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Winemaker Maxime Chapoutier would be arrested if he tried to sell two of his newest wines in his native France.

“There would likely be outrage about these wines in France, and that would be a good thing,” he says. “Sometimes you need to be provocative to drive change.”

The two bottles in question, one white and one red, would be illegal in France because they are made from a blend of French and Australian base wines.

Under both French and European Union law it is forbidden to make a wine that combines EU and non-EU fruit. In France in particular, authorities take such things very seriously.

The French wine industry has a celebrated word called “terroir”, which applies to all the environmental factors that affect vines growing in a vineyard, such the soil, the climate, and the elevation. As a result, wines from a specific place are held in the highest esteem.

Add a strict appellation or classification system for France’s wine regions, and the thought of blending French and Australian wine to create a global hybrid would horrify many French wine lovers.

Yet Maxime has done just this, and it is all thanks to one word – Brexit.

For while he cannot sell the two wines in the EU, he can do so in the UK now that London no longer has to follow food and drink rules set by Brussels.

Maxime has created the wines in partnership with UK online retailer The Wine Society, where they are called Hemispheres Red and Hemispheres White. The red is made from syrah grapes, or shiraz as they are called in Australia, while the white is a blend of marsanne and viognier varieties.

The Australian red and white wine components are shipped in bulk to the UK, where they are blended with wine from France’s northern Rhone and Roussillon regions before bottling.

Maxime who works for his family’s celebrated Rhone-based wine company Chapoutier, say that while he respects France’s focus on terroir, there should be room for global blends to also be sold.

“Chapoutier has been making wine for more than 200 years, very terroir driven, and biodynamic,” he says. “But more and more people are turning their back on French wines because they don’t understand the complicated appellation rules.

“We need to adapt for consumers and make wines more accessible, which international blends can help to do. Maybe the EU law will change. It is also more ecological to ship wine from Australia to Europe in bulk, as you don’t have the weight of all the glass bottles.”

Another wine company now making wines by combining grapes from two continents is Australian firm Penfolds. It sells reds made from both Australian and Californian grapes, and others that mix Australian and French. Again they cannot be sold in the EU, but they can in the UK, US, Australia and elsewhere.

Penfolds refers to these blends as “wine of the world”, and says that they “possess an otherness that can best be described as worldly”. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

Unsurprisingly, some more traditional winemakers are not in favour of this development. One such person is Jas Swan, an independent winemaker based in Germany.

While the two-continent blends from Chapoutier and Penfolds are made with care from quality grapes, and priced accordingly, she is fearful that if the trend grows it will mean a lot more cheap, low-grade wine going on sale.

“I believe that those types of wine would have nothing left of any terroir, even before they left their continent,” she says. “Those wines would have seen only machine work, heavy additions to keep them clean, and are manufactured to be easy to drink for the masses.

“Why can consumers not be more demanding? The consumerism is insane.”

Peter Richards, who holds the top global wine industry qualification, the master of wine (MW), is also sniffy. “The notion of cross-country blending for wine isn’t something I find outrageous in itself,” he says. “My concern is more that this is about creating novelty for novelty’s sake.”

His wife, Susie Barrie, who is also an MW, adds: “I remain to be convinced that a wine made by blending grapes from different countries can be great in terms of taste.”

By contrast, wine writer Jamie Goode says that development of two-continent wine “is actually quite a fun idea”.

“If the wines are good, and made well from good vineyard sites – and not simply a gimmick blending together cheap bulk wines and then slapping a huge margin on the wine – then this is quite interesting.

“The fundamental basis for fine wine is the notion of terroir – that wines come from a place, and their flavour expresses this place in unique ways. But not all wines have to be terroir wines, and there’s room for wines like this.

“In some ways, there’s a lot of skill required to blend the right wines together to create something interesting coming from such different places.”

Pierre Mansour, head of buying for The Wine Society, says he and his colleagues came up with the idea of creating two wines made from grapes from different continents as part of the company’s 150th birthday celebrations.

“We were thinking about the future of wine, and we wanted to do something innovative. In the end we thought that one area of innovation is blending, of creating a wine that can mitigate for the impact of climate change on a particular country.

“And from a carbon footprint out of view, it is more environmentally friendly to ship wine in bulk from Australia to the UK. But at the same time we did expect ‘terroirists’ to say ‘hold on this is fundamentally against the French principal of wine’.

“So we approached Chapoutier, thinking that they might say ‘are you mad, how dare you insult us’, but they were great. They were really enthusiastic.”

There are times in history when countries are gripped by election fever.

January 2025 in Belarus is not one of them.

Drive around Minsk and you’ll see no big billboards promoting the portraits of candidates.

There is little campaigning.

The grey skies and sleet of a Belarusian winter add to an overriding sense of inactivity.

And inevitability.

The outcome of the 2025 presidential election is not in doubt. Alexander Lukashenko, once dubbed “Europe’s last dictator,” who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for more than 30 years, will be declared the winner and secure a seventh term in office.

His supporters call it an exercise in “Belarusian democracy”. His opponents reject the process as “a farce”.

Even Mr Lukashenko himself claims to lack interest in the process.

“I’m not following the election campaign. I’ve got no time,” the Belarusian leader told workers at the Minsk Automobile Plant this week.

The workers presented him with a gift: an axe for chopping wood.

“I’ll try it out before the election,” promised Mr Lukashenko, to rapturous applause.

Four-and-a-half years ago, at a different enterprise, the leader of Belarus received a much cooler reception.

One week after the 2020 presidential election, Alexander Lukashenko visited the Minsk Wheels Tractor Plant. Leaked video showed him being jeered and heckled by workers. They shouted ‘”Go away! Go away!”.

In 2020 the official election result – of 80% for Mr Lukashenko – had sparked anger and huge protests across the country. Belarusians poured onto the streets to accuse their leader of stealing their votes and the election.

In the brutal police crackdown that followed, thousands of anti-government protesters and critics were arrested. Eventually the wave of repression extinguished the protests and, with help from Russia, Mr Lukashenko clung to power.

The UK, the European Union and the United States refuse to recognise him as the legitimate president of Belarus.

Alexander Lukashenko’s staunchest opponents (and potential rivals) are either in prison or have been forced into exile.

That is why this week the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the EU to reject the upcoming presidential election as “a sham” and pointing out that the election campaign has been taking place “in an environment of severe repression which fails to meet even the minimum standards for democratic elections”.

I remember interviewing Alexander Lukashenko last October, on the day the date of the presidential election was announced.

“How can these elections be free and democratic if the leaders of the opposition are in prison or abroad?” I asked.

“Do you actually know who the leaders of the opposition are?” Mr Lukashenko hit back.

“An opposition is a group of people who should serve the interests, at the very least, of a small number of people in the country. Where are these leaders you speak of? Wake up!”

Alexander Lukashenko is not the sole candidate. There are four others. But they seem more like spoilers, than serious challengers.

