stubborn violence. i spoke to senior officials and the prime minister about steps to do that. president biden has stressed the need for israel to act in accordance with international humanitarian law. i also emphasise the protection of civilians must not happen just in gaza, but on the west bank. blinken�*s visit to the region comes as there were reports of a blast outside al—shifa hospital in gaza city on friday. footage sourced by bbc verify shows a damaged ambulance and a number of injured people laying outside the hospital. the israel defense forces confirmed one of its aircraft hit an ambulance that it says was being used by hamas operatives, and that a number of them were killed in the strike. hamas says 13 people were killed in the blast that it says targeted "a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded." international editor jeremy bowen has this report on the aftermath of the attack by israel on an ambulance convoy. it contains images you may find upsetting from the start. around 4pm this afternoon, an ambulance outside shifa, the main hospital in gaza, was destroyed by an israeli aircraft. in a crowded area, 13 people, including bystanders, were killed and 26 injured, according to the health ministry in gaza. israel said the ambulance was carrying a hamas terrorist cell. hamas said the attack was zionist nazi terror. thousands of palestinian civilians are sheltering at shifa hospital. israel's army says it's a battle zone and they should evacuate south. more dead civilians on al rasheed street, one of only two roads south where israel says civilians must go to be safe. the bbc has located the video to a stretch of roads seven kilometres southwest of gaza city. the man is saying, "oh god, a little girl, woman, a girl". this doctor said he was shot at by israelis in the same place yesterday. he says over a stretch of 1.5 kilometres, snipers were shooting at the cars. "they hit a donkey cart. "the donkey was cut to pieces along with the cart and everyone on it." this is ibrahim assalia, a british doctor stranded without power with his family in northern gaza. explosions dr assalia, from north london, was told by the foreign office only to risk the coast road in un or aid agency cars. it is catastrophic here. you know, isee science—fiction movies. i never imagine that science—fiction can be real. here, like in movie, like in a dream. what's going on? it's beyond imagination. antony blinken, the us secretary of state, returned, hoping to ease the pressure on gaza's civilians. good afternoon, everyone. we are absolutely focused on getting hostages back and getting them back to their families in safety. and we believe that, among other things, a humanitarian pause could help that effort. but after their meeting, prime minister netanyahu said there would be no ceasefires until hamas released its hostages. in beirut, lebanon's capital, supporters of the iranian backed militia, hezbollah, rallied to hear their leader, hassan nasrallah, repeat threats that the war might spread. "the concern," he said, "is that this front might tumble into a wider war. "it's a real possibility, and the enemy should make every allowance. " back in gaza, this is what's left of maghazi refugee camp. it's in the south where israel is telling palestinian civilians to go to escape danger. but there are only bad options at the moment for gaza's endangered people and diplomats who want to stop this war escalating. jeremy bowen, bbc news, jerusalem. meanwhile, the us military confirmed for the first time on friday that it is assisting israel in its search for hostages. a pentagon spokesperson says the us has been flying unarmed surveillance drones over gaza following the october 7 attack by hamas. the new york times first reported the story and writes that the drones have mostly been operating in southern gaza. this comes as hundreds of civilians have been continuing their attempts to leave gaza through the rafah border crossing with egypt. for more on the situation in gaza, our correspondent rushdi abualouf sent us this update from khan younis. day and night, they are looking under the rubble of this. this is the recent air strike in khan younis. this is the area where israel is telling people to go, because it's safe. about 15 people were killed in this building and many other were missing. the palestinian civil defence are working hard and quickly, trying to find any survivor under the rubble. people were looking, searching, digging with their bare hands. they said five kids were missing under the rubble of this building. this is the latest air strike in khan younis, where about 15 people were killed, about 50 people were injured and many others were missing. the air strike happened in the area that israel asked people to go. this is khan younis, southern gaza, where about two thirds of the population now are displaced from their houses in gaza city and the north. i was talking to families here, the people, and they said that many of those who were killed or missing in this strike were displaced from their houses in gaza city and the north. in his first public comments since the israel—gaza conflict began, the leader of hezbollah praised the october 7 attack by hamas. hassan nasrallah, leader of the lebanese islamist group, said that the only way to prevent a regional war is for israel to stop attacking gaza. he did not announce any escalation of fighting, but said that hezbollah was already doing enough with its cross—border attacks on israel. the situation for those who are inside gaza remains dire. our special correspondent fergal keane, who is based injerusalem, has been working with journalists filming for the bbc on the ground in gaza to report the impact of the war on civilians there. a warning — this next piece contains distressing images from the start. sometimes, a face can tell all there is to know... ..of war, in the lives of the young. the