discover a willful would winning programming from around the world. to make it challenge your perception if you were to design a propaganda system you could not build a better platform than facebook. documenters debates and discussions this country that was once that the wealthiest in the region what went wrong how did we get to this point al-jazeera. more than two hundred fifty killed in forty eight hours the syrian forces continue to bombard a rebel held eastern ghouta activists say it's the bloodiest onslaught in five years.

i'm about this and this is i'll just hear a live from doha also coming up the. syrian government backed fighters into african provoking a response by turkish troops besieging the kurdish enclave plus. i negotiators are sitting right behind me ready to talk we will not chase after you heated words at the u.n. after the palestinian president calls for an international summit to resolve the conflict with israel also. we have to do more to protect our children days after the florida school shooting the u.s. president responds by proposing a ban on devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns. there's been no letup in the syrian government's assault on eastern despite a growing international outcry syrian forces are backed by their allies russia

bombs rockets and shells have killed at least two hundred fifty people since sunday in the last rebel held stronghold near damascus activists are describing the death toll in the last forty eight hours as a massacre and they say it's the highest since a twenty thirteen chemical attack on the area east a hotel has been besieged by the government since two thousand and thirteen four hundred thousand people are estimated to be trapped in the rebel held on klav. is only a few kilometers away from the government center of power the presidential palace and there are fears the bombardment could lead to a larger ground operation then a call to reports from beirut. panic in the streets i. didn't see the. fear in people's faces. the neighborhoods flattened the airstrikes are almost continuous. towns across eastern who are

coming under intense fire was survivors emerge in shock children traumatized. was killed one some four hundred thousand people are trapped in this besieged syrian opposition enclave nowhere is safe. the sound of fighter jets in the skies frightens the population. and muhammad and her son the same say they can only hope the walls in their home will save them if a shell or an airstrike hit nearby i didn't we have no choice but to stay in our hearts despite the in strikes and shelling building and those in the street said i don't have underground shelter. in the u.n. says the humanitarian situation is spiraling out of control because of what it calls an extreme escalation of hostilities scores of civilians have been killed

since sunday and the number continues to rise. there are hundreds of injuries as well doctors are appealing to the international community to force the government to allow supplies in several cars full of we have shortages in medicine and medical supplies because the regime has been hitting this area for weeks we've had to deal with many injuries imagine longer have blood bags the the attic. the un is demanding an end to the targeting of civilians but for the syrian government and its allies this is a military tactic. they hope that by inflicting suffering on the population they will turn against the rebels and force them to surrender. eastern as the last remaining opposition stronghold around damascus comments made by russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov about what he calls using the experience if

. there are causing concern the syrian government regain control of. the thousand after months and a full blown military assault that. the main opposition body the syrian national coalition is calling the latest wave of violence a war of extermination it is also condemning what it calls the international silence. this is not the first bombing campaign in eastern. hundreds of civilians were killed in weeks of bombardment earlier this year many believe the renewed bombardment could be the final assault. and children inside have used social media to plea for help everyone can feel me we are hearing that as a vision has dropped most of it's for this is just a good if you can give them phelps.

and the children and there should be more church said the children. before it's too late i'm not from this is it. unicef says it's so outrageous what's happening and it's released a blank statement with a footnote saying we no longer have the words to describe children suffering and our outrage to those inflicting the suffering still have words to justify their barbaric acts have couple harry is unicef's regional director for the middle east and north africa and he says he did not know how to express unicef sadness about what's going on in syria we have been hearing in the seventy s. many different statements expressing more sadness but that doesn't seem to be rare at the same time our this morning didn't know when the more how much

through where i could express my sadness unicef's deep sadness about the reality we dare for decided who if you were blanks they meant that inviting go everybody responsible for what is going on in syria are inviting with this simple question do you want out there responsible for peace back there in acts you still have the words to justify what you were doing millions of toys r us and processing government forces a vent of the northwestern african region to help kurdish fighters there fend off a turkish assault. syrian state t.v. showed pictures of their forces celebrating but as they did so turkish forces reportedly target them with shell fire turkey's president says his soldiers have now forced fighters backed by the assad government to leave the kurdish controlled