I drive four hours from Minsk to meet one of them. Sergei Syrankov is the leader of the Communist Party of Belarus. In the town of Vitebsk I sit in on one of his campaign events. In a large hall Mr Syrankov addresses a small audience, flanked by his party’s emblem, the hammer and sickle.

His campaign slogan is unusual to say the least: “Not instead of, but together with Lukashenko!”

He is a presidential candidate who openly backs his opponent.

“There is no alternative to Alexander Lukashenko as the leader of our country,” Mr Syrankov tells me. “So, we are taking part in the election with the president’s team.”

“Why do you think there is no alternative?” I ask.

“Because Lukashenko is a man of the people, a man of the soil, who has done everything to make sure we don’t have the kind of chaos they have in Ukraine.”

“You’re fighting for power yourself, but you support another candidate. That is…unusual,” I suggest.

“I am certain that Alexander Lukashenko will win a thumping victory. But even if he wins and I don’t, the Communists will be the winners,” responds Mr Syrankov.

“The main Communist in our country is our head of state. Lukashenko still has his old membership card from the days of the Soviet Communist Party.”

Also on the ballot is Oleg Gaidukevich, leader of the right-wing Liberal-Democratic Party of Belarus. He, too, isn’t running to win.

“If anyone dares to suggest the outcome of the election isn’t known, he’s a liar,” Mr Gaidukevich tells me.

“It’s obvious that Lukashenko will win. He has a massive rating….We’re going to battle to strengthen our positions and prepare for the next election.”

Mr Lukashenko’s critics reject the assertion that his popularity is “massive”. But there is no doubt he does have support.

On the edge of Vitebsk is the little town of Oktyabrskaya. Talking to people there I detect concern that a change of leader may spark instability.

“I want a stable salary, stability in the country,” welder Sergei tells me. “Other candidates make promises, but might not keep them. I want to keep what I’ve got.”

“The situation today is very tense,” says Zenaida. “Maybe there are other people worthy of power. But by the time a younger leader gets his feet under the desk, makes those important connections with with other countries, and with his own people that will take a long time.

“God forbid we should end up like Ukraine.”

In Belarus today there is fear of instability, fear of the unknown, and fear of the government. All work in Alexander Lukashenko’s favour.

It doesn’t matter how much you prepare for it. It still takes you by surprise. As the great-granddaughter of a woman who was murdered in Auschwitz, I am meeting the granddaughter of a man who drove Jews to their death. I’m lost for words.

I never got to meet my grandfather Ludvig, who survived the Holocaust, or his mother Rachel. They were put onto a cattle cart to the Auschwitz death camp in 1944. Ludvig, who was about 15 at the time, was separated from his mother and sent to another concentration camp. But Rachel was tortured, gassed and murdered.

I grew up hearing so many stories about them, and spending time with other Holocaust survivors in my family in Australia. They were at the forefront of my mind when I found myself in Germany interviewing Cornelia Stieler.

Cornelia’s grandfather was the main breadwinner in a household with very little income. He originally worked as a coal miner, but after a near-fatal accident which left him trapped under coal for two days, he decided to do something else. Things turned around when he eventually got a job at Deutsche Reichsbahn as a train driver. Cornelia’s mother used to speak of that achievement with pride, saying getting the job was “the chance of a lifetime”.

At first, he was transporting goods for the war effort. But it soon turned into something more sinister. “I believe that my grandfather served as a train driver, commuting between the death camps. He stayed in Liegnitz, now Legnica, in a boarding school, so there was a certain separation from the family and between the death camps.”

Cornelia says that when her grandfather first started the job, he didn’t know what it would become. “I think my grandfather saw a lot of horrible things and didn’t know how to get out of this work, didn’t know how to deal with it.”

After training as a family therapist, she delved into her past and tried to understand him better. She tells me she started asking: “At what point was he a perpetrator? Was he an accessory to perpetrators? When could he have left?”

At this point, my mouth is dry. My heart is racing. Listening to all of this feels like an out-of-body experience. All I can think about is how her grandfather drove trains into Auschwitz, and that’s how my grandfather and great-grandmother ended up there. I’m thinking about all my other relatives – cousins that I know existed but know nothing about – who were murdered in Auschwitz too.

“If I were any younger, I think I’d feel a strong hate towards you,” I tell her, fighting back tears. “But I don’t because saying all of those things must have been really difficult to admit.”

“Give me your hand,” Cornelia says, also welling up. “It’s important. Your tears, and my touch, are touching me… My grandfather was a train driver in Auschwitz. What can I say? Nothing.

“I can’t apologise, it’s not possible,” she adds, implying the crime is too grave. “My grandfather felt very, very guilty, and he died with his guilt.” Cornelia thanks me for my openness and says there’s a need to fully uncover the history.

Then she says something you might not expect – that some Germans from Schönwald, where her family came from, had reacted angrily to her research. The now Polish town renamed Bojków, some 100km from Kraków, hasn’t come to terms with its Nazi past.

Cornelia explains that originally, the town was against the ideology of the Nazi Party, but over time, became consumed by it. Hitler saw Schönwald as a model village – an Aryan village in a land of Slavs. He was hoping that a “fifth column” of ethnic Germans there would become a useful aid in the military.

It was the site of the Gleiwitz incident – a false flag incident staged by Nazi Germany in 1939 to justify the invasion of Poland, one of the triggers of World War Two. And in 1945, towards the end of the war, it was the first German village to be attacked by advancing Soviet forces.

But just before that, it was the scene of one of the Nazis’ so-called death marches.

As Soviets approached Auschwitz, Hitler’s elite guard, the SS, forced around 60,000 prisoners there – mostly Jews – to move further west. Between 19 and 21 January 1945, one of those marches passed through Schönwald. In below freezing temperatures, the prisoners were dressed only in their thin striped uniforms with just wooden shoes on their feet. Those who collapsed from starvation and exhaustion were shot.

Those who survived were put onto open cattle cart trains heading further west, usually to other concentration camps, like Buchenwald. The Nazis wanted to hold onto their slave labour – even at this point, some still believed in an ultimate triumph of the Third Reich.

A local history and religion teacher, Krzysztof Kruszynski, takes me to the main street where the death march passed. People wait to catch their bus outside the main church on Rolnikow Street – known as Bauer-Strasse in German times. He points to ground, and tells me these are the original cobble stones that the prisoners had to walk on.

“It is a silent witness of the death march,” he says. “But the stone cannot talk.”

This history has been buried until now – partly because Germans from Schönwald were forced to flee after the Soviet attack that came soon after and Poles resettled the village. One German-Polish woman in her 80s, Ruta Kassubek, told me how drunk Soviet soldiers had stormed her family home and murdered her father. But there’s another reason: an active suppression of the past.

It didn’t surprise me that some Germans had responded negatively to Cornelia’s research. Germany prides itself on its Erinnerungskultur, or culture of remembrance: mandatory Holocaust education, museums, memorials. But many see that as the job of state and government. And while they’re happy enough to face the past in the abstract, it’s harder to deal with their own family history, says Benjamin Fischer, a former Jewish student leader and political consultant. He calls it the “deindividualisation of history”.

