Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ll be closing this live page shortly, but you can scroll back through the posts to see what we’ve been working on today.

This morning we published our investigation which shows Israel struck Gaza's Nasser Hospital four times during Monday’s deadly attack.

We also used satellite imagery and heat-source data to map the spread of a fire in the North York Moors and examined the statistics on how many people are housed in asylum hotels across the UK.

This afternoon we looked at falling child vaccination rates, showed you how to spot “AI slop” on social media, verified footage of the latest Ukrainian strike on a Russian oil facility and brought you the latest on the recovery of the remains of two Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Keep an eye out for more of our coverage across the BBC through the rest of the day and over the weekend. We’ll be back on Monday.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Image source, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The Ukrainian military has released a statement and video on the Telegram messaging app saying it carried out an overnight strike on an oil facility supplying fuel to Russian forces.

We’ve managed to match night-vision footage posted by Ukraine’s armed forces to satellite imagery of Naytopovichi, a Russian settlement in the Bryansk region about 50km (31 miles) north of the border with Ukraine.

The footage appears to show two explosions followed by fireballs and then large plumes of smoke.

Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz posted early this morning that 18 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed by Russian air defences and that there were no casualties.

He did not mention a strike at Naytopovichi.

This is the latest in a series of Ukrainian strikes against Russia oil pipelines, refineries and pumping stations that BBC Verify has been tracking in recent weeks.

Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

We’ve verified footage of yesterday’s Israeli air strikes in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, which reportedly targeted the leadership of the country’s Iran-backed Houthi group.

Photos and videos posted online show a large cloud of smoke and debris in the centre of the city.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted on X, external that its air force had struck “a military target of the Houthi terror regime in the Sanaa area”.

The Houthis have previously declared they will not stop attacking Israel until the Gaza war ends, which has led to repeated IDF strikes on targets in Yemen.

We verified the location of the footage by identifying distinctive apartment blocks in the foreground to satellite imagery on Google Earth.

We also matched the profile of the mountains in the background using PeakVisor to further confirm the location.

Reverse image searches also confirmed that the footage had not appeared online before Thursday.

Image source, X

Kevin Nguyen and Kristina Völk
BBC Verify and BBC News

We’ve been investigating how unscrupulous content creators have been exploiting Meta’s content monetisation scheme to profit from AI-generated Holocaust photos.

One of the ways these accounts make money is by mass-producing ‘AI slop’ - low-quality images and text made with generative AI - which are posted on social media.

You can read more about the investigation here, including what motivates them to do it.

For now, here’s a way to tell if a page posting dubious AI content might be engaging in deceptive practices.

Below is an example of one page we flagged to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, which went on to ban it for“inauthentic behaviour”.

Tucked away on all Facebook pages under the “About” tab is a section called “Page transparency” and if you click “see all”, you get something like this.

In the “History” section, we can see that the page called 90’s History had an entirely different name when it was created in 2011.

It posed as a fire department agency in the US state of Tennessee before changing identities again nine years later.

It even reposted videos and public service announcements from official pages during this period - possibly to give the page an impression of legitimacy.

It lists itself as being US-based and has the name of a Houston-based business called Star Groups LLC - which doesn’t appear on any company database we checked.

It was more likely to have been located in Pakistan - based on its many memberships in Pakistan-focused Facebook groups for content creators.

One potential reason for posing as a US company is because accounts in Pakistan aren’t eligible for Meta’s content monetisation scheme.

So they’ll often make it appear that they’re based overseas as one way to mask their true location.

The above is just one example we found. There are possibly hundreds, if not thousands of accounts like it.

• Listen to BBC Trending's investigation, The Facebook grifters making money off AI Holocaust victims, by clicking here

Emma Pengelly, Jamie Ryan and Alex Murray
BBC Verify

Image source, Israeli President

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced earlier that the body of hostage Ilan Weiss has been recovered during a military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Mr Weiss was 55 when he was killed and abducted from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza boundary in the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Since the start of the war we’ve been monitoring the number of hostages still held and what is known about their status.

With the recovery of Mr Weiss’s body there are 49 hostages still in Gaza including one who was held before the current conflict began.

Of those, Israel says 20 are assumed to be alive.

In the same operation, the remains of another hostage were returned, the Israeli government statement said. It has not released their name.

The figures above do not account for the second recovered hostage as they have yet to be identified.

