the headlines: more countries have imposed travel bans on china because of the new coronavirus. over 300 people have now been killed, with 45 new deaths confirmed in the last few hours. health workers in hong kong are to go on strike until the border with the mainland is closed. britain's prime minister is to address foreign diplomats and business leaders to set out his plans for international trade after brexit. the french president said the level of access to the eu's single market would depend on how many of its rules britain accepts. president trump is a step closer to being acquitted in his impeachment trial after the us senate voted against calling witnesses. he has been accused of abusing his power and obstructing congress. one senior democrat accused republicans of being accomplices to a presidential cover—up.

now on bbc news, our world. in the spring of 2017, off the coast of gaza, fishermen made an extraordinary discovery. their incredible find became known as the gaza hoard. it contained hundreds

of ancient coins. but within months, the coins had disappeared. gaza lost a unique treasure. so what's happened to the gaza hoard, and why is the world of international coins such a mystery? abu ahmed is a fisherman who barely makes enough money to support his family.

israel and egypt maintain a tight blockade of gaza by land, sea and air, citing the security concerns. fishermen found dozens of some of the rarest coins of the ancient world. they had no idea what they were or what their real value was.

the coins found by the fishermen were silver alexander the great decadrachms, minted more than 2,000 years ago in babylon, modern—day iraq. before the fishermen‘s discovery in gaza, only a handful of these coins had been found. just 12 are officially recorded. they were all documented and their valuable history was preserved. we've been told that there were dozens of alexander decadrachms in the gaza hoard but now, they've vanished. just months later, this coin went up for sale at an auction house based in london, roma numismatics. it sold for £100,000. then there was this one. this one. and this one. there have been a total of 19 coins put up for auction at eight international auction houses since spring 2017. no verifiable

information about where they came from was provided in any auction catalogues. the fishermen found their coins off the coast of an area called blakhiyah. today, it appears an unremarkable stretch of coastline but in alexander the great‘s time, this was the most important trading point in the south—eastern mediterranean known as anthedon. fadel alatol is an archaeologist in gaza. before the blockade, he was part of an international team excavated the blakhiyah site. in 2017, fishermen came to fadel with bags of coins and asked him

if he knew what they were. inside the bags were hundreds of coins, some still heavily encrusted with salt and sand from the sea. amongst them were extremely valuable alexander decadrachm coins. fadel was the first to identify the coins as 2,300—year—old alexander the great decadrachms.

0nce fadel realised their value, he realised it would be impossible to stop them from being sold on. fadel photographed this coin, which is obviously a decadrachm. you can see it because there is a scale and you can see that the coin is more than 3cm wide. professor thomas bauzou is a coin expert, otherwise known as a numismatist.

he's one of the people fadel sent his photographs to. he has been keeping track of all the alexancer decadrachms circulating around the world. this one, no origin. this one, no origin — this one, no origin. they are just auctioned without any origin. this one from the inventory of a north american dealer. how interesting. what is the interest for a numismatist of such an origin? this one... the descriptions given by the auction houses give little away, and professor bauzou has not been able to match any of the auction's coins with the photos taken by fadel. the alleged origins, private canadian, private north american, private european collection are meaningless to me. how can you verify such an origin? this is not an origin. you might as well print

"from a private martian collection". it's not illegal or uncommon to sell coins with no published ownership history, known as provenance in the industry, but it is very unusual or extremely rare coins to be sold without it. auction houses say that they can only share information that they have been given consent to publish. the united states, united kingdom and most european countries have strict laws which make it illegal to sell exceptionally rare antiquities if they are known or even suspected to be newly found and undocumented. but the coins could have come from never before documented collections held since before relevant laws came into force. they can then be bought and sold without breaching the current laws. the sale of the £100,000 coin,

or rumours of a new hoard being found, may have encouraged collectors to bring their illegal coins to the market. hayem al batar works for the ministry of tourism and antiquities in gaza. we asked her what she knew about the gaza hoard. by law, the fishermen‘s big finds

should have been handed into the ministry and officially documented as a priceless part of gaza's heritage. instead, the fishermen sold their coins on to traders illegally.

the fishermen say they have no choice but to sell what they find. the fishermen have tried to piece together what happened to their coins after they sold them to local dealers. the seizure of coins by the israeli authorities at the erez border caught the attention

of professor bauzou. i made a comparison of the two coins. this is the picture taken by fadel in march ‘17 and this is the picture published on the israeli news site injuly'17 and you can see it's obviously the very same coin, all the details are identical. he finally found a match, linking a coin in fadel‘s pictures with this one stopped at the border. he suspects other coins were successfully smuggled out and sold on. the israeli authorities told the bbc they cannot comment on the coins seized because there is an ongoing investigation. auction houses are expected to carry out due diligence to establish a coin‘s provenance, but they are also able to rely on the word of a trusted consignor, the person who bought the coins to the auction house for sale. we asked roma and the seven other

auction houses for information about the 19 alexander decadrachms put up for sale since the gaza hoard was found in spring 2017. none were able to provide us with the name of the consignor, but our investigation has identified the source of 6 out of the 19 alexander decadrachms put up for sale since 2017. on these instagram and facebook accounts that belong to a famous palestinian coin—collecting family are pictures of coins, including alexander decadrachms, that have turned up in recent auctions. five of the alexander

decadrachms since spring 2017 via classical numismatic group, numismatik naumann, nomos ag and heritage are linked here to the tariq hani collection. the family provided the bbc with this document which lists that these five coins and a further one recently sold had been in their collection since the 1960s before current laws governing the buying and selling of antiquities came into force, making them legal to trade now. and what about the other 13? where might these coins come from, including the £100,000 coin sold from a private canadian collection? this man is richard beale, the director of roma numismatics. they've sold 11 alexander decadrachms since spring 2017, including the £100,000 coin. mr beale declined to be interviewed on camera and when we met him he couldn't tell us anything more than was published in one of their auction catalogues.