A study by Bielefeld University found that a third of Germans believed their family members helped save Jews during the Holocaust. That’s “ridiculous”, says Benjamin, and “statistically impossible”.

On the ground in Bojków, 80 years after the death march, things are changing. Last week, a delegation of Germans, Jews and Poles, including local authorities, schools and emergency services unveiled a new memorial commemorating those who died in the town’s death march.

Cornelia and Krzysztof were there. For Cornelia the history is deeply personal. She is convinced that studying and remembering it is key to understanding how society could change so rapidly. And I’m grateful for it. Their work and passion gives me hope in a world of rising antisemitism – as I try to keep the memory of how my family came to be murdered alive.

The people of Schönwald believed their town lay at the pinnacle of high culture and spirituality. But then it “folded into immorality”, Cornelia says. “This is a development that we need to understand… They weren’t solely good or evil. People can go into jobs with good intentions but very quickly, [find themselves] on the wrong side.

“We can’t change the past. We can’t turn back time. But it’s important to talk about this, to remind people of what happened, to remind people of what humans can do to one another.”

If President Donald Trump was polarising on the campaign trail, his first week back in office was no different.

He was officially sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday before signing hundreds of executive actions, reversing policies from President Joe Biden’s administration and following through on many of the promises he made on the campaign trail.

We spoke to 10 Americans across the political spectrum about how they felt about the week.

Here are their big takeaways.

Not everyone we spoke to closely watched the events, but nearly all had an opinion on an unconventional day that saw weather upend tradition, with events and crowds moving inside.

Kyle Plessa, 39, an independent who voted for Trump: “I felt like I was watching like WWE, professional wrestling. Just the boisterousness, the showmanship, the playing for the cameras. You can tell that the entertainment is a big part of Donald Trump’s credo as opposed to whether you had Barack Obama or Joe Biden inaugurated.”

Greg Bruno, 67, a Republican who voted for Trump: “I think Trump proved he’s a man of the people when he threw those pens into the audience after signing the executive orders in front of 20,000 people. It just showed you who he really is working for.”

Richard Weil, 74, an independent who voted for Kamala Harris: “[His inaugural address] was not quite as dark as his first speech [in 2017], but it was certainly bitter. There was nothing in there that said good things about America.”

Angela Ramos, 37, an independent who voted for Harris: “I found a lot of Trump’s speech to be disingenuous, because he mentioned specific things like justice, honour, integrity, trustworthiness, but these are not qualities that I think are reflected in his policy or his behaviour… I watched it out of a sense of civic duty.”

During his first week, Trump signed hundreds of executive actions that addressed issues big – including immigration and the economy – and small, such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico and releasing files related to President John F Kennedy’s assassination. You can catch up here.

Larry Kees, 47, a Republican who voted for Trump: “I was happy [with the executive orders]. There were so many of them. I couldn’t keep track. Obviously he’s not a regular politician – with most politicians, you’ll hear one thing and they’ll do another.”

Tony Flecklin, 69, a Republican who voted for Trump: “You can expect behaviour from him that’s going to be unlike what you normally run into. But in general, his policies in terms of border protection, economic sufficiency, oil and gas, I am wholeheartedly in favour of.”

Greg Bruno, a Republican: “This is why he was elected. Many of these orders involve issues that the American public wants to see done. Those are promises that were made in the campaign and he’s fulfilling them.”

Voters who cast their ballots for Kamala Harris said they disliked many of Trump’s choices, particularly on climate, health and his decision to pardon supporters convicted of crimes related to the January 6 Capitol riot. Others questioned who might influence Trump’s future actions.

Carlyn Jorgensen, 40, an independent who voted for Harris: “I haven’t liked the fact that the front row was essentially CEOs – that you had Elon Musk and [Jeff] Bezos in the front row. That, to me, just felt like – are we heading towards an oligarchy at this point?”

Angela Ramos, an independent: “Most deeply concerning to me are the departure from the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization, simply because our actions have really deep consequences, not just for us within the US, but for the entire world.”

David Lieck, 58, a Democrat who voted for Harris: “I felt like he’s essentially pandering to his base in the action he took with respect to the pardons and the commuting of the sentences of the January 6 rioters. I felt that was vindictive and sending the wrong message to the American people.”

Both supporters and critics said they felt President Trump was approaching his second term with more urgency than his first.

Greg Bruno, a Republican: “He came into his first presidency under attack… you put a person in a defensive crouch when you’re under attack like that. This presidency doesn’t have that element. So not only is he coming in not under attack, but he’s coming in as a highly experienced person in how to wield the power of the presidency.”

Shantonu Mazumdar, 58, a Democrat who voted for Harris: “I think he’s gotten a little bit harder, more hard line, it feels like. He’s, I think, emboldened a little bit by his constituents and the people who have supported him. I think he’s been given a little bit more… freedom to be further to the right than he was before.”

Richard Weil, an independent: “I think he’s more focused. I think he’s angrier, he’s more revengeful… but I think he’s turning into a bitter old man. I do think he has changed and I think he’s changed for the worse.”

Tony Flecklin, a Republican: “I’m happy that he’s following through with what his promises were. Sometimes his methods are a little draconian. That’s just the nature of Donald J. Trump. He’s not going to be wimpy about the way he approaches things.”

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify have shown a major oil slick spreading across the Kerch Strait that separates Russia from annexed Crimea, a month after two oil tankers were badly damaged in the Black Sea.

Oil has leaked into the strait from two ships which ran into trouble during bad weather on 15 December. Volgoneft-239 ran aground following the storm, while Volgoneft-212 sank.

​​Up to 5,000 tonnes of oil has now leaked, and media reports and official statements analysed by BBC Verify suggest the spill has spread across the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

A senior Russian scientist called the spill the country’s worst “environmental catastrophe” of the 21st Century.

“This is the first time fuel oil has been spilled in such quantities,” Viktor Danilov-Danilyan – the head of science at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) – said in a 17 January interview with a Russian newspaper.

Russian scientists said in December that this spill could be more than twice the size of a similar disaster in the strait in 2007, which saw up to 1,600 tonnes of heavy oil leak into the sea. Ukraine’s ministry of ecology has estimated that the clear up from the latest spill could cost the Russian state up to $14bn (£11.4bn).

Paul Johnston, a scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories, said “there’s always an element of uncertainty around oil spills”, but a lack of timely information has heightened this uncertainty further.

“I’m not entirely optimistic we’ll ever know the full extent of the problem,” he added.

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify on 10 January – the most recent available high-resolution photos – showed a massive oil slick running through the strait, measuring at least 25km (15 miles) long. A second, smaller slick measuring around 5.7km (3.5 miles) long is also visible.

Mr Danilov-Danilyan said that oil could “by late January reach Odesa” in southern Ukraine and “one cannot rule out” it travelling as far as the coasts of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

In a statement to BBC Verify, a spokesperson for Greenpeace said the group estimated that oil from the spill now covered an area totalling up to 400 sq km.

