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is provided by... woman: a law partner rediscovers her grandmother's artistry and creates a trust to keep the craft ave. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your passions and the way you enrich your community. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" ♪ christian: hello there. ♪ i am ben brown, and you are watching "the context" on bbc news. >> israel is in a state of high alert. they are worried, their fearful, they don't know when iran or its proxies might attack the u.s. warned what it described as a significant set of attacks could

come this week. >> the more escalatory is the one between hezbollah and israel simply because of geography. it could flare up very easily. >> they have been under a lot of pressure, and directly from the americans, arab states, who are telling them just recently this week european leaders -- don't strike, don't make the situation worse. ben: iran has dismissed calls from western leaders to hold back from retaliating against israel in response to the killing of political leader of hamas in tehran last month. there has been a flurry of international diplomacy trying to de-escalate tensions in the region. with leaders from the u.s., the u.k., and europe all appealing for calm.

amongst all of that, it is being reported by american media that the u.s. secretary of state antony blinken has postponed a planned trip to the middle east ahead of key israel-gaza cease-fire talks. elsewhere, ukrainian forces say they entered russia easily as troops continued their incursion across the border. president volodymyr zelensky of ukraine says his country now controls more than 70 towns and villages in the kursk region of western russia and they are continuing to advance. , also this hour we will be digging into the two-hour-long discussion between presidential hopeful donald trump and billionaire elon musk hosted on x, the website formerly known as twitter. mr. trump made a series of false unquestionable claims as he tried to refocus his campaign on his new opponent, kamala harris.

israel is on high alert for a possible attack by iran. vengeance for the assassination last month on its soil of the hamas political leader ismail haniyeh. i rent blames israel for the killing and says retaliation is its legal right. united states has warned that it is preparing for a significant set of attacks by iran or its proxies as soon as this week. the powerful iranian-backed group hezbollah in lebanon could take an attack on israel after israel's killing of one its top commanders on the national icon baby. joe biden british prime minister sir keir starmer have been trying to persuade iran not to do anything that could ignite a wider conflict in the middle east. it is being reported in the u.s. that secretary of state antony blinken has postponed a trip to the region because of the uncertainty there. talks on a possible cease-fire

in gaza are scheduled for thursday. in the last few minutes, the white house said national security officials will be traveling to the region to work on a cease-fire deal. but for now, israeli forces are continuing air and ground offensives in gaza. the israeli military claimed to have killed 100 hamas fighters in rafah in recent days, while palestinian medics say 19 people were killed by israeli airstrikes on tuesday. let's go to washington and get the latest. we can talk to a middle east analyst and former senior policy advisor on the state department's israeli-palestinian negotiating team. and we will be talking to her in a few minutes. i'm afraid we ju lost of the line to her, but we will be back with her as soon as we can let's move on to the situation in ukraine, where president vladimir -- volodymyr zelenskyy is claiming that his troops control 74 russian

settlements after its surprise cross border incursion that began last week. ukraine says it does not want to occupy russian territory, but it will continue military action until moscow agrees to peace. a key part of the strategy appears to be to force russia to divert its forces from the eastern front in red to protect its own territory. ukraine's invasion of russian territory in the kursk region you can see in yellow. ukrainian commanders say they control more than 1000 square kilometers of russian land. moscow has evacuated 120,000 of its citizens from the area. ukrainian troops are crossing over the border into russia from the region close to kursk. you correspondent mes waterhouse is there for us. james: the central square,

ukrainian armored vehicle drive through a russian town. it is a military inversion which has restored momentum and morale to kyiv's war effort. instead of directing events in ukraine, moscow is reacting to surprises at home. more of its kursk region is falling in the mist of dramatic battlefield changes. we've been to this russian supermarket, and the selection isn't very good, remarks this soldier. evidence ukraine is deploying some of its best troops for a goal that is unclear. military equipment is branded with a triangle, the symbol of this operation. ukraine isommitting to this gamble.

