The first sign of trouble Peter Hughes noticed was when his train to Madrid starting to slow down.

Then the TV monitor and lights went off. Emergency lights switched on, but did not last, and the locomotive ground to a halt.

Four hours later, Mr Hughes was still stuck on the train 200 kilometres (124 miles) outside of Spain's capital. He had food and water, but the toilets were not working.

"It will be getting dark soon and we could be stuck here for hours," he told the BBC.

The massive power cut that stranded Mr Hughes triggered chaos across Spain and Portugal, and also impacted Andorra and parts of France, from about midday local time (10:00 GMT).

Traffic lights shut off. Metros closed. Businesses shuttered and people joined queues to get cash as card payments did not work.

Jonathan Emery was on a different train halfway between Seville and Madrid when the cuts hit.

For an hour, he sat on the train, the doors closed, until people could pry them open to let in ventilation. Half an hour later, passengers left, only to find themselves stranded.

That was when people from local villages started coming and dropping off supplies – water, bread, fruit.

"Nobody is charging for anything, and word must be getting around in the local town because people just keep coming," he said.

In Madrid, Hannah Lowney was half way through scanning her grocery shopping at Aldi when the power went out.

People were coming out of their offices and walking home because they could not tell when the buses were coming, Ms Lowney said in a voice message sent to BBC Radio 5 Live.

"It's a bit disconcerting that it's the whole country, I've never experienced this before," she said.

Mark England was eating lunch in the restaurant of the hotel where he is staying on holiday in Benidorm when "everything went off and the fire alarm started going off and the fire doors started closing".

In an international school in Lisbon, the electricity flickered on and off for a while, then gave up, teacher Emily Thorowgood said.

She kept teaching in the dark, the children in good spirits, but lots of parents were taking their children out of school, she said.

Will David, a Briton living in Lisbon, was having a haircut and beard trim in the basement of a barber when the power went down. The barber found him a spot by the window upstairs to finish the cut with scissors.

"The walk home felt very strange, both with the lack of traffic lights meaning a complete free-for-all for vehicles and pedestrians on the roads - as well as so many people milling around outside their places of work with nothing to do," he said.

Initially, mobile phone networks also went down for some, leaving many scrambling for information.

Curtis Gladden, who is in La Vall D'Uixo, about 30 miles from Valencia, said it was "scary" as he struggled to get updates about what was happening.

Eloise Edgington, who could not do any work as a copywriter in Barcelona, said she was only receiving occasional messages, could not load web pages on her phone and was trying to conserve her battery.

An hour and a half after the power went out, one resident of Fortuna, in south-east Spain, said her husband was driving around, trying to find a petrol station that could supply fuel to run a generator and keep their fridge powered.

"We are worried about food, water, cash and petrol in case this goes on for a couple of days," said Lesley, a Brit who has been living in Spain for 11 years.

Locals "have more to worry about" than the Madrid Open tennis tournament being suspended, she said, adding there is "very little news about what's happened".

Mr England said walking down the street in Benidorm, a "majority of shops are in darkness and shuttered or have people on the entrances saying you can't come in. There's no cash machines, no traffic lights so it's strange."

After Mr Gladden's phone signal returned after about two hours, he and others ventured out to cafes, but found "nothing is working – we came to get some food and a drink but they can't cook without electricity".

Within two hours, Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica said it was beginning to recover power in the north and south of the country.

But two-and-a-half hours after the cuts, Madrid's mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida still urged all residents to "keep their movements to an absolute minimum and, if at all possible, to remain where they are", in a video recorded from the city's integrated emergency security centre.

At 15:00 local time, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pulled together an "extraordinary" meeting of Spain's national security council.

Red Electrica CEO Eduardo Prieto said at a news conference shortly afterwards that it could take "between six and ten hours" to restore power.

Just before 16:00, electricity flicked back on in Malaga. By 17:00, the grid operator said power was being restored "in several areas of the north, south and west of the [Iberian] peninsula".

