live from london, this is bbc news. the israeli military says about 300,000 palestinians have left the city of rafah since they've been ordered to evacuate on monday. but the un warns they're moving to an area which lacks basic infrastructure. the grand final of the eurovision song contest is underway in malmo, sweden, against a background of protests over israel's participation. thousands of demonstrators in georgia take to the streets of tbilisi, in the latest protests against legislation they say will stifle opposition. the un's world food programme says hundreds of people have been killed and thousands of homes destroyed by major flooding in northern afghanistan. and the most powerful solar storm in 21 years triggers celestial light—shows in many parts of the world — with scientists expecting another display later this evening.

hello. the israeli military says about 300,000 palestinians have left the city of rafah since monday — when israel told them to move to a nearby district of gaza. the israel defence forces have declared a narrow coastal strip at al—mawasi to be a safe humanitarian zone, but the un says it has no running water or proper sanitation. israel is planning an assault on hamas fighters in rafah and has ordered tens of thousands more residents — from eastern districts of the city to leave. evacuation orders have also been issued for thousands of people in parts of northern gaza. last night, a us government report criticised israel's use of american—supplied weapons in the gaza war, saying it's reasonable to assess they have been used in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances. israel launched its war on hamas following their attack in israel on october 7th. from jerusalem, here's our middle east

correspondent, yolande knell. another desperate exodus, palestinians fleeing in their thousands as israel signals it's now set to push further into gaza's southernmost city, issuing new evacuation orders. "what should we do?" hanan asks. "do we wait until we all die on top of each other? we've decided it's better to leave." israel has said it's taking action against hamas in one of its last strongholds and trying to bring hostages home. but with israel's capture of one main border crossing and another blocked off by fighting, this is the fifth day with no aid getting into southern gaza. there are now severe shortages of food, deepening the humanitarian crisis. so far, israel's military is describing its offensive in rafah as limited. but the world is watching to see if this turns into the full scale invasion that the country's allies have warned against. and as israeli tanks and troops

await orders near the gaza border, there's been another strong statement from washington. it says that with some of its strikes on gaza, israel may have used american supplied weapons in breach of international law. israel has consistently denied any violations. and yet the new report may have an impact on plans back here in rafah, where there's already a growing sense of emergency. yolande knell, bbc news, jerusalem. the final of the eurovision song contest is now under way in sweden. throughout the day, an estimated 10,000 people marched through the city of malmo, protesting against israel's participation in the competition. the israeli performer, eden golan, is in tonight's final, but was met with booing when she performed her song, hurricane, yesterday. a norwegianjury spokesperson has resigned over the war and the finnish jury spokesperson said he has stepped down from the role, as announcing the points "does not feel right".

earlier the french contestant stopped singing mon amour during the dress rehearsals to call for peace. meanwhile, the dutch artistjoost klein has been disqualified from the contest after a backstage incident. an allegation of intimidation was made to swedish police by a female member of the production crew. avrotros, the dutch radio and television broadcaster, has now announced it will no longer be announcing the points of the dutch jury at the eurovision song contest. 0ur correspondent sarah rainsford has more on the protests in malmo. it was a large march, as you said, around about 10,000 protesters. that's pretty much the same as we saw, i think, on thursday. they marched right through the heart of malmo, down the main shopping street, waving palestinian flags and chanting the main chants, the fundamental ones, "free palestine" and also "boycott israel". so a lot of passionate feelings, a lot of people who came out because they don't believe israel should be taking part in this year's eurovision whilst gaza is being bombed by the israeli military, and they wanted their

voices to be heard. it was peaceful. there were lots of children in the crowd, people had come and draped flags over pushchairs. there were bicycles, there were people who had come with their pets, with their dogs, lots of pets in the crowd, too. there were also a lot of police. we saw plainclothed policemen keeping an eye on things, we saw riot police hanging backjust in case, and there were these dialogue police, the community police liaison officers, all along the route. but it was an authorised protest and it was a controlled protest. so strong feelings, strong voices, strong opinions being shouted out across malmo today but it all has passed off peacefully. of course, this is very different to the usual sort of eurovision party weekend. the atmosphere is very different here in malmo, and i was actually talking earlier to an israeli fan who has come to malmo for the eurovision song contest despite concerns before this week, essentially, about security here. now, he said he felt israel did have a right to be represented. he said he was cautious,