butjust upstairs, roma numismatics had another alexander decadrachm on display ahead of another auction. in order to see and film that coin, we posed as a buyer and went back. they certainly are very chunky things, aren't they? a few of those in your pocket... this coin later sold for £46,000. during this visit we learned that the coin‘s consignor was a canadian gentleman, and when we were given one of roma's auction catalogues, inside, we spot a name we've heard before — salem alshdaifat.

the fishermen tell us that mr alshdaifat is a contact of someone who buys coins from them. although we haven't been able to link him to the gaza hoard. so, who is salem alshdaifat? mr alshdaifat is not a formal part of roma numismatics‘s business. but roma's director, richard beale, used to be the co—director of his company, athena numismatics. on his facebook page, we find this post. "after a 6—month effort and hard work with our partners, roma, we present for the first time

ever some very rare greek pieces." in september 2018, roma sold that coin for £110,000. we asked mr alshdaifat if he was involved in the sale of the £100,000 coin or any of the other alexander decadrachms auctioned by roma numismatics since september 2017. he said he was not involved in the sale of any of the alexander decadrachms. he told us: richard beale, the director of roma numismatics, told the bbc:

he added that the consignors... we asked mr beale where and when the coins were originally found, and he said he was not aware and that this was not unusual in the industry. none of the experts or historians we consulted were able to match the photos of the coins found by the fishermen with the alexander decadrachms put up for sale in auction houses around the world. the way the current laws and regulations around the coin industry work make it really hard to trace the history of coins and, so understand what they tell us about the ancient world. despite calls for new regulations to be introduced, auction houses and consignors

are under no obligation to reveal the provenance of the coins they sell. in fact, data protection laws can prevent them from sharing this information. our investigation has uncovered where only some of the recently auctioned coins came from. we may never know where the gaza hoard ended up. what we do know is that gaza has lost a part of its history. today, on top of this site

is a part of the vast al—shati refugee camp. what lay beneath has been forgotten by most. in the summer of 2019, the ministry of antiquities in gaza was closed down due to lack of funding. the seven other auction houses

had this to say about the alexander decadrachms they put up for sale. classical numismatics group, or cng, changed ownership in november 2018. the new owner told the bbc: hess divo said: nomos ag told the bbc they received the coin after it failed to sell at hess divo. they said they had... numismatik naumann said: heritage auctions told the bbc:

ira and larry goldberg and schulman bv have not responded to the bbc‘s request for comment. hello. well, the second half of the weekend is looking pretty changeable across the uk on the weather front, so we've got some rain on the way. that should be sweeping

across the uk through the morning. there's actually a little bit of sunshine in the forecast as well. so, let's have a look at the forecast through the early hours then. so, rain already across the south—west of the uk and through the nights, making its journey towards the north of the country, but never reaching scotland. in fact, most of scotland, that is, at 5:00 in the morning is clear, and there's also a touch of frost. but in the south, it's a different story. it's mild and it's wet — you can see where the heavy rain is around 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. now, by that time we get to around 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, the weather will have improved already across the far south—west of the country, and then by mid—morning, we've got some sunshine in the midlands, and by late morning, even some sunshine getting into parts of yorkshire. but the far north of england and scotland in for a wet morning and afternoon, and also the possibility of a bit of temporary snow there falling across the scottish hills. a very mild afternoon

in the south, around 1a degrees. now, we also have some showers in the forecast in the west of the country. those will continue into the evening hours on sunday. now, the forecast for monday, and a nasty area of low pressure is forecast to sweep across scotland. that means severe gales on the way and the winds will be picking up early on monday across the western isles of scotland, touching gale force very soon in the morning, and then basically through the morning into the afternoon, those winds will build. you can see some heavy rain sweeping through too, possibly some snow across the mountains. to the south of that, it's drier and brighter, maybe the southern counties getting a little dose of snow, but we're going to focus on those winds, very strong indeed, possibly up to around 80mph in gusts around the western isles of scotland, and then monday evening into early tuesday, we're expecting the worst of the weather to transfer to eastern parts of scotland, and here, you can see gusts of around 70mph, for example, for murray, aberdeenshire and it's expected to be very windy inland, through the lowlands as well, and these winds could cause some

delays and some structural damage in places as well. and then thursday, in the wake of this weather system, again, some nasty winds possibly affecting eastern parts of the uk. so this is thursday. that high pressure is going to build, but not until the following day on wednesday. so, some very windy weather to come through monday and tuesday and then calming down across the uk come wednesday. that's it from me. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm maryam moshiri. our top stories: the new coronavirus claims its first death outside china. the philippines confirms a 44—year—old man was being treated for the infection. and has died. president trump rallies his supporters as he's set to be acquitted in his impeachment trial. britain outside the european union. the prime minister prepares to put forward his plans for international trade after brexit. bushfires threaten parts of the australian capital canberra, as a state of emergency is declared.