Portugal's power firm REN gave a more dire prediction, saying that it could "take up to a week" before the network was back to normal.

'No plan for where to stay'

Knock on effects continue: Back-up generators at airports kicked on, allowing most flights to leave on time, but some have been unable to operate.

Tom McGilloway, on holiday in Lisbon, was due to return to London on Monday night, but as of early evening did not know what would happen.

He said for the time being people were getting drinks and food - but vendors told him they would only be able to keep working until the batteries ran out on their payment terminals.

"If I need to book a hotel if the plane is cancelled, I don't know how I can do it if payments are down," he added.

"My partner's parents are trying to get petrol so they can pick us up to take us back to Alentejo but many petrol stations are closed or not taking payment. We might be stuck with no plan for where to stay tonight."

• Have you been affected? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

Additional reporting and research by Andree Massiah, Kris Bramwell, James Kelly, Bernadette McCague, Josh Parry and Naga Munchetty

When is a ceasefire a genuine attempt to secure peace? And when is it simply PR?

It's a question that's been asked a lot lately.

Mostly in relation to Russia's president.

Short ceasefires are becoming quite the Kremlin thing.

First, Vladimir Putin declared a 30-hour cessation of hostilities over Easter, portraying it as a "humanitarian" gesture.

Now the Kremlin leader has announced a three-day unilateral truce for early May. It will run from 8 May to 10 May to coincide with events marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

In a statement, the Kremlin said that for 72 hours all military actions would cease. It cited "humanitarian" considerations (again) and made it clear Moscow expected Ukraine to follow suit.

In response to the proposal, Ukraine questioned why Russia could not commit to a ceasefire immediately and called for one to be implemented for at least 30 days.

"If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, adding: "Why wait until May 8th?"

So, from the Russian president who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, is this a sincere effort to end the fighting?

Or simply a public relations exercise by the Kremlin to impress Donald Trump?

Kremlin critics will suspect PR.

During the extremely brief so-called Easter ceasefire, Ukraine had accused Russian troops of violating it repeatedly.

Moscow had used its announcement of a 30-hour pause in the fighting to send a signal to the White House: that in this war Russia is the peacemaker and Kyiv the aggressor. It accused Ukraine of ignoring what Moscow presented as an olive branch and of prolonging the war.

• Trump questions Putin's desire for peace
• Critical week for US's future in war talks

Recent comments by Trump suggest the US president hasn't bought that.

In a post on his Truth Social platform at the weekend, Trump wrote that "there was no reason" for Putin "to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns [in Ukraine], over the last few days".

"It makes me think," he added, "that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions?' Too many people are dying!!!"

Cue today's announcement of another Russian ceasefire. This one slightly longer: three days. And, again, that claim of "humanitarian" concerns.

Another attempt to signal to Washington that the Kremlin has only the best of intentions? That Russia is really the good guy in all of this?

If so, it doesn't appear to have worked. Not immediately. The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted Moscow's offer of a temporary ceasefire, but said: "The president [Donald Trump] has made it clear he wants to see a permanent ceasefire first to stop the killing, stop the bloodshed.

"He is increasingly frustrated with leaders of both countries," Leavitt said.

It's an indication that the US president may be losing patience now with the Kremlin, despite having directed most of his public criticism in recent months towards President Zelensky.

Last month the Trump administration was pushing both Russia and Ukraine to agree to a 30-day comprehensive unconditional ceasefire. Ukraine had signed up to that. Russia did not.

Already senior Russian officials are using President Putin's three-day ceasefire offer to try to cast Ukraine in a bad light.

"It is doubtful that [President] Zelensky will support the decision of our president and accept the ceasefire," the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, told Russian state TV.

Hardly an encouraging sign, so soon after the announcement of another brief ceasefire.

A child has damaged a painting worth millions of pounds by the American artist Mark Rothko at a museum in Rotterdam.

A spokesperson for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen said it was considering the "next steps" for the treatment of Rothko's Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8.

The damage occurred during an "unguarded moment", a museum spokesperson told the Dutch media outlet Algemeen Dagblad (AD) last week.