Joshua Cheetham and Paul Brown
BBC Verify

We’ve been looking at satellite imagery of Gaza City as part of our efforts to track and assess Israeli military movements ahead of a planned operation to seize and control the largest urban area in the Gaza Strip.

Since the start of the month we’ve observed extensive damage in parts of Gaza City including the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods.

In Zeitoun we’ve observed two groupings of Israeli military vehicles and diggers.

Over the past few days a cluster of buildings between them has been completely flattened suggesting that Israeli forces are developing a stronghold there.

As we’ve previously reported, several displacement camps in the area have been dismantled.

This is a pattern likely to be repeated in more crowded western areas of Gaza City as Israel forces advance.

We’ve also seen signs of vehicles and clearance operations in north-eastern areas of the city.

Posting on X this morning, external, IDF Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee confirmed that “preliminary operations” and “initialstages” of the attack on Gaza City were under way.

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist

Young children in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be offered chickenpox vaccines from next January, combined with the existing MMR jab against measles, mumps and rubella.

The announcement comes as new data shows none of the main childhood vaccines in England reached the 95% uptake target in 2024-25.

Take-up of the existing jab over the past year hasn’t changed, with just under 90% of two-year-olds in England having received their first MMR vaccination by the end of March this year.

While that’s the same as last year, vaccination rates have been falling for a number of years, down from a peak of nearly 93% in 2013-14.

The percentage point changes are small, but it means that for every 100 two-year-olds, about three more are not vaccinated against MMR than there were in 2013-14.

The World Health Organization target is for 95% of children to be vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella in order to control or eliminate these diseases.

On the chart below, we’ve started the axis at 80% rather than zero so you can more clearly see the change.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

As Israeli forces continue to strike targets in Gaza City, a key question emerges over where residents will be able to go to escape the fighting, given the massive over-crowding across large areas in the south of the Strip which they are being directed to for their own safety.

Two days ago, the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee offered suggestions, external of "empty" areas in the south that people could move to.

These were plotted on a map in blue based on the IDF’s subdivision of the Strip into blocks.

Image source, IDF

But six of these areas - such as 2352 and 2353 - have been identified as part of an IDF-designated "dangerous combat zone" and remain so today, according to their website.

The IDF has told anyone sheltering in these areas to leave for their own safety.

We asked the IDF to comment on this apparent discrepancy shortly after Adraee’s post but they have so far not responded.

Adraee's post went on to promise assistance and the "most abundant humanitarian aid" to anyone making the journey.

Update 15:03 BST: The IDF has responded to our request for comment, saying that residents should “rely on the updated map” on their website.

Phil Leake
BBC Verify data journalist

Placing asylum seekers in hotels is expensive, but the cost has fallen in the past year, the latest annual accounts show.

The Home Office spent a total of £2.1bn on asylum hotels between April 2024 and March 2025, which works out as an average of £5.77m per day.

This was down from £3bn, or £8.3m per day, the year before.

The number of contracted hotels fell by 71 in the year to March 2025, causing an overall decrease in asylum support spending.

The Home Office does not routinely publish the number of hotels in use but government sources have suggested the figure currently stands at fewer than 210.

Increased room-sharing in hotels has also contributed to reduced costs.

The average nightly cost per person fell from £162.16 in March 2024 to £118.87 by March 2025, according to data obtained by a BBC Verify Freedom of Information request.

Read more about the government's pledges on hotels and illegal immigration in the full story here.

Merlyn Thomas, Benedict Garman & Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

Israel struck Nasser Hospital at least four times during its deadly attack in southern Gaza on Monday, BBC Verify analysis has found.

The attack, which attracted international condemnation, reportedly killed at least 20 people, including five journalists.

Initial reports said that Israel had struck the hospital twice, but BBC Verify has now identified two previously unreported strikes.

The first previously unreported strike hit the hospital’s northern staircase, but was overshadowed at the time by the"double-tap" strike on the eastern staircase.

Then, frame-by-frame video analysis of the second strike on the eastern staircase nine minutes later clearly shows that two separate projectiles hit the hospital milliseconds apart.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had no additional comment on the newly identified blasts when approached by BBC Verify.

Israel's narrative of the attack has evolved since Monday. It initially said it "regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals" and that an inquiry would be opened, but provided no justification for the attack.

In the hours that followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was responsible and that it "deeply regrets the tragic mishap".

On Tuesday, the IDF said troops had identified a camera positioned by Hamas near the hospital "used to observe the activity of IDF troops", without providing evidence.

