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man: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" . you are watching the context on. bbc news. >> a lot of confusion earlier today in beirut after this new wave of attacks, and perhaps there is the expectation that there is more to come. >> it has been a nightmare. obably this is the worst day of my life as a physician.

i've never removed as many eyes as i did yesterday. >> the center of gravity is moving to the roof. this means we are dive rting sources towards the north. >> this event confirms there's a serious risk of a dramatic everything must be done to avoid this escalation. ♪ >> welcome and thank you for being with us on the context. after a second day of deadly explosions across lebanon targeting hezbollah, live in jerusalem, lebanon and washington. israeli leaders say they are opening a new phase in the war and the center of gravity is shifting to the north. what does that mean? also on the program, the u.s. century bank ghost big with its

first interest rate cut in four years, lowering the key lending rate by half a percentage point. andho is briefing against the labor chief of staff sue gray and why? we start in lebanon where there has been a fresh wave of explosions across the country which have killed at least 14 people with more than 450 injured. handheld radios and walkie-talkies have been def detonated the last few hours. the latest blast comes 24 hours after at least 12 people were killed when pagers were used by the armed group hezbollah exploded simultaneously across the country. more than 3000 people were hurt, many with serious injuries to their eyes and hands. iran has described the attacks as mass murder. hezbollah is blaming israel and

has vowed to retaliate. hezbollah is designated by a terrorist group by western and arab governments. amid rising tensions, israel has said a new front is opening up with the center of gravity moving northward. benjamin netanyahu says israel returned the tens of thousands of people displaced from the northern border to their homes. we start our coverage with this report from our senior international correspondent. >> crowds gathering in south beirut. a hezbollah stronghold. tense, suspicious, but willing to be filmed -- not willing to be filmed. they came to bury four of those killed yesterday. among them, an 11-year-old boy, but even mourners were not safe. suddenly, the sod of another blast. chaos and panic filling the streets. the authorities say this time,

walkie-talkies exploded. not just in beirut, but around the country. israel once again being blamed. at least nine have been killed and another 300 wounded. the tension is being driven up, day after day. one more ambulance there passing by. we've been seeing them in the last half-hour or so. also, fire w brigade trucks. people were looking to the skies worried about drones. they are beginning to leave the area to get off the streets. lebanon has been that way since yesterday afternoon when there was a wa of explosions. pagers used by hezbollah fighters began blowing up. apparently, a message from mossad.

almost 3000 people wounded in an hour. >> it has been a nightmare. probably, this is the worst leg of my life as a physician. unfortunately, we are not able to save a lot of eyes. i can tell you probably more than 60% to 70% of the patients ended up with this rating or removing at least one of their eyes. we are talking about a young population. patients in their 20's. >> a young victim was buried this morning. fatima was eight. yesterday was her first day back at school. >> i was lucky to have you, my beloved daughter, says her mother. you were disciplined, you are my whole life. hezbollah has been humiliated,

but is promising revenge. bbc news, beirut. >> let's hear from israel's leaders. the defense minister delivered this message to troops today, explaining a shift in focus in the war. >> the center of gravity is moving to the north. this means we are diverting forces, resources and energy towards the north. we have not forgotten the hostages and we have not forgotten our tasks in the south. this is our duty. we are performing both of the same time. >> prime minister benjamin netanyahu insisted that israeli citizens will be returned to the north. more than 60,000 people have been forced from their homes due to skirmishes with hezbollah. >> i have said it before, we will return the citizens of the north to their homes safely and that's exactly what we are going to do. >> just to stress, the updated

figures from today's attacks since the report a couple hours ago. the latest numbers we have, 14 people have been killed. 450 people injured in today's attack. let's get the latest now from washington. our state department correspondent and from jerusalem, our correspondent daniel. daniel, tell us more about what we've been hearing from israeli leaders, their first comment since the attacks yesterday. >> that is right. there's been no official comment on the explosions in lebanon over the past 24 hours or so. i don't think that is a surprise. i don't think it's any surprise that israeli leaders are not commenting on it. they been widely blamed throughout the region and the world. i think people in israel also think it was the israelis, mossad.

gallant, the defense minister, and prime minister netanyahu, their comments today are consistent with a ratcheting up of rhetoric over quite a period of time, particularly this week by israeli leaders. earlier in the week, the security cabinet made the return of israeli citizens displaced in the north from their homes, made their return to the homes a core war goal. that is one of only four war goals. the other three all related to gaza or hamas. that was officially making the northern front a key goal in this war. and what's happened over the past year is there's been a conflict between hezbollah and israel in the north. there has been thousands of cross-border attacks. hezbollahas been firing in rockets, sending drones. israel has been striking hezbollah targets in lebanon. it has killed a number of senior hezbollah figures in lebanon,

including in beirut. there has been a debate here that given the fact this is going on and on, thousands of people displaced not just in israel but in lebanon as well, about how it could end. there has been a diplomatic process, but that is very much tied to what's happening in gaza. the hezbollah leader has said their conflict with israel connect to gaza. if there was a cease-fire in gaza, there may be a cease-fire between israel and hbollah. given there is no cease-fire in gaza, there has been no cease-fire in the north. i think because of all that, the defense minister earlier was saying with diplomacy, according to him, apparently failing that military action would be the only course of action left. we are seeing today this increase in rhetoric.

