multiple victims are feared as a gunman opens fire in a new zealand mosque police have called on locals to stay inside. israel defense forces are striking the gaza strip part of rockets were fired at tel aviv in the first such case of an attack in a city says twenty fourteen we spoke with his radio education minutes enough to the bennetts on the latest violence. we left gaza we want peace the moment please stop shooting missiles on my children's. home in kindergarten is the moment there

will be peace. in the face of bricks that becomes more cloudy as british lawmakers vote for a three month delay so it's back to brussels for two reason may to seek the e.u. commission. after the last few days of government chaos and some defeats all of us now have the opportunity and the responsibility to work together to find a solution. as r.t. international starting with breaking news this hour new zealand police are responding to what they're calling a critical incident at a mosque in the city of christ church local media reports a gunman that has opened fire inside of the building i would this is suggesting the number of people have been killed and that a gun month storms the mosque with three hundred people inside what is to say the number of victims could be dozens. according to reports at least thirty people have been hospitalized so far police have called on local people to stay indoors the

shooter reportedly live streamed his actions on facebook meanwhile another shooting has reportedly started at another mosque here's what some of the people at the scene are saying. if you. believe. in the main the. right inside. plus people some of them were gay some of them were screaming on the left hand side. ten plus people some of them were day and some of them were screaming in their asking me is there any and listen the way you know people. on the floor. small mini hundreds the bloodiest spitting on me and splashing on me and i'm saying oh my god oh my god it's going to happen to me now. fortunately i'm alive. and so.

this is a moment and i don't i don't expect this kind of thing to new zealand what our viewers basically are waiting for that can bring to border or good please let his guard run out of bullets and run it start first time i went but one guy was sitting out just beside a wall and what he did was minimal and they're not going back again where i was and next thing the guy can shoot this guy who are only looking about. they're. going to test. we're now joined live by ten thirty and specialist mr bill thank you for joining us on the program as such short notice now we do understand we're dealing with a very serious situation here but there's still a lot of unconfirmed details circulating soko can you tell us more about what's happening and what's being reported right now. you know i don't know very much more

new do you seem reports that there are two more spin attacked. on one one shooter we know what we gathered that it was sort of military style weapons because you know automatic fire. and so forth but as far as i know no one's claimed responsibility to this statement from the police. and the prime minister. is speaking at this moment she may have some more news but at the moment it's just. seeing walk reports come in what the police can. piece together a list. explain why they've done this ok i mean a lot closer than we are you're in new zealand just south could say how many casualties does it look like there's going to end up being of course details

a hazy at the moment we're hearing that it positively getting ready to receive up to fifty people what are you hearing there. well i don't know it's i saw one report on people i think you probably get a. bit of sort of hysteria in situations like this but who knows i mean it's if one or more people have been following we know in two places with automatic weapons they can kill a lot of people and indeed a lot of people can do damage in a very short period of time so. we can just hope that the damage is. as bad as it might be but beyond that of course there will be this huge psychological and political damage because it's. first time this is happened a religious shooting of this sort as happened in new zealand we've had you know mascots before people do range people but this is the first time a mosque has been attacked. and so the implications of that are really very

very serious you know in new zealand. in a sense is coming into the twenty first century. as we said you know it's very early on we still have no confirmation on who is responsible although there are reports that particular man has claimed responsibility via social media unconfirmed at this point could this be could the return be considered an act of terrorism. well i presume it is i mean. it's if he attacks in a mosque one report said he was light skinned so one presumes that he wasn't a muslim himself. so presumes the assumption would be i think that it is a terrorist attack that somebody has been doing it for political religious a mixture of reasons or compounded by some.

terrorist attack i think is this assumption at this stage there are reports that schools in the local area around lockdown and people are being told to stay indoors . how are people in new zealand feeling about the scale of the potential scale of this to attack. well i think the norm in situations like this is to have a lockdown to keep everyone inside. the children's schools and that's what one might expect i can imagine is a huge amount of one of the sort of interesting things apparently the bangladeshi cricketers. were the mosque praying at the time now one of the things that unites new zealand and parts of the muslim world bangladesh south asia generally is cricket so this adds. an uneasy connection if you like tween

