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your passions and the way you enrich your community. life well planned. nicole: at bdo i feel like a true individual, people value me for me, they care about what i want, my needs, my career path, i matter here. 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" s america. s the u.s. urges israel to ensure the safety of peacekeepers in lebanon after a second attack on a un base. recovery efforts are still underway in beirut following

israeli strikes that killed 22 people. more than 2 million people remain without power, two days after hurricane milton ripped through the u.s. state of florida. ♪ hello and welcome to world news america. i'm caitriona perry. the israeli military has drawn further condemnation after its troops struck a un position in lebanon, injury two peacekeepers. it is the second time in as many days. friends, italy -- france, italy, and spain issued a joint statement, calling israel's attacks a serious violation of its obligations under international law. israel said friday's incident was in response to a threat and said it had warned un personnel

to enter a safe space hours before the incident. a day earlier, an israeli tank fired towards a un observation post, and during two indonesian peacekeepers. the u.n. secretary general was asked about the incidents. >> peacekeepers must be protected by all parties of the conflict. and what has happened is obviously condemnable. there was naturally a reaction from many sides in solidarity with the peacekeepers that were wounded. in telling israel very clearly that these incidents is intolerable and cannot be repeated. host: israel's latest attack on those u.n. positions came after a conversation with the pentagon. a read out of a phone call held on thursday between senior u.s. and israeli defense officials said that u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin had emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety of forces to israel's

defense minister. mr. alston also urged coordinating efforts -- austin also urged coordinating efforts toward a diplomatic pathway. a former lebanese ambassador to the u.n. told the bbc that the u.s. has now lost its leverage. >> the problem is the united states is in a bit of an election campaign and washington says it has very limited influence over israel. this is a big problem, because if israel will not answer its closest ally, we have a big problem. host: beirut is reeling from israel's deadliest strike on the center of the city since these recent hostilities began. at least 22 people were killed, nearly 200 wounded in the raid on thursday. our senior international correspondent has more. correspondent: in beirut today, spoke still rising from israel's latest -- smoke still rising

from israel's latest attack on the capital. it came without warning. no time to run. officials say the dead were all civilians. so far the bodies of four children have been reclaimed from the rubble. and in the south, too, israel is accused of hitting the wrong targets. u.n. troops sent to keep the peace, where there is not. -- there is none. we found this footage with irish forces in july when they could still risk going on patrol. the u.n. says this week peacekeepers have been hit by israel several times, including at their headquarters. there has been an israeli tank, as i understand, opening fire on an observation post. >> exactly. that was yesterday. more than an observation post. inside is our headquarters. it is a well-known place. it is the largest base.

that is where the force commander is and where the main heart of the mission is. the two peacekeepers were injured because of that. correspondent: so this is very deliberate as far as you are concerned. this cannot be a mistake. >> we are looking into that, but how can this be a mistake from an army that is well prepared and they know what they're doing? correspondent: an army that released this video today of its chief of staff, said to be filmed inside lebanon. as israel charts its next moves here, it's under attack for targeting u.n. troops. the invading forces insist they target hezbollah, but two more u.n. peacekeepers were injured today. the army says this was inadvertent and there will be a thorough review. could this be a war crime? we've had suggestions from some in the italian government that this is a war crime being

committed by israel. >> i know that several governments have been very vocal about what happened. , we are still looking into that but definitely it is a serious development to attack peacekeepers. correspondent: but the peacekeepers will be staying at their posts, the un's as, despite -- the un says, despite israeli requests to pull back, and despite israeli attacks. host: for more on those attacks on u.n. peacekeepers and how the united nations might handle it, i have spoken to the u.n. under secretary-general for peace operations. guest: while this is a worrying situation, because as you indicated, we have seen today another case where two of our peacekeepers were wounded as a result of firing to you -- to un 's position. we had two peacekeepers yesterday wounded. thankfully none of them are in

life-threatening condition. obviously it is a situation that has to stop. our message to the idea -- to the idf, but to all parties involved, is they have an obligation to respect the safety and security of the peacekeepers. we are really calling them to abide by these obligations. host: are the peacekeeping troops able to fully carry out their mission at the moment? guest: obviously they are limited in their ability to fulfill their mandates. they have been most of the time sheltering in position, however we have had opportunities to continue some patrolling and also some movement for the purpose of resupplying our position. in addition to that, and i want to underline this, the peacekeepers have also been providing support to the extent possible to the population in southern lebanon, either by

facilitating humanitarian assistance or by providing support to convoys, particularly to civilians that are trying to escape the area. host: what has israel said to you about the idf targeting these un peacekeeping positions? guest: we are in touch with the israeli authorities and idf and have expressed concern to them. we have reminded them of the obligation of the parties to respect the safety and security of peacekeepers. they have indicated that there will be investigations carried out by them on the cases. hopefully that will be the case, but most importantly, these instances of firing against un position or positioning elements, military elements in the immediate vicinity of the position, this really has to stop.