but success might not come here with the capturing of territory across the border. it may well come elsewhere, where russian forces might be forced to redeploy. if this gamble doesn't come off, the consequences for ukraine's war effort could be catastrophic. for the border villages habitually hit by russian glide bombs, there is no fear of what moscow's response might be. >> i warned them to take it and do this. >> russia attacked first, not us. now our guys responded, showed what we are capable of. if we had permission to do this earlier, we would have russia a long time ago --we would've captured russia a long time ago. james: in the city, evacuees give their details to be re-housed. as with across the border, tens of thousands have been moved after an increase in air. ukraine has benefited from secrecy, but its civilians less

so. at this judo class, people seek to use their opponents' power against them. effectively what ukraine's forces are doing 50 kilometers away. but quick thinking can work both ways. russia is still the bigger fighter" grapple -- bier fighter and could grapple to regain its balance. ben: we can speak to the former u.s. ambassador to nato and former united states special eny to ukraine kurt volker, who joins us now. our correspondent james waterhouse just use the word "gamble." is that what you think this is? james: i wouldn't call it -- kurt: wouldn't call it a gamble, no. it was a decision to show to the world that russia is more vulnerable than it looks, to show to the russian people that this is indeed a war and it can come to them as well, and to kind of expose putin as the only

russian leader since world war ii who provoked an invasion of russia on russian territory. i think it was a decision to make a step that would change the narrative in a significant way compared to what we had been seeing of the slope erosion of the front -- slower motion of the front in each ukraine where russia has been making gains. ben: ok, it's a change in the narrative, but can ukrainian troops hold onto the territory, do you think? at the moment they seem to be advancing further and further inside russia. kurt: david vance quite a bit already, 1500 -- they have advance quite a bit already, 1500 square kilometers, taking several villages. i think they will dig in and hold that a long time. i don't think they want to keep the teitory. i don't think this is putin seeking territorial expansion of russia. i think this is more positioning ukraine for the future, because ultimately there will have to be an end to this war, there will be some kind of negotiation, and i think they want to put the lie

to the idea that russia just gets to take territory and that's all. it is going to have to be giving back territory. ben: what do you think ukraine's western allies make of this? a, were they told in advance? and b, their hardware appears to be being used -- certainly german fighting vehicles, american fighting vehicles as well are involved in this incursion inside russian territory. kurt: yeah, i think there's a lot of people in the west just holding their breath right now. you haven't heard a lot of commentary coming from western capitals or from washington. they don't want to undermine the ukrainian effort. they also don't want to be seen to be encouraging it and playing into putin's narrative that it is the west that is attacking rather than ukraine. so they are just keeping mum right now. ben: we gather this was planned months ago, this incursion. we describe it as is surprise incursion, but clearly the ukrainians had been planning it

for sometime. do you think it is credible that the united states didn't know anything about it? kurt: i suspect that people were working with ukraine operationally day-to-day, intelligence and military. they probably had some idea this was going on. whether it was discussed at the highest levels, i honestly don't know. i would be surprised. ben: president putin has described this as a provocation. so far his troops haven't really responded very effectively or efficiently to it. but presumably in time they will, because putin can't allow this to stand. he can't allow a chunk of russia to be seized and held onto for the first time since the second world war. kurt: right, it is quite remarkable for him to call this a provocation when russia has been occupying parts of ukraine for over 10 years and in the last two years he been engaging in daily warfare against ukrainian cities, civilians, infrastructure, and so forth.

to say that anyone attacking russia is a provocation is quite remarkable. i thought john kirby, the national secity council spokesperson, put it right yesterday when he said that if russia is concerned about ukrainian forces inside russian territory, they should get out of ukraine. ben: some people and some military analysts might say russia has been making very slow but some progress inside ukraine on other fronts. in other words, it has been advancing. maybe ukraine would have been better using its best troops and these troopsnvolved in this incursion are apparently some of the best troops, in the defense of ukraine rather than going on the attack inside russia. kurt: well, i don't think so, to be honest. we have seen the pattern the last 18 months or so. russia makes small, incremental gains that great, great cost, losing 1000-plus soldiers a day

