live from london. this is bbc news israeli air strikes on rafah have reportedly killed at least 30 people. this comes after hamas launched rocket attacks towards tel aviv for the first time in months. here in the uk, labour discusses their plans for the economy promising not to increase income tax if they win the general election. meanwhile, rishi sunak says he'll bring back mandatory national service for 18—year olds if the conservatives win. protests in georgia continue over a russian—style law against foreign influence, on the day the nation celebrates its independence from the soviet union. and remembering the songwriter behind disney's most iconic tunes. richard m sherman dies at the age of 95.

hello, i'm lauren taylor. some breaking news to bring you. the hamas—run government media office says israeli air strikes on rafah have killed at least 30 people. this comes after hamas launched rocket attacks towards tel aviv for the first time in months. a spokesperson with the palestinian red crescent society said the death toll was likely to increase as search and rescue efforts continued in rafah�*s tal al sultan neighbourhood west of the city centre. there was no immediate comment from the israel defense forces. earlier on sunday, the israeli military said at least eight rockets were launched from the rafah area of southern gaza, most of which it intercepted. some did get through, landing in open fields. police said a home in the tel aviv suburb of herzliya suffered minor damage from falling shrapnel, and two people suffered light injuries, but no serious losses were reported. here in the uk, and on the fourth day of campaigning ahead

of the general election on the 4th ofjuly, the labour party said it won't raise income tax or national insurance, if it wins the election. the pledge was made by the shadow chancellor, rachel reeves, speaking to the bbc, but she didn't rule out some spending cuts, saying there would be "difficult decisions" to make, as leila nathoo reports. who do you trust with your money? which party should be given control of the public purse? thank you very much. she wants the chance to make decisions on tax and spending. rachel reeves making her pitch in west yorkshire this afternoon, promising a labour government would ensure economic stability. today she said if she became chancellor, there would be no rises in income tax or national insurance. but she acknowledged she would face difficult decisions, and that public services were struggling. we're not going to be bringing back austerity. but we have got that immediate injection of cash into our frontline public services. that's a down payment on the changes that we want to make. but in the end we'll have to grow the economy.

rachel reeves insisted all her plans would be fully costed. she didn't rule out having to make cuts to public spending. there was no public campaigning from the tories today, butjunior treasury minister bimn afolami said in a statement in response... this is just the same old labour party who have no plan to cut taxes and instead are leaving hard—working families to foot the bill for their unfunded spending commitments. both labour and the conservatives are committed to getting debt falling as a share of national income. but there's a warning whichever party gets into government would find itself hemmed in. rachel reeves and jeremy hunt are both desperately trying to square a very difficult circle at the moment. if there's going to be no tax increases over the next several years, then it's going to be desperately difficult to find enough moneyjust to avoid cutting spending on some public services, let alone finding money to increase them. this is how the liberal democrats will be getting from a to b during this election campaign. an echo of labour's

promise from them, too. well, we were already pledged not to raise taxes for ordinary people. i people are paying far too much tax under the conservatives. _ the conservatives have raised taxes to record i amounts in this parliament. and during the cost—of—living crisis, that's hurting - people really hard. a long road ahead to polling day. all parties will be trying to attract attention until then. leila nathoo, bbc news. elsewhere, the conservatives have announced they will introduce mandatory national service for 18—year—olds if they win the election. it's a plan labour have called desperate and unfunded. the home secretary, james cleverly, has been giving more details on sunday with laura kuenssberg. what we're putting forward is a mandatory national service, a small element of which will be with the military, and anyone taking that route will volunteer to do so. so whilst you will be compelled to take part in the national service, no—one will be compelled

to do the military bit. and it's about addressing the fragmentation that we've seen in society — too many young people living in their own bubble, whether it be a digital bubble or a social bubble. and we want to get back to the situation where people are mixing with young people from different areas, different economic groups, different religions, to try and find a way of addressing the kind of fragmentation that we see too much. sounds a bit like social engineering. i mean, if the many thousands of teenagers don't want to go into the army, you've only got 30,000 places for people to go into the military. so the majority of them would take the other option. but what kinds of things would they have to do? well, it could be a range of things. it could be a kind of uniform public service, whether it be something like special constable or on—call firefighter or emergency health responder or environmental protection, flood defence work. so we're looking to keep this open.

