live from washington. this is bbc news. israel's prime minister says they will press ahead with military operations alone if necessary, as the white house calls for restraint. amid mounting concerns over boeing's safety record, we ask the us transportation secretary what the biden administration is doing to keep planes safe. stormy daniels wraps up her testimony at donald trump's criminal trial, as thejudge denies a mistrial request. hello i'm caitriona perry. you're very welcome. israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, has vowed to press ahead with military operations in the gaza strip, saying israel is prepared to stand alone and fight

"with its fingernails" if necessary. mr netanyahu's comments come after presidentjoe biden confirmed the us had paused a delivery of bombs which could be used in an assault on rafah. but the idf claims they had enough weaponry to finish the rafah mission. there have been mixed reactions to mr biden�*s decision from lawmakers in the us. earlier i spoke to our state department correspondent, tom bateman. you have spoken to members of congress all day, what sort of support or criticism is there for the decision to hold the shipment of the bombs to israel? one of the first things that struck me coming into the building today was the sense in which this is a very significant moment, the levels of energy and the response to this, the way people are feeling about this on both sides is extremely strong. that is because this is the first time in a generation we have had this level of public pressure applied

by the white house onto the israelis, trying to change their tactics, and specifically using a hold on us weapon shipments to the israelis to do that. it is why, for example, hearing from republicans who have bitterly come up with a bitter rebuke over the announcement last night of president biden over this, and democrats who have said they believe this is the right policy, and in some cases have asked the question do they think it should have happened earlier? i was outside the relations committee earlier and we caught up with some of the senators during the meeting. they do not need to fight with their fingernails, this is more political rhetoric from the prime minister. they will and should fight with modern weapons systems that they have developed, and in many casesjointly with us and are provided in many cases buy us but they should do it in a way that minimises civilian casualties. the president is absolutely

wrong, he has been - wishy—washy and contradicting himself in terms of his - commitment to israel- and subsequently his saying that we will not send weapons. he lobbied for the passage of the bill, it passed, - now he says never mind. he says it is to influence the behaviour of israelis not to carry ground offensives into rafah. to me, he has mismanaged this whole thing, it is wrong, - they have a right to - defend themselves and do what they need to do - to protect their sovereignty, and i support the people of israel in that. - benjamin netanyahu's spokesperson told us on this programme last night the withholding of the shipment would not deter them from a mission into rafah nor impact their war effort. is there a hope or expectation there it might make some difference to the plans? the first point to say is that the administration is well aware that the israelis have an abundance of munitions because of the scope and scale

of the american supply already, that they probably have what they would want to carry out that operation into rafah itself, anyway. this pause, for example, that they have announced last week on a batch of 2000—pound bombs, these destructive weapons, israel already have those and used those in gaza, and the review the administration says it is carrying out, there is an awareness this will not make an immediate impact on the battlefield, it will not tie their hands in a sense. in that way this is much more about the political effects of this. as to the the statement by benjamin netanyahu, he said they will go it alone and fight with our fingernails if we have to do. for more on the prime minister's comments, i spoke to former ambassador to iraq and turkey, and current chair of the middle east program at the wilson center. james jeffrey.

the israeli prime minister saying they don't need the us weapons for their war effort. has the biden administration just annoyed one of this country's allies without actually doing anything that will deter mr netanyahu's actions? thank you for having me. no, the israelis are annoyed but this is more serious. we are two close allies are facing notjust iran but a regional set of proxies which hamas is only one and we need to stay aligned. the sides have differences, joe biden is focused understandably on civilian casualties, and netanyahu believes and most experts agree with him that they have to do something about the remaining hamas battalions, they have to cut off the rafah crossing which is what they have done and they have to close the routes out of egypt

to have any victory. there is a possibility that despite the rhetoric the sides can find a way for the israelis to do this in a kinder way, which so far they have done and what the administration almost approvingly called �*limited operations'. i don't know if that is possible but what i do know is netanyahu will go forward with some operations, and if that is a problem forjoe biden, he owns this war and he needs to explain to israelis and americans but most of all to the gazans how does this end, who will come in and take care of these people if hamas still has 10,000 troops? the comments from netanyahu in the last hour or so, saying that israel has to defeat hamas, it has to go into rafah, but he hopes the disagreements between himself and joe biden can be overcome. they have closed the border crossing at rafah. sounds like an incursion into rafah is imminent? it is imminent although it

could also be stopped. netanyahu and the israeli people do not want a major blow—up with the us. 0n the other hand, ifjoe biden is going to tell them how it will end, they will end, at the way their military advisers think has to happen, which is hamas, it needs to be defeated militarily. if you talk aboutjoe biden telling israel how this war has to end, netanyahu has been leaving his own war effort for all these months. how much is he listening tojoe biden at this point? 0n the big issue up until now, basically the us and israel have been in agreement that hamas has to be, to quotejoe biden, no longer in control of gaza. the agreement of the methodology of doing that... it has been a challenge but once again it may be casualties.