The spill appears to have moved quickly after the initial incident. On 24 December, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify showed oil accumulating on a beach in Anapa – some 40 miles from the strait.

BBC Verify has analysed reports in Russian media, statements from officials and Greenpeace releases from this month that talk about oil being found or cleared up on various beaches.

The reports suggest that the oil has now spread as far north as the occupied city of Berdyansk in Ukraine and as far south-west as Lake Donuzlav on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russian illegally annexed in 2014.

The leak involves heavy M100-grade fuel oil that solidifies at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.

A Greenpeace spokesperson told the BBC that M100 doesn’t stay on the water’s surface for long. Once underwater, it is “technically impossible to neutralise”, and can take decades to be biodegraded by marine micro-organisms.

Footage recorded by the Russian NGO The Earth Touches Everyone and included below appeared to show large amounts of heavy oil accumulating on the seabed.

Some experts have warned that the leak has heavily impacted marine life in the region. Footage authenticated by BBC Verify has shown birds covered in oil.

It is not known exactly how many animals have been harmed by the spill.

Overall, Russian officials say about 6,000 birds have been delivered to “rehabilitation centres” on the Russian mainland, but it is unclear how many of them will survive. A local bird sanctuary in Stavropol territory said of 1,051 birds affected by the oil spill that have been delivered to them only about 17% have survived.

Greenpeace told BBC Verify that the final number of dead birds could be far higher, citing the 12,000-13,000 killed by the 2007 spill in the strait.

A dolphin rehabilitation centre in Russia’s Krasnodar Territory told Interfax news agency that around 70 dead dolphins have been discovered on the shores following the latest oil spill.

“This is a horrific blow to the ecosystem,” Mr Danilov-Danilyan told Russia media. He predicted the death of “tens of thousands of birds, many dolphins, [and] big losses in the coastal flora and fauna”.

“Practically nothing, other than microorganisms that feed on fuel oil and break it up, can live in that sort of environment, even in salt water. The removal of 200,000–500,000 tonnes, at least, of contaminated soil too will not go without consequences, and will certainly lead to a reshaping of the coast,” he said.

Dmitry Lisitsyn, Executive Fellow at Yale University’s School of the Environment, told BBC Verify that under Russian safety regulations these types of tankers are barred from leaving rivers in winter.

“Those ships are not intended for high waves, they are very long with a shallow draught,” he said.

Questions have also been raised about the seaworthiness of the vessels, which are both over 50 years old, according to Marine Traffic.

Footage released by Russian authorities showed the bow of one tanker completely broken off during the incident, with streaks of oil visible in the water. The captains of both vessels have been arrested and criminal investigations have been opened into the incident.

Ukrainian activists have accused the ships of being part of Russia’s so-called shadow oil fleet. Moscow has been accused of using the so-called ghost fleet of tankers, which are often poorly maintained and lack proper insurance, to move oil and circumvent sanctions, though analysts the BBC has spoken to could not confirm the claims.

Experts say the long-term fallout from the spill may not be limited to just Russia.

“In general, Russia has suffered more than any other country so far from the Kerch Strait accident,” Dmitry Markin of Greenpeace said.

“However, the majority of the leaked fuel oil is still in the sea. Therefore, the long-term consequences for the occupied territories of Ukraine may be no less severe.”

Graphics by Erwan Rivault.

Julia Ramadan was terrified – the war between Israel and Hezbollah was escalating and she’d had a nightmare that her family home was being bombed. When she sent her brother a panicked voice note from her apartment in Beirut, he encouraged her to join him in Ain El Delb, a sleepy village in southern Lebanon.

“It’s safe here,” he reassured her. “Come stay with us until things calm down.”

Earlier that month, Israel intensified air campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in response to escalating rocket attacks by the Iran-backed armed group which had killed civilians, and displaced tens of thousands more from homes in northern Israel.

Ashraf was confident their family’s apartment block would be a haven, so Julia joined him. But the next day, on 29 September, it was subject to this conflict’s deadliest single Israeli attack. Struck by Israeli missiles, the entire six-storey building collapsed, killing 73 people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah “terrorist command centre” and it “eliminated” a Hezbollah commander. It added that “the overwhelming majority” of those killed in the strike were “confirmed to be terror operatives”.

But a BBC Eye investigation verified the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and uncovered evidence suggesting just six were linked to Hezbollah’s military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold a senior rank. The BBC’s World Service also found that the other 62 were civilians – 23 of them children.

Among the dead were babies only a few months old, like Nouh Kobeissi in apartment -2B. In apartment -1C, school teacher Abeer Hallak was killed alongside her husband and three sons. Three floors above, Amal Hakawati died along with three generations of her family – her husband, children and two granddaughters.

Ashraf and Julia had always been close, sharing everything with each other. “She was like a black box, holding all my secrets,” he says.

On the afternoon of 29 September, the siblings had just returned home from handing out food to families who had fled the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon had been displaced by the war.

Ashraf was in the shower, and Julia was sitting in the living room with their father, helping him upload a video to social media. Their mother, Janan, was in the kitchen, clearing up.

Then, without warning, they heard a deafening bang. The entire building shook, and a massive cloud of dust and smoke poured into their apartment.

“I shouted, ‘Julia! Julia!,’” says Ashraf.

“She replied, ‘I’m here.’

“I looked at my dad, who was struggling to get up from the sofa because of an existing injury to his leg, and saw my mother running toward the front door.”

Julia’s nightmare was playing out in real life.

“Julia was hyperventilating, crying so hard on the sofa. I was trying to calm her down and told her we needed to get out. Then, there was another attack.”

Video footage of the strike, shared online and verified by the BBC, reveals four Israeli missiles flying through the air towards the building. Seconds later, the block collapses.

Ashraf, along with many others, was trapped under the rubble. He began calling out, but the only voice he could hear was that of his father, who told him he could still hear Julia and that she was alive. Neither of them could hear Ashraf’s mother.

Ashraf sent a voice note to friends in the neighbourhood to alert them. The next few hours were agonising. He could hear rescuers sifting through the debris – and residents wailing as they discovered loved ones dead. “I just kept thinking, please, God, not Julia. I can’t live this life without Julia.”

Ashraf was finally pulled from the rubble hours later, with only minor injuries.

He discovered his mother had been rescued but died in hospital. Julia had suffocated under the rubble. His father later told him Julia’s last words were calls for her brother.

In November, a ceasefire deal was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah with the aim of ending the conflict. The deal gives a 60-day deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah to withdraw its forces and weapons north of the Litani River. As this 26 January deadline approaches, we sought to find out more about the deadliest single Israeli attack on Lebanon in years.

In the apartment below Julia and Ashraf’s, Hawraa and Ali Fares had been hosting family members displaced by the war. Among them was Hawraa’s sister Batoul, who, like Julia, had arrived the previous day – with her husband and two young children. They had fled intense bombardment near the Lebanon-Israel border, in areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

“We hesitated about where to go,” says Batoul. “And then I told my husband, ‘Let’s go to Ain El Delb. My sister said their building was safe and that they couldn’t hear any bombing nearby.’”

