israel has released 200 palestinian prisoners in return for four female soldiers held by hamas in the second exchange of the gaza ceasefire deal. the four israeli soldiers were freed in gaza city in a ceremony tightly controlled by hamas — surrounded by dozens of armed hamas fighters. once back in israel, the women were reunited with their loved ones. the soldiers were captured in the october 7th attack 15 months ago. they were seized from an army base on the border with gaza. israel has accused hamas of breaching the terms of the ceasefire because female civilian hostage arbel yehud was not included in saturday's release — and has delayed the planned return of displaced palestinians to northern gaza. now on bbc news, newscast.

laura, you've been mixing with a beatle. yeah, not like a, like an earwig or something. yeah, a real beatle, an actual beatle. like a living legend beatle, a musician beatle, yes. much to my surprise, if you'd said to me last weekend, "what are you doing this week?", i would not have said, well, "i'm going to "end up interviewing sir paul mccartney." but yes, we ended up interviewing sir paul mccartney, which was, yeah, even for a crusty old sceptical hack, it was incredibly exciting, and i felt incredibly lucky to meet him. yeah. surreal. that's great. and we'll get to the colour and the content with him, it's about artificial intelligence, but as we're meeting, there's another massive story to do with the ongoing gaza ceasefire with the release of four israeli hostages. that's right. so we're talking at 2:05, sorry, 2:06 on saturday when we are recording this, four female hostages who were being held by hamas in gaza have returned to israel for its side

as this ceasefire process kind of inches forward. israel is set to release 200 palestinian prisoners prisoners in return, but perhaps not that surprisingly, there are noises off, there are snags, there are problems with how things are going, and israel has been accusing hamas today of breaching the ceasefire deal by not yet releasing the civilian hostage, arbel yehud, and said that the palestinians will not yet be allowed to return to northern gaza as had been scheduled. so that is a mirror image of what happened on day one last weekend, when there was another row about this. but there were releases nonetheless. so we'll find out if there are grounds to be optimistic about this release being done as planned when we meet lyse doucet in this episode of saturday's newscast. newscast. — newscast from the bbc. hello, it's laura in the studio.

it's paddy in the studio. and what's your favourite beatles song? well, i suppose let it be is the one that suddenly first comes to mind but i don't know if it's my favourite. but when you asked, i suddenly heard that in my head. oh, that's a nice way of describing something. itjust came to you. itjust came to me when you asked. because people shouldn't run the risk of thinking this is rehearsed. i did... what's yours? i think it's blackbird. oh, yeah, well, that's a very classy one. i wish i'd said that. thanks. yeah, and he has given us from his skills and creativity, some of the most memorable soundtrack of the 20th century. and you've got him to talk about how ai can steal that. and that's another lk scoop, which we'll get to. so we start with where we promised, which is the main breaking news, because shortly we'll meet lyse doucet. so let's turn there now to begin. it's the second swap since the gaza ceasefire came under way this weekend, last weekend, but it's running into a snag.

that's right. 200 palestinian prisoners are being released in the west bank. this is now under way. the idf spokesperson, daniel hagari, who we've got used to seeing on our screens and hearing on our radios, confirmed the return of those hostages. but there was a hostage who was due to be included in this deal, arbel yehud, but she did not appear. now, israel has said that's a breach of the ceasefire deal, but hamas has in turn confirmed that she is still alive and says she will be released next saturday. but the israeli pm's office said gazans wouldn't be allowed to enter the northern gaza strip until she is released. and it's a reminder, isn't it, as we talked a bit about this last weekend, that, yes, a ceasefire deal has been constructed with great care over a period of many, many months, and then last minute sort of whites of the eyes intervention from donald trump's middle east envoy that appears to have helped get it over the line. and yet, while that was a massive achievement, there's still so much room