most of the spring and summer of this year. and the ukrainians let them do that in the sense of burn up all of their resource if they are willing to make that commitment. and i think if they committed more troops to the defense of those areas in the east and already well fortified by russia , it wouldn't have mattered very much. whereas using them as they have in a completely different purpose and a completely different location, they've made a speccular gain and now they are going to force russia to move forces away from elsewhere, from don donbas and perhaps cri. ben: kurt volker, very good to talk to you. former u.s. ambassador to nato former u.s. special envoy to ukraine. thank you for your time. let's take you back to our other big story of the day, those tensions across the middle east. iran dismissing calls from western leaders to hold back from retaliating against israel in response to the killing of political leader of hamas in

iran last month. we can speak now to a middle east analyst and former senior policy advisor on the state departments-palestinian negotiating team. thank you for being with us. first of all, israel is bracing itself for an iranian attack. do you think iran will in some shape or form retaliate for what happened? >> that is the question of the day and in the middle east of the night. the u.s. is asking iran to stand down, but how can they save face? the point of revenge, and they have vowed revenge, is to shift dignity back into balance. are they getting there by the psychological torture, the squirming they been watching israelis as they brace for the attack, or do they need to take it one step further? ben: when iran did retaliate, i

think it was back in april. in the end it was a bit of a damp squib. most of the drones and missiles were shot down by israel. laura: absolutely. revenge, like any currency, can be debased. the iranians are looking at a kind of retaliation inflation. they feel like an order to exact that price they have to up the ante. we are kind of on a toggle switch between negotiating and decimating, and sometimes it seems like we are doing both at the same time. secretary blinken has postponed his trip to the region. i am going to read that optimistic, not that there is an imminent attack, but that there are details that need to be hammered out for the cease-fire deal. that is the offramp. that is the face-saving move that could save the region and the iranians from having to strike back. if they can negotiate the deal, the hostages are released, we'll have at least a deposit if not a

complete ending to the war in gaza, and we can start thinking about reconstruction. i worked at -- for secretary kerry under president obama on israeli-palestinian negotiations. we spent three days haggling over a comma. i'm not sure it will be right away, but if it is that direction, that is the way to go. ben: yes, there are these peace talks supposedly scheduled for thursday in doha, but we have seen so many forestalls when it comes to peace talks, trying to secure a cease-fire in gaza, trying to secure the release of the hostages. we have seen lots of optimism from the white house that a peace deal is around the corner and then it never quite happens. laura: well, there are a few things that are happening not from what the white house, but from the region itself, that do give me some optimism. one is that the ministry of defense gallant for the first time is coming out publicly against prime minister netanyahu to put pressure on him to take the deal. he is a saying this notion of absolute victory is unreachable.

until now, you could say that the ends justify the means. what if you can agree that the ends are unattainable, the means are unsustainable. so there's that. and there is also the hostages, who although they are under lock and key, they hold the key to unlocking the region. one of them was killed, according to hamas, by one of the guards. two female hostages were seriously wounded, again by the mas guards holding them. that puts a lot of pressure on israel. on the other hand with haniyeh assassinated, there is pressure to deliver temporary relief. ben: very good to talk to you. laura: terrific, great to be here. ben: middle east analyst and former senior policy advisor on the state department's israeli-palestinian negotiating team. around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news.

ben: as the race for the white

house intensifies, the momentum at the moment doesn't seem to be with that the democrat-- does seem to be at the moment with the democratic contender kamala harris. many analysts believe donald trump's campaign has been thrown somewhat onto the back foot. last night he tried to re-energize a campaign by spending a couple of hours on x, formerly twitter, in conversation with its controversial owner, elon musk. there discussion, which was not a camera, range from topics such as immigration and global politics to the attempted assassination of mr. trump. here is our north america editor sarah smith. sarah: this technical fail for over 40 minutes was a poor start for a candidate badly in need of a hard reset. for the last three weeks, donald trump as it struggled to adapt his campaign to his new opponent, kamala harris. he clearly wishes he was still running against joe biden, who

he repeatedly accused of being senile, and now he is complainingbout him being removed as the democrats candidate. mr. trump: this was the coup of our president of the united states. he said weekend with a nice way or the hard way. sarah: mr. trump insisted america needs a tough and intimidating leader, suggesting that would've stopped president putin from invading ukraine. mr. trump: i said vladimir putin, don't do it, you can't do it, vladimir. you do it, it's going to be a bad day. you cannot do it i told him things that what i do, and he said, "no way," and i said "way." sarah: donald trump to describe kamala harris as a radical left lunatic who he says is soft on crime and immigration. but he has not settled on a consistent line of attack. mr. trump: i him laughing kamala. she's crazy. lyin' kamala is a total radical. sarah: he has been discussing