brothers came to al—aqsa hospital in central gaza after a bomb hit their home. crying further north, in beit lahiya... ..another hospital. more of war�*s wounded. a crowded floor. who can be saved, who is beyond help? the process of checks that's become all too familiar. this woman's life, fading fast. and then gone. there are stories of miraculous escape, told to our bbc cameraman. of five—year—old, tuleen abu alros, at al—nusrat hospital, pulled from the rubble of her bombed out home. she's physically recovering, but she's unlikely to forget. "the children who are injured, the psychological trauma stays with them for years. and the children who witness or watch what's going on also have ptsd for months." there are now more than 1.5 million displaced in gaza. creating, says the un, a vast humanitarian crisis. here, at gaza beach, they collect salt water for washing. the children, as children do, find comfort in each other. because, when they leave here, there is only the war. fergal keane, bbc news, jerusalem. secretary of state blinken announced a new military aid package of weapons and equipment for ukraine. the united states will provide ukraine up to $125 million worth of weapons authorized under a previously allowed draw—down for the country. this latest supply of weapons comes as ukraine is expected to recieve additional defense aid from the us defense department as they prepare another diffcult winter of fighting. us presidentjoe biden and first ladyjill biden have wrapped up their trip to maine. they visited lewiston in the wake of last week's mass shooting that left 18 dead and 13 injured. mr biden met with survivors of the shooting, families, community members and first responders. biden has called on congress to pass new gun reform legislation, including an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and strengthening red flag laws. former us president donald trump's son, eric, wrapped up his testimony in the new york civil fraud trial against his family's business on friday. prosecutors grilled eric trump about his involvement in his father's financial statements and what steps he took to verify those numbers before signing bank documents. eric trump said he "believed everything in the statements was accurate" and denied any wrongdoing. next week donald trump and his daughter ivanka are expected to testify. our north america correspondent, nada tawfik, has been following the case in new york. we had that final testimony from eric trump which wrapped up from eric trump which wrapped up fairly early this morning. when you look at the two eldest sons, they had the same argument in court, that they never worked on their dad public financial statements. but their experiences on the stand were remarkably different. let donjr was different. let don jr was joking different. let donjr was joking and laughing and his questioning went by fairly quickly, eric trump was confronted with numerous, numerous e—mails and spreadsheets, because he works in day—to—day on the operations of the company. he was the businesswoman who was focused on the business side of the family went donjr was more focused on politics, even though he was trustee of the company. eric trump seem to contradict themselves several times in his testimony and the evidence also seem to contradict his assertions that he had never even heard of his father's financial statements before the investigation, and never worked on them all or valuing any property specifically. at different times he got quite frustrated and raised his voice. at the end of the questioning, prosecutors reiterated they got his testimony was extremely helpful to their case. quite a tense day in court both today and yesterday for eric trump. add a really big week next week? ~ , ,., , week? absolutely. their testimony _ week? absolutely. their testimony is _ week? absolutely. their testimony is really - week? absolutely. their. testimony is really building week? absolutely. their- testimony is really building up to what will be the blockbuster moment of this case when donald trump himself is expected to testify on monday. the attorney general has come out and says that she fully expects donald trump to hide his wrongdoing with name—calling and consequences she will not be bullied out of uncovering the truth. donald trump himself, even though he hasn't been here in person this week, has continued to rail against this case is a witch—hunt, telling the attorney general and judge to leave him alone. everybody will be interested in how he defends himself on the stand and whether he invokes his fifth amendment to avoid answering questions. several legal aspects of said he would be wise to do that because of his pending criminal investigations. but this is a civil case and so a judge can look negatively on a defendant invoking defence amendment when deciding the case. so it is a minefield for donald trump when he is planning to take the stand and just to note that if i could trump has lost her appeals to avoid testifying, so expect to have her on the stand next week on wednesday. ivana trump. —— ivana trump. i spoke to harry litman, former us attorney and deputy assistant attorney general on this week's developments in the case. thank you forjoining us on bbc news. you have been following this trial very closely. what have we learned from the testimony of donald trump's son? this they are looking to blame everything here under the accountants or other folks. there are some valuations that are dramatically off, by orders of magnitude, and they want to say something along the lines of the accountant did it. that is a flawed defence because that is not how accountants work. accountants take the numbers that you give them and then run their numbers accordingly, so there were several times where both eric trump and donald trumer were kind of exposed and if the ag more or less through blood in specific instances