A spokesperson for the museum told the BBC the damage was "superficial", adding: "Small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting".

The abstract painting is estimated to be worth up to €50m (£42.5m), according to newspaper AD.

"Conservation expertise has been sought in the Netherlands and abroad. We are currently researching the next steps for the treatment of the painting", the museum spokesperson told the BBC.

"We expect that the work will be able to be shown again in the future," they added.

Sophie McAloone, the conservation manager at the Fine Art Restoration Company, said that "modern unvarnished" paintings like Rothko's Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 are "particularly susceptible to damage".

This is "owing to a combination of their complex modern materials, lack of a traditional coating layer, and intensity of flat colour fields, which make even the smallest areas of damage instantly perceptible," she said.

"In this case, scratching of the upper paint layers can have a significant impact on the viewing experience of the piece," Ms McAloone said.

The Rothko painting was hanging in the museum's Depot – a publicly accessible storage facility beside the main museum – as part of an exhibition displaying a selection of "public favourites" from the gallery's collection.

Jonny Helm, a marketing manager at the art restoration service Plowden & Smith, said the incident had implications for UK institutions such as V&A East and the British Museum, which are considering "opening up the display of things that would otherwise be obscured in archives."

"How will this event affect other UK institutions who are opening up their archives in the same way?" Mr Helm said.

Restoring a Rothko painting is a difficult task because "Rothko's mixture of pigments and resins and glues were quite complex", Mr Helm said.

He said the fact the painting is unvarnished – meaning it is "open to the environment" – will pose an additional challenge to conservators.

Conservators working to restore the painting will now likely be in the process of documenting the extent of the damage and researching "historic successful treatments" of Rothko paintings.

"Rothko works seem to have terrible luck – this isn't the first damaged Rothko we've heard about," Mr Helm said.

Rothko's 1958 work, Black on Maroon, was deliberately vandalised by Wlodzimierz Umaniec at London's Tate Modern gallery in October 2012.

Umaniec was sent to prison for two years and subsequently apologised for his actions.

During his trial, prosecuting barrister Gregor McKinley said the cost of repairing the work would be about £200,000. It took conservators 18 months to repair the painting.

Rachel Myrtle, Head of Specie and Fine Arts at the insurance company Aon, said fine art insurance policies typically cover "all risks associated with physical loss and damage to artwork including accidental damage caused by children or visitors, albeit with certain exclusions".

She said that when an artwork is damaged, a gallery's insurer will appoint a specialist fine art loss adjuster to visit the museum.

The loss adjustor typically "reviews the damage to the artwork, examines any CCTV footage to determine the exact cause of the loss, and assesses conservation options", Ms Myrtle said.

The museum did not comment on who will be held liable for the damage to the 1960 painting, which the gallery reportedly bought in the 1970s.

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has previously billed visitors who have caused damage to artworks on display.

In 2011, the museum asked an unsuspecting tourist who stepped on Wim T. Schippers' peanut butter floor artwork, called Pindakaasvloer, to pay for repairs to the work.

Sharon Cohen, a spokesperson for the museum at the time, was quoted by AD as saying: "It is normal procedure for people to pay if they damage art."

The Rothko painting is described by the museum as an example of colour field painting, a term used to describe art characterised by large blocks of flat, solid colour spread across a canvas.

Rothko's Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 painting is one of several works of modern art that have been damaged in the Netherlands in recent years.

In November 2024, multiple screen prints by the US pop artist Andy Warhol were damaged by thieves during an attempted robbery of the MPV art gallery in the town of Oisterwijk.

In another incident, a Dutch town hall admitted it "most likely" disposed of 46 artworks by accident – including an Andy Warhol print of the former Dutch queen – during renovation works last year.

Museums have different policies when responding to damage caused by children.

In August last year, a four-year-old boy accidentally smashed a 3,500-year-old jar into pieces at the Hecht Museum in Israel.