though, himself. he is not covering his face in blue—and—white face paint and glitter as he said he would normally do. he called himself a superfan of eurovision and he is, he says, feeling tension here and feeling animosity from other eurovision fans. he also was very upset that people inside the arena were turning their back when eden golan goes on stage. he didn't like the fact that people were walking out and protesting. but it was only in the arena that he felt he could wave his israeli flag safely. he did say he felt safe here in malmo because there are so many police, but obviously doesn't like the tension and these protests. but it was a peaceful protest, as i say. it's a big one. well, at a watching party in tel aviv, eurovision fans said israel's entry should not be punished for the actions of the government. we are here for only one reason and it's music, and we hope that all the people around the world will remember this. we are here for music and love. i think it's perfectly fine to protest. we all want the war to end. israelis and palestinians, we all want the war to end.

so there is nothing wrong with protesting the end to the war, but i don't think that this is the place to do it. i think this is about music, this is about talent, and people are not responsible for the actions of their government. and although the us is not a part of eurovision — fans there have been watching. 0ur north america correpondent will vernon was at a watching party in new york. i am at a eurovision song contest watch party here in new york city. eurovision is becoming more popular in america. i've been speaking to event organisers here, bar owners, they tell me that with each passing year, the interest is going up. there are more parties, more events too. loud cheering. now, it must be said that many americans have never even heard of the eurovision song contest, believe it or not. but one event organiser told me that once people do learn about it, once they learn about the camp, the colour, the craziness of it all, many americans are then hooked. now, in terms... audio drops out.

..a mixture of the lgbt+ community, expats here, too. but overall americans are becoming more interested in eurovision, especially since the release of the film with will ferrell about four years ago. that really boosted interest here. now, believe it or not, the americans actually tried to do their own version of the eurovision song contest two years ago, that was called the american song contest. they had singers from every single us state and territory, plus washington, dc, competing in a singing contest. unfortunately it was a bit of a flop. it was actually cancelled after just one season. but there's lots of events going on across this country today. the swedish embassy in the us, as we know, eurovision is in sweden this year, they are throwing a big party. they are setting up something called an abba lounge. i'm not quite sure what that is but i like it! and they said they had been overwhelmed with interest, tickets sold out long ago, lots of events here

in new york city, too. so more interest in eurovision in the united states. cheering. there have even been rumours in recent years perhaps america could soon join the contest. so i don't know about you, but i can imagine someone like taylor swift doing rather well on the eurovision stage. in georgia, thousand of protesters have takens to the streets to take part in the "march for europe", demmonstrating against the government's plan to adopt a controversial law on foreign funding. it comes after nearly three weeks of continual protests, with critics describing it as the "russian law", saying the legislation would target civil society and ultimately silence critical voices. the third and final reading of the bill will happen next monday. 0ur south caucasus and central asia correspondent rayhan demytri is in tblisi and sent us this update. people are marching from different

directions, just take a look, on that side of the river there are thousands of people with the eu and georgian flags all marching towards tbilisi's europe square. and on this side, it's the same... it's the same story. look at this sea of people. these protesters oppose this controversial bill, which the georgian government says it will adopt no matter what, on the transparency of foreign funding, dubbed by the protesters as the russian law because of the similarities that exist with the legislation that exists in russia. and they are saying that with its adoption, it would damage georgia's democracy, it would silence critical voices, but most importantly, people are worried that if this law gets adopted, georgia will lose its once—in—a—lifetime opportunity tojoin the european union. hundreds of people have died in devastating flash floods in the north of afghanistan.