so what do young people make of the suggestion to bring back national service? we asked some of the people at radio 1's big weekend fesitval in luton i don't think it's a bad idea, obviously depends what, you know, if they do. i think it should be your decision to do it or not. but there will be more people that would be more inclined to do it and others don't. but obviously if the government needs help, why not? it is about — you will learn from it, i think, in my opinion. like, anything that you do that is new, you get learning experience out of it and it will help you down the line. people will probably go for it, but again, i think it will kind of have a big backlash because you're being forced to do something, and not a lot of people want to be forced to do something. like we live in a free country, and, yeah. i i mean, i think it would be prettyl good because the army isn't doing too well with recruiting any way, |and the whole thing with russia | would be good, like a lot| more recruits, you know. but i mean, it does infringe a lot on current human rights. - i don't know, ijust think it

will be a large change - for a lot of people. earlier, i spoke to paul o'neill, a senior research fellow at the royal united services institute. and i started by asking him about his thoughts on the mandatory national service proposal. for me, i suppose it depends on what you are trying to achieve. if the home secretary said it is about social fragmentation then i can see value in creating a common experience for young people. however, i am nervous about it from the military angle, because it certainly isn't a way of expanding military capability. the armed forces have been professional for a long time, and there is a reason for that. it takes a lot of time to train and bring up to an operational standards an individual, and one yearjust seems to be a bit too short, so what we will probably find with this is you will end up diverting regular and potentially reserve service personnel who are at high levels of training,

in order to undertake a training task which will, i think, bring little military value, i think. so you are suggesting it wouldn't have any effect on trying to bring up the numbers that are dwindling in the armed forces? it will have an impact, in both directions. 0ne, it will make it harder, because you will have to divert people who are currently regular or reserves, and therefore available to deliver an operational output, and put them in a training system that has been thinned down, because since the end of the cold war the armed forces have reduced, and they have prioritised efficiency, which means reducing the number of training places, the real estate available, the amount of accommodation, and so to grow it by 30,000, which is the entire size of the british army reserve, would be a huge drain on those resource. what it might do longer term is give you an element of society that if you had to mobilise,

at pace, would be at a slightly higher level than otherwise would be the case. but depending on how long ago you did your one year, it depends on how quickly your skills fade, so i really don't see it as a particularly effective military solution. and far more effective would probably be investing in the reserves that we already have and growing the size of those. and what would you think of the funding of it, how do you think it would be funded? well, the government's proposal seems to be a little unclear at this stage, shall we say. i am nervous about we are going to make efficiencies or clampdown on tax dodgers in order to fund these things, so there isn't a very clearfunding line i have been able to detect. and 2.5 billion in advance of the royal commission, that the government i think sensibly has announced, is being the body which that would explore this in greater detail seems to be a bit

of a finger in the airjob, because these people will need to be paid, they will need equipment, uniforms, there will be pension implications, impact of medical service and other parts of the armed forces to accommodate it, so this 2.5 billion is a large number, but how accurate it is i would like to see. ukraine says it's managing to hold back russian forces, near the northern city of kharkiv, and inflicting severe casualty numbers. the russians are being pushed back using artillery, but also drones, which are playing a key role in the war. jonathan beale tells the story of one ukrainian drone unit, on the front line, in the kharkiv region. they are now one of the most potent weapons of this war. cheap, mass—produced drones being used to deadly effect. and here on the front, they're helping ukraine slow russia's advance — but still not enough. translation: we can hold them back

with drones and hurt them badly. - but win with them, unfortunately, no. what do you call them? this is peaky blinders. it's what they call themselves — peaky blinders, after the cult tv series. but flat caps are where the similarity ends. they've been trained by western special forces. in just a few weeks, they've hunted down more than 100 russian soldiers. terror from the sky. today, they appear to be hiding, so they look for something else. so you're stealing russian rifles from the russians, yes? yes, yes. it's russian, 0k. this is the second time that 0leksandr�*s fought for this territory, his home.

he once farmed the fields nearby. then, he grew strawberries. now, he's planting bombs. but he knows what they're doing won't end this war. translation: right now, - it's like two more or less equal gladiators fighting each other, and neither can defeat the other. yes, the conflict might be frozen maybe for several years or even decades, but this war will last a very long time. the russians are learning too. when the peaky blinders tried to fly a kamikaze drone into a target... ..their signal gets jammed. continuous bleep. russian drones are as much of a threat to ukrainian forces. most take shelter under trees. easy now, but harder in the winter. for both sides, it's a constant game of hide and seek. explosion.

ukraine says it has now slowed down the russian front line. it has stabilized the situation, but there's still quite a fierce artillery battle going on. the much harder task will be to push the russians back. explosions nearby. they might just weather this storm with the arrival of more western weapons. but what ukraine really wants is permission to use those weapons to strike inside russia. just a mile from the border they're doing the best to intercept russian resupplies, but they're hamstrung. we can't stop the preparing of attack. so you need to target inside russia to stop them advancing here?