At the time, Hecht Museum worker Lihi Laszlo told the BBC the museum would not treat the incident "with severity" because "the jar was accidentally damaged by a young child".

The family were invited back to the exhibition with his family for an organised tour shortly after the incident occurred.

Constance Marten has denied carrying her baby in a supermarket bag while on the run and said she considered handing the newborn to authorities, a court has heard.

Asked if her baby, Victoria, had been carried in a red bag for life at any point, Marten said "absolutely not" and added: "No-one is going to put their live baby who they are caring for and loving in a shopping bag."

Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, are accused of manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child - charges they deny.

Marten returned to court on Monday to continue giving evidence in the retrial, but shortly after beginning around 11:00 BST said she needed a coffee to wake up.

She continued to give evidence after a short break, but the jury were sent home for the day after lunch, with the judge telling them a "matter of law" had arisen.

She was due to start giving evidence on Tuesday last week but said she had a headache and toothache. She did not come to court on Wednesday.

She started giving evidence on Thursday, still complaining of toothache and did not give evidence on Friday.

Marten and Gordon are facing a retrial at the Old Bailey. At the first trial both were found guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.

The couple's baby girl was found dead in a shopping bag covered in rubbish, in a shed on a Brighton allotment in 2023.

On Monday, Marten told the jury why she and Gordon decided to go out onto the South Downs in Sussex with baby Victoria in a tent from Argos.

They were on the run after their car caught fire two days earlier and the police were hunting for them because they had found a placenta on the back seat.

The couple's previous four children had previously been taken into care.

By 7 January 2023 they had arrived in East Ham in east London. Marten told the jury they were hoping to stand out less than they had in Harwich where people had started to recognise them.

"We thought with more people we might blend in more, but there were just more people looking at us. So we wanted to get away from prying eyes for a few days," she said.

They took a taxi to Whitechapel and bought a tent from Argos, then, with the intention of trying to go abroad despite not having their passports, they attempted to get to Plymouth by taxi.

But when the driver was warned by a friend not to take them, they got a taxi to Haringey, north London, and then another taxi to Newhaven on the south coast.

They then set off onto the South Downs.

Marten said the couple only wanted to stay in the tent for a day or two while they figured out what to do next.

She told the court they had lots of ideas, and considered handing the baby in to the local authorities.

She also said she did not understand the need for the manhunt.

The conditions inside the tent were warm but not comfortable, Marten said, adding the baby would usually sleep on either her or Gordon's chest. If they were awake, they would put the baby on a pillow between them, she added.

Marten told the court the baby died while she was asleep.

"I fell asleep and my head flopped forward," she said, adding "when I woke up she was dead".

She said the couple were in state of panic, shock and disbelief on realising the child had died.

On 1 March 2023 baby Victoria's decomposed body was found under some rubbish in a bag for life in a shed on the allotment.

The retrial continues at the Old Bailey.

The UK government has condemned alleged comments made by rap group Kneecap as "completely unacceptable" and suggested they should not be able to receive government funding.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch blocked a government grant to the bilingual Belfast group while she was business secretary, but the decision was overturned.

Video footage has emerged of the group at a concert in November 2023, where one of the band members appears to say: "The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP".

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he did not think "individuals expressing those views should be receiving government funding".

Kneecap have said on social media that they have "faced a co-ordinated smear campaign".

The footage is being assessed by counter-terrorism police and Badenoch has called for prosecution.

The Metropolitan Police said they are assessing that and another video, from November last year, where the footage appeared to show a band member shouting "up Hamas, up Hezbollah" at a performance in London.

The Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micháel Martin has called on the trio to "urgently clarify" the comments.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them.

Call for clarity

In Dublin on Monday the taoiseach said: "Have they, or do they, support Hamas and Hezbollah, because that would be unacceptable.

"I mean Hezbollah are responsible, in my view, for the murder of Sean Rooney.

"And both Hamas and Hezbollah have views that are absolutely... not just views, but participated in terrorist activities and appalling killing of innocent people, as witnessed on October the 7th.