a spokesman for the interior ministry told the bbc that most of the casualties were in the province of baghlan. emergency teams have been sent to rescue those stranded by the floodwaters. on friday, a massive torrent of water swept away hundreds of houses in several villages. dozens of people are still missing. earlier, i spoke to avand azeez agha from the international organization for migration, who is in the afghan capital kabulfor his assessment on the situation. the images coming in are truly devastating. according to initial reports from the afghanistan national disaster management authority, as well as our teams on the ground, floods in baghlan, badakhshan, herat and ghor provinces have resulted in over 300 deaths, and sadly we expect this number to rise. the flood has also destroyed some 2000 homes, so the impact has been quite catastrophic. at iom, along with our humanitarian partners, we have teams on the ground who are assessing the damage, and providing

urgent aid to those impacted. what are the challenges in gaining access to this area? at iom we have 16 warehouses across the country, across afghanistan, where we work closely with our partners to reposition emergency aid, preparing for situations just like this, and thanks to that we have already been able to reach many affected communities with life—saving aid. we have many more trucks loaded with supplies ready to go, but unfortunately some of the flood affected areas are very remote and with many roads completely destroyed, reaching these areas is a significant challenge. however we are actively working with our humanitarian partners to find alternative routes and solutions to ensure that the aid reaches those most in need. afghanistan continues to face

multiple challenges including ongoing displacement, very high rates of forced returns from pakistan, extreme poverty and food insecurity, and of course the impact of disaster and climate change. this year alone an estimated 23.7 million people in afghanistan require humanitarian assistance. that's half of the population. and the humanitarian community at large is still in need of funding support. to put it into perspective, for the year 2024 the community secured only 8% of the funding required. and when it comes to humanitarian aid, when the taliban took back over the country, there was a drop off, wasn't there? has that returned? we are working closely with our donors to ensure that people who are most in need

are assisted, and at the moment we are focusing on basically reaching and delivering life—saving aid to those impacted and we work closely with our humanitarian partners to ensure that. we have received funding support from our donors. however, the needs are increasing and more support is needed. natalie elphicke — the mp for dover who defected from conservatives to labour — has been accused of lobbying ministers over her husband's sexual assault court case. ms elphicke is accused of asking the thenjustice secretary — sir robert buckland — to help move the date of the case at southwark crown court, apparently to avoid publicity. 0ur correspondent nick eardley has more. natalie elphicke is the mp for dover. if we were speaking this time last week, she would have been the conservative mp for dover, seen actually on the right

— as being on the right of the conservative party — but she is now the labour mp for dover. she changed parties on wednesday. it was a proper "wow" moment. it shocked a lot of people in westminster and the labour party. but she has decided to make that journey and been warmly embraced by sir keir starmer, as you can see. what has she been accused of tonight? this is to do with the trial of her husband on sexual assault allegations back in 2020. her husband is a man called charlie elphicke, he used to be the mp for dover, he was the mp for dover before her. the allegation is when that case was about to be heard in london, she went to sir robert buckland, who was then thejustice secretary, and suggested that the timing of the case should be changed because she was worried thatjust after covid restrictions had been lifted in southwark crown court in london, this would mean a lot of publicity for the case. now, sir robert buckland has

told the sunday times, he told her in no uncertain terms that it would have been completely inappropriate to speak to the judge about the trial at all. we have spoken to sir robert tonight and he has confirmed that account of things. so, the allegation is she asked him to intervene to move the timing of the case. her spokesman says that is nonsense and labour have asked why this has only emerged now, after she defected. and there has been some rumblings in the labour party about the fact that they accepted her, some mps are unhappy about that. what does this mean, if anything, now that this story has come out? there is more pressure on the labour party, actually, and i think it will lead to more questions over the decision to embrace her as a labour mp. partly because this isn't the first allegation to emerge about her involvement in the case. you might remember, when she became an mp, she was found to have breached common standards by writing commons standards by writing to senior members of the judiciary