—— nobody likes civilian casualties. biden pointed out that our bombs are killing innocent civilians on the ground, they killed thousands of innocent civilians, they are not as essential conflicts for us. this is for israel. we have to take a step backwards and see what can be done. there is a middle way here, of more cautious israeli steps by the biden administration will have to go along with that rather than continue to oppose it. if the only solution is israel do the raids we did against 0sama bin laden, the israelis you have rather and will not go along. we spoke a few days ago with hope that a deal could be done in cairo at those talks. now the hamas delegation has left, the us delegation has left, the israeli delegation. have we taken steps backwards? there is still confusion, as much as we have tried to suss out what has been going on.

the us was strongly supportive of the israeli position, hamas came back with a different issue, a different set of points. including a permanent ceasefire and israeli withdrawal and changes in the number of hostages it would release, dead people rather than live people and less israeli control over the 900 palestinians they would release. the administration then said these are minor changes and we could come to some sort of meeting of the mines. the israelis were shocked, they said this is a major difference. we're not sure what happens but clear point is that hamas changed the basic offer that was on the table from the us, egypt, qatar and israel will not go along with it. the world watches at this point. we will have to leave it there for the moment. thank you forjoining us. meanwhile: israel qualified

for the eurovision song contest final following protests over its participation. thousands of people joined pro—palestinian demonstrations in the swedish city of malmo as the eurovision semi—final took place. they were marching in protest against israel's involvement in the global competition whose singer eden golan was booed. a smaller pro—israeli demonstration also took place in the city. problems continue to mount for us aerospace company boeing — after another string of international safety incidents. on thursday morning, a boeing 737—300 passenger aircraft crashed during take—off in senegal. 11 people were injured when the plane ran off a runway and caught fire. separately, two investigations involving boeing planes are underway in turkey. when also on thursday, nearly 200 passengers were evacuated from a boeing 737—800 after one of its tires burst on landing. it comes just a day after a fedex airlines boeing 767 cargo plane landed at istanbul airport

without its front landing gear. this, as a boeing whistleblower — former quality inspector santiago perades — tells the bbc he found up to 200 defects on plane parts being readied for shipping to boeing. for the latest on the investigations into boeing, my colleague sumi somaskanda spoke to the us transportation secretary, pete buttigieg. thank you forjoining us in our studio today. let's start with our own bbc reporter, we spoke to a whistle—blower who worked for spirit in kansas, a subsidiary of boeing. he said he often found up to 200 defects on parts being ready for shipping to boeing, and spirit says it strongly denies these allegations — important for us to say that. he told us he was finding a lot of missing fasteners, bent parts, sometimes even missing parts. are you confident that boeing is meeting its commitment to safety that your department sets?

the faa is investigating right now because when you hear about concerns like that, they have to be taken seriously. the context for this is we have already been in the process of putting boeing under a microscope ever since the january incident with alaska airlines. they need to demonstrate they are meeting the quality standards and safety standard that faa has therefore forward and that is part of why we take these ordinary set of restricting the ability to increase production until they demonstrate they can do that safely. the safety record is an extraordinary thing and you cannot ever take it for granted. maintaining that requires a level of scrutiny and that is what is going on with boeing right now. if they do not merely safety standards, what happens? there are planes are in the skies in the meantime. if the plane is not safe, it cannot fly. that is why they grounded 737 until it was established that each one had been inspected following the incident. that will always be true. the faa holds these aircraft

to a standard of a billion to one or better of something going catastrophically wrong, that is why we have extraordinary safety record we do. right now it is clear that extraordinary measures are called for in order to safeguard and defend the record. we saw today there was a boeing 737 that crashed during takeoff and injured 11 people. officials say 190 passengers and crew were safely evacuated from a boeing 737, it had a tiger bursary landing. —— a tire burst in landing. it is a safe mode of transportation, the record has been strong but you understand why people feel wary at best when they look at getting on a boeing? not just safe, the safest by far that we know. the most natural human thing in the world is when you step into a metal tube that will fly hundreds of miles an hour through the sky, you will have

concerns that absolutely everything has been checked to make sure that is a safe experience. that is not something we can never treat as a destination, it has to be continually renewed and refreshed, and any time a problem emerges or a threat of a problem, whether in the design, the process, their maintenance or the operation of a flight, we will look at that very closely. you trust boeing to rectify this? we don'tjust trust, there is auditing, a 90—day clock and we are roughly 60 days in, the administrator has put boeing on this thing they to demonstrate a plan to tackle all these quality issues. they have a responsibility to meet our standards but we do not take it on faith. we hope and expect they will and we hold them accountable to do so. in a statement to the bbc — a spirit aerosystems spokesperson said: "spirit strongly disagrees with "the allegations made by mr paredes. "we are vigorously defending against his claims." boeing itself declined to comment, although sources within the company say it is working hard to help spirit address quality issues.

