Lucy Gilder
BBC

From Gaza to Ukraine to Westminster, it’s been a busy day on BBC Live. Our open-source reporters scoured social media to try and build a clearer picture of what happened after multiple people were reportedly killed near a Gaza aid centre.

We also explained how we were able to footage of Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russia using publicly available tools like satellite maps and reverse image search.

In the UK, we analysed the government's defence review, looking at how much it would cost to reach Nato spending targets and how the defence budget compares with other countries in the alliance. The review was released in full this evening and you can read more about it on this live page.

For more of our videos, investigations and analysis, you can head to the pages of the BBC News website.

Benedict Garman & Sebastian Vandermeesh
BBC

As part of our investigation into the reported shootings yesterday morning near an aid distribution site in Rafah, southern Gaza, we've reviewed a graphic video - which has been seen 134,000 times in one X post alone - which some claim shows the incident.

In the footage, showing the apparent immediate aftermath of a strike, dust clouds are visible as well as bodies lying on the ground - some motionless and bloodied.

It was posted with a caption by an Al Jazeera journalist stating: "New footage reveals the horrific massacre committed by Israeli forces near a US aid distribution site in southern Gaza."

We have geolocated the clip to a spot in Khan Younis about 4.5km (2.8 miles) from the nearest aid distribution point. The direction of shadows suggests it was filmed in the evening, not the morning, which doesn't match s of the Rafah shootings.

While ing the clip, a local journalist who filmed another video of the same scene confirmed to us that the events pictured are unrelated to any aid distribution site, and occurred yesterday evening after 19:00 local time (16:00 GMT).

The circumstances of this strike are unclear. The Israel Defense Forces has been approached for comment.

Marianna Spring
BBC

I spend way too much of my time hanging out on social media feeds, investigating algorithms, trolls and conspiracy theories and exposing their real-world consequences for BBC .

A lot of my work involves tracking down the people harmed by what's posted online - and the people doing the posting.

It also involves holding the social media companies to for their part in recommending content that's not true, hateful or negatively impacts people's lives.

Because of a lack of transparency from some of the tech giants, I often use dummy or undercover s. These are private profiles with no friends that test the social media sites’ algorithms.

They offer an insight into what different people can be pushed towards and what the companies are or aren't doing to protect s.

I use these s for podcasts such as Americast, which you can hear on BBC Sounds, where I discuss how what's unfolding in the US right now is playing out on social media feeds.

Today, I'm working on a new series of Radio 4's Marianna in Conspiracyland and a Panorama investigation coming soon. It interrogates a case that reflects the emboldening of the wider UK health conspiracy theory movement and the mainstreaming of anti-science ideas on social media.

You can get all my podcasts on BBC Sounds.

Ros Atkins
BBC

The government’s release of its new defence spending plans – along with an review of public spending more broadly – is drawing a lot of attention to the UK’s public finances.

To help understand the choices facing the UK, I've made a documentary with the BBC Panorama team.

It’s an effort to provide context to the political arguments that we’re seeing at the moment – for example, around the government’s planned cuts to winter fuel payments. The documentary will also look at why there’s a gap between the public services we expect – and the services we’re currently getting.

As we’re seeing today, defence spending is rising - that’s one pressure on the UK’s public finances.

But there are others too. An ageing population, rising expectations of the types of services the state should provide, the multiple shocks to the UK economy since 2008 – and the expansion of the welfare state. All have brought huge costs to the UK.

The question then is how to respond - as there’s no easy route out of the situation the UK’s finances are in.

You can watch the full documentary here on BBC iPlayer.

Merlyn Thomas
BBC

I’ve been speaking to the BBC News Channel's Matthew Amroliwala about what happened in southern Gaza, near Rafah, where the Red Cross says at least 21 people were killed.

It’s extremely complicated because we have conflicting reports from multiple sources, which include the Israeli army, the local Hamas-run health authority and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

But I explained what we do know – which is the location of CCTV footage provided to the BBC by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and videos we verified from near the Netzarim corridor.

You can watch that here:

Tom Edgington
BBC

Prime Minister Keir Starmer was repeatedly pressed by reporters earlier on when he plans to spend 3% of GDP on defence.

The government has committed to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence in 2027, and has an “ambition” to raise it to 3% in the next Parliament - “as, external economic and fiscal conditions allow, external”.

The latest estimate , externalshows the UK spent 2.33% (£65.8bn, external) last year, ranking it ninth out of all Nato on this measure.