"But it's not clear to me that they do, that Kneecap does support Hezbollah and Hamas. It's been asserted that they have made commentary in support of both. I think they need to urgently clarify that."

He said there was a "huge responsibility" when it comes to the safety of public representatives.

"I think it's important that free speech is always facilitated and the capacity to speak out and criticise and condemn policies of others. That's all legitimate. But in terms of life and security and safety of people, that's a different issue," he added.

Last year, Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK government after Badenoch withdrew arts funding for the band, in a move which was deemed "unlawful".

Kneecap was awarded £14,250 - the same amount they were initially granted.

Badenoch, speaking on a local election campaigning visit to Lincolnshire, said the statement was "disgusting "and the band "should be prosecuted" and that "people are in prison for sending tweets that don't go that far".

She said they "should not be glorifying terrorism" and are "anti-British".

Northern Ireland's Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald told BBC News NI that she did not agree with what was said, but that Kneecap is "group that have been very vocal on issues that are important to them like Gaza".

"I think the most outrageous issue facing the world today is the ongoing genocide that we are seeing in Palestine and the bombardment that continues on a daily basis, the blockading of aid, the slaughter of innocent women and children and I think that's what our focus should be on as an international community in bringing an end to that," she added.

DUP leader Gavin Robinson said Kneecap had become a "hatefest".

The East Belfast MP said the band's position was "appalling and outrageous" and said there was a collective political will in London and Dublin to "call out" their comments.

"These gentlemen don't need to be on a stage they need to be in a courtroom because it is a hate crime what they are doing," he added.

The Alliance MLA, Sian Mulholland, said that Kneecap's alleged comments "crosses a line from art as a tool of protest and into incitement".

She described the rap group's political views on the conflict in Gaza as "valid" however, Mulholland said the band's views were being "undermined and overshadowed" by the group's actions.

'Crossed a line'

The First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, has backed calls for Kneecap to be axed from Glasgow's TRSMT music festival this summer.

Speaking at the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Dundee, John Swinney said the band's alleged comments had "crossed a line" and were "beyond the pale".

On Monday, the daughter of a Conservative MP who was stabbed to death at a constituency surgery said the rap group should apologise.

Katie Amess, whose father Sir David Amess was an MP when he was murdered in 2021, said she was "gobsmacked at the stupidity of somebody or a group of people being in the public eye and saying such dangerous, violent rhetoric".

Ms Amess said she would be prepared to meet Kneecap and have a conversation with them.

"If they are willing to listen to how my life has been obliterated and will never be the same, for them to say those words is obviously very triggering," she said.

Sharon Osbourne

Last week, TV personality Sharon Osbourne said the group should have their United States work visas revoked after they ended their set at Coachella, an annual music festival in California, with pro-Palestinian messages.

Ms Osbourne said that Kneecap "took their performance to a different level by incorporating aggressive political statements".

When asked by BBC News NI for response, the band said: "Statements aren't aggressive, murdering 20,000 children is though."

Samir Shah's anger was obvious, the BBC chairman's voice shaking with fury as he delivered his message of change. "If you think you're too big to live by the values of this organisation, you are wrong and we will find you out," he promised.

He left little doubt about his personal determination to stamp out bad behaviour at the BBC.

But will he succeed?

The Respect at Work 2025 report was commissioned following Huw Edwards' guilty pleas last year. The corporation was reeling from the revelations surrounding one of its biggest names.

But 12 years ago, a report was published after a scandal involving another former BBC star.

That 2013 Respect at Work review looked into BBC culture in light of Jimmy Savile's depravity. It found bullying was an issue inside the corporation, with some people viewed as "untouchable" because of their status and colleagues too scared to speak up, for fear of reprisals.

The then director general, Tony Hall, said he wanted "zero tolerance of bullying". The BBC brought in a series of measures, including updating its policies and setting up a confidential helpline.

'We have your backs'

On Monday, the current director general, Tim Davie, said he was "totally committed to make long-lasting change."