where it was very hard to credit the idea that they completely would have relied on accountants when they signed documents saying these estimates of make this application is accurate. i guess that was going to be my next question. how do you think that testimony went down in court? was it at all effective? are really important thing to remember is the judge is the jury and when judges orjuries make credibility findings, appellate courts do not like to disturb them because say you were the one that was closest and could really see. i think it went down basically poorly. in trials like this, there was a lot of uneventful testimony and different instances where the ag drew blood and gave a lot of material for this judge to really wall up the trump organization and the individuals in it. all in all it was a pretty bruising week for the trump organization and of course next week could be worse. we will get to next week in just a moment but end of this bruising week, were there any moments that stood out to you? yes, i would say so, and that is an important way to put it because there are some really incendiary moments that a judge orjury would remember. donald trumer gives an estimate, he is told by a reporterfrom forbes magazine, guess what, this is all wrong, and he writes a memo anyway to deutsche bank saying it is fine. his testimony said it was a cover your butt memo which is close to saying i knew it was false but i did it anyway and that really stood out. with eric trump, there were a couple of instances. one involving allen weisselberg and bug where hejust seemed very hard to credit his idea that he knew nothing about it and one time when his temper flared up and he seemed kind of thin skinned. definitely, there are elements for a judge orjury — in this case they are the same — to put together to say they were really being evasive and not owning up to the truth. that's a harsh thing to say, but the judge can make that the basis of a really and also say they bury their heads in the sand and that is a basis for liability also. they say they only relied on accountants but that is not how it works under the law, so i think they're going very quickly toward a train wreck and opinion against them by thisjudge. we know the former president has been watching this closely and commenting and he is going to take the stand next week. what will be sent? there is a surreal quality in the last year with things seeming unfathomable coming to pass. the big question will be, will he kind of lose his temper the way his son did because, remember, this president has said repeatedly that he is the richest, best businessman in the world and he's going to be confronted with a lot of public statements about how valuable his properties were and contrasted with real testimony about how much less valuable they really were. he is going to be implicitly accused of lying and so will he sort of thump his chest and double down on his claims or will he also resort to a loss of memory and the like? it is going to be a real confrontation and not under the circumstances he is familiar with. he is going to have to answer questions and they would have to be at a minimum uncomfortable. it would be interesting indeed and we can that media spectacle from previous trump appearances. thank you for your insight and perspectives on the story today. you bet. thanks for having me. let's turn to some important news around the world. storm ciaran hit tuscany on thursday. six people are dead, and several others remain missing after heavy winds and majorflooding ravaged parts of central italy. russia's top arms control negotiator has warned the us that the kremlin will end a proposed moratorium on the deployment of short and medium range nuclear missiles if washington moves forward with plans to deploy the missiles in asia and europe. the development of the msisiles was baned by a 1987 treaty but the us withdrew from it in 2019 accusing russia of violating the accord. instead, russian president vladimir putin had proposed a moratorium on the them. in western nepal, more than 100 people are reported to have been killed in an earthquake. the shallow 6.4 magnitude quake hit the remote hills district of jajarkot, hit the remote hills district ofjajarkot, 300 kilometres or 200 miles west of kathmandu around midnight local time. tremors were felt as far away as the indian capital, delhi. the hospital in nearby rukum district has seen a number of injured, and patients appear to be laid on stretchers outside the building. nepal's security forces have been deployed to help rescue efforts in the rugged, isolated area. the army spokesman said more than 100 people had been injured. video footage online — not yet verified by the bbc — shows people digging through rubble in the dark to save sui’vivoi’s. our south asia editor, anbarasan ethirajan, told us more. officials in nepal say that the earthquake hitjust before midnight, nepal local time. the epicentre was in the jajarkot district about 500km west of the capital kathmandu, in fact close to the border with india, the northern indian state of uttar pradesh. local media showed many brick houses destroyed and what we understand is people rushed out of their homes in panic and many of them were now sleeping in the open fearing anything else could happen because they also felt three more tremors after this powerful earthquake hit, and there are reports that the epicentre — in fact it was about 15—18km deep — so many of these houses in remote regions are not very strong, not earthquake—proof, so these brick houses collapsed and one hospital official was saying that they were treating more than 40 people and it is a very remote regions. information is still trickling in, people are trying to find out what happened to their loved ones, in fact it happened just before midnight, so many people in kathmandu may not be aware, but this was felt as far as the