her racial identity instead of her policies for the mr. trump: she was only of indian heritage and only promoting indian heritage. i didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. sarah: she has in fact always called herself black, and this was reminiscent of the lies mr. trump told about barack obama when he was running for president. kamala harris is enjoying a significant surge in the opinion polls nationally and in key swing states. this remarkable and surprising clinical honeymoon may not last all the way until the election, but has wrongfooted donald trump for now. vice pres. harris: and when we fight, we went! god bless you. sarah: vice president harris is playing it safe on the campaign trail. there are no radical ideas, only uplifting promises and slogans. but it does seem to be working for voters who want a fresh choice and see her as a candidate for change. sarah smith, bbc news, washington. ben: let's chat more about that

musk-trump conversation. we speak to a political analyst and a technology journalist. will, let's go to you first, because there were technical problems at the start of this wasn't was delayed about 40 minutes. not a great advert for x and not a great way for donald trump to reboot his campaign. >> definitely not a great advert for x, and elon musk with the alternative-fact engine suggested this was a denial of service attack. that is a really agricultural form of disruption of a website by overloading it with traffic. lots of experts including those that monitor network traffic have come out today and highly questioned that statement. even elon musk has slightly rolled back by suggesting several hours later with another poster the platform that they had a few errors on the site, too. but that did not stop people living on the idea that the attack was some sort of state

denial -- deep states are now trying to stop donald trump and talking. ben: do you know how big the audience for this was? will: at the time one point 2 million people were watching it concurrently. elon musk had loftily suggested that the platform had been tested to up to 8 million users, which clearly wasn't accurate because it wasn't able to do that at one stage was struggling around the 900,000 mark. ts of play has been made about the number of viewers. muscat was claiming this morning u.k. time that over one billion tweets and post have been shared as a result, but none of those have been positive. let's face it, elon musk is not a bbc news channel interviewer. most of the interview, at least the first 35 minutes as far as i could tell, was musk going "yeah, uh-huh," the line after line of donald trump's manifesto, as it were. ben: yeah, it would be interesting to see elon musk on

the bbc news channel. ybe he would get offered to show, who knows. speak about the content of the conversation. what did you make of it? some critics said it was rambling, some said it was a love-in between the two men. >> i think both of those characterizations are correct. there were so many things that the harris campaign has used and will continue to use, soundbites on everything from climate change to making comments about electric cars with elon musk to his supposed conversations with vladimir putin. but i think the most important thing to remember is that donald trump accomplished at least one of his goals, and that was to take away a new cycle from vice president kamala harris. because he knows whether the headline is good or whether the headline is bad, if the headline is about trump, that is one time we are not talking about her crowd sizes and the enthusiasm now on the democratic side. ben: do you think his campaign

does need a reboot? do you think it as been on the back foot since kamala harris emerged onto the scene after joe biden pulled out? calvin: definitely, and the clearest evidence of that is he's still talking about joe biden. at one point last night during the conversation he was good assessing joe biden, he was saying joe biden -- he was criticizing joe biden, he was saying joe biden was in a vegetative state. i was thinking to myself, i bet his campaign manager hopes he starts talking about the actual appointment and not the person we know won't be on the ballot in november. ben: elon musk, he is a fascinating character, is nt, but he has become such a trump fan. will: bear in mind, two years ago musk was saying if trump stands for election in 2024, you will be too old. those were the words of a tweet posted by you on musk. you find yourself in this alternative reality world. kamala harris has been invited

by musk to speak on x. i don't think she should, given that musk said it was destiny that trump should be reelected. another thing for me, the harris camp did one of the sickest internet burns of all time. she called the trump campaign weird, but they made a post last night that said "you cannot even livestream in 2024," and that is a burn for donald trump. ben: great to have you with us. thank you so much. you are watching bbc announcerr presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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