parts of a free and there's a tie about iran has vowed to recapture the area within days or some a binge of it has more from gaza on tap on turkey's border with syria. a group of fighters loyal to president bashar assad's government has retreated from the city of our freedom these fighters were trying to get close to the city of kurdish by p.g. fighters had asked for help from the syrian government and it said that it will not send its regular forces but will provide them with irregular militias and should cause popular forces this happened after turkish artillery hit these areas when it saw that these forces were going in it happened only a couple of hours after the turkish president they have undergone announced that he and his forces are in another phase of the operation because we know ongoing since last month and he promised his cabinet members that the city of offering is going to be captured by turkish forces and their allies these arab f.s.a.

fighters in a matter of days this operation has been ongoing since january the twentieth and it has come at a heavy toll to the turkish government as well i need to kill the saga at the same time it takes to make certain perforations in the field the c.g. of the effort city will start rapidly in the coming days military sources on the ground have been telling us that it is easier said than done to capture the city of our freedom because it's very tough terrain and these dry p.g. kurdish fighters are locals to this area so the advance of the turkish government as well as the f.s.a. fighters who say they've captured a number of villages around the city of african which will help them encircled and besieged have been very very slow their advance according to them has been slow not only because of the tough terrain but also because they want to avoid civilian casualties but as we've seen in the syrian conflict as more forces arrive as a bigger of powers come to take areas that they had they want to control it's the

civilians who suffered the most. palestinian leader mahmoud abbas has proposed a new international peace summit with israel that rules out the united states as the chief broker in an address to the un security council abbas said palestinians had lost faith in the u.s. government's ability to mediate abandoning a policy which had lasted for twenty five years i was in his diplomatic editor james bays reports from the headquarters of the un president abbas's presence here was rare and carefully calculated normally his ambassador attends this monthly meeting he came himself to express his displeasure at the trumpet ministration he suggested its decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and to cut funding to the un agency that helps palestinians disqualified it from leading peace efforts instead he proposed

a new approach for any olive garden madrid go i would call for the convening of an international peace conference by mid two thousand and eighteen based on international law and relevant un resolutions with broad international participation including the two concerned parties and regional and international stakeholders present a bias left immediately after his speech nothing unusual there in terms of un protocol he was the only head of state in a room full of ambassadors and had another engagement to attend it didn't stop the israeli ambassador using it to score a point i expected news that are bad to stay with us and have a dialogue unfortunately he is once again running away. the u.s. ambassador came to the meeting accompanied by the two men president trump has tasked with leading negotiations jason greenblatt and his own son in law jared coercion or she said president abbas had

a choice the united states stands ready to work with the palestinian leader since our negotiators are sitting right behind me ready to talk but we will not chase after you the choice mr president is yours it was a security council session full of drama and theatrical but the reality is depressingly familiar this meeting in no way brings any closer a resolution to a conflict that's already lasted over seventy years james bows out his era of the united nations. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is remaining defiant despite to being in broiled and two more bribery scandals on top of an ongoing corruption investigation police knowledge one of his closest advisers tried to bribe a judge into dropping a criminal case involving net a news netanyahu his wife back in two thousand and fifteen efforts is accused of

using a middleman to offer the judge help and being elected attorney general if she closed a case against sarah netanyahu excessive household spending on tuesday police also revealed that half its was one of several netanyahu confidence to be arrested over a separate probe into allegations of corruption at israel's biggest telecoms company last week investigators recommended the prime minister be indicted in two corruption cases involving bribery and fraud netanyahu says he's the victim of a witch hunt i'm sure. what's happened in recent days is simply total madness scandalous they bring to crazy fabricated claims as part of a witch hunt against me and my family that has gone on for years but any claim that i acted on the benefit of basic at the expense of the considerations is simply unbounded to its core. the second client concerning the appointment of the attorney general is no less crazy and malicious i never consulted his on this matter you