Batoul’s husband Mohammed Fares was killed in the Ain El Delb attack. A pillar fell on Batoul and her children. She says no-one responded to her calls for help. She finally managed to lift it alone, but her four-year-old daughter Hawraa had been fatally crushed. Miraculously, her baby Malak survived.

Three floors below Batoul lived Denise and Moheyaldeen Al-Baba. That Sunday, Denise had invited her brother Hisham over for lunch.

The impact of the strike was brutal, says Hisham.

“The second missile slammed me to the floor… the entire wall fell on top of me.”

He spent seven hours under the rubble.

“I heard a voice far away. People talking. Screams and… ‘Cover her. Remove her. Lift the stone. He’s still alive. It’s a child. Lift this child.’ I mean… Oh my God. I thought to myself, I’m the last one deep underground. No-one will know about me. I will die here.”

When Hisham was finally rescued, he found his niece’s fiance waiting to hear if she was alive. He lied to him and told him she was fine. They found her body three days later.

Hisham lost four members of his family – his sister, brother-in-law and their two children. He told us he had lost his faith and no longer believes in God.

To find out more about who died, we have analysed Lebanese Health Ministry data, videos, social media posts, as well as speaking to survivors of the attack.

We particularly wanted to interrogate the IDF’s response to media – immediately following the attack – that the apartment block had been a Hezbollah command centre. We asked the IDF multiple times what constituted a command centre, but it did not give clarification.

So we began sifting through social media tributes, gravesites, public health records and videos of funerals to determine whether those killed in the attack had any military affiliation with Hezbollah.

We could only find evidence that six of the 68 dead we identified were connected to Hezbollah’s military wing.

Hezbollah memorial photos for the six men use the label “Mujahid”, meaning “fighter”. Senior figures, by contrast, are referred to as “Qaid”, meaning “commander” – and we found no such labels used by the group to describe those killed.

We asked the IDF whether the six Hezbollah fighters we identified were the intended targets of the strike. It did not respond to this question.

One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batoul’s husband, Mohammed Fares. Batoul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist for the group, though she added that he had never been paid by Hezbollah, held a formal rank, or participated in combat.

Israel sees Hezbollah as one of its main threats and the group is designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, many Western governments and Gulf Arab states.

But alongside its large, well-armed military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party, holding seats in Lebanese parliament. In many parts of the country it is woven into the social fabric, providing a network of social services.

In response to our investigation, the IDF stated: “The IDF’s strikes on military targets are subject to relevant provisions of international law, including taking feasible precautions, and are carried out after an assessment that the expected collateral damage and civilian casualties are not excessive in relation to the military advantage expected from the strike.”

It had earlier also told the BBC it had executed “evacuation procedures” for the strike on Ain El Delb, but everyone we spoke to said they had received no warning.

UN experts have raised concerns about the proportionality and necessity of Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas in Lebanon.

This pattern of targeting entire buildings – resulting in significant civilian casualties – has been a recurring feature of Israel’s latest conflict with Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Between October 2023 and November 2024, Lebanese authorities say more than 3,960 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces, many of them civilians. Over the same time period, Israeli authorities say at least 47 civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. At least 80 Israeli soldiers were also killed fighting in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

The missile strike in Ain El Delb is the deadliest Israeli attack on a building in Lebanon for at least 18 years.

The village remains haunted by its impact. When we visited, more than a month after the strike, a father continued to visit the site every day, hoping for news of his 11-year-old son, whose body had yet to be found.

Ashraf Ramadan, too, returns to sift through the rubble, searching for what remains of the memories his family built over the two decades they lived there.

He shows me the door of his wardrobe, still adorned with pictures of footballers and pop stars he once admired. Then, he pulls a teddy bear from the debris and tells me it was always on his bed.

“Nothing I find here will make up for the people we lost,” he says.

Additional reporting by Scarlett Barter and Jake Tacchi

Some online sites are prescribing men a hair loss drug that has potentially risky side effects without consistent safety checks, the BBC has found.

The side effects of finasteride can include suicidal thoughts and impotence, yet some big brand companies will send the pills in the post without seeing or chatting with the customer.

We investigated after hearing stories from men through Your Voice, Your BBC News.

Kyle, who is 26 and from Wakefield, regrets buying the pills online after filling out a ‘tick-box’ form.

He says his life has been turned upside down by an all-too-quick decision.

Kyle started taking finasteride last spring, after it was recommended to him by a mate who was on it.

He says he did a bit of research beforehand, but buying it online was simple.

“I just typed it in on Google and it came up with all these online pharmacies,” Kyle says.

“It’s everywhere. It’s so easily accessible.”

The prescription pills arrived on his doorstep within a week of ordering them.

“I had no consultation with a doctor. No zoom meeting. I didn’t have to send any pictures to them or anything like that to actually make sure I did have male pattern baldness.

“I started it and, yeah – that was the biggest mistake of my life.”

Since taking the drug, Kyle says he’s been having problems with his sexual, mental and physical health – problems he had never experienced before and which have persisted since he stopped the medication.

“Life just feels grey. It’s, like, castrated my emotions,” Kyle says.

“It just stripped everything from me – all my personality and everything. I stopped going out with my mates, stopped playing football and started having all these issues.”

Finasteride is one of the most common pills for hair loss, taken by tens of thousands of men in the UK. It is only available by private prescription.

It works by stopping testosterone turning into another hormone, called dihydrotestosterone (DHT), that can stop hair growing.

Kyle took it for about six weeks, but stopped after experiencing problems including suicidal thoughts.

In late April 2024 – just weeks after Kyle got his prescription – UK regulators took urgent action over finasteride, saying packs must contain a special safety alert card warning of the small risk of severe side effects including suicidal thoughts and sexual dysfunction.

After being contacted by other men like Kyle through Your Voice, Your BBC News, we asked a male colleague to buy finasteride from three leading online providers to see what the checks now involved.

Online prescriber ‘Hims’ mentioned the side effects.

Superdrug also offered the option to chat with a doctor – that cost extra.

Only Boots pharmacy asked for a photo of hair loss.

When some packs arrived, none contained the new patient alert card that drug makers were asked to add.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency says manufacturers have been given up to a year to comply, but it might take longer.

Boots, Hims and Superdrug say online finasteride customers are asked to confirm that they have read and understood the possible risks.

They say until the alert cards are “rolled out” and put in packs, users can read the long patient information leaftlet already included with the medicine to learn about side effects.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society says online prescribing can be very useful for a lot of patients, particularly if they are too embarrassed to visit a doctor. But the checks must be robust.

James Davies, RPS director for England told BBC News: “It’s really important that regardless of whether it’s online or face to face, these thorough checks are taking place.

“That means that a full medical history is taken, there’s an opportunity to understand the medication that may be prescribed, the side effects, the risks and the benefits.”

