amid the fallout from a deadly blast at a gaza hospital, the disputed circumstances of which have further heightened anger and the fear of what comes next. my guest is us democratic party congressman adam smith. how does the us navigate its multiple interests at this time of maximum danger? congressman adam smith, in washington, welcome to hardtalk. and let me begin with a very simple question — what do you believe

president biden hoped to achieve by flying out to the middle east? well, i think the number—one biggest goal is to contain the conflict. that's number one. number two, to work with israel to try to figure out some way to minimise the impact on civilians within gaza, and also within israel, to try to chart a path forward. and i am seeing reporting — it's this morning, my time, where we're at, recording here — i'm seeing reporting this morning that a humanitarian corridor has been opened up out of gaza, and that's one of the biggest goals. the second is to work with partners in the region to try to make sure that this conflict doesn't spread, that hezbollah and iran don't get more involved. that's the goal and that's the objective. and i guess also to have the conversations with israel about how best we can help them defend themselves against the threat from hamas. let's just start with that idea of working with the partners in the arab world. of course, the plan was that

biden would go on to amman, jordan, after being in israel. that was cancelled as a result of the fallout from that blast at al—ahli hospital in gaza. now, as you very well know, the israelis have presented evidence which they say clearly shows that the blast was caused by an islamichhad rocket which fell short. there are many people in the middle east, representing governments around the region, who it seems refuse to accept that version of events and who blame israel for causing that terrible blast and the terrible loss of life. now, joe biden chose to say, when he met benjamin netanyahu, "that blast appears to have been done "by the other team, not you." do you think it was wise for biden — he says he'd seen some data from the pentagon — but was it wise for biden to say that? yes, i believe it was, and i've

seen the reporting on this. i've had some conversations with the white house, as well. it seems pretty obvious at this point that this was a rocket launched out of gaza. the speculation is that it was islamichhad. we don't know exactly which terrorist group was launching the rockets, but there's clear images of a bunch of rockets being launched from, i guess it's about a kilometre or two away from the hospital, many of which go over the top of the hospital on their way to israel. and plus, israel has released a recording of hamas terrorists in conversation about how one of these rockets landed on the hospital. so i think president biden was on solid footing. i think there was another quote from him that he had gotten some of those assurances from our defence department here in the us that that is what has happened. it seems pretty clear that that's what's happened, and it is worth noting that hamas makes note — they specifically target civilians. they put civilians in harm's way, they use them

as human shields. so it would not at all be unlikely that something like this would occur. and that is clearly where the evidence seems to have pointed. but to come back to your point about biden�*s intent to reach out to arab leaders, as well — clearly that's deeply problematic right now. we've seen, for example, the governments of the uae and jordan, both of which have peace agreements with israel, condemning israel, making it quite plain they believe it was an israeli targeting of that hospital. and what we've also seen is a popular anger on streets from turkey to jordan, to the west bank, as well. popular anger that is at a new level. how do you believe biden, in this context, is going to reach out in a new way to arab leaderships? yeah, no, ithink you hit the nail on the head. i mean, the problem

is the anger in the streets, and the leadership injordan, the leadership in the uae and elsewhere is responding to that anger. i think it would be incorrect at this point to say that those countries�* governments have concluded that israel did this. i don't think they have. i think they are reacting to the anger in the street. look, hamas, islamichhad, these groups are very good at propaganda. they put this out immediately. they spread the story, lie though it may be. it hits the arab street quickly and they respond. and governments in jordan, uae, elsewhere, they have to respond to that. and what president biden can do — i mean, first of all, i think it is important to get the correct story out that this was not an israeli attack. in fact, this was once again the effect of terrorist groups in gaza targeting civilians. in this case, i'm not saying they were — they weren't targeting the hospital. they were targeting israeli civilians by launching missiles randomly into israel, and one of them misfired and fell on civilians in gaza.

but president biden�*s got to get that message out. he's got to make it clear what actually happened. that's certainly step one. right, now, congress — context is always important in these discussions. the context, of course, is that on october 7, hamas launched a murderous assault on israel, which saw more than 1,400 people killed, including many children, women, and men. now, that kicked off this round of violence. since then, we have seen, according to the gazan health ministry, more than 3,000 palestinians killed, including very high numbers of women and children. is it time now for you, as a senior us politician, to call for de—escalation, to call for a ceasefire? what we are doing, what president biden is doing, and what his administration has done from the very start is israel needs to respond to this. they need to do something