never proposed anything to me on this issue and you know what i don't believe that he suggested this possibility with anyone still ahead an al-jazeera dire warnings from the un about an impending humanitarian disaster in the democratic republic of congo. empowering women a new television channel defies the odds to deliver a message in gaza. from dusky sunsets over the sprawling savannah. to sunrise atop an asian metropolis. hello there the rain is now building over parts of china if we look at the chart for us on wednesday we can see we've already got some wet weather over who now and who bay some of that is looking roll the wet and then that gradually expands over many other parts of southeastern china as we head through the day on thursday just

a tiny bit of snow in the fall north most of us are going to see rain and it does look pretty soggy bit further towards the south we've also got some showers here but generally they are short lived and they come in the form of rather hefty shower so in between we'll also see some sunshine there are a few places though where it looks like we should avoid the worst of the showers the philippines that looks more or less draw as we head through the next few days and also for us in singapore that should be some good dry weather to be found here as well is also looking mostly dry for many of us across india and pakistan we do have this little area of cloud just in the northern parts of them up to somewhat weather over parts of afghanistan is drifting its way eastwards might bring us a few showers in parts of pakistan northern india there and some of them will be wintery but it looks like even these will begin to vanish as we head through into thursday and then more of a sings of fine dry weather in the fall southern parts of india there's a bit more cloud here that could just give us one or two showers and also over sri lanka there's a good deal of clouds coming and going at times they could be the odd shower head but it shouldn't be too heavy. there with sponsored by qatar and greece.

they used to leave would just be awful and then gains us a little bit has given us the desire to carry on with our lives and be creative maybe on certain bones were just normal it's part of business the part of the town has become a more united. part beyond the blockades at this time on al-jazeera. you're watching all just a reminder of our top stories this hour one of syria's lost rebel held areas east in the photo has been under heavy bombardment by government and russian forces more than two hundred fifty people have been reported dead since sunday. turkish forces

have reported they pushed back pro syrian government fighters from our freend fighters loyal to president president bashar al assad entered the area to help kurdish fighters there fend off a turkish assault. palestinian leader mahmoud abbas has proposed a new international peace summit with israel at the u.n. one that rules out the united states as the chief broker a u.s. says it remains ready to talk but it won't chase after the palestinians. u.s. president donald trump is recommending a ban on devices that can turn semiautomatic firearms into machine guns that would include so-called bump stocks which were used in the las vegas mass shooting in october where fifty eight people died the white house says it's open to raising the minimum age for people buying the type of rifle that was used in last week's school shooting in florida that killed seventeen people i did joe castor is joining us live now from washington d.c.

the top administration has been criticized in the past for not making fast enough statements after a shooting incidents and yet it seems to have come out fairly quickly with this one . certainly rob however critics are looking at this as a reaction as a crash reaction not so much to what happened in florida last week but what should have happened four months ago when that las vegas shooting happened in october that is when a gunman using these bumps stock devices gunned down a crowd of concert goers in las vegas killing fifty eight people at that time the call to ban bump stocks was swift but it wasn't until today that president trump announced he was taking this action of a memorandum signing it and directing his justice department to initiate this ban now gun safety advocates to say this is a step in the right direction but they say there is still much more needed to be

done at the white house briefing earlier today the white house press secretary was asked whether the president will support raising the minimum age limit to buy a ar fifteen assault weapon that was the weapon wielded by the nineteen year old shooter who killed seventeen people in florida last week. there are currently laws in place in certain states that restrict that in terms of whether or not we make that federal policy that hasn't yet been determined but that's something that is something that i think is certainly something that's on the table for us to discuss and that we expect to come up over the next couple weeks and certainly the response may not sound like much but given the context of how much pushback the republican party typically displays after a mass shooting they're highly supported by the national rifle association which is anti any sort of gun regulation historically the so the fact that this is a step that the white house is pushing is quite remarkable and it is also

