live from washington, this is bbc news. israel launches new strikes in southern lebanon, targeting hezbollah as the group's leader calls this week's device explosions "a red line". donald trump and kamala harris holds duelling campaign events as the race for the white house tightens. we'll hear from voters in the key battleground state of michigan. and multiple women come forward accusing the late mohamed al fayed of rape sexual assault. i'm helena humphrey. good to have you with us. the leader of hezbollah on thursday described two waves of deadly attacks across lebanon using explosives in pagers and walkie—talkies as "a declaration of war". in a televised address,

hassan nasrallah said that israel crossed all red lines after 37 people were killed and thousands injured in the surprise attacks across lebanon on tuesday and wednesday. he vowed to the people who had evacuated their homes in northern israel amid exchanges of fire would not be able to return unless israel ends its attacks on gaza. as he was speaking, israel's military confirmed its fighter jets launched fresh strikes, hitting more than 100 hezbollah rocket launchers in southern lebanon. he said some of the launchers were ready to be fired. peace talks are being held in paris with the french president emmanuel macron saying" a diplomatic path "exists in lebanon." america's top diplomat antony blinken travelled to the french capital, saying that all parties need to de—escalate. france and the united states are united in calling for restraint and urging de—escalation when it comes to the middle east in general and when it comes to lebanon in particular. we continue to work to get

a ceasefire for gaza over the finish line and as we discussed with some of you just a day ago in egypt, we believe that remains both possible and necessary but meanwhile, we don't want to see any escalatory actions by any party that make that even more difficult. israel military chief yoav gallant signalled that its military would not stop its attacks on lebanon any time soon. the defence minister says recent attacks are part of an effort to degrade hezbollah�*s military capabilities after what he called decades of aggression. translation: this is | a new phase of the war. it bears opportunities but also significant risks. hezbollah feels that it is being persecuted and a sequence of military action will continue. our goal is to ensure the safe return of israel's northern communities to their homes. as time goes by, hezbollah

will pay an increasing price. breaking the sound barrier as the leader was making a televised address, something israel likes to do. and before he spoke today, a wave of israeli attacks in southern lebanon. perhaps the heaviest since the gaza war began. this footage appears to show some of the latest strikes. israel says it was targeting rocket launchers. this man said israel

had made a major military blow with attacks on tuesday and wednesday. the enemy, he said, had crossed all red lines. first it was pagers exploding. then walkie—talkies blowing up at funerals. the communication system may have been the target, but a lebanese minister told us the attacks, widely blamed on israel, break international law. minister, are you saying these attacks are you saying these attacks are a war crime? i are you saying these attacks are a war crime?— are you saying these attacks are a war crime? i think they are. i think— are a war crime? i think they are. i think the _ are a war crime? i think they are. i think the whole - are a war crime? i think they are. i think the whole world | are. i think the whole world could see that these attacks occurred in markets, in hospitals, occurred with people driving their cars. these were not people who were at the battle ground fighting. in its stronghold _ battle ground fighting. in its stronghold in _ battle ground fighting. in its stronghold in south - battle ground fighting. in its

stronghold in south beirut, i stronghold in south beirut, they are still mourning the dead, killed on and off the battlefield. they are getting ready here now for the funeral of another fighter. they have been hit hard this week, not just in terms of the dead and the wounded but the attack on its communication systems was a major humiliation. there is anger and uncertainty. and many are wondering what might come next. this woman said, we can expect anything from israel, but we are prepared, both men and women. as for the wounded, she said, we pray god will heal them. i would die note my own eyes for all of those who lost theirs. so far it appears those killed this week were foot killed this week were foot soldiers classed as a terrorist soldiers classed as a terrorist