The IDF has not yet acknowledged carrying out more than one strike on the hospital, which some international legal experts say may have violated international law.

• Read the full BBC Verify investigation here

Becky Dale
BBC Verify senior data journalist

The Court of Appeal is expected to rule this afternoon on the Home Office‘s case against an injunction which temporarily blocks a hotel in Essex from housing asylum seekers.

The 138 asylum seekers accommodated in the Bell Hotel must be removed from the hotel by 16:00 BST on 12 September, the judge ruled, following legal action by Epping Forest District Council.

Epping Forest is one of 124 local authorities, out of more than 300 across the UK, currently housing asylum seekers in contingency accommodation, primarily made up of hotels.

According to the latest figures, external from the Home Office, released last Thursday, there were 32,059 people in these asylum hotels at the end of June 2025.

This is up 8% from the 29,585 people who were in hotels at the end of June last year - just before the general election -but a slight decrease on the end of March 2025 and well down from the peak shown below, in September 2023.

Asylum seekers who cannot financially support themselves are placed in housing while their claims and appeals are considered.

Most live in self-catered homes, but hotels have been used since 2020 when regular supply ran out.

The government has pledged to end hotel use for asylum seekers by 2029, by cutting Channel crossings and opening new government-run accommodation.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

This morning I’ve been using satellite imagery and heat-source data to see if we can map the spread of a fire in the North York Moors over the past 18 days.

The Langdale Moor fire broke out on 11 August and firefighters have been on the scene ever since.

The earliest view of the blaze from space - published by satellite image provider Planet - was captured on its third day and shows smoke drifting north-west over the moorland.

Meanwhile, Nasa's Fire Information for Resource Management System (Firms), which detects hotspots on the earth’s surface, first picked up a heat source in the area on 12 August, represented by the red blocks on the map below.

On 13 August the fire was declared a major incident by North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (NYFRS).

Nasa’s Firms continued to detect hotspots for the rest of the week before they began to reduce in number from 16 August.

That afternoon NYFRS still had six fire engines and specialist appliances at the scene.

But on Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 August there was a significant increase. Overnight into Tuesday the blaze had spread, NYFRS confirmed.

A satellite image captured on Tuesday shows plumes of smoke billowing to the north-east.

Speaking in the last few minutes, the NYFRS chief said there has been no further spread of the fire in the past 48 hours.

You can follow the latest on this BBC News live page

Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

Image source, X

We have verified new footage that shows intense Israeli bombing of Gaza City. A video which first emerged online this morning shows at least six large smoke plumes emerging from neighbourhoods in the east of the city.

This comes as the Israel Defense Forces declared this morning that the whole of Gaza City is “a, external dangerous combat zone, external”.

Israeli operations have been intensifying in the area following the approval of a plan to take control of Gaza’s largest urban area.

We verified the location of the footage by matching distinctive apartment blocks seen in the video’s foreground to Google Earth satellite imagery. We also carried out reverse image searches to confirm the video had not appeared online previously.

By analysing the direction and the length of the shadows, we were able to determine that the footage was filmed in the morning.

Joshua Cheetham
BBC Verify journalist

We’re sourcing and analysing satellite imagery of the area around Gaza City which the Israel Defense Forces has declared a “dangerous combat zone” and suspended daily ceasefires for the distribution of aid.

Imagery we’ve seen shows extensive damage to areas of Gaza City, such as Sabra and Zeitoun.

We’re also investigating reports that several people have been killed by an Israeli strike in al-Mawasi - a coastal strip near Khan Younis in southern Gaza that Israel has previously designated a “safe zone”.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Welcome to BBC Verify Live where we share the work of the BBC's specialists in verification, fact-checking and data journalism.

With the Israeli military declaring Gaza City “a dangerous combat zone” this morning we're using satellite imagery and verified footage to see how the Israel Defense Forces is carrying out preparations to take control of the area. We're looking into reports that buildings have been demolished in the Zeitoun area west of Gaza City.

A BBC Verify investigation into Monday's Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza has found it was hit at least four times - initial reports suggested it had been struck twice. You can read our story here and we'll explain more on this page about how we worked on the investigation.

We're also looking at the data on the number of asylum seekers in hotels across the UK as the government is set to learn whether it has successfully challenged a court injunction blocking it from using a hotel in Essex.

And we're keeping an eye on satellite imagery and data as fire crews continue to battle a wildfire on the North Yorkshire Moors that has been alight for more than two weeks.