for things to go wrong and there doesn't seem to be, not surprisingly, given what's happened, the trust on either side seems to be... ..i mean, i suppose at best there and incredibly fragile and at worst, understandably, probably from both sides, not really there at all. let's listen to the idf spokesperson daniel hagari. since the october 7th massacre, our mission has been clear — bring home all the hostages held by hamas in gaza. today, as part of this ongoing efforts, we welcomed home four more israeli hostages after 477 days in hamas captivity. liri albag, age 19, naama levy, age 20, karina ariev, age 20, daniella gilboa, age 20. now, the trauma of the hostage taking crosses every structure and person in israel. but it is worth saying that there is a very

big disagreement about how the government's policies have or have not helped the return of the hostages. i know this myself because of interviews i've done. our correspondents in the region say this has divided opinion in israel. they want all the hostages back but many israelis blame the prime minister for delaying the release of hostages so there is a lot more going on than just that one statement implies. that's right. and the background to all of this throughout has it not been also, whether or not benjamin netanyahu, who is the seen as many people to be very hard line, whether or not his political fortunes have been helped or hindered by what's been going on with the israeli bombardment of gaza, the dreadful loss of life in gaza and his handling of the original, appalling october the 7th attacks from hamas, proscribed as a terror group by many governments, including the uk. and the domestic politics,

it's been a sort of classic thing that i that i suspect, without suddenly saying very grand, but i think in decades to come, historians are going to write books about how netanyahu's without — i'm suddenly going to sound very grand — but i think in decades to come, historians are going to write books about how netanyahu's own fortunes had a role and an influence on his on israel's conduct of the war, and, of course, the impact that that had on human life, on hostages, on people living in gaza and where politics pushed him to make decisions, or maybe held him back from making other decisions because he was trying to hang on to his government's fortunes. i think i heard the tones of lyse doucet whilst we were speaking. thank goodness for that because she can give us some proper clarity. the bbc�*s chief international correspondent. are you with us, lyse? oh, good to be with you, paddy and laura. just to clear up something i was saying, just as we have you, just as you join us, i was saying that there is joy to get

the peace deal under way but, of course, politically, there are people in israel who've resigned over the peace deal. but do we think that, can we say with certainty what the citizens of israel want? there's a reason why the first phase of this fragile, complex three phase deal is called the humanitarian phase. even vociferous critics of the deal have welcomed the return of the hostages. and the scenes that we saw last week, the scenes that were seen today — four young female israeli soldiers in the arms of their loved ones, flood of tears. and then the palestinian prisoners coming off the buses released from prison. some of them have spent... one has spent 39 years in israeli prisons. emotional scenes there, children running to see their fathers. it's bittersweet. it's bittersweet because there are palestinians who aren't seeing their loved ones come out of prisons.

they're said to be more than 10,000 palestinians in israeli jails. and there are still dozens of israeli hostages still in gaza. so, on the hostages side, the israelis that... you hear the statements from officials, from the vast the opinion polls say the vast majority of israelis want the hostages to come home. they want this to be closed. the memory of october 7th is like an open wound in israel. it's very raw, and it cannot be healed until everyone knows what happened to their loved ones. are they alive or are they dead? and are they home? so this is the second of that. and so far in this first phase, 33 in all will be released, israeli hostages will be released, and there will be hundreds of palestinian prisoners released in exchange. and what hamas have said about the prisoners being released today, they say, "a new group of our heroic prisoners will "see the light of day today."

so also very strong reactions on that side at the release of various people. but one of the people who's not been released, which has caused this snag in the process is arbel yehud. now, why did that release not take place? it's not clear. the day started with a delay, with israel saying, we're not going to allow people to return to their homes in the north until you tell us what's happened to arbel yehud, that she has to be released. and then a short time after, hamas seems to have reassured the israelis that she is alive, we understand that she may have been held — by another group, islamichhad, but she was meant... the choreography was that, first of all, the female civilians would be released. so three were released last week.

