nicolle wallace. we have a lot of developments out of the middle east right now including a last minute deal bringing a temporary reprieve to millions of people in the middle east. extending a truce that has led to the release of d of hostages and palestinian prisoners. at this hour 11 hostages have been freed, they are now in israel. this has just happened moments ago. this footage from al jazeera shows them being handed over to the red cross. the group, the israeli group includes three french citizens, six argentinians and two germness. you can see two of the hostages here, two boys, seen in yellow sweaters in exchange for the release of these hostages israel has released 30 minors and three women who were being held in israeli prisons. there will be more exchanges in the days to come. the humanitarian truce between israel and hamas that was put in place on friday has now been extended for two more days under the same terms, meaning more hostages released in exchange for a
president biden set to meet with chinese president xi jinping as he tries to prevent tensions from spiraling. and we are about to find out how retail sales that been faring leading up to the crucial holiday season. much more ahead. this hour of cnn this morning now. israeli troops carrying out an operation inside gaza s largest hospital, al shifa. a palestinian official says the soldiers entered the basement and ground floor of the surgery building and interrogated medical staff. the idf releasing video claiming to show troops dropping off aid. cnn cannot independently verify that and has not been able to reach the hospital for confirmation. the idf accused hamas of running a command center beneath the hospital and using civilians above as human shields had. the israeli military is calling this a precise and targeted operation based on their intelligence. we will be joined by a spokesperson for the idf in minutes. meanwhile, fbi director christopher wray is about to
to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. wherever you are around the world, at this hour, you are watching cnn newsroom. ongoing coverage of his most war with hamas. i m john vause, just past midnight here in atlanta, and 60 am and gaza. it is now divided into by israeli ground forces battling militants in the north. president have been forced to evacuate to safety in the south, as dawn breaks, the israeli military says gaza city is completely surrounded. in the past two hours, cnn crews report flares and explosions lighting up the night sky over northern gaza. around the city of not far from the water with israel. so far, 20 israeli soldiers have been killed in a military ofoffensive, whihich is focusesn locateted anand destroyingng a t tunnels networks, and eliminating explplosives and other obstacles. our soldiers have been operating in gaza city for the past few days, surrounding it from several directions, deepening the operation. our
Also coming up, most of the historic world war ii aircraft making up the battle of Britain Memorial flight have been grounded. One display has already been cancelled. And production was halted on the 6th of march Mission Impossible film, because its star tom cruise broke his ankle while performing a stunt while filming in london. This is bbc news and these are the top good morning. Its thursday 17th august. Im rebecca jones. Welcome to bbc Newsroom Live. Thousands of teenagers across england, wales and Northern Ireland have received their a level results this morning. In england, the results marked a major reform to the exams introduced by the government, including a move away from coursework and modular exams in 13 subjects and a decision to separate as levels to form stand alone qualifications. There was a fall of 0. 2 in the overall pass rate which was down to 97. 9 . But there was an increase in the number of students awarded the top grades with 26. 3 of entries receiving either an
there were well established national ngos that had been clearing landmines left over from the afghan russian war and so they were retrained to clear the cluster munitions. in other countries you have international ngos that get involved and in other countries you have the national military, once peace is back, takes over and thus a clearing operation. how long can this kind of operation take? we re still clearing cluster munitions in afghanistan from 2001 2002. there s still clearance ongoing in laos and in cambodia from the vietnam war era. so it can take a good long time. i think there was a war in lebanon on in 2006 and i believe clearence