claims its largest victory in almost half a century. a new hate crime law comes into force in scotland, but is it protecting minorities or blocking free speech? and germany decriminalises cannabis. the government tries to tackle the black market trade — we have a special report. hello. i'm luxmy gopal. israel's military says it has completed its operation at gaza's biggest hospital, al—shifa, and has withdrawn its troops from the area. the hospital had been under siege for two weeks. the hamas—run health ministry and palestinian witnesses had earlier reported tanks pulling back from the heavily bombarded hospital complex in gaza city.

the hospital and its surrounds have been left in ruins following the two—week operation. buildings are reduced to rubble. the few remaining are little more than shells. these pictures obtained by news agency reuters show what is left inside the complex. israel has previously said it was carrying out precise operations against hamas and islamichhad fighters, and had killed 200 of them. reuters reports that hundreds of people returned to the area around the hospital after the troop withdrawal. they said they found a sea of rubble. one medic saying that destruction is far and wide in the shifa compound. a spokesman for gaza's civil emergency service told the news agency that bulldozers were used to dig up the grounds of the complex and exhume bodies. meanwhile, hundreds of israeli protesters have spent the night in tents outside parliament injerusalem to press their demand for prime minister benjamin netanyahu to step down.

thousands of people rallied in jerusalem for what they're calling the largest anti—government protest since the war in the gaza strip began, nearly six months ago. on sunday, mr netanyahu had surgery for a hernia — his office reporting it had been successful. middle east correspondent yolande knell is injerusalem and has more on the situation at al—shifa hospital. videos are circulating on social media that show this vast medical complex now as a set of burnt—out buildings. many of them heavily damaged, on the verge of collapse. and the area around it, much of that has been razed, apparently, by israeli air strikes over the past couple of weeks, the duration of the raid. of course, the second was carried out by the israeli military on al—shifa hospital, which it has been calling a command and control centre for hamas in the past. it said hamas returned to the site after it earlier withdrew, and it was acting on precise

intelligence, they sent forces in there two weeks ago and they say in the course of operations, one of the most successful, they say, of the war, so far, they killed some 200 palestinian armed gunmen, members of hamas and islamichhad. they rounded up several hundred, including, they say, senior members of both of those organisations. they say they have important intelligence as a result of all of this. for palestinians, though, they say that many innocent lives have been lost in the course of this operation. hamas said doctors and patients were killed. certainly we could see at various points there were large numbers of displaced people, hundreds of them that were caught up in the fighting that went on at close quarters in the hospital and the area around it, before most of those were able to flee. there were residents of the area who were complaining that they were unable to get any water, they were unable to get food,

and that was leading to dire conditions in the area around the hospital as well. we have been seeing images of the big anti—government protests, with hundreds of people spending the night in tents outside parliament. how does that compare to some of the anti—government protests we have seen in past months? so, really, there were not for the past six months such significant anti—government protests as we have seen in the past couple of days. that's really because they were put on hold, these big protests against the government plans to change the judiciary, that we saw throughout most of last year. that was in reaction to the 7th of october attacks, the demand to have the country pull together. but then what we have seen is, in the past few days, anti—government protests coming back, with some of the protests related to the hostage families, combining their efforts,

and really calling for both new elections and for mr netanyahu, the israeli prime minister, to resign. but also for much more to be done to bring home the hostages. there are those that blame mr netanyahu for prioritising, in their eyes, his political survival over a deal to bring the hostages back. speaking of the prime minister, yolande, mr netanyahu has undergone hernia surgery. how has that affected the chain of command in the interim? it was really only for a very short time that he was out of action. he was taken to hospital after we were told the hernia was discovered during a routine medical checkup a day earlier. he is now said to be in hospital, talking and back in control. prior to his hernia surgery, he did say that he really had a message to those that were protesting against him, and said it was, for him, his heart was breaking over

