 in the... there's nick. he's got a camera.

yeah, we're going to... we're going to move. get down, get down. maayan�*s family held her funeral without her father, tsachi. gali asked us to be there and to share the story of their pain. i left everything behind on october 7 — myjob, my day—to—day routine, even my time with my family — and i started to work on this.

i have one mission in life now, and it's — and it's to bring or and the rest of the hostages back. michael is still doing everything he can to get his brother released. on 24th november, some hostages were freed every day for a week but michael's brother was never going to be among them because the agreement was that the israelis released would only be women and children. i mean, as a father, seeing children and mothers and grandmothers being released is amazing. as you said, some of those families i know personally and they became my family. i was happy with them when their loved ones were released and i was sad for them when they weren't released. but, yes, you can't deny

that the feeling is incomplete and the fact that or and the rest of the hostages are still there isn't easy for us. and i'll do everything in my power to get him back, whatever it takes — him and the rest of the hostages.

hello there. instead of snow falling, it's rain that's going to be falling this weekend and that, combined with some snowmelt, has already seen large numbers of flood warnings, particularly through the midlands and southern england. the weekend, though, does look like it should be a bit drier than it has been. we've got this weather front, though, bringing some wetter weather towards scotland, and we've still got low pressure in charge but the colder air is getting

restricted to the far north of scotland on saturday with milder conditions elsewhere leading to that snow melting. there may not be a great deal of rain falling. most of the wet weather will be in scotland with snow really in the far north over the tops of the mountains there. and we may well get some sunshine later in southern scotland, also northern ireland, and a brighter day for northern england. some sunshine elsewhere across england and wales with a few showers, mainly for south wales and the south—west of england. we're making 12 or 13 degrees in the south east of england and 7 degrees across large parts of scotland. so, the milder air is pushing northwards following that weather front and the last of the cold air moves away from the north of scotland, so we may have some brighter conditions here as well. maybe the chance of a bit of rain, though, coming from some weather fronts through the north sea near those coasts. otherwise, quite cloudy to begin with. a bit of sunshine coming through, the odd shower around southern and western areas. nothing particularly heavy. still a bit blustery through the english channel, otherwise the winds will be light. and those temperatures

are going to be nearer 8—10 degrees, so continuing to turn a bit milder in scotland in particular. there is some slightly coolerair, though, coming in from the atlantic on this polar maritime air mass that's originating from the northwest and swinging round to the uk as a westerly wind and that's going to bring sunshine and showers, really, for monday and the bulk of the showers will be towards the north—west. and because it's a bit colder, there could be some wintriness over the hills in particular. one or two showers heading towards cumbria, too. but for many eastern parts of the uk, monday should be dry with some sunshine around and those temperatures nearer 7—9 degrees for the start of the week. that low pressure still to the north of scotland, still feeding in a few showers overnight. then, this weather system is coming in from the southwest the southwest on tuesday. so, still a few wintry showers for northern scotland, some sunshine in the rest of the country and for northern ireland for a while but the cloud will increase quickly across england and wales and across wales, southern england, this is where we're probably going to see

the bulk of the rain, especially in the afternoon. ahead of that, we could make 8 or 9 degrees in north east england and also much of scotland. things are milder further south and this mild southwesterly wind will bring some further rain overnight and into wednesday. things are a little bit chillier in the north of scotland, where it's generally dry here with some sunshine, but some outbreaks of rain developing in northern ireland and also southern scotland, and that hangback of rain across southern england and through the english channel means we may see some sunshine through the midlands across to some eastern parts of england, where temperatures are reaching 11 or 12 degrees. now, looking further ahead, some uncertainty, yes. some computer models want to take areas of low pressure and continue to move them over the uk. what is marginally more likely is that that area of low pressure is going to move away and anything coming in from the atlanticjust going to get stalled out at sea as we get a bit of ridging across the uk, and that happens because the jet stream is going to really buckle into this sort of shape. we're going to be on the colder side of the jet stream,

so later next week into the weekend, things may turn a little bit colder, bringing the risk of some frost, but it should be a bit drier.

live from washington, this is bbc news. the us lays out new standards for countries receiving military aid, as it warns israel about going �*over the top�*

in its response in gaza. that comes as israel orders a plan to evacuate rafah in the south of the gaza strip, ahead of an expected ground invasion. and, although the votes continue to be counted in pakistan, both candidates have claimed victory in thursday's general elections. hello, i'm carl nasman. we start with a number of developments coming out of the middle east. on friday, israel intercepted dozens of rockets fired from lebanon. the iran—backed hezbollah movement said the strikes were in response to attacks in its south. meanwhile, israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu ordered the military to plan civilian evacuations from the city of rafah, ahead of an expanded offensive in its war in gaza. of the nearly two million people who live in gaza, more than 80% are now displaced. the majority have gone to rafah.