around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at another story making news. a man who was badly injured during the attack inside his family's hainault home in east london last week has been describing the moment he woke up to find a man with a sword in their bedroom. henry de los rios polania spoke to the bbcjust hours after leaving hospital, where he'd had surgery on his right hand. i feel so helpless. seeing my hand cut and looking around, how to protect myself. all i see is pillows and teddy bears. there was nothing that i could use to stop him from attacking us. 14—year—old daniel anjorin was killed in the attack on his way to school outside. several others were also hurt.

36—year—old marcus arduini monzo is accused of the schoolboy�*s murder, and faces other charges including two counts of attempted murder, two counts of causing grievous bodily harm, aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article. you're live with bbc news. the former adult film star, stormy daniels, clashed with donald trump's lawyers as they cross—examine her in his ongoing �*hush money�* trial in new york. prosecutors have charged the former president with falsifying business records, over a payment to ms daniels in 2016 before the november election. ms daniels�* testimony prompted mr trump�*s lawyers to lodge a second mistrial request whichjustice merchan denied. donald trump maintains his innocence and denies the alleged affair, calling the case a "witch hunt." earlier i spoke with former federal prosecutor ankush khardori, who specialized in financial fraud and white—collar crime. we were also joined by our north america correspondent nada tawfik.

it was another busy day in court, stormy daniels in the box for a second day, but her evidence was different to what we heard on tuesday. can you fill us in? that is right, this was the most intense cross—examination we have had yet in this trial. while tuesday was filled with very vivid details of the alleged sexual encounter the donald trump tonight, today was really an effort by his lawyers to essentially discredit stormy daniels. what we saw was them going through and meticulously asking her about several interviews she had done, going through her social media history. stormy daniels, the first time she was on the stand, she spoke at length, spoke quickly, she was very composed this time. in fact, responded to attempts

to discredit her with humour, indignation. at one point when they asked her about her career, essentially making up fake sexual stories in porn films, she hit back, saying that the sex in those films was very real as was her encounter with donald trump. if she had made it up she would have written a better story. when they claimed she had tried to profit off of his indictment, showing, for example, a candle called the saint stormy candle, she said look — defiantly — if i have tried to profit off of it, so has donald trump. stormy daniels certainly not being intimidated on the stand, she had a casual body language, but the real question was whetherjurors think her answers ring true.

on that, it is extraordinary when we think this is the former president and possible future president of this country, and we hear so many salacious details, but what will the most impactful from the evidence be? it seems like she had an aggressive cross—examination but sometimes it is possible for some of us observers to lose the forest from the trees because the key fact that the jury needs to take away from this testimony is that she had a sexual relationship with donald trump. the cross—examination seems to have focused on some inconsistencies in her story over time and he suggested she was motivated by money. i don�*t think anyone doubts this encounter occurred, of good faith and honesty. the jury will take that away and the prosecutors will see if they need to, maybe she was not the perfect witness but we did not pick her, donald trump picked her. they were his own actions. his team have tried to say

a lot of her evidence is irrelevant, and they asked for a second mistrial application today? their central argument is this is a case about books and records, not about alleged sexual encounters, and they complained once again it to the judge that some of the evidence that came out in her original testimony was prejudicial to donald trump, they took issue with some of the characterisations of her smacking him with a rolled up magazine, they also said that she had changed her story to make it seem as though the encounter was not quite consensual and there was a power dynamics at play. the judge ultimately decided that her story had not changed over time and that she had just given interviews and extra details were given over time or those interviews had selectively quoted her. once again, thejudge decided

a mistrial was not warranted. it was interesting that he put some of the onus on the defence, saying he would have expected them to object a few more times to some of her testimony but he also added he wished the prosecution had not asked certain questions. it was interesting to see how thejudge is trying to balance these when he said he went back, that neither side had disregarded the guard rails he put in place, he said he could not find any instance where they have. does the difference have a point there about relevance? you make the point that this establishes a release tries to establish that someone accounted it happen, how does that feed into the broader issue of the alleged financial crime? definitely in theory would have been a way for the prosecutors to put this case on without even having to take a position whether the affair occurred because the court conduct concerns the alleged falsification of business records surrounding the payment to stormy daniels.