He said staff must feel confident to speak up and they will be supported (unless their complaints are malicious) without any negative impact on their careers.

"We have your backs," he said. He announced a series of measures including a new code of conduct, a more robust disciplinary policy and leadership training.

All organisations have bad apples, but the power dynamics in a media company are multi-layered. Well-known presenters, for example, can wield extraordinary influence, as well as behind-the-scenes editors and managers.

Then there is the issue of an industry that often relies on freelancers, who have even less power. 30% of freelancers told the report they had seen inappropriate behaviour at the BBC. Less than half said they would feel safe speaking up. That is sobering.

Equally, in BBC news and current affairs, only 48% of staff who answered a recent survey said they thought the corporation dealt with bullying and harassment concerns appropriately.

This is all about power imbalances. Will BBC employees ever feel confident that the organisation really will have their backs if they decide to complain?

My sense is that the biggest consideration when deciding whether to make a formal complaint is the fact that the person you are complaining about will be told you have done so. If that person is your boss, or a close colleague, how can you be sure that it won't have an impact on your career?

But equally, if you don't take formal action, then there is a perception that offenders consistently get away with bad behaviour. There are rumours and stories about particular individuals inside the BBC, just as there are in all organisations.

The proof, perhaps, of whether these new policies are working will be whether the small number of people whose names are often raised internally, accused informally of bad behaviour, will now face more scrutiny; whether colleagues will feel confident to raise a formal complaint.

The report makes clear the majority of people enjoy working at the BBC and that there isn't a toxic culture. But it also talks of some names repeated several times as people who are "not being held to account for poor behaviour".

Who are those people and is any action being taken in light of this review?

The report doesn't name names, either complainants or those accused.

A BBC source told me the corporation will always act if necessary on any information it becomes aware of.

But in pockets of the BBC there is real anger that bullying by individuals is an open secret - and there's a belief that complainants aren't protected. Shah and Davie are promising that will change.

It takes time to change cultures. While some behaviour is always unacceptable - sexual harassment or physical assault for example - the report also talks about grey areas, including colleagues being tetchy or rude, ridiculing ideas or using aggressive language. The plan is to nip these in the bud.

Sometimes this kind of behaviour has been blamed on working in a high pressure environment, for example a newsroom, where short-term emotions can run high. It's not an excuse, Davie said.

The report was commissioned because of the BBC's newsroom's most high-profile star, Huw Edwards. But his name was never mentioned over its 60 pages.

Perhaps the evidence of real culture change will be if this is the last report the BBC ever does about workplace culture.

The UN's top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has begun hearings for an opinion on Israel's legal duty to allow aid to Palestinians and to co-operate with the UN's Palestinian aid agency, Unrwa – both of which Israel has barred in Gaza.

Israel stopped allowing aid into Gaza on 2 March, which it said was to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages. The UN and aid agencies say food and supplies are running out in Gaza, which Israel denies.

Last year Israel severed ties with Unrwa, accusing it of colluding with Hamas.

The hearings at The Hague are expected to last for five days, though a ruling could take many months.

Ammar Hijazi, the Palestinian ambassador to International Organisations in The Hague, opened the hearings with a disturbing and graphic testimony.

He accused Israel of a "genocidal campaign" against the Palestinians, adding that Israel's "crimes" put Palestinians at risk of irreparable harm.

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, at times his voice breaking, hands shaking, told the judges it has "never been more painful to be Palestinian".

He said Israel was seeking "deliberately to deprive the population in Gaza" to ensure it has "no way to survive" and that people were "trapped between death and displacement".

He described Unrwa as a "shining example of multilateralism at the UN" and called for a place where Palestinian families could be "reunited in life rather than death".

In a statement coinciding with the start of the hearings, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it had decided "not to take part in this circus".

"It is another attempt to politicise and abuse the legal process in order to persecute Israel," he said.

Israel won't be among the 39 countries speaking at the ICJ this week, but has provided a 37-page written submission to the court, in which it outlines the ways in which it claims Unrwa has been infiltrated by Hamas and argues that Israel is entitled to end cooperation with the organisation for the sake of its own security.