there was romi, doron and emily, who's british israeli. this week, it was naama levy, daniella and karina, all soldiers. so israel said, well, you were supposed to release another female civilian. but we understand that it's been clarified to israel's satisfaction and arbel yehud will be released next week in the third, in the third exchange of prisoners and hostages. hamas is obviously parading the hostages on their release, including giving them bags, sort of mementos. do we know what's this process is about? is it about looking as strong and almost state—like as possible for them? i mean, as laura has reminded us, they're proscribed as terrorists by the uk, but what image are they presenting at the moment of maximum attention? well, last week's transfer created a lot of anger in israel because the scenes were really chaotic and hamas milked it

for all it was worth, including camera angles, which seemed to show that there was vast crowds in the square, and the women were pushing through the crowds to reach the vans of the international committee of the red cross, with their distinctive red cross on their, on their vests. this week, it's much more organised, but it will be just as disturbing to israelis. it was much calmer. a stage had been setup. there were hundreds of people there. the women emerged. they were wearing olive green fatigues, almost like uniforms. they had lanyards around their neck. and like last week they... last week, they were given graduation certificates, which were supposed to be an acknowledgement that they'd been studying arabic or doing some kind of classes. they were wearing necklaces which had the flag of palestine. they had, as you mentioned, these gift bags today as well. they had these gift bags with hamas... i mean, trying i mean, it's really, really,

really troubling for israelis, but the hamas are trying to say, look, we treated them well, i mean, almost as if to say, as abhorrent as that is, that they were our guests, but it is, it is a show of strength by hamas, first of all, to any other palestinian groups who are waiting to take control in gaza, because israel has made it clear that hamas cannot play a role after the war, the war ends, and a reminder that this is just a fragile ceasefire. but also to israelis, one of the what the main war aim, which still has not been achieved after more than 15 months, is to destroy hamas. well, the scenes last week and today remind everyone that hamas has not destroyed, hundreds of their fighters are there with their green bandanas and their uniforms brandishing their rifles. and they, they want to use this for, for for all that it's worth, even though it's a separate issue about the so—called day after, what happens once all israeli forces leave, and that's still

a big question. and the...there's a that palestinians can begin to rebuild their lives as daunting and a task that's going to be. and is it possible to tell what the effect has been on hamas�*s support among the normal population? because they are, you know, as we've been saying, they're seen as a terror group by many, many western governments. they are a group of people who behave appallingly often to their own people, to their political opponents. is it possible to, to, to assess at the moment what impact of the last week's events has had on the support that they actually have? it's really hard to know what gazans really think. gazans are reeling from what has happened to them. whole generations of families have been wiped out. they have lost almost everything, as paddy

mentioned earlier. their homes are piles of rubble. they have lost their schools, their hospitals. they return to these scarred landscapes. everyone uses the word apocalyptic, but even that doesn't begin to describe. they can find their streets any more because the neighbourhoods that they called home where they lived their lives are now unrecognisable. so that's what is consuming them now. and when our colleagues who are speaking to gazans try to assess their views, there are many who criticise, that the gazans have paid too high a price for, in this war and that it has to stop. there are others who still say that what hamas has done, unlike any other palestinian group, including the palestinian authority, they put the issue on the world's agenda in a way that it has never been

before, that the palestinians, the palestinian cause, their aspirations for statehood had been forgotten, pushed onto some back shelf. and there are those who still support hamas. what we're hearing today from the occupied west bank is they're not under the... ..of course, this kind of brutal siege that the gazans and bombardment that the palestinians in gaza have been through, although israel has not been stepping up its attacks, mostly in the north around jenin, that the opinion polls there show that support for hamas has risen significantly because they watch what hamas has been able to do, not the destruction, but in terms of raising _ the palestinian flag. and they see it as a kind of victory. others would say this is a completely hollow victory, but this is the contortions of of a time which is unprecedented and painful in every which way. so we've got this position of a fragile ceasefire,

which we've discussed with your help in gaza, and we've got ratcheting up of military action between israel and hamas in the occupied west bank. well, in the occupied west bank, there are other militant groups. and throughout the gaza war, israel has been targeting these groups and a palestinian camp injenin. in december, even the palestinian authority, much to the anger of palestinians, uh, was trying to deal with some of the militancy injenin. and there are those who say, including reports in israeli media saying that israel now wants to focus its military activity while there is this calm in gaza, relative calm, it's not perfect, but obviously the most of the guns and the bombardment have fallen silent, focus on the occupied west bank, deal with issues there. and they worry that what played out in gaza with devastating