i want to underline, again, this is a call we are making to all parties involved. peacekeeping positions cannot be used neither as some sort of protecting outfit and peacekeepers should be respected in their safety. host: did israel in those conversations give you any explanation as to why it had fired upon the positions? guest: we are in constant touch with them. as i indicated, an indication there would be some investigation carried out. of course, that is something we would appreciate, but we have not had specific explanation as of yet. what we are insisting on is that this is a situation that is very dangerous and worrying for our peacekeepers. by saying this, we don't forget

the massive impact of the civilian population in lebanon. there is a risk for more of this incident. host: we spoke to the irish prime minister on this program yesterday. obviously ireland has peacekeepers as part of that mission there. he described these attacks as a clear breach of humanitarian law. do you consider it to be so? >> certainly the firing against peacekeepers position is in violation of international obligation. that is absolutely clear. hence the importance of conveying those messages. host: israel has asked that the peacekeeping force pullback from its current position. what is your response to that request? guest: we made a considerate decision to stay in those positions for a number of reasons. first, we were not really

convinced that the best guarantee for the safety and security of peacekeepers was to abandon the position. in addition to that, we feel duty bound by the mandate that was given to that force by the security council, and we feel we have an obligation to stay where we are deployed to the extent possible. another thing which i believe is important is if those positions are abandoned, then it is likely they will not stay abandoned for a long time. we would not want any of the un position to be used by either of the parties. host: do you consider the peacekeepers to be safe where they are? guest: they are obviously in difficult and dangerous conditions. prior to the beginning of the ground operation and for many weeks and months, the un has been working hard to strengthen

the physical protection of these positions. we have been working to increase the supply, the sustainability of these positions. however, we keep reviewing the situation, particularly the security situation on a day to day basis. we keep interacting with the general force commander and his team. we have plans. that is to say, if the situation were to evolve on the ground, then we would have to make an appropriate decision. at this stage, the peacekeepers are staying in all the positions. host: in the u.s., president biden says experts estimate the economic damage from hurricane milton could be up to $50 billion. the president traveled to florida on sunday to assess the damage. at least 16 people died as the storm passed through florida on wednesday night. rescue workers are making their

way through floodwaters and debris and say the death toll is likely to rise. many areas remain flooded, like this neighborhood. more than 2.5 million households and businesses are still without power. these pictures show the coast guard rescuing a man clinging to a cooler to keep afloat in the gulf of mexico around 30 miles off florida's coast. he rode out the storm there. thousands have been rescued from other flooded areas. officials warn that more flooding is likely in the coming days. on florida's east coast, people are picking up the pieces from the deadly tornadoes crated by hurricane milton. six people were killed in st. lucie county, where we report on the distraction and long road ahead to recovery. correspondent: tornado touchdown, spawned by hurricane milton, nearly 200 miles, or 300 kilometers away.

another tornado ripped through this community in st. lucie county. >> it was very devastating. i was very scared. i literally felt like the tornado was inside of my house. correspondent: crystal and her 17-year-old daughter sheltered at home. >> as the tornado was spinning, feeling like in my house, the installation was coming out of this window and flying onto everybody's apartment. i'm hearing the debris fly around my house. correspondent: what were you thinking in that moment? >> i was scared. i thought me and my daughter were going to lose our life. i thought i was going to end up coming up out of the roof. correspondent: the trauma of the tornado compounded by the uncertainty of what's next. >> i have no idea from this moment. i'm lost, to tell you the truth. correspondent: an hour south, in wellington, people only had minutes to prepare before a twister cut through their

neighborhood. >> we just heard a freight train coming towards i guess the house. we could not see anything, but we knew from past experience of hearing about tornadoes that it has to be one coming, so we ran to the bathroom and hunkered in until the sounds stopped. we could hear just destruction. you could hear things ripping apart. correspondent: neighbors are helping put it back together. >> the response here of people i don't even know, which is phenomenal. the response has been amazing. we will get it cleaned up, though. correspondent: a long road to recovery, and hurricane season is not over yet. host: for more on hurricane milton's aftermath, let's go to the mayor of orange county, who is there in florida.

jerry demings, thanks for joining us on bbc news. how is the cleanup operation going? guest: first, hello to all of you. thank you for inviting me on the show. we had a widespread, merrily vegetative debris within our county as a result of numerous trees being torn down as a result of high winds. our cleanup is likely to take a week or so to totally clean the thousand square mile county up that is home to metropolitan orlando. host: you had significant rainfall there. what impact has that had on your roadways, on your lakes around the city? mayor demings: you are correct. we had significant rainfall. depending on where you were in the county, we had anywhere from six to 10 inches of rain. as a result of that, our