the plight of the hostage families. he blamed hamas, saying it was hardening its position and that is what had made it impossible in recent days to secure a dealfor a truce in gaza that would also see some of the hostages coming home. in relation to the demand for early elections, he said the first to commend this will be hamas, and that says it all. yolande knell, in jerusalem. i want to take you to the scene at vatican city, saint peter's square, where crowds have gathered to listen to pope francis reciting his easter monday prayers. he may have just finished. we will see if we can see him. earlier he was visible, addressing the crowds. it was the

first time, this was after he had a year of many health problems. just over a year ago he was admitted to hospital with bronchitis and months later he had abdominal surgery for a hernia. a couple of days ago, he was presiding over the good friday service at st peter's but skipped the way of the cross ceremony and procession rome's coliseum to protect his health but a short while ago, frances was reciting prayers for easter monday before crowds at saint peter's square. a new and controversial hate crime law has come into effect in scotland. the law creates a new offence of stirring up hatred in relation to personal characteristics, including age, disability, religion and sexual orientation. the government says it'll protect minority groups from prejudice and hatred.

but critics argue it will undermine freedom of speech, and police fear the legislation could be weaponised for political purposes. our bbc scotland political correspondent, david wallace lockhart, has more details. this law was actually passed back in 2021, but it's just coming into force today, hence the big publicity campaign going on at the moment, encouraging people to report hate crime. it was already illegal in scotland to stir up racial hatred, but what this new law does is it criminalises threatening or abusive behaviour aimed at stirring up hatred towards more groups of people, and that is based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or somebody being intersex. it is all based on what a reasonable person would consider to be stirring up hatred. there are staunch critics on a number of fronts, one is that biological sex is not included, so concerns that women are not offered enough protection.

the scottish government says it will bring forward separate legislation on that front. big concerns about freedom of speech, some very prominent and famous critics of the legislation include elon musk, who owns the social media platform x, and jk rowling, the author of the harry potter books. the scottish government says that free speech protections are baked in throughout the bill, people are allowed to say things that are shocking or offensive, they say that has not changed. there are also concerns for what this means for the police in scotland — a time when the force is stretched and they have committed themselves to investigating every allegation of hate crime under this new law. but it's at a time when the police are not investigating every low—level crime in scotland. that's proving quite controversial. the scottish government saying police do have the resources and do have the training to oversee the new law. i suppose that is a question, how feasible it is, with limited resources. what about the volume of social

media posts that could come into question as a result of the law? yes, that has been a key part of this debate, as we have been preparing for the legislation to take effect. people being concerned that, as of today, a flood of complaints could come to the police about social media posts that people think contravene this law, but defenders of the bill think that those concerns are not really justified, because it's all based on the idea of what a reasonable person would regard to be stirring up hatred, threatening and abusive behaviour towards these protected groups. they think it is a high criminal bar to reach and it is not going to lead to much more police action in this area. but where the police�*s time and resources could be taken up as investigating complaints. we know so much of the debates on quite controversial issues takes place online these days, and that is where a lot

of the complaints could come from. david wallace lockhart. let's turn to events in turkey now. president erdogan has been dealt a major political blow in local elections there. his ak party suffered its biggest defeat in municipal elections across the country. correspondents say voters appear to be punishing his party for the spiralling cost of living. the main opposition, chp, achieved its largest victory in 45 years. it won six of turkey's eight largest urban centres, including the country's biggest city, istanbul. and for the first time in 25 years, they won more municipalities than the governing ak party. president erdogan described his pa rty�*s worst defeat as "not an end, but a turning point." translation: we will not disrespect our nation's - decision in any way, we will avoid being stubborn, acting against the national will and questioning the judgment of our nation, as we have done so far.