He said sharing photos of the hair loss with the prescriber and having a video call to discuss all of the issues could be useful.

The British Association of Hair Restoration Surgery (BAHRS) believes patients shouldn’t get the drug just by filling out an online form.

Greg Williams, hair transplant surgeon and vice president of BAHRS, says although finsasteride is a good treatment for many, the small chance of serious side effects must be explained and closely monitored.

“There will be some patients who have risk factors that might make finasteride a risky prescription. I’m not saying it can’t be prescribed, but patients need to be appropriately counselled.”

Europe’s drug regulator is doing its own safety review of finasteride which could include a ban.

Nearly a year since first ordering the drug, Kyle says he deeply regrets taking finasteride.

“It’s just a little pill. You take it and don’t really think about what it can do to you,” he says.

“Every day I beat myself up saying like ‘You had a perfect life, you didn’t have to risk something over hair’.

“It was vain of me…but when you get insecure you do stupid things.

“If I were made aware of what it can do I never would have took it.”

Do you remember the feeling of sitting an exam? The halls crammed with desks and the sound of the ticking clock. Cambridge University Press and Assessment (CUP&A), one of the UK’s biggest exam providers, has been setting papers since the 1850s and its English exams have now been taken by more than 100 million people around the world. But today’s exam is very different to that very first paper.

In 1913, three people sat down to take the first Cambridge English exam. They were all teachers and all of them failed. But would you? This is one of the questions – you can find the answers at the end.

Correct or justify four of the following sentences, giving your reasons:

(a) I hope you are determined to seriously improve.

(b) Comparing Shakespeare with Aeschylus, the former is by no means inferior to the latter.

(c) I admit that I was willing to have made peace with you.

(d) The statement was incorrect, as any one familiar with the spot, and who was acquainted with the facts, will admit.

(e) It has the largest circulation of any paper in England.

(f) The lyrical gifts of Shakespeare are woven into the actual language of the characters.

The exam comprised a series of papers on phonetics, grammar, and translation, which took 12 hours to complete.

“At first, it was an exam for a small elite who wanted to study English as an academic subject, like Latin or Ancient Greek,” says Dr Evelina Galaczi, director of research at CUP&A.

“At the time, grammar and translation were considered the most important thing, but now the exam is much more about using English to communicate.

“The shift was gradual, but in the Second World War English became a global language and so speaking and pronunciation became much more important.

“That was a catalyst for change, and I firmly believe that learning English opens doors.”

By the 1950s, there had been requests for the English exam to offer translation questions in dozens of different languages, ranging from Arabic to Vietnamese.

Gillian Cooke, group archivist at CUP&A, said: ” I think the take up for each language was quite small and so that probably wasn’t cost effective.

“It might be one of the reasons why the translation paper was dropped in the 1970s.”

The Cambridge English exam has continued to evolve.

There are now different versions tailored to the needs of schools, higher education, and businesses.

“More than 100 million people across 130 countries have now sat our English exams,” says marketing director for higher education, Ian Cook.

“They’re recognised by more than 25,000 organisations from governments – which use them for immigration purposes – to employers and universities.

“Some universities in Germany, Sweden, and East Asia, for example, deliver IT and healthcare courses in English in order to attract the best candidates and so students need to show they have the language skills to cope with the course.”

Today, the exams are also available digitally and artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to create adaptive tests.

“In simple terms, the next question you’re served up depends on how well you answered the previous one,” says Mr Cook.

“And by offering a range of slightly more difficult and then easier questions as you go through, the technology will help to find your level.

“Our expertise and research have proven that the more teaching and tests are personalised, the better for students.

“We want people to have confidence, to pass – and show what they’re capable of.”

Despite the changes, CUP&A insists that its approach is as much about continuity as innovation.

Dr Galaczi adds: “Examiners and AI work together in marking and setting content for the exams, so we harness the strengths of both the human being and the machine.”

CUP&A says opinions about correct English grammar have changed, but in 1913, these would have been the expected answers:

(a) This is a split infinitive which would have been considered wrong. It should have said “to improve seriously”

(b) This is a hanging participle. It should have read “Shakespeare is by no means inferior to Aeschylus”. Now we would say “Shakespeare is just as good as”.

(c) Wrong tense. It should be “to make peace”.

(d) “Would admit” not “Will admit”.

(e) Correct

(f) Correct

US President Donald Trump has ordered officials to make plans to declassify documents related to three of the most consequential assassinations in US history – the killings of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.

“A lot of people are waiting for this for long, for years, for decades,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “And everything will be revealed.”

The order directs top administration officials to present a plan to declassify the documents within 15 days.

President John F Kennedy was killed in Dallas in 1963. His brother Robert F Kennedy was assassinated while running for president in California 1968, just two months after King, America’s most famous civil rights leader, was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee.

Many of the documents related to the investigations have been released in the years since, although thousands still remain redacted, particularly related to the sprawling JFK investigation.

President John F Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine veteran who had defected to the Soviet Union and later returned to the United States.

A government commission determined that Oswald acted alone.

However, unanswered questions have long dogged the case, and have given rise to alternative theories about the involvement of government agents, the mafia and other nefarious characters – as well as more outlandish conspiracy theories.

Opinion polls over decades have indicated that most Americans don’t believe Oswald was the sole assassin.

In 1992, Congress passed a law to release all documents related to the investigation within 25 years. Both Trump in his first term and President Joe Biden released piles of JFK-related documents, but thousands – out of a total of millions – still remain partially or fully secret.

Trump promised to declassify all of the files in his first term, but held back on his promise after CIA and FBI officials persuaded him to keep some files secret. Today’s executive order states that continued secrecy “is not consistent with the public interest”.

“As a statement of intention it’s great that the president has put his promise into words on paper. That’s important,” said Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post journalist, JFK assassination expert and editor of the online newsletter JFK Facts.

“But the details and implementation are everything. This process is just beginning. How exactly this is going to be carried out is not at all clear,” he said.

Recent document releases have revealed new details about the circumstances surrounding the assassination, including about the CIA’s extensive monitoring of Oswald.

In 2023, Paul Landis, an 88-year-old former Secret Service agent who witnessed the assassination at close range, said he took a bullet from the car after Kennedy was shot.

Experts say the detail complicates the official story that a single bullet hit both the president and Texas Governor John Connally, who was riding in the motorcade and survived the shooting.

Mr Morley said new information has cast further doubt on the theory that Oswald acted alone and predicted that a full release of all the redacted documents could add significantly to public knowledge.

But he said that there may not be a “smoking gun”, and that CIA and other security officials will push to maintain some level of secrecy.

“This story is not over,” he said.

During the signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, Trump asked for the pen he used to sign the order to be given to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is RFK’s son, JFK’s nephew and the president’s nominee for health secretary.

RFK Jr has long cast doubt on the official narratives about his uncle’s assassination as well as that of his father, Robert F Kennedy.