effect is going to happen in the occupied west bank. there are much more checkpoints. palestinians are saying it's much harder to move around. they worry that with the new administration in the white house that plans to even annexe the west bank occupied west bank could be on the agenda again. so it's a very disturbing time. and human rights groups, both israeli and international and palestinian human rights groups, have been criticising that the israeli attacks, which they say are targeted at the militant groups injenin, are causing a high human casualty, that the attacks are indiscriminate, which israel denies. but they're worried that there is going to be the same playbook. and we see what that means and how that looks and feels in gaza. lyse, thank you so much forjoining us. it's really, really helpful and useful for everybody listening. not least me and paddy would be nodding along in agreement. just really, really interesting and useful to have you with us.

and a pleasure to have you on newscast as ever. thank you so much. thank you. two of my favourite broadcasters. aw! thank you. goodbye. where did you meet sir paul? so, i met sir paul in his office in central london, and in soho. of course, where else would it be? swinging soho. and we were speaking to him about artificial intelligence. now, we've talked a lot about this on newscast. there's been a huge amount in the news about al. and he has, along with lots of other writers, film—makers, musicians, photographers, he has a specific concern about a proposal that the government is currently considering. so, one of the things that the government is planning to do, and they are consulting on at the moment, but they are planning to allow artificial intelligence companies to use material online — images, music, pictures, something

that was being created by a human being, to use that material without respecting traditional copyrights — so people don't get paid — as long as they are using them to put into their big, huge, complicated, super whizzy computer programmes called their large learning models, large language learning models to then be able to come up with their own material. and i'm probably not explaining that very well, but essentially, supercomputers skim loads and loads of stuff off the internet so that you then type into chatgpt, "give me a picture "of someone who looks like paddy mcconnell." it can go, "here you are." yeah. now, paul mccartney is one of many, many artists who's really worried that essentially this means then it's a wild west. it's an absolute wild west online because artists won't be protected in copyright and therefore they won't be paid. and if you can't make a living, well, then you can't afford to make

music and you can't afford to make art. and he's taking a stand on this and essentially trying to change the government's mind. and his concern is really about the rising generation. i mean, look, obviously, we should say overtly, sir paul mccartney is a like a megabucks person, right? because his genius translated into a lifelong career of royalties and huge success and, you know, gazillions of pounds. his concern is that this particular part of the development of ai would just make it very, very hard for the rising generation of artists to be able to make a living. and then you end up with art being the sort of preserve of basically posh kids who can afford to do it because somebody else is going to put them up. and he told me about it was really moving, actually. he said, look, we were working class kids who needed a job. we wanted to make music, but we needed jobs. and by being able to make money from music and getting paid, and in the beginning, we weren't making very

much money at all, we were able to make our music, and we were able to then bring joy to millions of people. and if you take that ability to earn a crust from being an artist, well, well, then you exclude loads of people from being able to do it at all. that results potentially in a loss of creativity. and then in the uk also, we shouldn't forget the creative industries are massive. they provide thousands ofjobs. i think it's like £120 billion or something like that to the economy. i heard the playwright james graham talking about this, who is also someone who wants us to talk more about class on podcasts like this. he says that these ai machines have been scraping his plays such that they can also do the same as they're doing to paul mccartney's songwriting. and the point about that the government would make is, at the moment, in this new and fast developing area, there essentially isn't sort of legal clarity. so things like that are happening. so james graham, who actually this week announced a new play he's doing with brian cox, won't that be interesting? his material is basically already getting sucked in and ripped off. yeah. that's happening with all sorts of stuff. what the government would say is that we are trying to provide clarity to a situation.