The only countries likely to defend Israel in court are the US and Hungary.

At issue are two bills passed by Israel's parliament in October that declared Unrwa harboured terrorists, and ordered the government to end all co-operation and contact with the organisation, including the supply of visas to Unrwa international employees.

Unrwa has challenged Israel's allegation that it knowingly has Hamas members in its ranks, or that it co-operated with the armed group.

The focus of these hearings is to aid the judges in answering the question posed by the UN General Assembly, specifically whether Israel acted unlawfully in overriding the immunities and privileges of a UN body. But with statements live-streamed around the world from the Peace Palace, home to the ICJ in the Hague - the process is being used to highlight the wider concerns and context.

In December, a vast majority of countries at the UN General Assembly voted to get the ICJ involved for a definitive interpretation of the law and Israel's obligations.

Since then, the humanitarian situation in Gaza has got worse.

Two weeks after cutting off aid, a ceasefire which had offered some respite for Gazans since January collapsed when Israel resumed its military offensive. Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the end of the truce.

The current Israeli blockade is the longest closure Gaza has ever faced.

The UN says Israel - as an occupying power - is obliged under international law to ensure supplies for the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel says it is complying with international law and there is no aid shortage.

That's something disputed by a number of humanitarian relief organisations operating on the ground in Gaza.

At the end of March, all 25 bakeries supported by the World Food Programme (WFP) there were forced to close after wheat flour and cooking fuel ran out.

According to the UN, malnutrition is spreading.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) says there are also severe shortages of medicine, medical supplies and equipment for hospitals overwhelmed by casualties from the Israeli bombardment, and that fuel shortages are hampering water production and distribution.

The WFP warned food prices had skyrocketed by up to 1,400% compared to during the ceasefire, and the shortages of essential commodities raised serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly.

Earlier this month, the head of Unrwa said a "man-made famine" was "tightening its grip" across Gaza.

Human rights groups argue that Israel is using the aid blockade as a form of collective punishment and as political leverage in hostage release negotiations.

Hamas is holding 59 hostages, taken when it attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people. Israel responded with a massive military campaign, which has killed at least 52,243 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

France, Germany and the UK described the blockade as "intolerable" and condemned as unacceptable remarks by the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, linking the supply of aid to political pressure on Hamas.

The Israeli foreign ministry said more than 25,000 lorries carrying almost 450,000 tonnes of aid had entered Gaza during the ceasefire, adding: "Israel is monitoring the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of aid in Gaza."

It also said Israel was not obliged to allow in aid because Hamas had "hijacked" supplies "to rebuild its terror machine".

Hamas has previously denied stealing aid and the UN has said it has kept "a very good chain of custody on all the aid it's delivered".

The WFP says more than 116,000 tonnes of food supplies - enough to feed one million people for up to four months - is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be delivered as soon as Israel reopens Gaza's border crossings.

Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Mansour, warned the judges that "people are starving" while "food rots at the border".

The hearings represent the biggest test of Israel's compliance with international law since the ICJ's landmark rulings in January, March and June of 2024 that ordered it to take immediate steps to allow aid to enter Gaza unrestricted and unhindered.

The UN has argued blocking Unrwa amounts to a violation of the Palestinians inalienable right to self-determination.

The ICJ judges' advisory opinion is expected within months.

The government ended a wave of public sector strikes last summer when it accepted, in full, the recommendations of independent public sector pay review bodies to increase the pay of teachers, nurses and others.

But ministers might be facing another headache over pay and the possibility of a fresh threat of strikes from some unions.

BBC Verify examines why this pressure over public sector pay and industrial action has re-emerged.

What are the public sector pay review bodies recommending?

In July 2024, the new Labour government accepted the recommendation of these bodies to increase public sector pay by between 4.75% and 6% for the 2024-25 financial year.

There is a new round of recommendations from these bodies every year and they traditionally deliver in the summer.