Kennedy Sr was killed in a Los Angeles ballroom by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian man angry at US support for Israel. RFK Jr has spoken to Sirhan in prison and has stated that he does not believe Sirhan killed his father, although other Kennedy family members reject that claim.

Martin Luther King Jr was shot to death by white nationalist James Earl Ray. Members of the King family have alleged Ray did not act alone and was part of a larger conspiracy.

Two Russian ships linked to its military have docked at the Kremlin’s naval base on the Syrian coast at Tartous, with experts suggesting that an anticipated evacuation of the facility has finally begun.

The Sparta and the Sparta II docked in Tartous on Tuesday. Both ships are sanctioned by the US and have been linked by Ukraine to the transportation of Russian arms.

Analysts anticipated that Russia would reduce its military footprint from Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December – which it supported throughout the civil war.

Large quantities of military hardware have been moved to the port in recent weeks and have been visible in satellite photos analysed by BBC Verify.

The imagery appears to show dozens of vehicles and other equipment sitting at the port. The hardware first appeared in mid-December following footage of large columns of Russian vehicles moving north towards the base – indicating they had been redirected from other outposts across the country.

The ships arrival coincides with reports in Syrian media that Russia’s lease for the port has been cancelled. The new transitional government in Damascus refused to confirm the reports to the BBC, while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also declined to comment when asked during a news conference in Moscow.

Tartous has been a key base for Russia in recent years, allowing it to refuel, resupply and repair vessels in the Mediterranean.

The Kremlin has appeared keen to retain control over the base, and said in December that Russian officials were speaking to the new authorities about a continued presence.

Analysts have suggested that the Sparta and the Sparta II – which are ultimately owned by Oboronlogistika LLC – a shipping company which operates as part of the Russian ministry of defence, were denied permission to dock at Tartous while discussions continued. The ships have spent several weeks off the coast of Syria in the Mediterranean Sea.

Marine tracking sites show the ships finally docked on Tuesday evening, after which they switched off their transponders.

The weather in recent days has made it difficult to obtain clear satellite pictures. But images from the EU’s Sentinel radar satellites – which are low resolution but capable of penetrating cloud cover – revealed that the ships were in the military section of the port.

Until now, no Russian military vessels had been spotted at Tartous since the fall of Assad regime in early December. In earlier high-resolution satellite imagery dozens of military vehicles could be seen parked near where the vessels are now docked. Also nearby were cranes which may be used to load equipment.

It is possible that two other Russian naval vessels are also present in the port, naval analyst Frederik Van Lokeren told BBC Verify. He said the vessels, Ivan Gren and the Alexander Otrakovsky, could also be involved in an evacuation – a sentiment echoed by Ukrainian military intelligence to BBC Verify.

“With the 49 year lease being cancelled it has become very clear for Russia that it can no longer hope to maintain a military presence in Tartous and as such, there appears to be no point in staying there and delaying the maritime evacuation any longer,” Mr Van Lokeren added.

The evacuation of all of Russia’s equipment may take some though, according to Anton Mardasov from the Middle East Institute’s Syria programme.

“Over the years much more has been brought in there than these ships and vessels can take,” Mr Mardasov told BBC Verify.

Meanwhile, there has also been continued activity at the main Russian airbase in Syria, Hmeimim. Satellite images have shown large Russian aircraft being loaded with military equipment on various dates since the fall of the Assad regime.

Ukrainian military intelligence said Russia flights had transferred military personnel and equipment from Hmeimim to airbases in Libya at least 10 times since mid-December. The Kremlin is already supporting the Tobruk-based warlord Khalifa Haftar in the east of Libya.

Moscow has long maintained a presence at two of the bases mentioned by Ukrainian intelligence – Al-Khadim and Al-Jufra. A former member of the UN’s working group on mercenaries, Dr Sorcha MacLeod, told BBC Verify that the facilities were previously run by the Wagner Group.

She said that Russia’s defence ministry has taken over responsibility for the bases through its new Africa Corps. The force is run directly by Moscow and has taken over much of the Wagner Group’s former role.

Dr Macleod added that the relocation of Russian forces to the country “makes sense given that Libya has become such a big hub for Africa Corps operations and access into West Africa”.

Additional reporting by Ned Davies and Joshua Cheetham. Graphics by Mesut Ersoz.

Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family who controlled it have agreed to pay up to $7.4bn (£6bn) to settle claims regarding its powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin.

The deal represents an increase of more than $1bn on a previous settlement that was rejected in 2024 by the US Supreme Court, according to news agencies AP and Reuters.

Under the terms of the settlement, the Sacklers agreed to pay up to $6.5bn and Purdue to pay $900m.

Oxycontin, often an entryway into harder drugs like heroin, has been blamed for supercharging the deadly opioid crisis in America, and generated billions of dollars for the Sackler family.

The New York Attorney General’s office said the agreement would fund support for opioid addiction treatment and prevention across the US.

“We are extremely pleased that a new agreement has been reached that will deliver billions of dollars to compensate victims, abate the opioid crisis, and deliver treatment and overdose rescue medicines that will save lives,” Purdue said in a statement.

The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out, but AP said it is among the largest settlements reached in a series of lawsuits by local, state, Native American tribal governments and others seeking to hold companies responsible for the deadly epidemic.

Under President Donald Trump, the federal government is not expected to oppose the new deal, according to AP.

Connecticut attorney General William Tong told Reuters that the settlement would help provide closure to victims of the opioid crisis.

“It’s not just about the money,” Tong said. “There is not enough money in the world to make it right.”

Under the previous rejected plan from last year, the Sacklers would have been granted immunity from lawsuits in exchange for a payment of $6bn.

The current court order blocking lawsuits against Sackler family members is set to expire on Friday, AP said, but a US bankruptcy court judge has been asked to keep it in place throughout February pending final details.

One woman, who has been in recovery for 17 years after becoming addicted to the painkiller following a back injury, praised the deal.

Speaking to the Associated Press, Kara Trainor said: “Everything in my life is shaped by a company that put profits over human lives”.

Purdue became a household name in the US as the maker and promoter of OxyContin – a prescription painkiller it promoted as safe, despite being aware it was both highly addictive and widely abused.

Since 1999, a few years after the drug became available, deaths from opioid overdoses surged to tens of thousands annually.

Court filings allege the Sackler family was long aware of the legal risks, and withdrew some $11bn from the company in the decade before its bankruptcy. They stashed much of the money overseas, while using some of it to pay company taxes, making recovery difficult.

Newly released satellite imagery shows Israel Defense Forces (IDF) construction taking place within the demilitarised buffer zone that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria.

The image, obtained exclusively by BBC Verify, shows building work taking place at a location more than 600m inside what is known as the Area of Separation (AoS).

Under the terms of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Syria in 1974, the IDF is prohibited from crossing the so-called Alpha Line on the western edge of the AoS.

When contacted about the images, the IDF told the BBC its “forces are operating in southern Syria, within the buffer zone and at strategic points, to protect the residents of northern Israel.”