we will take the necessary steps by analysing the messages given by the nation at the ballot box, most accurately and objectively within the reason and in our inner conscience. opposition supporters say although these are local elections, victories in big cities are a �*significant show of force' against erdogan�*s governing ak party. this was the scene in istanbul, where thousands publicly celebrated the opposition party's win. the city's incumbent mayor, ekrem imamoglu, declared victory after securing more than 50% of the vote, well ahead of his nearest rival. mr imamoglu became istanbul's first opposition mayor in 2019. he's now seen as the best placed opposition candidate before the next presidential vote in 2028. he told supporters the result signalled a �*very important message' to the world. translation:

in this world unfortunately, democracies were weakening, these democracies were weakening authoritarian regimes came to power. many articles around the world asked we were coming at the end of democratic regimes. 31st of march 2024 is the day when democratic erosion and turkey ended and democracy is rising again. bbc monitoring's turkey specialist, william armstrong, in istanbul has been telling me what's behind this unexpected result. well, there were a number of factors at play in this election, and a number of pundits are pointing to those factors as being crucial in affecting the result. as you say, this has been a really strong result for the main opposition party, the chp, and that was really unexpected, actually. there were a lot of predictions before the election that, with fragmentation in the opposition, they would really

struggle to even measure up to the previous performance in 2019 local elections, but they actually surpassed it very much, and there are a number of factors at play there. a lot of people have pointed to the economy. turkey headed to these elections with inflation at 67%, calculated in february, and the interest rates are at 50% at the moment. so people for a long time have been really struggling, and that's caused a lot of disillusionment in government voters, and i think we saw a bit of that lack of enthusiasm yesterday. that was also reflected, i think, in the turnout, which fell. it was still quite high. i think it was calculated at over 75%, but that's actually quite low for turkey, where turnout is always very, very high. in the presidential elections last year, i think it was over 88% in the first round. so that was a really significant drop of over ten percentage points in turnout, and thatjust reflects this disillusionment among some voters

who perhaps previously voted for the government but this time didn't vote for them, and that's opened the door for a really new picture to emerge in the electoral map. another couple of factors i would just mention as well are the strong performance from the new welfare party, which is basically this upstart islamist party, quite a hard—line party that has really sort of rallied support both on economic discontent but also on a number of social issues, and particularly with the war in gaza at the moment, they have really tried to rally support, saying that the government is not doing enough on that issue. erdogan is making strong statements, but turkey isn't taking steps on that issue, and that has, i think, resonated with a portion of the government's voters. so those kind of things are playing into this result, and i think that's at least partly why we saw the results emerge as they did last night. william armstrong. around the world and across the uk,

this is bbc news.

you are live with bbc news. proposals to criminalise rough sleeping in the uk are facing criticism, and the bbc understands the prime minister is in talks with conservative rebels over the plans. the bill would give police the powers to fine, move on, orjail homeless people deemed to be a �*nuisance'. political correspondent georgia roberts has been taking a closer look at the bill, and told us more about how exactly it could work. this is a broad—ranging bill. we are talking about the criminaljustice bill. it was first introduced by the former home secretary suella braverman. it was part of government efforts to project a message of being tough on crime, ahead of the general election. you might recall around the time when this was being introduced,

first. the former home secretary landed herself in a bit of hot water with some of her language around homelessness. she described homelessness as a lifestyle choice. what these proposals would do in this bill is gift police in this bill is give police and local authorities the power to move on, fine, potentially in the region of thousands of pounds, and sometimes jail rough sleepers who are deemed to be a nuisance in england and wales. there is concern about the punishing element of this. conservative mps concerned that potentially rough sleepers who have no choice but to sleep on the streets could land themselves in trouble, or those just deemed to be perhaps looking as if they could intend to sleep on the streets too. conservative mps, being led by the long—time homelessness campaigner bob blackman, looking at this and looking to strip these powers away from the criminaljustice bill. we understand that bob blackman

is being supported in those efforts by the former conservative party leader iain duncan smith. one backer of these changes to the bill told the bbc that negotiations with the government are ongoing and there has been nothing concrete from them yet. speaking to number 10 this morning, they say that negotiations and talks are happening in the usual way when bills such as this go through the process of going through parliament. but certainly a rebellion within his party would be damaging for rishi sunak. let's speak to the chief executive of crisis, a uk charity for people experiencing homelessness. hearing that the prime minister faces internal pressure over these plans must come as encouraging news it is definitely encouraging to hear