to weaken hamas, but they need to do it in a way that is as careful as possible to minimise civilian casualties. now, i don't think calling for a ceasefire is the right thing to do. hamas has come in and attacked. if israel has some of the terrorists who did the attack that killed all of those civilians in israel, if they are able to target them, i don't think we can tell israel, no, don't do that. what we can do, and what the biden administration has done, is urge israel to take a more balanced and thoughtful approach as they respond to that attack... if i may interject, what does the israeli imposition of a total siege — no fuel, no electricity, no water, no food getting into gaza — what does that mean to you? does that represent to you a collective punishment, which, as you well know, is something that is not proscribed by — not allowed under the geneva conventions and the norms that surround the laws of war? well, as i was going to say,

what we have done since then is we have urged israel not to take that approach, and there has been a change. as i said, the humanitarian corridor has been opened up. also, israel had said, "get out in 2a hours, because we're coming in." that was about 11 days ago now, they have not come in. so, yes, we've had conversations with israel about taking a different approach, and that different approach has begun to play out. look, it is understandable that israel reacted with incredible anger after the scenes and images that apparently too much of the world has already forgotten, less than two weeks later, of hamas pouring across the border and executing civilians, burning them alive, cutting heads off, specifically targeting civilians. israel wanted to get the people who did that. and in the immediate aftermath, some of the things they said probably were not as calm, rational and thoughtful as they could have been. but under the circumstances, it's really hard to blame israel

for having that reaction. what we have done, what president biden has done, is he has stepped in and worked with israel to change that approach. now, no matter how you do this, it's going to be incredibly difficult. hamas is embedded with the civilian population in gaza. how do you get to hamas without impacting the civilian population? it's going to be very difficult, but right now we are working with israel to try and have a better approach to doing that. and again, let us all remind ourselves, hamas doesn't care. they don't care if their own civilians die. sorry — they don't care if the palestinians civilians die. you've raised a lot of interesting points there... ..i do, because it's a complicated subject. yeah, let me just ask you one question about consistency when it comes to your view of what represents a violation of international law. as we'll discuss later in this interview, i hope, you are a congressman who has spoken long and loud about resisting

putin's aggression, his invasion of ukraine. when you saw the russians level the city of mariupol in ukraine, did you regard that asa warcrime? i'm not a legal scholar. i regarded it as something that a government should not do, and i certainly... and that's why i've emphasised many, many times in this interview what president biden is doing. israel needs to be more careful about how they go after hamas. there's no question about that. "more careful" is an interesting phrase, because what we think the israelis are still intent on doing — we don't know, but it's what we think — is sending a huge force — tanks, ground troops — in a ground invasion of gaza. president biden has said he believes that if israel's intent is to reoccupy gaza, it would be a big mistake. is that his way of saying that he wants israel, actually, to think again about a massive ground assault?

yes, absolutely. and look, you know, i mean, this is something that our intelligence shows. there's a number of problems with that. first of all, is israel trained for that type of urban warfare? are they trained to go and find the tunnels where hamas has hidden their soldiers, their troops and their weapons? are they actually prepared to do this in a way that gives them a chance to achieve their military objectives? well, what do you think? so that's a big question. i don't know the answer to that question. i think there is cause for doubt. israel went into gaza in a limited way back in 2014. most observers after the fact don't think that it was a particularly successful operation in terms of being able to significantly degrade hamas. have they improved their training? do they have the intel to tell them where to go, number one. and number two, the impact on the civilian population is profound, of having to engage in that type of fighting. now, you are the ranking, as it's called, the ranking

democrat on the armed services committee. you are very experienced at looking at sort of us national security and, in particular, at regional challenges like the mideast. is it your expectation that if israel does what you believe it should be very careful and cautious about doing, which is launching a major ground invasion of gaza, is it your belief that that will prompt a spread of the conflict, that another front at least in the north of israel will open up with hezbollah actively engaging? and of course, if hezbollah�*s engaged, then we can sort of say that iran is engaged, too. yeah, iran is already engaged because iran, you know, has supplied hamas for quite some time, but they could be more engaged, without question. yes, i think that increases the risk of that happening. these things are rarely black and white. it's rarely if you do this, then that will happen. so i'm not going to say that. it definitely increases the risk of the conflict spreading, no doubt about it.

and i think it's obvious to say the us has not deployed two aircraft carrier groups and thousands of marines to the eastern mediterranean just to look at the view. is it your belief that if hezbollah engages and there is a major conflict zone opened up in the north of israel that us forces which have been deployed will then be used ? well, the first thing to keep in mind is the us forces are deployed primarily to make sure that we protect us assets in the region. we have troops in syria, we have troops in iraq. shia militias affiliated with iran have, you know, recently threatened those groups in a variety of different ways. so those forces are there to protect us interests primarily, and then also secondarily, yes, to hopefully be a deterrent to hezbollah. i can't say for sure whether or not us forces would engage if the scenario

you just described played out. i don't think anybody knows for sure. it depends on a lot of different factors... i just wonder if you would support that. i mean, it's fair to say there are different voices... i'm not going to get into a hypothetical about the future. you know, we will see whether or not it makes sense for us forces. it really depends on 1,000 different factors that, right now, is it's purely hypothetical to say what might happen. do you think the biden administration has taken its eye off the ball in the middle east — but in particular in its approach to israel—palestine over many months, arguably more than a year? it is very striking that just three weeks ago, the key national security adviser to the president, jake sullivan, gave a long list of positives he saw in the middle east right now. and then he concluded by saying, "the mideast region is quieter today "than it has been in two decades."