The imagery captured on 21 January shows new structures and trucks at the cleared area.

Construction appears to have begun at the beginning of this year, with lower resolution imagery showing gradual development at the site since 1 January.

A new track or road measuring around 1km also appears to join with a pre-existing road that leads into Israeli territory.

Drone photographs shared by a Syrian journalist 20 January shows trucks, excavators and bulldozers at the site.

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East specialist a defence intelligence company Janes told us: “The photo shows what appear to be four prefabricated guard posts that they will presumably crane into position in the corners, so this is somewhere they are planning to maintain at least an interim presence”.

Newly released satellite imagery shows Israel Defense Forces (IDF) construction taking place within the demilitarised buffer zone that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria.

The image, obtained exclusively by BBC Verify, shows building work taking place at a location more than 600m inside what is known as the Area of Separation (AoS).

Under the terms of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Syria in 1974, the IDF is prohibited from crossing the so-called Alpha Line on the western edge of the AoS.

When contacted about the images, the IDF told the BBC its “forces are operating in southern Syria, within the buffer zone and at strategic points, to protect the residents of northern Israel.”

The imagery captured on 21 January shows new structures and trucks at the cleared area.

Construction appears to have begun at the beginning of this year, with lower resolution imagery showing gradual development at the site since 1 January.

A new track or road measuring around 1km also appears to join with a pre-existing road that leads into Israeli territory.

Drone photographs shared by a Syrian journalist 20 January shows trucks, excavators and bulldozers at the site.

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East specialist a defence intelligence company Janes told us: “The photo shows what appear to be four prefabricated guard posts that they will presumably crane into position in the corners, so this is somewhere they are planning to maintain at least an interim presence”.

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been sentenced to a minimum of 52 years for the “sadistic” murders of three young girls in an attack described as “shocking” and “pure evil”.

Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, died while eight other children and two adults – dance class leader Leanne Lucas and businessman Jonathan Hayes – were seriously wounded.

The 18-year-old refused to come into the courtroom as he was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court, having been removed from the dock earlier due to disruptive behaviour – which included demands to see a paramedic and shouts of “I feel ill”.

Sentencing him, judge Mr Justice Goose said: “Many who have heard the evidence might describe what he did as evil, who could dispute it?”

Warning: This story will contain distressing details

Earlier, the details of Rudakubana’s crimes were laid out in court for the first time in graphic detail – including CCTV and dashboard camera footage from outside the Hart Space studios on Hart Street.

The court heard how, just after 11:45 BST on 29 July, Rudakubana moved through the sold-out Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop, organised by Ms Lucas, “systematically” stabbing young girls as they sat making friendship bracelets and singing along to Swift’s music.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC also described how Rudakubana gloated about the attacks as he was escorted through Copy Lane police station after his arrest – saying he was “glad the children were dead”.

The teenager had booked a taxi to take him to Hart Street after leaving his home in Old School Close, Banks, west Lancashire, at 11:10 BST, the court was told.

Ms Heer played footage of Rudakubana asking the driver to point him to the address of the dance class – before getting out without paying.

The driver’s dashboard camera also captured Rudakubana walk up the stairs of the Hart Space building to the first-floor studio which had 26 children, Ms Lucas, and her colleague and friend Heidi Liddle inside.

Seconds later, the sounds of screaming children filled the courtroom and the footage showed girls streaming out of the Hart Space dance studio.

The families of the victims cried in the public gallery as Ms Heer played footage of three of the girls staggering into the street and collapsing – including two of the survivors and Alice.

Unlike Bebe and Elsie Dot, Alice had managed to get out of the building despite her grave injuries, but collapsed by the car of a woman who had arrived to pick up her daughter.

Inside the studio, Bebe had been subjected to 122 knife wounds, while Elsie Dot had 85.

Ms Liddle and one other child were hiding in a locked toilet on a landing outside – Ms Liddle later describing how she realised that some of the children had not escaped when she heard them begging Rudakubana to stop.

The police arrived at Hart Street shortly before 11:59 BST – three officers and a member of the public, window-cleaner Joel Verite, charged up those stairs to find Rudakubana stood over the body of Bebe King holding a knife.

Police body-camera footage showed him tackled to the floor as Mr Verite shouted in utter shock and horror at the injuries he saw had been inflicted on Bebe.

A short time later Ms Liddle and the child hiding with her were seen sobbing in terror and relief as the police told them it was safe to emerge.

One of the survivors, a seven-year-old girl referred to as Child A, had been pulled back inside the building by Rudakubana as she tried to escape and was stabbed repeatedly, before managing to stagger into the street where she fell to the ground.

A statement written by the mother of Child A, read by Ms Heer, said her father had been “broken” by what happened to his daughter.

“Our daughter has not only experienced the most violent, frenzied attack on her body, but she’s witnessed so much horror too.”

The leader of the dance class, Ms Lucas, who read her statement in court, looked around the packed courtroom at the family members of fellow victims and survivors as she spoke.

She said: “He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey.

“To discover that he had always set out to hurt the vulnerable is beyond comprehensible.

“For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I’m surviving for you.”

Victim impact statements were also read out by Ms Heer, in which the grieving families of two of the murder victims branded their daughters’ killer as “pure evil” and said his actions had have left them in “continuous pain”.

Stan Reiz KC, mitigating, told the court Rudakubana had appeared to have been a “normal child” until he reached 13.

Mr Reiz said: “There is no psychiatric evidence before the court that could suggest that a mental disorder contributed to the defendant’s actions.

“However, he did make a transition from a normal, well-disciplined child to someone who was capable of committing acts of such shocking and senseless violence.”

In his sentencing remarks, Justice Goose said: “I am sure Rudakubana had the settled determination to carry out these offences and had he been able to, he would have killed each and every child – all 26 of them.”

Justice Goose confirmed the offences did not reach the legal definition of terrorism because he did not kill to further a political, religious or ideological cause.

However, he told the packed courtroom that whether the “motivation was terrorism or not misses the point”.

“What he did on 29 July last year has caused such shock and revulsion to the whole nation, that it must be viewed as being at the extreme level of crime”, the judge said.

“His culpability, and the harm he caused and intended, were at the highest.”

Rudakubana was sentenced for three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder, one of producing the biological toxin ricin and one of possession of an Al Qaeda training manual, an offence under the Terrorism Act.

In a statement after the hearing, Elsie’s family offered their gratitude to the emergency services who responded to the incident.

“We are so thankful for their bravery, compassion and strength which should serve as an inspiration to everybody,” they said.

The family also thanked Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales for arranging private meetings where they offered their condolences.

Earlier, the prime minister said “the thoughts of the entire nation” were with the families of Rudakubana’s victims.

Sir Keir said: “I want to say directly to the survivors, families and community of Southport – you are not alone. We stand with you in your grief.

“What happened in Southport was an atrocity and as the judge has stated, this vile offender will likely never be released.

“After one of the most harrowing moments in our country’s history we owe it to these innocent young girls and all those affected to deliver the change that they deserve.”