In September 2024, the government decided to speed up the process by asking for their recommendations by the spring for how much public sector pay should rise in each sector in the 2025-26 financial year.

These have not been made public yet, but reports suggest the recommendations are for more than the health and education departments have budgeted for this financial year.

In their own submissions to the pay review bodies, the health and education departments said they could only afford to increase their pay bills in England by 2.8%.

The BBC has been told that the teachers' pay review body has recommended a 4% rise and the NHS body has recommended 3%.

In the case of teachers, this would be above the latest 3.2% consumer price inflation forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility for 2025-26.

Because education and health are devolved, the health and education departments set budgets for spending in England only. The teachers' pay review body makes recommendations for England only but the NHS pay review body covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Public sector pay is set through a separate process in Scotland.

Why would the teachers' pay review body recommend 4%?

The recommendation of an above-inflation pay rise for teachers is likely to be because of ongoing concerns about staff recruitment and retention in schools.

These have been raised in previous pay recommendations.

Calculations by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) show that, despite the 5.5% average cash pay rise teachers received in 2024-25, the average pay of most teachers in that year - when adjusted for inflation - was still lower than than it was back in 2010.

In the case of the most experienced teachers, pay was 9% lower than it was 15 years ago in real terms.

Official government data also shows widening gaps between the recruitment figures for teachers in specific subjects and their recruitment targets.

Just 17% of the target for secondary school physics teacher recruitment was achieved in 2023-24, down from 42% in 2019-20.

Overall teacher recruitment was 62% of the target, down from 87% in 2019-20

How much would it cost to meet these higher pay settlements?

We do not know what all the individual pay recommendations from the review bodies will be, but Verify has done some calculations that give a rough sense of the potential impact.

Overall UK public sector pay in 2023-24 was £272bn, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The previous Conservative government had budgeted for a 2% cash increase in public sector pay in 2024-25.

And last July, Labour said the cost of meeting the full 2024-25 pay recommendations would be an additional £9.4bn.

That implies that total public sector pay in 2024-25 will have been roughly £287bn, which is around a fifth of total government spending.

So, if the total bill across the public sector for 2025-26 went up by another 3% - rather than 2.8% - that would imply the government needing to find about an extra £550m.

But if it went up by 4% it would imply the need to find an extra £3.5bn.

Where would the money come from?

The government said in the 2024 Autumn Budget that it would seek to fund any pay rises above what departments have budgeted for not by raising taxes or more borrowing but by "productivity improvements".

In other words, departments would have to accommodate the additional pay rise by making cuts elsewhere in their budgets.

The government has reiterated this, with the prime minister's spokesperson telling reporters in December 2024 that: "For pay awards to go beyond inflation they will have to be met by productivity improvements."

What have the unions said?

The National Education Union (NEU), England's largest teaching union, has already said it would resist any further effective cuts to the overall education budget.

And it is demanding any pay rise for teachers be fully funded with new money.

The NEU said in April 2025 that it would vote on taking strike action if the government stuck with its 2.8% pay offer for the 2025-26 academic year.

And when the government indicated in December 2024 that it could only afford a 2.8% pay rise in the health sector in England, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing both said the figure was too low.

Why does the government not fully fund the recommended pay rise?

The government funded last year's above inflation pay increase for public sector workers by increasing employers' National Insurance contributions and Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in November that she did not want to increase taxes again this Parliament.

As for borrowing, she has left herself only £9.9bn of "headroom", or leeway, against hitting her chosen fiscal rules in 2029-30 and taking on additional debt to pay for higher public sector pay would risk being on course to breach her rules.

But analysts also warn that it will be far from easy to pay for higher pay through increased public sector productivity.

"If the pay recommendations come in higher than what departments have planned for, that will create a budgeting challenge," says Ben Zaranko of the IFS.

"If no additional funding is forthcoming, it will force ruthless prioritisation and tough choices elsewhere. Public service leaders are already being asked to find major efficiency savings, and there is a limit to what is realistic."

Additional reporting by Anthony Reuben

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