gallant saying at an air force base in northern israel that the shift of focus is moving to the north. the center of gravity is moving there. we have confirmed this evening a division of the israeli army that has been focused on gaza until now has moved today to the north. that means there are two divisions in the north and two divisions in gaza. there has been a very significant strengthening just today and the forces in the north. >> i will bring in tom bateman in washington. has there been any response since we heard the israeli comments and how concerned is the white house? tom: well, we've been waiting for pretty delayed briefing from the white house and the national security council spokesman john kirby. there has not been -- it has not gotten underway as of yet. we have a few more comments. i have to say, i think the public remarks from u.s. officials on this are extremely guarded.

it feels to me pretty reminiscent of the mood around two previous, very significant israeli attacks, namely when the israelis carried out a deadly strike on an iranian diplomatic facility in damascus. and then in july, when the israelis assassinated the political leader for hamas in tehran. what you had in the aftermath of both of those cases was the americans really tried to distance themselves from the israeli actions because they feared it could spark a regional war. at the same time, bracing for the response to it by doing everything to shield its israeli ally, both diplomatically and militarily. i expect we are in exactly the same kind of holding pattern at the moment because the americans are not bracing for a response from hezbollah. they've had concerns about iranian responses in the past, they have ramped up american military assets in the eastern

materia. two aircraft carrier strike groups sent to close to israel in the eastern mediterranean. i think they will be scrambling at the moment. what they are saying pubcly is to say the u.s. had nothing to do with it. they are gathering information about it. crucially, they have said they did not have advanced warning. although, it has now emerged they had some warning about this. a u.s. official confirming to our colleagues at cbs that there was communication from the israelis to the americans that they were going to carry out something in lebanon. according to the american account, they were not told exactly what. they were not given any specific details. the notion is the americans knew something may occur, but they didn't know it would be this wave of attacks on explosive pagers, which seems like an export and replace for the americans to be because you would think they would ask what the operation would be.

that is the detail about how much they did or did not know before hand. >> tom bateman and daniel de s imone, thank you. i am joined by a senior fellow at the washington institute. thank you for being with us. how significant is this move by the israelis in terms of what we've heard from mr. gallant and mr. netanyahu in the last couple of hours or so? >> thank you for having me. let me start by saying this is the biggest israeli operation, breach of hezbollah security since the beginning of not only this war, but since the beginning of the conflict. is is a huge blow to hezbollah and they have to recover from it. no matter the scenario of t objective, it is going to have a serious impact on hezbollah. there are probably two

scenarios, possible objectives of this. one is that it is a deterrence message from israel to hezbollah, saying we have infiltrated you more than you could have imagined and this is just to let you know we can do more. this is just some of the stuff we can actually -- some of the ways we can harm you. this is a deterrence message that hezbollah needs to reconsider its involvement in this conflict. another scenario which is becoming a likely scenario at this point is that as we speak, the military movement to the north, the tanks and the soldiers and the movement towards the israeli-lebanese border is happening as we speak. the appetite for war. this might be its first step or a practical step for opening the door towards a larger escalation. when you start a bigger military

operation, the best thing to do is to break the communication system of your enemy. this is what they've done today. they cannot use their cell phones. discovered five months ago it was infiltrated. the pagers are exploding. the walkie-talkies are exploding. hezbollah's communication network is broken. no matter the objective, it is like this is it, the operation. it is a big blow to hezbollah. >> if there is a bigger move by israel, is hezbollah still in a position to respond? if so, in what way? >> so, it depends. i don't think we can respond -- they can respond today unless they are suicidal because they have to figure out the objective of this operation. they still need to understand what they have lost. these pagers were not used by low-level people. these pagers were used by senior and mid-level hezbollah

officials and commanders. a lot of them lost their sight they are out of service. they have to figure out how to communicate with each other. they cannot do anything without a proper communications system. they have to figure out how to recover from this. without answers to these three questions, they cannot really do anything. if they do, and use their military assets they have not used so far, it has to be big which means they have to use their precision missiles, guided missiles and long-range missiles which they have not used so far. i don't think they are ready for that because of two reasons. one is that this is a provocation and israel is waiting around the corner for any provocation to launch a war. two, these weapons, these assets are not really just for hezbollah. these are iran's insurance policy in lebanon to not expose itself by losing these assets and exposed its nuclear program.

this is basically it's way to protect itself. in a way, they are cornered. they need to respond and they have to respond, but they cannot really do anything before figuring out their current situation, their challenges, the trust issue within them and their people. this is huge. >> thank you very much from the washington institute. around the world and across the u.k., this is bbc news. ♪ ♪