us to. other new zealanders and most from new zealand is this shared interest in cricket and that's just another sort of. rather sad dimension to this this this massacre and of course there are reports that the attacker or attacker has a life story this sitting on facebook way to answer. the elements to this is suiting what you know. well i mean i think that's probably again. sort of standard practice nowadays i mean if you're doing an act like this you're making a point you want the public you're making a statement and social media i suppose is an obvious. you know way to to do that so. and i don't suppose we can be surprised i might be horrified didn't think we can be surprised at that as the these shooters because they come in

we don't even know. we can't be surprised they do use social media and that's of course in the sense you know produces further problems down the line as it becomes more and more. even and people get get used to it and we may get saved me read. tax and so forth. there is a day for full music indeed an attempt to research and asia specialist thank you for joining us on r.t. international a third short notice to speak on this what appears to be a very terrible tragedy in new zealand today so. now moving on the israel defense forces have launched strikes on targets in the gaza strip following a rocket attack on television earlier two rockets launched from gaza triggered a defense systems in israel artie's middle east correspondent paula slayer has the

latest. the israeli army is striking a number of targets inside gaza there are explosions and are being heard in the south of the strip in honolulu nurse earlier the mass which controls the gaza strip declared a state of emergency and back you waited its people from both instilled ings and its officers the i.d.f. the israeli defense forces has issued a statement in which it says that it is targeting terrorists now when as follows two rockets were fired from gaza at tel aviv on tuesday evening this is the first time since two thousand and fourteen that rockets have come anywhere near tel aviv israel's second largest city and there were raids code simon and it said what sounded throughout the city and while no people were injured there are a number of people who are being treated for hysteria now initially it will reports and the israeli anti missile defenses to me i know i'm interested to know one of the rockets and another landed in an empty field the israeli army deny it there's at the same time at this point there has been no claim of responsibility there

israeli media was reporting that islamic jihad was behind the rockets islamic jihad subsequently denied this and amasses also said that they are not responsible in fact an official has said that they are not interested in an escalation with israel and in a surprise me that actually offered the israelis to help assist in finding the perpetrators now late on tuesday night the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu held an emergency meeting with his security officials subsequent to that the israeli army issued a statement in which it said it will be given a strong but measured response and so in that is what we witnessing now in terms of israeli strikes in early friday in gaza all of this coming at a particularly sensitive time for the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu in the lead up to elections on the ninth of april so everyone is watching how he is going to respond and the response speculation in israel that the strikes could be entertained by him asked to divert attention away from internal taught internal

turmoil. and at the same time winds that have been happening inside gaza strip as a last point the israeli government has urged diplomats from both could tar and egypt to gaza as soon as possible so the institutional the ground is that the bidens and the strikes and which. operations are likely to continue and potentially even increase. the israeli army report spotting another palestinian rocket launched after they started striking the gaza strip they say they miss out triggered an alarm in the border settlements but fell inside gaza's territory we asked ramzi baroud at the epicenter of palestine chronicle dot com to comment. i expect the situation to escalate as far as the israeli government wanted to ask it it meaning that in my opinion what is happening right now is a political ploy when they did to the elections in israel on april ninth benjamin netanyahu the israeli prime minister is desperate for any political capital he can

get in order for him to defeat his puttin his opponents in the upcoming elections you knows that this time it's going to be a lot harder to get reelected again and he needs anything in his disposal in his power to be able to obtain those last few israeli folks my colleague neil harvey spoke earlier to israeli education minister now naftali bennett and got his reaction to the latest incident. it's time to defeat hamas it's time to demilitarize the gaza strip we are fine with gaza thriving on civilian basis but we cannot accept this. rocket fire on our homes here in tel aviv and down in the negev we left the gaza strip about thirteen years ago now and. the moment we left they've been shooting rockets at us

so we will not give up any more land it just doesn't make sense when we had learned over to the arabs they turned it into a radical islamic terrorist state and now it's time to fight back to the state and we will the u.n. says that an armed palestinian civilians were shot by israeli forces so are you surprised that there is an aggressive. response coming from palestinians who have the right of self-defense and they do not accept any sort of preach from folks on the other side of the world when we're being shot rockets from a piece of territory that we handed over to the arabs what i can say is that we won't do that again. no one's trying to preach i don't think everybody understands no matter what the grasp of the situation in the middle east is that the violence the cycle of violence continues and begets more aggression. how is