a testament to the change in tide we've seen in response to this latest school shooting not only are they the democrats and the parents who are petitioning for more gun control but the survivors themselves of this horrific shooting at a high school young people who have staged protests media interviews and now have organized a meeting with the president himself in the white house tomorrow for what the white house terms a listening session for why more gun control according to these survivors are needed rabbi citing. a group of students who survived last week's shooting are heading to florida's capitol to directly appeal to state legislatures to act on gun control the republican controlled legislature has been unwilling to an ax tighter restrictions but recently some members have indicated they would consider modest proposals. action speaks louder than words because if you don't do it now there's

going to be another one and another one and another one and that cannot happen there is no way that this will happen again they screwed with the wrong community this is a smart intelligent beautiful community we want to start a conversation the most important thing that we want to do is have our legislature legislators and governors at least speak to us about a possible change and then after that we hopefully will be able to move on to talking about checks and the accessibility of a ar fifteen s and other military green weapons that people with seemingly experience. qatar and chad have signed an agreement to restore diplomatic ties the african nation had ordered the closure of qatar as embassy last august after the gulf diplomatic crisis began that's in saudi arabia bahrain the u.a.e. and egypt cut all ties with doha accusing it of supporting terrorism a claim denies the violence has reached a new level in the democratic republic of congo aid workers say they're overwhelmed

by an increasingly volatile situation on the eastern border a congolese aid worker has been freed by kidnappers but two of his colleagues were killed in north kivu it came as the un's refugee agency reported hundreds of thousands of people displaced in tango in the province shall about us as more. the eastern border of the democratic republic of congo isn't who morrow reports of violence to reach one thousand kilometers north to south clashes between a ugandan rebel group and sees military in the north east has pushed civilians to make the dangerous crossing into him and some are attempting to roll across lake albert one of africa's great lakes and the tail of petal and you know some died of hunger some drowned and the like there's no one to help you there's nothing to eat we surviving in the bush like animals. now the south east is reaching

a tipping point where humanitarian disaster extraordinary proportions is about to hit the southeastern part of the democratic republic of the congress the province of plunges further into violence triggering spiralling displacement and human rights abuses the southeast has been plagued by ethnic violence that new armed groups of popping up in congo leads in the area traps fighters don't know who is on whose side so civilians are targeted murders abductions and rape a common good i know they be heated people they can't open their stomachs full moved the guts and left them to die that's how they killing people. in twenty seven tane an estimated one hundred twenty thousand people fled into neighboring countries this latest violence has displaced five times that in just two months. the u.n. thinks the number of refugees is probably much higher but they are in areas two or

more years and dangerous to reach those that make it to tame pre-campaign tell stories of their escape was among one in no i know. i had to take all my clothes off and jump into the river i was completely soaked but i didn't have a choice i was running for my life. the head of the norwegian refugee council says aid agencies are overwhelmed and underfunded the situation is worse now because more armed groups are doing more attacks than ever before. just outside of town here in been the where several massacres in recent days and therefore more people have fled town violence began to increase in east and do you see when president joseph kabila refused to step down at the end of his mandate in twenty sixteen now it's reached a new level shallop ballasts al-jazeera senior management of the charity oxfam have

been answering questions from british m.p.'s in london that follows allegations that stuff paid women in haiti for sex in the wake of the two and to ten earthquake oxfam's chief executive told a parliamentary committee it's now investigating a further twenty six cases of alleged sexual abuse by enemy phillips reports. oxfam senior officials came to parliament knowing they were in for a grilling. in the chaotic aftermath of haiti's earthquake how could oxfam have allowed staff to take advantage of such vulnerable people and when it found out why did it tell the public. my colleagues at the time made a set of decisions as to how public to not all organizations choose to go public at all with hindsight they made the wrong call as to how public to be they should if we were going to if we were culpable which we were. they should've been

completely transparent everybody knew that the aid sector was pretty rotten because if things got all these people who were abusing women and girls regularly in all countries but nobody not one organization was actually tracking it and doing nothing about it. that shocking they were supposed to be going to three people trying to help the world but it would appear that you know it was going to ship the indeed some people into the west ceased to move didn't share our values their views did the trust of oxfam the part of books one in their hands the abuse the trust of the british public paunchy. and and turned on the people who were supposed to protect them it's true the most but he'll be deeply sorry for that going to bring members of parliament were told that seven thousand people have cancelled their regular donations to oxfam since the scandal broke but other british aid