stormwater systems are designed to typically handle up to eight inches of rain on any given storm. so we were slightly overcapacity. we had localized flooding in several neighborhoods throughout the county. overall, however, we had minimal damage as a result of flooding because of many of the steps we had taken prior to the storm. our county has over 1000 lakes, so we have a lot of water all around our county. we did not have significant flooding by the lakes or rivers in the area, however we have not seen the crest of the water bodies at this point, because as you know water does flow. here in the metropolitan community, we are the headwaters of the everglades, as well as we are connected to the st. johns river that flows to north florida. as a result of that, there is a

load of water impacting the entire state. we believe we will see additional localized flooding, but it would be minimal, perhaps covering our streets for short periods of time. host: are there other risks from that water, perhaps sewage systems, but also mosquitoes? ngs: mosquitoes are certainly always a challenge. here within the county, the county is the management entity for mosquito control. we prior to the storm did some mosquito spray and. our crews are out as we speak to deal with the potential for mosquito outbreaks. in terms of other issues within the county, they seem to be well underhand at this point. we had some wind damage obviously because we had sustained winds of 56 miles per

hour, gusts up to 80 miles per hour. we had some damage in the county as a result of that. in terms of deaths, we have only had one reported storm related death, and that was due to a post storm incident in which an individual cleaning up his backyard went out and unfortunately touched a live do wned electrical wire and died as a result. we have various cautions we have put out to our residents about being careful as they are cleaning up their homes and businesses. host: and on the cleaning up of homes and businesses, are there many people who are without a home now? mayor demings: at one point we had a total of 15 different shelters that were open within the county. 11 with general population shelters, four were for people with special needs. in addition to our shelters, we have over 103,000 hotel rooms

within our community, the largest inventory of hotels within the state of florida. they were all at capacity at one point. in terms of those that remain unhoused or unsheltered, on any given day we have approximately 1000 people in our county who are homeless. however, we have housing plans of action. there are people that have been displaced because of damage to the homes in which they were not able to return, but that is a relatively small number of people. we believe at this point that is probably fewer than 100 people who have been displaced and need to have temporary housing. host: thank you very much for bringing us up-to-date on the situation in orange county. that is the mayor of orange county, jerry demings.

we wish you well with the rest of the cleanup operation to you and the community. mayor demings: thank you. have a wonderful day. host: thank you, sir. let's return to our top story again and the situation in the middle east. we can bring and some of our correspondence. we can speak to jeremy bowen in jerusalem and anna foster in beirut. anna, if i could go to you first on the developments of today, what is the latest where you are in beirut? anna: we saw just over 24 hours ago here in the central part of beirut the deadliest we now know airstrike that has happened during this campaign. 22 people were killed. lebanon's caretaker prime minister havs said more than 100

people injured. we have seen a really high tempo of is really airstrikes -- of israeli airstrikes in southern lebanon. hezbollah rockets continue to fly into northern israel too. as much as diplomatic number stations are happening around the world, we are still seeing this continuing fighting on the ground in lebanon. host: on the diplomatic conversations, how significant is it that israel struck those un peacekeeper positions today? anna: it is really significant. the reason unifil that statement out yesterday, they hoped if they condemned it, they used strong words like "deliberately targeted." they hoped that would be the end of it. again today we have seen another israeli tank firing on their headquarters. so the question is what needs to be done to stop that.

president biden said he is telling the israelis to stop. host: jeremy, with all the focus we have seen on what is going on in lebanon, perhaps one could forget that the gaza operation is continuing. you have been investigating. what can you tell us? jeremy: what has been going on in gaza is the israelis have upped the pressure on the northern part of gaza. what they seem to be doing is forcing out palestinians, civilians who have been living in the ruins. about 400,000 are still there. 1.4 million a year ago. the fear is among the palestinians, among various eight agencies, -- aid agencies, that the israelis are implementing what is known as the general's plan, to seal the area off, push out civilians, give them the option to leave,

then after a period, 10 days, two weeks, close it up, stop any kind of food or other necessities going in, and treat the area as a military area and treat everybody in it, whether they are civilians or hamas fighters, as legitimate targets. that is something which i think a lot of palestinians are very nervous about. inside israel, there are ultranationalist, not the least people in the cabinet, who are rather excited about the prospect, because they feel if palestinians leave northern gaza, what they want is jewish settlers to replace them. host: with all of that, would it seem that a peace deal is as far away as ever at this point? jeremy: i think there is about a million miles away at the moment, the chance of a cease-fire. there are not even any talks

going on at the moment. it is unlikely there will be any before the u.s. elections. there is this military force happening at the moment. while diplomats would like to do something, i think at the moment they certainly can't. the only person who had any potential leverage, president biden, has chosen not to use it. host: jeremy bowen in jerusalem and anna foster in beirut, thank you both for that. that is it for world news america today. i'm caitriona perry. thank you for watching. do stay with us 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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>> florida residents pick up pieces of their homes and lives in the wake of two hurricanes. >> it has gotten livelier and uglier every storm season. there is no fix for it that i see. anchor: donald trump stumps --