you know the what you're suggesting going to improve the situation we left gaza we want peace the moment they stop shooting missiles at my children's. home and kindergarten is the moment there will be peace we have no territorial demand over gaza and they just need to stop it if they stop it there will be peace that's very simple. now the latest from london where british m.p.'s have though to to delay the. case departure from the european union this means that the british prime minister will have to return to brussels and renegotiate the currents march twenty ninth deadline my colleague neil harvey spoke to artie's unassisted piece all of us to get the reaction from both sides of the channel. to. the payson house of commons couldn't really agree on much they have agreed on something finally but not really much tangible it's just

a delay as i understand it. well you're absolutely correct with your interpretation of these events i mean they have said no to a bunch of different things throughout this very very hectic week in westminster and they have indeed finally agreed on something which is they're not ready to handle bracks it which has become extremely clear in these last couple of days if it wasn't clear before with the original bracks a deadline of march twenty ninth looming just fifteen days from this evening it was clear that there is no consensus on what's going to happen it was a vote after vote rejected by m.p.'s in terms of how to move forward so the way things stand now is they have indeed supported the idea of pushing back article fifty delaying bracks it despite if you remember throughout this whole very gruesome process british prime minister theresa may has been saying over and over

and over again she wants to stay with a deadline we're leaving on march twenty ninth eccentrics cetera that apparently for now is not happening because of this vote yes for one hundred twelve votes no two hundred two a majority of two hundred ten so it's a very clear majority that. that many m.p.'s want more time to figure out what's going on the problem there is now to recently has to go back to brussels that has there they have told her many times that we have given you the best deal possible let's work with that that deal was rejected so what she's going to be able to it's seems likely that she's going to be able to secure an extension however what that extension is going to bring now is the big question because so many other options have been rejected. and taken off the table just this week alone m.p.'s have said no to her deal which was the best one possible according to may and her colleagues

at within the european union or in brussels and they have also rejected the idea of leaving without a deal so where all of this is heading now who knows you know it's been said difficult difficult process it's really i guess at this point going to be up to what it is that they're going to pull out of their sleeves to try to bring this forward something. vacillates from. european reaction i was going to be to all of a who's in berlin. the irony here is thick i believe the u.k. says europe we don't want you and now we're left to go back all of a twist like with begging bowl and so you to e.u. officials please can we have more time how do you think you're going to react to this. well i can tell you exactly how the european commission have just reacted to this they put out a statement through a spokesperson in the last few moments saying they have been watching the vote in

london with great attention and they've pointed out that if the u.k. wants an extension of article fifty it has to be approved by all twenty seven remaining e.u. members now this statement says the. they going to have to come up with a good reason for extension now there's a little bit of good cop bad cop going on here at the moment between the european commission and the european council in their various presidents the european commission president john called you previously said it doesn't want to see a long extension certainly doesn't want to see the u.k. have to take part in any kind of a u. parliamentary elections which basically means he wants to see that extension lasting no longer than the end of may we have heard from donald to skip the european council president he said he would be an ally. to the united kingdom in trying to get the states trying to get those leaders to side with an extension however he said if he's to do that he's going to need

a good reason to sell it to the twenty seven during my consultations ahead of the european council i will appeal to the e.u. twenty seven to be open to a long extension if the u.k. finds it necessary to rethink its brags its strategy and build consensus around it well if we look at statements from other e.u. leaders we've heard from emanuel mark on the french president saying that he would essentially support a extension of article fifty however he was very clear to say that this wouldn't be a time for any negotiations this would be essentially a time for the u.k. to decide if it wants the deal that the e.u. has already agreed with to resume a that deal of course it's already been voted down twice and may well go to parliament again for a third time next week or no deal the only other option is of course this the u.k. council's article fifty entirely all but killing brags that that's the one thing they can do unilaterally now we've heard from the negotiating team from the e.u.

side as well the deputy chief negotiator sabine whalen said she'd spoken to the dutch prime minister mark rito who described the vote on wednesday evening to take no deal off the table a bit like the titanic voting to have the iceberg move out of its way it's not doesn't really mean anything apart from words we've also heard from the chief negotiator michel barnier he was speaking in bucharest and he said as it stood will certainly earlier on on thursday so wasn't sure what the goal of bragg's it was or what it what it intends to achieve. it is. it's a lose lose situation. should. be nobody. has been able to get it straight to me crucially did you. not even mr. the long and short of it is that now if there's an extension to break that it's