organizations acknowledge there is nothing unique about oxfam's failings. the head of save the children told the same committee that sexual abuses in the aid wells not just a few bad apples this is a systemic problem it's last scale we have to fix youth with severe is is probably the most effective aid in the world is worse accountable to the world we cannot afford to allow this issue to pollute the wider discussion about the role of the youth in leadership. if the aid dries up charities argue then people in disaster and war zones will pay the highest price that makes the aid industry's credibility crisis all the more tragic barnaby phillips al-jazeera london. a female lead television station has officially launched in gaza despite efforts by hamas to block it type of t.v. says it's the first channel of its kind in the palestinian territories and it aims

to highlight the role of women in building the society how the faucet went to its launch and filed this report. gaza has a new broadcaster from its title sequence its unique selling point is clear will make up the heart of its content and its intended audience it's called type t.v. tuesday is launch day and a big movement for its volunteer presenters that i have in mind and we're going to start discussing women's issues and try to find solutions for their problems and we will also celebrate their successes. type is going out on facebook twitter you tube and telegram so a local production company provides its facilities free of charge the plan is for programming on issues like inequality and violence but also fashion of makeup and comedy down the corridor or the next pair of presenters are running through their lines more student tyler says she's braced for criticism. and i remember as

a society is too conservative they say i should cover my hair and i'm using too much makeup and i should wear short skirts we need to increase awareness to change this after we launched our first primer i received a lot of negative comments on facebook a few minutes later it's time for her debut. just getting to this point hasn't been easy the production company behind this project had its launch party cancelled on sunday by hamas police who said they didn't have the licenses necessary for a new channel they are challenging that saying they are operating legally and they go to press ahead. in gaza women have to contend with life under the israeli blockade and within a conservative restrictive society female unemployment stands at seventy one percent women with jobs on average about a quarter less than men one recent study suggests more than ten percent of females have suffered physical abuse. minorca. a woman isn't free to make her own decisions to choose her education the husband she wants or how to plan her family we see this

during our work men a dominant political decision making despite the fact that there are lots of well educated intellectual women in the public arena. it's a picture those a type t.v. want to help change by talking directly and frankly to go says women are equal sit out. this is out to zero these are the top stories one of syria's lost a rebel held areas has been under heavy bombardment by government and russian forces more than two hundred fifty people have been reported dead in eastern quarter since sunday activists are describing the death toll as a massacre and say it's the highest since the twenty thirteen chemical attack on the area children inside eastern who are turning to social media for help. everyone can hear me we are hearing that as a vision has brought much stuff for this is just very good if you can give them.

the children. want to thank the children good back before turning. north from the. turkish forces have reportedly pushed back process and government fighters from the free fighters loyal to president bashar al assad entered the area to help kurdish fighters there fend off the turkish assault turkey's president there is a type out of on his vote to capture the area within days palestinian leader mahmoud abbas has proposed a new international peace summit with israel at the u.n. one that rules out the united states is the chief broker the u.s. says it remains ready to talk but it won't chase after the palestinians u.s. president donald trump is recommending

a ban on devices that can turn semiautomatic firearms into machine guns it would include so-called bump stocks which you used in the las vegas and mass shooting in october where fifty eight people died the white house says it's open to raising the minimum age for people buying the type of rifle that was used in last week's school shooting in florida that killed the seventeen people. the un's refugee agency is warning an upsurge of violence and democratic republic of congo could cause a humanitarian disaster the u.n. says more than six hundred thousand people have been displaced by fighting in the south eastern province it says new on groups are emerging in the region the agency has documented about eight hundred himan rights abuses in the first two weeks of this month more details of course on all the stories on the al-jazeera website al jazeera dot com coming up now it's inside story.

the world is failing its newborns that's the warning today from unicef in a report that says the death of babies globally is alarming really high so can child mortality be reduced and if so how this is inside story.