mps from all parties are determined to strip this out of the criminal justice bill. it to strip this out of the criminal justice bill-— to strip this out of the criminal justice bill. , , , ., , justice bill. it is mostly pleasing because it is _ justice bill. it is mostly pleasing because it is so _ justice bill. it is mostly pleasing because it is so damaging. - justice bill. it is mostly pleasing because it is so damaging. we l justice bill. it is mostly pleasing - because it is so damaging. we know homelessness can be resolved for any individual with the right housing and support. what people never need is to be punished for their situation, which is what they propose to do in this bill. the government _ propose to do in this bill. the government said _ propose to do in this bill. the government said it is spending money on tackling the issue of rough sleeping. what more do you feel the government should do? it is sleeping. what more do you feel the government should do?— sleeping. what more do you feel the government should do? it is true the government — government should do? it is true the government has _ government should do? it is true the government has spent _ government should do? it is true the government has spent big _ government should do? it is true the government has spent big sums - government should do? it is true the government has spent big sums of. government has spent big sums of money in the past years trying to meet its manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping in england. unfortunately it has not worked and rough sleeping numbers are pretty much back to where they were when they made the commitment to do that. that is not to say there are not real solutions. the government knows with the right amount of housing and support services, there is no reason

we should have rough sleeping. we saw great efforts in the pandemic. that political will to get people off the streets and help people in desperate straits is exactly what we need now. it appears the desperation at the increase of numbers of people sleeping rough has led to a bizarre idea, a cruel and counter—productive idea, a cruel and counter—productive idea of punishing them for their situation and we need to get back to what the real solutions are. um? situation and we need to get back to what the real solutions are.- what the real solutions are. why do ou think what the real solutions are. why do you think there _ what the real solutions are. why do you think there has _ what the real solutions are. why do you think there has been _ what the real solutions are. why do you think there has been an - what the real solutions are. why do | you think there has been an attempt to bring in this bill? what was the thinking behind it? do you feel the government made theirjustification clear? i government made their 'ustification clear? ., ., . ., government made their 'ustification clear? ., ., . . . clear? i do not feel clear what the justification _ clear? i do not feel clear what the justification is. _ clear? i do not feel clear what the justification is. i _ clear? i do not feel clear what the justification is. i have _ clear? i do not feel clear what the justification is. i have spoken - clear? i do not feel clear what the justification is. i have spoken to i justification is. i have spoken to senior police officers and two people in different government departments. no one seems to know the rationale here. i heard a government spokesperson on a radio show today saying he did not know the detail and could not speak to it. i do not think it is clear but

what is clear is a growing discontent among conservative and other mps that this must be stopped. it is cruel and counter—productive and it is in no one's interest to do it. i and it is in no one's interest to do it. ., and it is in no one's interest to do it. . ., , ., , , it. i want to tell you numbers in terms of what _ it. i want to tell you numbers in terms of what the _ it. i want to tell you numbers in terms of what the government. it. i want to tell you numbers in | terms of what the government is spending. £107 million they say allocated through single homelessness allocation programme. almost 2.4 billion to tackle homelessness and end rough sleeping between 2022 and 25. you say that is not working. what do you want to see the government do differently? i do not want to — the government do differently? i do not want to say _ the government do differently? i if not want to say those efforts are not want to say those efforts are not important. they are important and councils and charities have been helped by a lot of that funding. what is not happening is the prevention of homelessness and rough sleeping and we are seeing record numbers coming onto the streets. i am afraid it is the case people come out of prison, come out of the asylum system, they come out of