what a terrible misjudgment. yeah, well, actually, no, he was absolutely right about the situation in terms of where it was at at the time he made that statement. there's no question he was right about that. well, it depends, of course, where he was looking. if he'd been looking at the months and months of rising violence in the west bank... i heard your question, now give me a chance to answer it. ..if he had appreciated that the israel—palestine tensions were rising to new levels, then he wouldn't have said that, would he? yeah — you're completely wrong in youranalysis, 0k? because what he was saying was about what was going on right at the time. 0bviously, hamas fundamentally changed that by pouring across the border and attacking, but nobody in the world was predicting that at the time. so, at the time, yes. and the abraham accords, the relationship that was going on between saudi arabia and israel, the effort to negotiate that, there were a lot of positive things going on. hamas changed that, that's what terrorists do... sure, but that's my very point, congressman, that... well, i understand that, but, look, you know, we can engage in discussions

about what the right policy is. if you want to sit around and say, "how come that policy—maker didn't have perfect knowledge "about everything that was happening "and how come we didn't solve all the problems in the world "and therefore, he's bad?" i don't think that's a particularly useful... no, i'm not about — congressman, i'm not about point—scoring, i'm simply about strategic... i think the more useful discussion is to talk about what the policies are going forward, and what the biden administration has tried to do. and, look, let us also not forget one key factor here. we don't run the middle east, 0k? we have never tried — well, never�*s a long time — we have not tried to run the middle east. we're not in charge of what hamas does. of what israel does. we're not in charge of whatjordan does. what saudi arabia does. now, we try to play a role. we try to work with all of those countries to try to get to a more peaceful place. we do not govern the area, we do not dictate actions. we try to work with partners in the region to get to a more peaceful place. and presenting this as, well, if something goes wrong in the middle east, it must mean that the us is incompetent —

i don't think that's helpful, and i don't think it's accurate. well, i think the history of the last 25 years would say that america has had no problem trying to project its power in the middle east and shape events in the middle east to its own interest. 0ver many, many years we have seen it. i guess there's an interesting question — and you're sitting in the congress right now at a time of deep dysfunction in american national politics. there is a serious question about whether america today is less capable of projecting its power and being taken seriously by those it wants to be taken seriously by than it has been in many years. would you agree there's a profound credibility problem with the us right now? well, i would agree that we have a bit of a historical problem here that evolved in a slightly different way than most people are willing to accept. after world war ii, we were at a unique moment in human history, and that is basically that the united states of america

was the last global power — well, us and i guess the soviet union, and they had a different agenda — we were the last people standing. so, for decades after world war ii, we had an unprecedented ability to influence world events, unprecedented and quite likely never to be matched again. and i think that created some problems. i think it created expectations globally. an overconfidence in the united states about what we could do. inevitably, that was going to change — in fact, part of the plan was for that to change. we wanted the rest of the world to get back up. we helped rebuild europe, we rebuiltjapan. when china came around, we engaged with them to allow them to participate in the global economy. it was always intended that other countries would develop more power. that's the way the world works. so, yes, without any question, we don't have the same level of power to influence the world because other countries have become stronger and more influential. well, other countries

have become stronger, but you, in the united states, it seems have become weaker. and there is a toxic polarisation which we see playing out in your chamber, the house of representatives, right now, where the republican party is deeply split over appointing a new speaker. and, as we speak to each other right now, it's not clear whether they'll find a speaker — maybejim jordan, maybe not — over the next few hours and days. but the fact is that right now, your chamber can't even pass legislation. it can't, for example, work with the biden administration to get new funding packages for israel, for military assistance to israel, to ukraine, maybe to taiwan, maybe to new border security measures... yeah, i think we all kind of get the point at this point, so if you'd like me to comment on that, i'm happy to. do. um, yeah, democracy isn't easy, 0k? i think great britain has experienced that recently. how many prime ministers have you had in the last five years? off the top of my head, i can't count them up, because that's the nature

of democracy, 0k? if everyone gets a voice, it is harder to keep everybody happy. but i find it preferable to dictatorship. i find it preferable to the way putin and xi choose to run their countries. and part of maintaining democracy is not flipping out and losing your mind every time democracy shows that it's messy, is to understand it's not a sign of dysfunction. it's a sign of democracy. it's a sign of a situation where people have a voice. votes of no confidence in the leaders of legislatures happen all over the world in democracies all the time. now, as it happens, in the us, this the first time it ever happened, the first time we ever got to that point. but that's what democracy is. and acting like when democracy hits a messy point, we should all go, "oh, my god, nothing works anymore. "we've got to tear it all down and throw it away," that is what ends democracy and gives you dictatorship. and that, i don't want. so, yes, we're having a dispute in the united states congress.