>> more now on our top story. a fresh wave of explosions across lebanon. walkie-talkies have designated at a number of locations, killing 14 people and injuring hundreds. let's go to beirut and our middle east correspondent. hugo, do we know, first of all, is it possible to assess at this stage whether the people who have been injured are mostly

hezbollah members, fighters, or are there also a number of civilians? we do know some children have been hit and killed yesterday. >> yeah, we don't have those details yet. we know that 14 people have been killed and the lebanese health ministry says around 400 feet deep others have been injured as a result of this -- 450 people have been injured as a result of this attack. one of the locations hit was a funeral earlie today here at a hezbollah stronghold in beirut. i was there. there was a lot of panic, a lot of chaos when we heard the large explosion that happened as people were gathered for that funeral. there was a lot of panic because people simply did not know what was happening and people believed that any kind of device could explode.

many members were stopping us, our team telling us don't use your phone. i think this captures the feeling among many people he in lebanon today after a second day of those attks. yesterday, we had the pagers which ironically had been distributed by hezbollah to many of its members because there were concerns the communications network of the group had been infiltrated, had been breached by the israelis and they believed smartphones were being used to not only track down some members of the group, but also to kill them. we have seen these targeted assassinations that have been carried out by the israeli military, by israeli security forces, israeli intelligence agencies. there was the fear that the sophisticated smartphones were being used by the israi authorities, so those pagers were distributed by hezbollah

and then used to cry out those attacks. today, we see the walkie-talkies were targeted n.l. across the country tonight, reports emerging that the army is carrying out the controlled detonation of many devices. i think this gives you a sense of the fear and of the concerns among many across lebanon as a result of two days of these attacks. geeta: hugo in beirut, thank you very much. we will keep you across all the developments on that. there's much more online. in the last hour or so, the u.s. central bank has cut interest rates, for the first time in four years. a milestone moment for the world's largest economy. while the federal reserve lowered its appeal lending rate, what it charges banks to borrow by .5%, between 4.75% to 5%. it is a sustained reduction in

the inflation in the u.s. the fed has a huge effect on markets abroad. thbank had held the rate at around 5.3% for more than a year. the highest level since 2001, since jumping from near 0% at the start of 2022. let's hear from the fed chair jerome powell. >> as inflation has declined and the labor market has cooled, the upside risks to inflation have diminished and the downside risks to employment has increased. we now see the risks to achieving our employment and inflation goals as roughly in balance. and we are attentive to the risks of both sides of our dual mandate. in light of the progress on inflation and the balance of risks, at today's meeting, the committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate to 4.75% to 5%. this recalibration will help maintain the strength of the

economy and the labor market and will continue to enable further progress on inflation as we begin the process of moving towards a more neutral stance. geeta: here in the u.k., the bank of england is due to decide its next position on interest rates tomorrow. like the fed, and has been battling to bring inflation under control. last month, they cut the cost of borrowing after a steep fall in the rate at which prices are rising, but new figures suggested might hold offer further cuts for now. u.k. consumer price inflation came in at 2.2%, unchanged from july, as slightly above the bank of england's 2% target. let's go to our north america correspondent in new york. thank you for being with us. first of all, jerome powell has been giving a press briefing. give us a summary of the key points he has said and the reasoning behind this cut. >> overall, jerome powell is saying at his press confence that the economy is humming along.

it is in a good place. the labor market is solid and the inflation is coming to target. they are saying he wants to maintain strength in the economy and the way to do that is to get interest rates down to a normal level over time. powell did address concerns which really came after the jul jobs report was a big disappointment that the fed was perhaps behind the curve and could be endangering the labor market. he said today's move is reflective of a commitment not to fall behind. that is why we got that bigger, more aggressive 50 basis point interest rate cut as opposed to the 25. he did warn noto see the half-point cut as the fed's new pace. geeta: speculation as to whether there will be further cuts until the end of the year? ritika: yes, and in addition to cutting by 50 basis points, they promised another 50 basis points by the end of the year so that would bring us to a rate of

4.4%. in terms of econom projections , inflation is returning to target next year and the unemployment rate could be 4.4% by the end of next year as well. overall, they are quite positive on the economy and they think inflation is receding, so they want to focus on the others of their dual mandate which is ensuring the full employment and the risks don't go to the downside for growth. geeta: it is an election year. will this have an impact by the time people go to vote? ritika: of course, the timing is very interesting coming ahead of the election. we do have an independent central bank, but that has not stopped politicians from speaking up and saying what they want the fed to do. we have heard from candidate donald trump, saying he did not want the fed to cut interest rates. he thought that would be political ahead of the election. we are seeing those from kamala

harris' camp saying they support the decision today. geeta: thank you very much. we will be bringing you all the very latest on the events in the middle east and there is that u.s. briefing going on at the moment. we will bring you the latest lines on the u.s. response to events in lebanon and the israeli announcement. a new phase in the war. stay with us on the context. ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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