organisation by the uk and us. organisation by the uk and us. the enemy has declared war. and they will not stop until israel does. the uncommitted movement, a group of voters opposed to the support of israel in gaza by the us�*s leaders urged supporters to vote against donald trump and to avoid third party candidates. the announcement coincides with kamala harris�*s visit to the key swing state of michigan which has the highest percentage of arab—americans in the united states. there are more than 211,000 arab—americans in michigan which is the second highest number in the united states behind california. caitriona perry has been speaking to voters

talking to voters they are motivated by a range of interest, coming up all the time economy, immigration, health care, but in dearborn which is home to the largest arab american and muslim communities in the country, top of the agenda is the situation in the middle east, in gaza, lebanon and further afield and specifically us policy towards israel. the news coming from the uncommitted organisation that they do not plan to endorse kamala harris. many of them are lifelong democrats. and we spoke to someone who shares that viewpoint, who is in dearborn in michigan. it hits very close to home, i have my sister who lives in lebanon and extended family in lebanon so it is difficult to conduct your day to day without that being top of mind for many people, and i thinkjust the

broader issue is there is this focused attention on foreign policy. not as much is happening from a domestic standpoint.— happening from a domestic standoint. ~ ., ., ., ., standpoint. meanwhile kamala harris live streamed _ standpoint. meanwhile kamala harris live streamed a - standpoint. meanwhile kamala harris live streamed a town . harris live streamed a town hall with 0prah harris live streamed a town hall with oprah winfrey on thursday night in a suburb in detroit, michigan and is aiming to win over undecided, independent voters living in the key swing states in her bid for the white house. the event features the vice president's core supporters who raised millions of dollars through grassroots fundraising and also working to get people to the polls in november. some of the groups at the event included the organiser and members of cat ladies for kamala harris. miss harris holds a slight lead over her opponent donald trump in battleground state but a new national poll released by the new york times, the philadelphia inquirer says that the pair is tied amongst voters at 47% and they say the presidential election may come

down to a small number of votes. the town hall closed with an emotional moment from oprah winfrey who asked americans to vote strategically come november.— americans to vote strategically come november. this is a moment for --eole come november. this is a moment for people who _ come november. this is a moment for people who are _ come november. this is a moment for people who are tired _ come november. this is a moment for people who are tired of - come november. this is a moment for people who are tired of all - for people who are tired of all of the bickering and name—calling. people who are exhausted by the craziness and the made up stories and the conspiracies. this is the moment. the former president also plans to make a campaign stop in springfield, ohio in the coming weeks is that city was pushed into the national spotlight after mr trump falsely claimed last week that haitian immigrants living there are eating pet cats and dogs. since then, springfield has seen a

spike in bomb threats with residents telling the bbc they are worried about far right activists gathering in the city as they try to cope with the impact of donald trump's unfounded remarks. more on the latest in the race for the white house, i've been speaking to joy cheney and white house, i've been speaking tojoy cheney and former chief of staff to speak of the house kevin mccarthy and michaela carr. if you take a look at the latest polling, especially nationally, things are looking very tight. things are very tight, america is divided, no surprise there, kamala harris has also but have always said we are the underdogs, democrats are the underdog and i think we reflect that and we know in order for her to feel comfortable she would have to be way ahead, right, so it's a tight race but we are prepared for it and i think you saw that with tonight's town hall, if you will, with 0prah, of all people, in michigan. michaela, your thoughts on the outcome of the idea that this could come down to just a handful of votes here?

i think it absolutely will. the key swing states are incredibly close, vice president harris has really closed the gap but the polls are showing however that republicans are still trusted on issues of policy, issues of the economy and issues of inflation and immigration and so if republicans can continue to focus on policy and get the message out, then they can maintain their advantage but it's going to be really tight. it certainly will so let's take a look at some of the latest developments then, joi, the news of the uncommitted movement will not endorse harris. what do you think that means for michigan, can she still win overall, what do you think it means for the race? they are also not endorsing trump. or a third party candidate, so we are perplexed as to exactly what it means. she absolutely can still win michigan and can win over some of the votes. i think they are going to be looking closely at what policies are done