going to depend on the leaders of the e.u. twenty seven if it happens or not if not britain still out on the twenty ninth of this month i just go visit a professor of european know at h.l. university taught us to read the maze influences now it's well bottom i think that we will go for an extension my sense is that it will be a longer extension to the more letting on really the idea that we're going to turn all of this around in three months is is in my view in the sky really imagine allowing your party a free vote on look central pillar if you like of your policy because if you don't you're going to end up with either lots of ministers resigning. all mass rebellion even by some miracle she won next week simply not ready but no doubt the media in this country tomorrow will start saying what a great victory it was for her so we'll turn a great defeat in other words she was forced to concede

a vote on delaying and but it'll be termed as as a victory how can or how can a defeat of that kind where prime minister is being forced to do things that she didn't want to do and persistently said she wasn't going to do in the end have to do it and do it in a way that meant her whole strategy the unity of the party is in tatters these are very very worrying times for the united kingdom very worrying times. breaks it comes down. returning now to our breaking news from new zealand a mass shooting is being reported at a mosque in christchurch new zealand as that can shooting at another mosque has just been confirmed reports of multiple people killed in the shooting when it is a they could be dozens injured the shooter reportedly live streamed his actions on facebook police are responding to the scene new zealand prime minister just send

arden house confirmed that there is one suspect in custody but there are concerns there could still be an attacker at large. personally that police do have one suspect in custody and how weaver could be involved. also multiple sings involved in this incident as well police will be giving more details as they can is the situation unfolds while star i cannot give any confirmation at the stage around tell it is a casualty is what i can say is that it is clear that this is one of new zealand's darkest days. but of course live now to brian terrelle cocoa ordinator of voices for creative nonviolence thank you for joining us on the program as such short notice now we just heard from the new zealand prime minister just into arden

confirming that there are multiple locations involved in the shooting and calling it one of new zealand's darkest days what are your thoughts on the events so far this morning. well i'm just sure about are now dead. you know it is horrifying i hope the scope of it is not as large as it appears right now. it is it is a dark day. it's horrific if i'm not mistaken done i'm not hearing the word. terrorism being applied at this point and that may be early but on the other hand. if this situation where we're different and where. if the suspected shooter's were not. white people. we would be hearing in the victims if the victims were not muslims at this point we

would be hearing the word muslim terrorism i think almost immediately this. i wish we would be more careful of that word all the time but it in this case the the. the. care is disconcerting. so. let me unconfirmed reports about this incident. one thing as we reported it what it is is that one of the attackers was a white male may have had oldroyd convictions may have even written and posted online a very long a very lengthy manifesto what are your thoughts i'm not. well i think that's it's. really systematic i don't some traumatic i. am hearing about this now in the news is reeling. but just study two days ago we

heard about a united states air strike in afghanistan on an afghan air base and this was the u.s. air force described this as a perception strike that it was a mistake and precision strike. and killed at least five afghan soldiers and wounded at least fifteen. and that was not. a disturbed person or somebody accused of crimes but it was. very institutional and very very deliberate even if mistaken. so i will not be surprised that this was the work of a very disturbed person. but it's somebody who is following the spirit of the times and of the. of the.

powers that be in that that are. exploiting people's fears the fear of immigrants the fear of muslims from the very very highest level and we can't dismiss this as often happens when the perpetrator is. is white and not muslim as the work of one. mentally ill. fanatical person and not see it as as a part of something larger. given the only ongoing riposte that we're receiving these kids oh very well. be a very severe attack not just the new zealand but the people around the world so what kind of impact is it going to have almost that incident for people in new zealand and of course the international community do you think. well i

hope it speaks to the international community that. that. we need to you know the need to to recognise the the fear and the racism that that's. been informing imbuing our hard discourse and these last years and. you know. if something good comes of this it's because we were shocked into seeing ourselves . as what we are and not if this you know that building walls and excluding people excluding. immigrants putting people on watch lists putting people in prison. is not a. humane or even an effective way of dealing with the problem of

terrorism in our society. today so that we have so far about the thai king seemed to suggest it was a very well planned premeditated attack what does this say about the security forces in new zealand and how prepared they all for such circumstances. well i'm not very familiar with new zealand but i know in the united states. even though the actual acts of terrorism. the mass shootings are almost exclusively done by. white native born people there has not been a mass shooting taking place taking place the united states that has by an immigrant is simply has not happened but the fear that's a gendered and the the. all the money being spent in the

political energies is out all on building walls.