indian capital of delhi, and i was getting messages from some of my friends saying the buildings shook in the capital, so people are still waiting for information, and as the day breaks we will hear more about what really happened in the casualty figure is likely to go up. the australian woman who is accused of killing three people after deliberately feeding them poisonous mushrooms has appeared in court. erin patterson, who denies the charges, faces three counts of murder and five of attempted murder. she's accused of a preparing and serving the meal at family lunch three months ago, thht claimed the lives of her former in—laws and another relative. the bbc�*s simon atkinson reports from leongatha in victoria. this is the house where erin patterson served the meal which is at the very heart of this case. it's also a police arrived on thursday and rested her and took away lots and lots of evidence. it's been much quieter here on friday, some officers have been coming and going, but most of the developments have taken place about an hour away in a local magistrates' court. after a night in a police cell, this was a very brief court appearance for erin patterson. it was a procedural hearing where the charges were formally laid. she was not required and hopefully and there is no application for her to have failed. but we did learn some new things about what was going on an investigation. the police told the court that they seized so much information from the house and so much evidence from the house they made it at 20 weeks to sift through it and so what them to push back the court date next year. but also we discovered officially on the police and court documents that erin patterson has been charged with four counts of attempted murder against her former partner. one of those related to the incident in this house. the meal which all the other cases are linked to. but three of them are historic. allegations that she tried to poison her husband on several occasions, some go far as 2021. because of the bizarre nature of the allegations and what's that have taken place, the case has gained huge interest in australia and around the world. but police have been at pains to point out that the height of the case, three lives have been lost. we've been out in the local community talking to people and it's very clear that there are still a lot of sadness about what happened three months ago and the loss of the three people who many have told us were pillars of the community. that's all from us in washington. thanks for watching. stay with us here on bbc news. hello. after what has been a very wet week for many, and a very stormy week for some, things do look a little calmer for the weekend. no, it isn't going to be completely dry or completely settled. there'll still be some rain at times, rather windy in the south, but not as windy as it has been. and amidst all of that, some sunshine. on the earlier satellite picture, you can see this stripe of cloud pushing in from the southwest, bringing outbreaks of rain in association with this area of low pressure. the centre of the low tracking eastwards, the strongest winds on the southern flank, which means the very windiest weather will be across parts of france, spain and portugal. for us, yes, it will be blustery in the south, but nothing particularly stormy. this band of rain pushing northwards during saturday morning, becoming slow moving in north wales, the north midlands, parts of northern england. to the south of that, sunny spells and heavy thundery showers with some rather blustery winds, particularly around southern coasts. but the far north of england, and certainly northern ireland and scotland, will see lighter winds. spells of sunshine once any early fog has cleared. just the odd shower temperatures of 9—13 degrees. during saturday night, we'll still have this band of cloud and showery rain across central parts of the uk. could see some really heavy showers actually developing across the southeast corner. remember, any rain that we do see could bring the risk of further flooding. if you're off to fireworks events on saturday night, there will be some showers around, perhaps by sunday night, bonfire night itself, there will be fewer showers. they won't be gone completely, but there won't be as many because this area of low pressure during sunday will be pulling away eastwards. we will start sunday morning, though, with some pretty strong winds. in fact, we could see the winds touching gale force across the channel islands for a time. further north for winds that bit lighter. and through sunday, once we've cleared this early cloud and rain away from eastern england, actually, there should be a decent amount of sunshine around. however, further showers will race in from the west. some of these could be on the heavy side. temperatures around 9—13 degrees at best. now, into the start of the new week, we will briefly see this ridge of high pressure toppling through. so things will turn a little drier. but there midweek we will bring this frontal system in from the west. outbreaks of rain with that, and behind it where things could just turn a little bit chillier by the end of the week. so not as stormy or as turbulent as it has been, but still unsettled. this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. a double landlocked country steeped in silk road legacy... it's like something from a 60s spy movie or something. it's incredible. ..where soviet influences... horns sound ..meet ancient traditions... this is amazing. i can't believe this. this is where arches would have stood. ..and vast landscapes... ..hide impressive relics. it's pretty astonishing that i'm able to still walk around here. for the best part of a century, this country has been off limits to many outsiders. but in recent years, that's been changing, and i'm on a journey to see what we've been missing out on. this is uzbekistan.