Poland - with an estimated 4.07% - spent the most on defence as a proportion of its GDP.

But in cash the US tops the league. Its defence budget last year was an estimated $935bn, external (£691bn).

Ben Chu
BBC

With the UK government due to announce the results of its strategic defence review later this afternoon, it's worth ing that ministers have committed to increase spending on the armed forces to 2.5% of GDP in 2027-28.

The UK currently spends 2.33% of GDP on defence, external so that planned increase of 0.17% might not sound very much.

But given GDP in 2025-26 is projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility,, external the government’s official forecaster, to be almost £3tn it works out as roughly an extra £5bn of spending per year in today’s money.

The government also says it has an “ambition” to get defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next parliament.

We calculate that would cost around £20bn a year more than the UK is currently spending in today’s money.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte reportedly wants member states to spend 3.5% of GDP, external in the next decade. That would mean an extra £35bn a year in spending for the UK relative to today.

And US President Donald Trump has demanded 5% of GDP be spent on defence by Nato .

If the UK were to hit that target, it would translate into an extra £80bn of defence spending a year relative to today, more than doubling the current defence budget.

Rob Corp
BBC Live editor

One of the main aims of this page - BBC Live - is to showcase our team's work in real time and explain how we go about ing the sources and information you see, read and hear on the BBC.

BBC News' CEO Deborah Turness writes in a new blog post that our audiences want "greater transparency about our journalism" so they can trust what we're reporting.

You can read the blog on the BBC website, but here's a short snippet:

Thomas Spencer
BBC

Having verified footage of the Ukrainian attack on Russian air bases we showed it to Dr Steve Wright, a UK-based drone expert, who said it was quite remarkable such an operation could be carried out deep inside Russia.

Dr Wright said the simple quadcopters carrying relatively heavy payloads appear to have been smuggled into Russia for the attack and then these were, crucially, launched and commanded remotely to hit bomber aircraft stationed at their home bases.

Image source, Ukraine SBU/BBC

Dr Wright said the remote piloting of these drones probably will have been achieved through “a link relayed through a satellite or the internet”.

He added: “I don't think there is anyone else in the world capable of pulling this off.”

Flight diagnostics displayed in the onboard footage also offers clues, says Dr Wright.

Looking at different snippets of drone attack footage, he suggested the drones were likely able to fly in using GPS but may have also overcome localised Russian jamming measures by manually piloting drones remotely.

Image source, Ukraine SBU/BBC

Emma Pengelly
BBC

Footage has emerged after Sunday’s disputed incident near an aid distribution point in southern Gaza that appears to show Palestinians taking cover as gunfire is heard.

Today, an Israeli military source told BBC that warning shots were fired towards several suspects approximately 1km (0.6 miles) away from the aid distribution site.

Among the videos circulating on platforms such as Telegram, Instagram and X is one showing Palestinians crouching and apparently ducking for cover in an open area of sandy terrain while what sounds like automatic gunfire rings out.

Image source, Instagram

Our verification priorities are to identify exactly where and when footage was filmed. But that’s not always possible.

In this instance, there are not enough identifying features such as trees, buildings and landmarks that we can match to satellite images to confirm a location.

While we cannot be exactly sure of the location, we ran five different key frames from the video through a search engine and found that this video was posted no earlier than 03:08 GMT or 06:08 local time on Sunday.

Later that day at around 18:00 local time (15:00 GMT) the same posted a video showing hundreds of people gathering at an aid distribution site west of Rafah - footage which we have geolocated. The area looks very crowded but no gunfire is heard.

This post has been updated to correct the time that the second video was posted online

Benedict Garman & Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC

After video emerged yesterday of what appeared to be a series of Ukrainian drone attacks across Russia, we began the process of ing them to help us report what looked like a new development in the war.

We used mapping services such as Google and Yandex (a Russian search engine with good coverage of the country) to geolocate where the footage was from.

After that, we carried out reverse image searches to check these were newly-published videos and not old material being ed off as new.

In one video, of burning planes on the ground after a strike at the Olenya air base in the Murmansk region, we could match the runway layout to what’s shown on mapping sites.

Another showed a drone flying through the sky filmed from a nearby petrol station forecourt, which we found by matching it with images on Google Maps. We also checked the weather on Sunday to see if it matched the overcast and wet conditions seen in the video, which it did.

The Ukrainian SBU security service has also shared its own images of the planning for the operation, some showing officers poring over layouts of the targets. We were able to match the outlines you see in some of these to the airstrips shown on Google and Yandex maps.