donald trump and his lawyers made that impossible because he has been denying they had sex for years and his lawyer in his opening statement repeated that denial. this is the beginning of a series of events that is part of the prosecution. practically speaking, the prosecutors had no choice, they had to call her to prove this happens, to prove the donald trump is a lie, to prove that his legal counsel attempted to mislead the jury during his opening statement and they should not trust him. these are standard prosecuted tools. it is ironic that his lawyers are complaining. not surprised because trump is like this when he brought this upon himself. former federal prosecutor ankush khardori and bbc north america correspondent nada tawfik talking with me. let�*s turn to some important news around the world. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy fired the head of the department responsible for his personal protection.

it comes after two of its officers were detained this week over an alleged russian plot to assassinate mr zelenskyy. the announcement did not state a reason for sergiy leonidovich rud�*s dismissal or name a replacement. election officials in chad announced a victory for the military leader, general mahamat deby, in monday�*s presidential election, with 61% of the vote, based on provisional results. that would extend his family�*s decades—long grip on power in the african country. general deby�*s main challenger, prime minister succes masra, also claimed victory. he�*s making accusations of election rigging. a general strike against austerity measures in argentina brought most of the country to a halt. schools, banks and transport were shut. the strikes were lead by major trade unions against presidentjavier milei�*s economic policies. chinese president xi jinping and the hungarian prime minister viktor 0rban have called for better relations between the european union and china. this comes at the end of the first day of xi�*s visit to

hungary on thursday. the leaders reportedly discussed trade and investment deals between the two countries, which will increase the size of the chinese footprint in europe. our correspondent nick thorpe has been following the visit from budapest. the first day of this two—day visit of the chinese president and his 400 strong delegation was spent deep in talks with their hungary and counterpart upon castle hill on the other side of where i am standing this evening. some 20 trade agreements were signed, ranging on everything from rail, road, electric vehicle development, energy infrastructure and so on. nothing very much knew as far as we can tell at this stage. 0ne far as we can tell at this stage. one new element was that hungary invited china to take part in the developing of nuclear and rico in hungary until now the last 40 years dominated by russia. the hungarian prime minister mentioned the war in ukraine

and said hungary shared the position of china for an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiations. looking ahead to tomorrow, we are respecting the chinese president and his delegation to visit some of the sites of those massive development taking place, chinese investment in hungary. 0bviously of huge interest to china, hungary as a hub here in central europe for moving chinese goods across this lucrative eu market. hungary then feeling it is going against the flow in the european union and feeling with this visit disproving that it has a strong ally in china, which will strengthen its role in the future to move in the words of prime minister viktor 0rban, away from a world of blocks and more multipolar world in which hungary and china have an important role to play. stay on top of that visit and all the rest of the day�*s news

on our website which you will find at bbc .com. i will be back shortly, stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. 0ur settled week of weather is set to continue. in fact, thursday, it was warmest day of the year so far. we reached a high of 24.6 celsius in st james�*s park, london. when you round that up to 25, that is 77 fahrenheit. we could see similar values over the next couple of days with high pressure staying with us, but this weak weather front will continue to bring some showery outbreaks of rain and a cooler feel across the northern isles. it�*ll be a relatively mild start to our friday morning. double digits, some early morning mist and fog quickly melting away, a lot of sunshine coming through. we�*ll get a little bit of fair weather cloud developing into the afternoon, but on the whole, a promising day. more sunshine as well for scotland in comparison to thursday. top temperatures here of 20 to 22 degrees. we could see 24 further south. into the start of the weekend, we continue with this

warm, sunny theme. however, the risk of some sharp showers will start to increase. now, as we go through the early hours of saturday morning, we could see some fog coming in off the north sea, anywhere from the vale of york down into lincolnshire, over into the southeast. again, double figures to greet us first thing on saturday morning. so, could be a pretty murky start across eastern england, but we�*ll expect that sunshine to get to work — it�*s quite strong at this time of year. a lot of sunshine coming through. risk of a few scattered showers anywhere north of manchester, up to the scottish borders, but top temperatures generally at around 23 or 24 celsius once again. now, as we move into sunday, we�*ve got this weather front which will enhance the risk of some sharp, thundery downpours and some showers moving up from the near continent. now, if we get some sunshine across east anglia and south east england, we could see temperatures as high as 26 degrees. a lot of uncertainty about the detail for sunday,

but at the moment, there�*s a greater chance of seeing some sharp thundery, downpours developing. and so out to the west, not quite as warm. then into monday, an atlantic influence is set to return, low pressure will start to push in from the west as the high drifts away, and that means that it will turn wetter and windier. and that is going to stay with us throughout the week, so it looks likely to see showers or longer spells of rain returning.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. this week, alasdair gets on his bike to find out how the same engineers can create the ordinary... i can feel the device giving me a boost as i cycle. and the extraordinary. no, that is not real. that cannot be real! shiona's meeting the team trying to get pitch perfect.