and saying that character references that mps had given to her husband at the time, charlie elphicke, shouldn't be made public. she was suspended from parliament for doing that because it was seen as a breach of the rules. so there will be questions over herjudgment, over labour'sjudgment in the way that it embraced. as i say, she denies wrongdoing here but it's another awkward one for the labour party. the northern lights might be visible in some parts of the uk again tonight after a stunning array of colours lit up the sky for many of us last night. one of the strongest geomagnetic storms for years meant they could be seen across large swathes of the country — as our science correspondent pallab ghosh reports. technicolour skies not seen in parts of the uk for more than 20 years. this the scene injersey as a spectacular solar show was sent from the sun. the display is usually more visible

in northern parts of britain, but such is the power of the sun's current activity, it was seen in the south, even as far as padstow in cornwall. a more familiar sight further north in crosby beach, in liverpool, people gathered to watch. this was the forth bridge in scotland. and in newry, in northern ireland, this was the scene. the colours are caused by solar storms on the surface of the sun. the story started 93 million miles away and two days ago. and what happened was the magnetic fields on the sun rearranged themselves, releasing a lot of energy and ejecting billions of tonnes of charged particles out from the sun. this is an actual video of the sun taken by nasa's spacecraft. when it's active, it emits really large clouds of particles called coronal mass ejections, like this one. when they reach the earth, the particles energise

the gases in the atmosphere, making them glow different colours. 0xygen glows green, while nitrogen emits purple, blue and pink light. those in scotland, northern ireland and the far north of england should be able to see the display again tonight. pallab ghosh, bbc news. drjenifer millard is an astronomer and has been talking me through it all. so, hopefully no cloud in the sky. that's something we definitely need. and really, you want to look towards the northern horizon. it is a little bit different to last night because the activity isn't so intense tonight, whereas last night we could kind of look straighter and we could see the aurora everywhere. we are back to that northern horizon more. you also need to wait for the skies to get dark enough so perhaps 1.5 hours after sunset for your particular location, so approximately 10:30pm. but if you can wait until the skies are even darker, when astronomical

twilight ends around 11:30pm, that is even better. you don't need any telescopes or binoculars, just your eyes. they have been seen all around the world and unusually here in the uk as well, why is that? indeed, it is because the sun has so much activity at the minute. it has an 11—year cycle and we are near the peak of that activity cycle. that means there is lots of sun spots and activity on the surface and all of this is driven by tangled magnetic field lines. sometimes these tangled magnetic field lines snap and reconnect. when this happens, essentially, it burps a load of material at us, charged particles, and they go flying out into space and sometimes they are directed at our planet. these charged particles get trapped by our magnetic field and then funnelled down into atoms and molecules in our atmosphere. they collide with these atoms and molecules, impart energy to them, get them excited. but the universe is lazy, the atoms and molecules in our atmosphere don't

like having this extra energy so they relax back down and get rid of that extra energy as photons, as light, and that is the glowing light that we see is the aurora. it is so special, probably because it is so rare — did you see them last night? i did and it was incredible. it was the third time i have seen them from the uk, i saw it again last year but this was the most intense. you don't see the colour so much with the eye, what you will see is kind of like a white—ish silver—ish ripple across the sky, kind of like search beams, almost, that brighten and then fade, you might see a red—ish glow to the sky but not the intense colours of photos but you can get those intense photos even with your smartphone. dark mode, night mode, a couple of seconds, just hold your phone up to the sky and you can capture the aurora for yourself. so if people are watching who didn't see them last night, like me, where should we be going to look tonight? bearing in mind, iam in london so point out where in london i might be able to see them but also

obviously around the rest of the country. so, get away from as much of the human—made light pollution as you possibly can. if you can get up high on a hill something like that, that is also good. look towards the north, northern horizon, that is what you want. if you don't have much luck tonight because the intensity level isn't so great tonight, there is a possibility that more material from the sun is going to arrive tomorrow so possibly tomorrow night. so just like we have trouble predicting weather on earth, space weather is also troublesome sometimes. but it is worth giving it a go, get that smartphone out because it will definitely confirm those colours for you. prince harry and meghan are in nigeria this weekend as part of the duke's promotion of the invictus games. earlier, harry played a seated volleyball match with army veterans, many of whom were wounded in battles against the country's islamist insurgency. harry's team, dressed in yellow, took on a squad led by nigeria's chief of defence staff,