in the next couple of months and what is said so absolutely she can target that vote. i think many are looking to put as much political pressure as they can to make a difference as we go to october seven, that terrible anniversary, so we will see where things shake out closer to the election. i have not lost confidence. i think if you see there are also people who are in uncommitted voters and you feel like you cannot vote in this election, you can certainly register other people who can. do you think it could cause any kind of change in the comments that she makes, for example, comes to israel—gaza policy? it could make some changes but in some respects, she has already done what i think many people, pro—palestinian, would like. she has said we want a ceasefire. she said those things. i hope they would listen to and understand this is an upcoming administration that is very much looking to find a solution that protects the palestinian people, as well as

the rights of israel. i think they would find a lot of excitement in her candidacy but it is up to them and they are mission driven and i think we've seen she is not attacking them, she is saying if you feel like you can't do it— i hope you can because it will be tight and your non— vote may end up being a vote for exactly who you don't want. you may regret it later. but at least tried to register those who feel like they can support you. and those dualling campaign events tonight, of course, saw harris take to the stage, oprah winfrey quite clearly there is a lot of star power. will that be a problem for trump? i think i have focused the event they are at tonight on israel and supporting israel and trump has been consistent and vice president harris has not been in her support for israel and i think if you look at the uncommitted voters in the primary

when biden was still in the race, 100,000 of them chose not to vote for biden but when trump won michigan against hillary clinton, he only won by 12,000 votes so when you are talking about this type of rates and the small numbers, it can make a real difference and i think trump is focused on supporting israel and israel has what it needs to defeat hamas. you are an uncommitted voter, she is absolutely right. you want to support kamala harris. joi, let's talk about support among women for harris. looking really strong. really strong! a mobilising force in terms of.. i'm glad 0prah gave her a shout out. about 87% and it looks lower if you look at black men. donald trump has gained some ground. how do you see the harris campaign looking to counter that? the second most reliable voter

for democrats are black men and second only to black women, so we are not talking about black men and we're not worried about them, we know many will support her and there will be some who don't. the fact of the matter is we will continue to fight for those votes but there are a lot of votes out there and we are looking for a combined democratic party with independence with republicans and frankly ywhu have had enough of donald trump. we are looking to bring all of those people together. i think the oprah event was emblematic of that. including republicans for kamala. we are looking to bring all of those folks together and hoping to bring more white women out there so when people ask what are black men doing, i ask what are our white sisters doing? we are asking if they support freedoms for women. we need them voting for kamala harris. you touched on some of the issues, reproductive rights, for example. economic issues of course continuing to be a big one as well, machalagh, and looking at some

of the latest polling the gap when it comes to economic issues, closing slightly between the candidates. i wonder do you think the trump campaign has effectively found its attack line? there was a lot of questions about that, i think, when harris first took to the ticket about whether they could find it. do you think they have? i think they have. i think the focus on the specifics on the policy is where their strength is and there is a lot of enthusiasm around vice president harris, as long as she is not talking specifics. as soon as she says anything specific about price controls, you know, there ends up being a lot of criticism because the positions she has taken over the last decade are wildly unpopular for economic purposes, for immigration purposes and how the american populace views her positions, so she stays away from talking about them and republicans can focus on the priorities and the policies and specifics, they can close the gap. around the world and across

the uk, this is bbc news. let's take a look at some other stories making news. the bbc has been told several prisoners who were released in an effort to ease overcrowding have not been fitted with ankle monitoring devices, despite it being a condition of their release. the ministry ofjustice is blaming security contractor serco for the lack of devices. more than 1,700 prisoners were let out in england and wales last week as part of the scheme to address overcrowding in prisons. the prime minister has defended his decision to accept corporate tickets from arsenal football club after the premier league club made two seats available to him in the corporate area of the emirates stadium. he said in an interview to bbc he would rather be in the stands but it would cost taxpayers a fortune in security for him to do so. actor geoffrey hinsliff has died at the age of 86.