Image source, Ukrainian SBU/Google

Lucy Gilder
BBC

Nearly 1,200 people arrived in the UK on small boats, external on Saturday.

French MP Eleonore Caroit said earlier on BBC Radio 4 that numbers have been increasing “after the UK is no longer part of the Dublin Regulation”.

She added that “before [Brexit] it was easier to have immigrants returned”.

She was talking about an EU scheme known as the Dublin III Regulation, external, which the UK participated in until 2020.

The agreement determined which participating EU country was responsible for processing asylum claims and allowed for the return of some asylum seekers.

But in the scheme's later years the UK accepted more asylum seekers than it returned.

Between 2018 and 2020, the UK returned 577 people under the Dublin accord, external, while there were 2,811 arrivals into the UK.

The UK government began to record small boat arrivals in 2018 when 299 people were detected crossing. Since that time numbers have increased significantly.

Rob Corp
BBC Live editor

As we work to piece together the chain of events that led to more than 20 people being killed in Gaza on Sunday, one of the key techniques we're using is Osint - open-source intelligence.

This sees the team gather and analyse information that is readily available in the public domain - for example, videos and pictures being shared on social media and messaging apps.

To establish the veracity of material being shared online we examine features in the clips that tell us whether the video was taken where the poster said it was.

Landmarks such as trees, signs and even road or footpath layouts can give clues about where a clip is. They are then cross-referenced with other images from the location, such as images online and satellite data.

We will also run the video through a reverse image search - again using tools available to everyone - to establish when the footage first appeared online. If there are no previous search results the clip is likely to be new.

Being able to authenticate material originating from locations where journalists are otherwise denied access, such as Gaza, the BBC is able to help piece together what has been going on.

Benedict Garman
BBC

Image source, Getty Images

The open-source (Osint) team is investigating what happened near an aid distribution centre in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Sunday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported a “mass casualty influx” of people - many with gunshot or shrapnel wounds - who said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site.

Here’s what we know so far:

• The ICRC said 21 people were “declared dead on arrival” and that women and children were among 179 cases
• The Hamas-run civil defence agency said at least 31 people were killed and blamed “Israeli gunfire”
• The Israeli army denied firing on civilians and released drone footage which it claims shows armed, masked men throwing stones and shooting at civilians in Khan Younis

BBC reviewed several videos on Sunday, which show:

• Bodies being carried on carts and in the back of lorries to Gaza's Nasser Hospital
• Doctors describing injuries inside hospitals
• A drone video released by the IDF - but there are not enough clues in the footage to pinpoint where exactly it was filmed, or at what time
• Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) - the group that runs the aid distribution centres - provided three short CCTV clips from a camera at one of its sites in Rafah which it says refutes claims of any shooting
• One of the clips does appear to include gunfire and BBC is continuing to analyse them with the help of weapons experts

We continue to scour social media to try and find more video evidence to build a clear picture of what exactly happened. There are also reports of separate shootings near other aid sites which we’re investigating. Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza.

Rob Corp
BBC Live editor

I've just come out of the BBC editors' meeting and these are the lines the team is working on today:

• We're looking for developments in Gaza after the Red Cross said at least 21 people were killed by shrapnel and bullet wounds after an incident at an aid centre
• The team is assessing material we have gathered to get a clearer picture from the scene
• We're working to the conflicting claims around this incident as the Israeli military said it had not fired at people and has released drone footage of armed and masked men throwing stones and shooting at people
• The fact-check team will be across the build-up and announcement of the UK government's strategic defence review.

Elsewhere, we're keeping an eye on Ukraine following the weekend's large-scale drone attack, which left 40 Russian bomber aircraft in flames.

Rob Corp
BBC Live editor

Welcome to BBC Live - our new live page bringing you updates on our work fact-checking and ing the sources behind the news across the day.

We're going to bring you updates on the stories we are investigating as well as giving insights into the tools and processes we employ to ensure what you see and read is accurate.

One of our main tasks is open-source intelligence where we social media videos, satellite images and use plane-tracking websites to inform our reporting and show the situation in places that are hard to reach.

BBC is also dedicated to examining the facts and claims behind a story to determine whether it is true. And while this means we're always listening out to check what people say is right and fair, we're also keen to hear from you.

If you've seen or heard something online - via social media or messaging apps - and think it could be false or misleading, then do get in touch. You can send your suggestions to the team here.