of course. but you're not allowed to? no. and does that make sense to you? laughing: no. not at all. ukraine remains determined to fight, but they're still looking to the west to give them the tools to win. jonathan beale, bbc news, kharkiv. georgia is celebrating the anniversary of its independence from russia... with official ceremonies being held in the capital tbilisi. it comes as the country continues to grapple with the mass protests against a controversial, so—called "foreign agents" law which opponents believe would put georgia's independence at risk. 0ur south caucasus correspondent rayhan demytrie is in tblisi now and gave me this update. well, there are some celebrations, the street party is wrapping up now. there were a lot of people earlier today, just kind of buying food and celebrating georgia's independence, but a little bit further up this main street, where i am standing now, just outside the parliament,

there is a protest, once again. some thousands of people have gathered, and they are marching towards the nearby park to protest these law on the transparency of foreign influence, which the georgian government introduced back in april, and it provoked this weeks of mass street protests. it is controversial, because people fear that this law, which they have dubbed, the protestors dubbed it as the russian law, because of the similarities with the legislation that exists in russia, they fear it will be used to silence dissent in georgia, and it all comes ahead of the parliamentary elections in october. we've also seen that over the past several weeks, georgia fell out with its traditional allies,

the united states, the european union, and there are talks earlier this week, there were talks from the us state department about visa restrictions on those who, as it was said in the statement, undermined georgia's democracy. georgia is currently a candidate status to join the european union, but we've heard many, many european leaders and institutions repeating over and over again to the georgian government, urging them to withdraw this bill, and to return to its path towards europe. it is seen as an illiberal legislation, and the protestors who are out in the streets, and they have been out for weeks and days, mainly young people, they fear that the adoption of this law would mark a u—turn in georgia's foreign policy, from its pro—western policy, towards kind of pro—russian. and it seems that this anniversary day has not really been seen

as a moment for unity as we had the georgian prime minister accusing the president of betrayal at an official ceremony, tell us more about that. well, that is right. earlier today there was an official ceremony in the square, not far away from here, and we have heard a speech from the country's ceremonial president, who vetoed this bill last week, and she talked about the enemy that georgia has, and she said it is russia that occupies 20% of georgian territory, and after the president's speech, we have heard from the country's prime minister, who said that georgia's independence is in danger, and he indeed accused the president of betrayal, perhaps hinting at this veto which the president put on this controversial law. so the president and the prime minister and the government, they are at odds, but the president does not have any executive power. she did what she could

with the veto, but in two days' time, the parliament, which is dominated by the governing georgian dream party, is set to override the presidential veto. the government's argument is that this legislation which they are pushing for, they are saying it is the most georgian legislation and they are saying it will ensure georgia's sovereignty. a reminder of breaking news this hour — hamas officials in gaza claim at least 30 people have been killed in an air strike at a camp for displaced people in rafah. hamas say it was an israeli airstrike. the israeli military says it struck a compound in rafah "in which hamas were operating". 0ur middle east correspondent lucy willamson injerusalem has more on this.

so very early early days the the gaza authorities are accusing israel of carrying out a strike on what that say was an area where internally displaced people from the fighting had been sheltering, gaza's government information office as you said, was saying morgue than 30 people have died, dozens have been injured in an area north—west of rafah and it said 100,000 people were sheltering there, certainly the number of casualties seems to be backed up by hospitals, by red reseptember workers who say that are transporting large numbers of dead and injured and it was a designated humanitarian area. clearly there are still a large number of questions to be answered and we assume there will be answered and we assume there will be answered and we assume there will be a response coming very soon. i should just say this has happened in the context of israel's ongoing

military operation in rafah, which it says it needs to carry out to target remaining hamas bat lops but there has been stiff resistance and earlier today we saw a barrage of rocks fired from rafah towards central towns in israel, including towards at least 13 people have been killed after tornadoes ripped through central us, destroying buildings and a petrol station that was sheltering dozens of people. severe storms formed over texas and oklahoma on saturday. four people were killed in arkansas, two in oklahoma and seven in texas. scores more were injured, and almost 500,000 across several states were without electricity. the twisters overturned lorries, shut a highway near dallas and left tens of thousands of people without power throughout the region. the united nations says more than 670 people are feared dead in a huge landslide in the pacific

nation of papua new guinea. dozens of houses are thought to have been buried in rock and earth. the disaster was sparked by an earthquake that hit enga province, some 370 miles north west of the capital port moresby. this report is from our correspondent katy watson in sydney. a scene of total devastation. in an area so remote and with land here still unstable, rescuers are struggling to do theirjob. more than two days after the landslide, villagers aren't giving up in their hunt for survivors but the situation on the ground is difficult. the landslide struck in the early hours of friday morning. more than 100 houses were buried at a time when most of the villagers would have been asleep butjust a few bodies have been recovered so far. debris from the landslide is up to eight metres deep in some places but getting heavy machinery to this remote area of highlands is difficult. people are using whatever tools they can get their hands on, be it shovels

or sticks, to help dig victims out. to make matters worse, nearby tribal violence which is totally unrelated to the landslide is also complicating the delivery of relief materials. but in the search for survivors, some good news. there has been some glimmer of hope in the last 2a hours. a husband and wife that were buried were rescued and thankfully their three children were not at the scene when the landslip happened. understanding the true scale of this disaster and finding those thought to have died among this rubble will take some time. katy watson, bbc news, sydney. tributes are being paid to one of hollywood's most successful songwriters, richard m sherman, who has died at the age of 95. he wrote over 150 songs with his brother robert for classic films such as mary poppins, jungle book and chitty chitty bang bang. here's our culture reporter victoria bourne.