he starred in the itv soap coronation street as don brennan, former co—star helen whately played gail platt said he was a lovely quiet man who will be sadly missed. he is survived by his wife and two daughters. you are live with bbc news. we turn to the uk now where the metropolitan police says it is aware of allegations of sexual assault made against the late mohamed al—fayed when he was the boss of the luxury department store, harrods, and more women have contacted the bbc, saying they were assaulted by mr al fayed. more than 20 women who worked for him have come forward as part of a bbc investigation accusing the egyptian billionaire, who died last year, of multiple counts of rape and attempted rape during his 25 year reign at harrods. many claim that during that time the company helped cover up allegations of abuse and a warning that this report contains descriptions of sexual violence. i went back to harrods about a year ago and i knew if i could walk through and come out the other side, i would be in a good place

to be talking to you. ijoined harrods because i wanted to be a buyer and i ended up working for an absolute monster. when mohamed al—fayed took over harrods, he quickly embraced his high—profile role and the status that came with it. to his customers and the celebrity guests, he was all charm. but to many of his female employees, he was a different man — a predator. we have heard testimony from more than 20 of his female ex—employees. he tried to rape me, more than once. and he pushed me in and onto the bed, so that i couldn't move. you know, he was 79, i nearly 80, and i was 15. mohamed al—fayed was rich and powerful. that power allowed him to carry out assault at scale, over decades. i wasn't at home, i was in france, and he had come upstairs into my room, i was absolutely terrified. got into bed with me and was trying to kiss me

and push himself on me and i, again, i don't know how i did it, ijust kicked him off, i kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked and screamed and again, i got him off and i was just terrified. i think mohamed al fayed is a rapist, a serial rapist. gemma worked as his personal assistant for two years. my first trip was actually to abu dhabi. he was trying to get in my room in quite an aggressive manner and it was absolutely terrifying. i did not know which way to turn so i bought a small dictaphone that i had in my pocket and these are the transcripts from those recordings. one of them was in paris, in his residence there, villa windsor. i said, "i just want to go to sleep on my own. "mr fayed, i don't want to. "i don't want to." and he kept saying, "just relax." how can you relax when you are that situation? he walked out and he was angry.

not long after this situation, gemma says al fayed raped her. the bbc has heard testimony from four other women who say he raped them at his properties. in 2009, gemma contacted a lawyer, who told harrods she was leaving herjob on the grounds of sexual harassment. she did not feel able to disclose the more serious allegations of the time. they agreed to pay a settlement if she signed a nondisclosure agreement. there was also another condition. the lawyers organised for a shredding truck to come to my lawyers' office. it was shredded in front of us, including tapes i had of him. my phone had messages and voicemails, really quite nasty on them. someone from hr was present for the shredding of all of the messages i had. i thought i lost the transcripts but actually what i had was the transcriptions sent to my lawyer in my sent items of my e—mail account at the time. in a statement, the current owners of harrods say:

they also said the harrods of today is a very different organisation. between 1985 and 2010, there were several attempts to expose al fayed before his death but it is only now that many of the survivors feel able to speak publicly about the abuse. for those who have, the silence and the taboo finally broken. shaimaa khalil, bbc news. the head of the microsoft threat analysis centre has told the bbc russia, iran and china all have plans to disrupt the us election. all three countries have been found using ai—powered interference campaigns for the first time. bbc verify�*s ai correspondent was given access to the nerve centre in new york.