the country's top commander. for more on the tour, i spoke earlier to our africa correspondent simi jolaoso in abuja. well, the duke and duchess have had a pretty busy second day here in abuja. they started off by meeting members of a local organisation that they support called nigeria unconquered, which helps wounded and injured service members and veterans, of course, that we know is close to prince harry's heart. there he actually took part in a sitting volleyball game with the team, and they were really enthusiastic. they were chanting "team harry, team harry!" and afterwards he and meghan spoke to the families of those athletes. one girl offered meghan a bouquet of roses, to which meghan gave her a rose back and said that she was really happy to be there. then afterwards, they attended a reception that was hosted by the ministry of defence. that ministry is behind their visit

to nigeria in the first place. there the duke of sussex gave a kind of recap of his visit to a military rehab hospital yesterday. he said when he was there, he met 50 injured soldiers that were lying in their beds. and he said he could feel the sort of low morale in the room. but two of those soldiers stood out to him because they were smiling. he said one of them was even doing push ups. and that visit kind of reminded him of why he started the invictus games foundation. and afterwards, the duchess, meghan, she attended a women in leadership event where she co—hosted with the director—general of the world trade organization, dr ngozi 0konjo—iweala. and there she spoke about her nigerian heritage and the day she found out that she was 43% nigerian. she said she was really happy and the first thing she did was call her mother. and she just said that she was happy

to be in the country and to find out more about her heritage, as well as interact with other nigerians. when she was asked whether she would come back, she said "absolutely." barron trump, the youngest son of the former us president donald trump, has declined to serve as a delegate at the republican national convention. the florida republican party had announced that the 18—year—old would be among those selecting donald trump as the party's presidential nominee, alongside some of his other children, but the office of former first lady melania trump now appears to have shot down the idea, citing �*prior commitments'. just a reminder, the eurovision song contest is under way. all of the acts have now finished their performances and voting is taking place, stay with us here on bbc news and the bbc news website for the results. thank you for being with

us. hello. well, the show�*s not over yet. we have both a music spectacle on and, of course, a light display in the heavens. and once again, saturday night, a pretty good chance of catching a glimpse of the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. the viewing conditions will be good, if not excellent, across much of the uk with the clear skies and try about 11pm onwards. get your eyes used to that dark sky, away from any bright city lights if you can. now, here's the probability of the aurora occurring. this is just an approximation. so, the red colour is pretty much 90% to 100%, and then that chance drops off somewhat as you head southwards across the uk. but it really could happen almost anywhere, and there's some uncertainty even with that. now, the weekend weather forecast, some uncertainty, too. and the weather is going to produce a spectacle of its own. in fact, thunderstorms

in the forecast for sunday. now, let's get the outlook, then, for the rest of the evening and into the overnight hours. so, let's take a tour across the uk. around about midnight, where we are expecting the clear skies. you can see much of scotland, the aurora should be visible easily here and certainly out of town. beautiful displays of green and purple and violet, also a chance of catching it further south. very little in the way of cloud. if you are unlucky, you mightjust have to wait for that bank of cloud to clear away. and remember, the aurora isn't just a brief occurrence. it can last over a couple of hours, so there'll be plenty of opportunity to go out and check again. now, the temperatures first thing in the morning, typically around 9 to 13 degrees. so a relatively mild start to sunday with a lot of sunshine. and on sunday we start with high pressure just about in charge of the weather. and thanks to this high pressure, we will have had the clear skies and the chance to catch glimpses of the aurora. but it is slipping away, that high,

low pressure is moving in as are weather fronts, and these weather fronts will be responsible for sparking off some thunderstorms during the course of sunday. and some of them could be heavy, indeed, pretty nasty across western areas of the uk. and the temperatures every bit as warm if not warmer. highs up to about 26 degrees in london. that's it from me. bye— bye.

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