private rented accommodation they cannot afford, and the government is not doing anything to prevent that happening. they are trying to treat the symptom with a lot of money rather than treating the cause, which might save money in the long run. that is the change of approach we want. ., ~ run. that is the change of approach we want. ., ,, , ., from today, people in germany can legally smoke cannabis in public. the part—decriminalisation follows decades of contentious debate. our berlin correspondent, jessica parker, reports from dresden. it's out in the open. adults in germany can now possess up to 25 grams of cannabis in public — enough to make dozens ofjoints — and grow up to three plants at home. while people like marcel are planning newly permitted cannabis social clubs. not for tourists, though — just german residents. every gram from cannabis which goes from the cannabis social club is one gram that's not

on the black market. what do you say to people who say, look, cannabis is addictive and it is harmful, especially to young people? everything has dark sides. and you have to know about the dark sides and only when it's not illegal, you can freely talk about these dark sides. but these cannabis clubs in cities like dresden won't pop up overnight, and come with their own rules — exacerbating fears that demand will quickly outstrip legal supply. translation: we assume that the black market - will be strengthened, particularly at the beginning in the chaos phase, when demand would be great because of the signal this law sends. the black market and criminal networks will adapt and they will also infiltrate the social clubs. into the highly secure halls of a medical cannabis grower, who are also seeing some deregulation. cannabis will not be a narcotic

any more in germany. it will be just as any other pharmaceutical product, which makes it much more easier for patients to get it from a doctor and to get it from the pharmacy. they keep this room at around 23 degrees, but it's also really quite humid. now, there are 650—ish plants in this room and they are almost ready to be harvested. and the psychoactive substances... the benefits of medical cannabis are debated, while the relaxation around recreational use has been contentious. this is an argument in germany that likely hasn't yet reached full maturity. jessica parker, bbc news, in dresden. stay with us on bbc news. hello. the weather remains fairly unsettled. it will be wet and windy at times but it will turn milder. we

have the yellow and amber across much of the country. still blues in the north of scotland. until we get to the end of the week, then you can see the yellow and amber pushing further north as it turns a little bit warmer. what we have today across the central part of the country is cloud and rain moving northwards. to the south, sunshine, but showers and some heavy and thundery. the driest conditions in the far north and north—west of scotland. feeling cool in the breeze coming in from the north sea. top temperature 15. overnight, rain pushes northwards across scotland. cloudy and damp in northern ireland. england and wales, some clear skies. fog patches forming and breezy with showers across the english channel. temperatures falling away to 1—2 in northern and eastern parts as well as wales. tomorrow, we start with

rain across scotland. a brisk wind here. variable cloud with showers and sunny skies. then we have the next batch of rain from the south—west and the wind will pick up. temperatures 6—15 north to south. as we head to the middle of the week, we have low pressure pushing eastwards, driving rain with it. further north, quite a bit of cloud. rain on and off. snow in the mountain. further south, cloud. rain on and off. snow in the mountain. furthersouth, some mountain. further south, some showers. mountain. furthersouth, some showers. temperatures 5—14. thursday, a messy picture. in scotland, rain on and off. england, wales, northern ireland, cloudy conditions with rain and indeed showers. temperatures five in the north, 16 in the south. slowly temperatures are rising. as we head into friday, it looks like it will

be wet and very windy. and the forecast beyond that remains unsettled but slightly warmer.

shock results in turkey — voters deliver a blow to president erdogan. the rise of hands—free driving. can we trust the tech? welcome to world business report. we start in turkey, where results in local elections have dealt a surprising blow to president erdogan and his governing ak party. the main opposition party is claiming victory after voting in 81 provinces. the economy was a major issue for voters with inflation close to an eye—watering 70%. victoria craig is a journalist in istanbul and describes the reaction on the ground. pure jubilation in the streets of istanbul last night. i mean, i only got about two hours of sleep because i was out trying to talk to as many of them as i could outside the metropolitan municipality building. that's where mayor ekrem imamoglu will govern and continue to govern.

people just overwhelmingly happy.