# it's... supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. generations of families will be familiar with the work of richard m sherman. alongside his late brother robert he won two 0scars in 1965 for the score of mary poppins. # now i'm the king of the swingers, oh. # the jungle vip... some of their best—known songs include thejungle book's i wanna be like you. # i wanna be a man, man cub. # stroll right into town. and chitty chitty bang bang. # chitty chitty bang bang, we love you. during his long career he won numerous awards, including three grammys, and received 2a gold and platinum albums. he was described as being a key member of walt disney's inner circle of creative talents. the boss of the walt disney company,

bob iger, paid tribute to him, saying, "his music captured the hearts of generations of audiences." his musical legacy will no doubt be enjoyed by old and young for years to come. richard m sherman, who has died at the age of 95. and just before we go, let's leave you with these pictures. it's a giant picnic on paris's most famous avenue, the champs—elysees. you can see here the french capital's iconic boulevard was laid with a 216—meter—long red—and—white chequered rug, thought to be the world's largest tablecloth. but it wasn't open to everyone, nearly 273,000 people applied to take part in the event, and only 4,000 were chosen. we're going to show you some pictures from peru, because they have been celebrating the annual peruvian clown day. look away now if clowns

aren't your thing. hundreds of them transformed the streets of lima, with painted faces, oversized shoes and of course red noses, turning the streets of the city into a vibrant festival, showcasing the tradition of clowning in peru. the event celebrates the life of a clown who used to walk the nieghbourhoods of lima in the 1980s, spreading joy to all he could. 0ur our top story, the breaking news of israel's military saying they have carried out a precise on the hamas compound in rafah but it was reviewing the incident after reports a fire was caused, at least 30 people were killed in that strike and that is also the information that has been coming in from the palestinian red crescent, there might be more casualty, more on that story and the rest of the news shortly. stay with us

hello. the weather has been a little hit and miss this is what we had earlier on in the course of saturday. this is what we had earlier on during the course of saturday. storms breaking out quite widely across england, parts of wales, some across the irish sea as well, and outbreaks of rain in scotland. now further showers are expected not just on bank holiday monday, but indeed the rest of the week. temperatures will be near normal, nothing spectacular. but at least by the end of the week, it does look as though these low pressures should finally pull away as we see high pressure building. but the winds will still come in from the north. so there's certainly no major warm up in the forecast. ok, let's have a look at the forecast then for the short term. so by the end of the night through the morning, we will have had some clearer

weather in the south, further north, always more cloud and some showers first thing. and these are the temperatures around seven a:m., typically double figures in most of our major towns and cities. so clouds will be bubbling up through the morning. there'll be plenty of sunshine in most areas right from the word go. but storms will also develop, particularly across northern and eastern parts of scotland. now the showers will be very hit and miss as far as the temperatures go. no real change compared to what we've had in the last few days. so typically mid or high teens, a little on the cool side. now, the thunderstorms may continue into monday evening across parts of northern and eastern scotland. elsewhere, the sky should turn clear before the next area of low pressure rolls in first thing on tuesday morning. and you can see outbreaks of rain crossing the country as the weather fronts sweep in. i think the year's going to be quite close. temperatures on tuesday despite the cloud still getting up to about 18 degrees in some spots. and actually later in the day,

we'll probably see sunshine developing or at least a little bit. now, wednesday midweek, we're expecting showers to develop almost anywhere, but more especially across eastern parts of the uk. one or two rumbles of thunder can be expected. i think come the late afternoon the skies should clear out towards the west and it should be a fine, sunny end to the day, for example, in cardiff, plymouth and along the south coast of england. so here's the summary for the week ahead. plenty of shower clouds most days and those temperatures hovering near normal, perhaps a little bit low at times. that's it for me. bye bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines. here in the uk — labour discusses their plans for the economy — promising not to increase income tax if they win the general election. meanwhile, rishi sunak says he'll bring back mandatory national service for 18—year olds if the conservatives win. at least 30 people, including children, have been reportedly killed in israeli air strikes on rafah. the idf says they targeted a hamas controlled compound. protests in georgia continue over a russian—style law against foreign influence, on the day the nation celebrates its independence from the soviet union. and manchester city celebrate winning their fourth premier league title in a row, with a victory parade.