everyone is having their opportunity to say their piece. everyone�*s getting a vote, and we're resolving it. again, i find that preferable to the alternative. if you don't, i'm happy to have that argument. no, not at all. just on a point of detail, the white house recently said, one official said that we're running out of runway to get new funding, in particular for israel, and maybe even more particularly given the scale of the fighting with ukraine... now, see, now that's a substantive question! that's a substantive question, which i'm happy to address. yeah, no, ithink it's a real challenge. and, again, it has to do with a democracy. in the us, you know, many of people who support the republican party in our country have moved away from supporting funding for ukraine. this is not a matter of dysfunction. this is a matter of the right side of the political spectrum in the us basically deciding that they don't want to support ukraine anymore, and it's becoming more of a 50—50 question amongst the united states population. now, i feel very strongly that we need to continue that support, and i'm going

to push for that. but that's not dysfunction, that's democracy. that's the way... and a final question, a final question, then. you talk about presidents putin and xi. do you think if they are looking at washington, dc right now, today, they are seeing a country that they feel is at a very weak and vulnerable moment? well, look, you want to walk back through the history of china and the soviet union, and then russia... you know, for — i don't know — decades now, they have been saying the same thing. they've been saying, "oh, the us is a falling power. "they're going down, we're coming up, capitalism..." it's all marxist nonsense about how — and iforget the phrase exactly — they have a very specific way of putting it. "the decline of the west, the inevitable fall," and all of that. you know, they've been predicting that for decades. so the fact that china and russia are saying that the us and the western world is, you know, on the collapse is really hardly news at this point. we'll see. i mean, we are, i believe, still influential. i think the western alliance

that we have put together is still influential. it's not easy, but we are going to keep working on it. and, yeah, china and russia have been predicting our demise for a very long time. congressman adam smith, we have to end it there. i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thanks. thank you. appreciate the chance. hello. storm babet continues to bring hazardous weather, not least because of the amount of rain that is falling. a red warning from the met office covering parts of eastern scotland — this is the highest tier of warning the met office can issue.

it implies a danger to life. up to 250 millimetres of rain falling in the very wettest locations. no wonder that there is the ongoing risk of significant flooding. a broader amber warning affecting parts of eastern and indeed northern scotland. and the rainjust keeps on coming. a soggy start to friday, but further south, there's quite a lot of rain in the outlook as well, across wales, central and northern parts of england, northern ireland, some really heavy downpours of rain, becoming very slow—moving through the day. across scotland, the rain increasingly becoming confined to the south—east of scotland, at least the heaviest of the rain. it is going to be very windy — gusts of 50 to 60 miles per hour, even more than that across central and northern parts of the uk. lighter winds further south, a mix of sunshine and showers here. but a met office amber warning affecting parts of south—east scotland and down the spine of northern england in force from 12 o'clock on friday because we could see up to

120 millimetres of rain. that rain relentless, really, as we head through friday evening, and then actually moving back in across the eastern side of scotland, so that could exacerbate flooding issues here. we start the weekend with temperatures north to south between 5 and 12 degrees and we start the weekend with low pressure still firmly in charge, bands of rain circulating around the low. still quite windy in places in the far south—west and more especially up towards the north, but not as windy by this stage. but we will see further outbreaks of rain, especially across the eastern side of scotland, into northern scotland as well, places where we really will not need it. further south, a mix of sunny spells and showers or some longer spells of rain. temperatures north to south, 8 to 16 degrees. a cooler day for many. now, into sunday, less rain, fewer showers, lighter winds, more in the way of dry weather and some spells of sunshine. so the story of the weather through the weekend will be for things to slowly

but surely calm down. that's all from me. bye for now.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm arunoday mukharji. let's get you the headlines. trucks loaded with supplies are stuck at gaza's border with egypt as a possible military incursion by israel looms. rishi sunak flies from israel to saudi arabia, where he had talks with crown prince mohammed bin salman.

the agony of the hostage families, as israel's military says 203 people are now thought to have been taken by hamas. developments in the middle east are our top focus, but also looking at another big story developing. a woman's body has been recovered from a river in scotland, as a major storm batters the country. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. welcome to the programme. there are indications this hour that israel's expected ground invasion of gaza could be nearing. the israeli defence minister has told troops on the border that they will soon see the palestinian enclave from inside. meanwhile in gaza, there continues to be a critical shortage of supplies as hundreds of vehicles carrying aid still wait