times square, new york city, an unlikely location for a secure facility which monitors attempts by foreign governments to destabilise democracy. it is, however, home to the microsoft threat analysis centre. its job is to detect, assess and disrupt cyber—enabled implement threats to democracies worldwide. the work that is carried out it is extremely sensitive, and we are the very first people who have been committed to film inside. it's also the first time russian, iranian and chinese attempts to influence the us election have all been detected at once. all three are in play and this is the first cycle that we have had all three that we can definitely point to, individuals for this organisation serve on a special presidential committee in the kremlin. reports advise government like the uk and the us as well as private companies on digital threats. this team has noticed the dramatic nature of the us election is congregating

attempts at outside interference. the biggest impact of the switch of president biden for vice president harris has been it has really thrown the russians so far off their game. they were really focused on biden. somebody they needed to remove from office to get what they wanted in ukraine. russian efforts have now pivoted to undermining the harris—walz campaign by a series of fake videos designed to provoke controversy. these analysts were instrumental in detecting iranian election influence activity via a series of bogus websites. the fbi is now investigating this, as well as iranian hacking of the trump campaign. we found in the source code for these websites they were using al to rewrite content from a real place and using it for the bulk of their website and then occasionally they would write real articles, when it was a very specific political point they were trying to make. the third major player in this election interference

is china, using fake social media accounts to provoke a reaction in the us public. experts are unconvinced these campaigns affect which way people actually vote, but they worry they are successful in increasing hostility on social media. conservationists in new zealand have gone to extraordinary lengths to free a whale trapped underneath appear by dismantling the construction to set the whale free. this is the pygmy blue whale, about 15 metres in length that swam underneath the private wharf and was unable to free itself and was unable to free itself and when its plight became public rescue teams were brought in and a decision was made to take the pier apart, piece by piece, until the whale could swim away. you are watching bbc news. thanks for your company. london takes over from here. have a very good evening or morning. goodbye for now.

hello there. for some parts of the uk, there is a big change on the way weather—wise, particularly in the south, where on thursday we saw a lot of sunshine. temperatures in london got above 26 celsius. but we're watching this area of low pressure swirling up from the south, increasingly bringing some showers and thunderstorms over the next few days. and the rainfall is really going to accumulate. some spots could be looking at around a month's worth of rain from these intense downpours and thunderstorms — however, only really in the south. further north, it remains largely dry. the best of the sunshine across north—west england, northern ireland, western scotland. eastern scotland, north—east england likely to be plagued by a lot of cloud, which will make it feel rather cool. and actually that cloud has been rolling its way a long way inland, taking its time to burn back towards the east coast through the day on friday, but it should do. staying quite murky, though, for parts of eastern scotland, north—east england.

and then down towards the south of england, perhaps into the midlands, wales, we will see some of these showers and thunderstorms popping up, some of which will give a lot of rain in a short space of time. 23 degrees in london, just 15 if the cloud lingers there in aberdeen. and as we go through friday night, that cloud again rolls a little bit further inland. still the chance for some showers and thunderstorms rumbling around across the channel islands, getting back into southern counties of england. a mild night forjust about all of us, a mild start to the weekend. and again on saturday, down towards the south, we'll see these showers and thunderstorms across southern counties of england, into east anglia, the midlands, parts of wales. but for northern england, northern ireland, western scotland, we'll see some sunshine. eastern scotland, north—east england, still plagued by that cloud, perhaps the odd spot of drizzle. could be quite misty and murky around some of the coast, and temperatures, if anything, coming down a little bit from where they have been. and then into sunday, it looks like we'll see some slightly more persistent, heavy, thundery rain,

again affecting southern parts of the uk, east anglia, the midlands, wales. further north from there, largely dry. best of the sunshine in the north—west, more cloud into the north east, so the pattern continues. but a change in the weather pattern next week. it does turn really quite unsettled. showers or longer spells of rain, could be quite windy, and it turns quite a lot colder as well.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk with me, mishal husain. pakistan is in the midst of a turbulent period, with a deep economic crisis, an ousted prime minister injail, and what rights groups have called an assault on dissent, including thousands of disappearances. my guest is lawyer imaan mazari—hazir, who has pursued the authorities over such cases and spoken out against the country's powerful army. she has herself faced arrest and now terrorism charges.