which is fast moving. which is very fast moving. and they say that artists would have the right to opt out of allowing their material to be used without copyright. what people like uk music, the trade body would say, is, look, it's completely unrealistic to think an individual is going to be able to contact every tech company in the world and say, "oh, hello, you can't use my stuff." and also that you're essentially asking individuals to then police the whole internet to check out what's happening with things that, by rights, should be theirs. and i think not only was it, you know, amazing to speak to paul mccartney, and when you hear his voice just even in our ears, you know, it's this kind of spine tingling. but this is a really interesting dilemma. and the government is going to have lots of these, i think, in the years to come. governments. how do you make the most of the opportunities of this new technology, including in terms of getting jobs and investment in this country without undercutting existing industries and existing things that we hold

dear and the government is consulting on it at the moment. there's a vote in the house of lords on it this week on an alternative where artists would be able to opt in rather than opt out, but they've got to make their minds up in the next few months. so i think it'll be really interesting also to see if anybody piles in behind this, because it is very rare for paul mccartney to do an interview. you know, he very rarely makes any interventions like this. so it will be interesting to see if other sort of big name creatives come out in support of him and if they're able, what they clearly want to do is try to create sort of public pressure so that the government thinks again, on this. i think it's very, very tricky. it's a real dilemma for ministers, this one. and let's have a listen to his message for the politicians. we are the people. you're the government. you're supposed to protect us. that's yourjob. so, you know, if you're putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists. it's obviously massive.

the whole thing is, you know, people being ripped off left, right and right and centre and it's all been given the name i and some of its massively useful. we could go and get the data, medical data and help british people be healthier. but at the same time, we've got to try and grab this tiger by the tail. it would defeat many people's understanding of how to do it. i think it certainly would. i think it's really difficult for governments to grapple with it, and there are tensions in government. we talked about this the other day, didn't we, when we were speaking about ian russell, the campaigner whose daughter molly took her life after seeing disturbing material online. there's tension between the technology department and other government departments. tension between them and the home office, for example, on how far to go in terms of clamping down on what happens online. there is, i imagine one might suggest, some tension between the department of technology on this issue and the department for culture, media and sport because these different interests compete with each other. you know, the government is out there banging the drum for al. keir starmer made a massive

speech about all the exciting opportunities. we had peter kyle on the show is one of their big things. and who would say that a government should not be trying to get the benefits for a country of a rapidly developing area of technology? rishi sunak said the same thing. but there are really, really difficult clashes or tensions. maybe not clashes, maybe tensions, because the interests of the i companies who of course, like many businesses, they don't want to have regulation. and the criticism privately is that the technology department has sort of drank the kool—aid, and they're so, so keen to please the ai companies to get them to invest here in this country, that they are willing to basically look the other way in order to protect things that are already here and already flourishing. tomorrow morning. who have you got? what are you doing? tomorrow morning. who have you got? what are you doing? well, we are going to address some of the european reset. are we are having government ministerjames murray

to talk about that. and we've also spoken to pascal lamy, who was the man who ran the world trade organization. he said the reset�*s all talk, which won't please the government. but there's a big speech by rachel reeves, and i think you might have news about that. we do. rachel reeves is with us tomorrow. rachel reeves 2.0. we're getting ready for this wednesday when she's going to say everything is go, go go go go go. probably also approving the runway at heathrow, which i'm sure she will not want to say tomorrow morning, but we might have a bit of a go at that. so rachel reeves is with us. kemi badenoch, the tory leader, is also with us for her first the next in our series of leaders interviews for the beginning of 2025. although it might be the end of 2025 by the time we get them all done. but yes, so we have rachel reeves, kemi badenoch and sir paul mccartney on the telly at 9:00 on bbc one tomorrow. how will you get them to talk? i don't know, shy, retiring wallflowers. thank you for listening to this and for improving it. and we'll be back tomorrow. goodbye. newscast. newscast from the bbc.

live from london.

this is bbc news. scenes of celebration in the west bank, as 200 palestinians are released from israeli prisons. that prisoner release came after hamas releaed four female israeli soldiers. it's the second exchange under the gaza ceasefire deal. the four israeli women have been reunited with their families and are being checked by medical teams. their story is seen as inspiring the nation. it is an immense privilege to meet these four brave women and be part of their healing process which is part of the healing process of the entire israeli people. but — a delay in releasing another israeli hostage has prompted israel to halt the return of gazans to the region's bombed—out north. six foreign peacekeepers have been killed in clashes with m—23 rebels in the east of the democratic republic of the congo and pete hegseth has been sworn in as the new us secretary of defence in a ceremony in washington.