Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Our data journalists have been working through the UK’s latest immigration statistics, and you’ll see their analysis across the BBC this evening.

We’re closing this live page soon, so take a minute now to scroll back and check out what else we’ve been working on today.

Using new satellite imagery of Gaza City, we’ve been monitoring the movements of the Israeli military. The images show armoured vehicles, the clearing of camps for displaced people and damaged buildings.

We’ve verified video of deadly drone and missile strikes by Ukrainian and Russian forces and talked about the so-called GCSE "resit crisis".

Plus, we’ve looked at how you can tell that a viral image of football star Cristiano Ronaldo getting married is a fake and shared more tips on how to spot AI-generated images.

BBC Verify Live will back tomorrow.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Earlier we broke down how you can tell that a picture supposedly showing Cristiano Ronaldo getting married is an AI fake.

By zooming in, we can see the couple’s hands appear deformed.

But this isn’t the the only way to easily spot AI-generation.

Here are three more tips, suggested by Prof Thomas Nowotny, the head of the AI research group at the University of Sussex:

• Text - look out for road signs or shop windows. AI-generated text is typically full of errors, including non-existent characters
• Perspective - objects can appear too big or too small for where they sit in the image
• Lighting - check for shadows that are inconsistent or missing altogether

The rate of technological progress with AI tools is so fast, however, that Nowotny says it is impossible to know how long these tell-tale signs will remain.

"We may have to get used to images and film clips to be potentially only as trustworthy as hearsay,” says Prof Nowotny.

“However, we have experience with lies in spoken language and in printed form. I think the same principles of trust and common sense we use there can and need to be applied to images and film clips,” Nowotny adds.

BBC Verify data journalists have spent much of the day digging into the latest data on people seeking asylum in the UK.

Senior journalist Tom Edgington, who has been covering the story, explains what the team has been working on.

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist

We’ve been analysing today’s exam results as students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland get their GCSE, BTec and Cambridge Nationals grades.

The head of the OCR exam board, Jill Duffy, has said there is a "resit crisis" with the number of young people re-taking their maths and English GCSEs at an "all-time high".

In England, anyone continuing in education after the age of 16 must continue studying English and maths as well if they didn’t get at least a grade 4 in their GCSEs.

This year brought a big increase in the number of 18-year-olds taking the exams - with the majority re-sitting for at least the second time.

The number of 18-year-olds taking English language GCSE increased by 36% in England between 2024 and 2025, while those taking maths went up by 19%.

Overall, nearly a quarter of all maths and English language GCSEs were taken by people aged 17 or older.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Earlier we talked you through some of the verified photos and videos from Ukraine showing the impact of a wave of Russian attacks across the country last night.

According to Ukrainian Air Force (UAF) figures, last night’s assault - in which Russia launched 574 drones and 40 missiles towards Ukraine - was the heaviest since 12 July when Russia fired 597 drones and 26 missiles.

Three days earlier, on 9 July, Russia launched a total of 741 drones and missiles at Ukraine.

We've plotted the total number of missile and drone launches since 1 June in a graph to show how the scale of Russian bombardments have changed over time.

Data collated by BBC Monitoring

Simran Sohal
BBC Verify researcher

Speaking on Good Morning Britain earlier, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the Labour government was spending “several billion pounds a year” on the asylum system.

Philp isn’t wrong in terms of the cost being in the billions - Home Office figures show £4.76bn was spent in 2024-25.

However, this is a 12% decrease from a record cost of £5.38bn in 2023-24, the last year that the Conservative Party was in office.

The amount spent on hotels for asylum seekers has also decreased. £2.1bn was spent this year, down from £3bn in 2023-24., external

These figures include the total spent by the Home Office on asylum accommodation as well as weekly allowances for asylum seekers and staffing costs.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Planet Labs

As we reported yesterday, displacement camps in parts of Gaza City within areas of Israeli military control have been gradually dismantled over the past two weeks.

The images above show that in one such camp, between 9 and 19 August, almost all of the tents have disappeared.

By matching details such as building shapes and alignment, we can confirm that this footage of an air strike was filmed from the same camp.

Satellite imagery from 19 August also shows vehicles in the immediate vicinity of a much larger former displacement camp a few hundred meters to the south.

While the vehicles themselves are too small to identify, they are positioned in an area under Israeli military control and around 600m (2,000ft) from the base we identified earlier - suggesting they belong to the Israel Defense Forces.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Planet Labs

As part of our efforts to assess the Israeli military build-up around Gaza City ahead of a planned ground offensive we have been reviewing satellite imagery which has been captured in recent days.

In one area just south of the Sabra neighbourhood we've identified what appears to be a new Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base surrounded by armoured vehicles and heavy digging equipment. The image above shows the site on 9 August (left) and 19 August (right).

The area has been fortified by raised earth barriers and there are signs of damage to nearby buildings. There is also evidence of a new access route to the north.

We can be confident the vehicles are Israeli as they are located in an area under IDF control and it is unlikely that groups such as Hamas have access to such types in these numbers.

The base is located around 600m (2,000ft) from the recently dismantled camp for displaced people that we reported on yesterday.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

BBC Verify is dedicated to examining the facts and claims behind a story to try to determine whether or not it is true - whether that’s a political statement, a video shared on social media, or images from a war zone.

And we’re also keen to hear from you - is there something you think we should investigate? We're particularly interested in claims you have heard or seen that maybe don’t seem right.

Or perhaps you’ve come across something online and want to know if it was created using AI or even a deepfake.

You can send your suggestions to the team here.

Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been looking at a picture that’s been surfacing on social media which appears to show Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo marrying his long-time partner Georgina Rodriquez.

It’s one of a number of pictures and videos going viral showing the couple seemingly tying the knot.

This black and white shot has gathered more than 5 million views in a single post on X at the time I’m writing this.

If you scrolled past this picture on your feed you probably wouldn't look twice.

Anyone who follows Ms Rodriquez on Instagram, external will know they only got engaged last week so a wedding this soon seems unlikely.

So what's going on here? Well let’s take a closer look at the picture - especially their hands.

As you can see, their fingers appear deformed, like they’re melting into each other.

Strange-looking hands are a common sign of AI-generation.

Experts say this is because the AI image generators available today struggle to understand the three-dimensional geometry of a hand.

This isn’t a problem if you want a generic image of a hand, but as soon as you prompt an image generator to show one doing anything more geometrically complex - like intertwining fingers - it will struggle to accurately recreate it.

The technology is evolving rapidly, but for now if you suspect an image might be an AI fake - a good place to check first is the hands.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Returns of small boat arrivals fell in the last year, according to the latest immigration statistics, external we’ve been looking at this morning.

There were 2,330 returns of people who arrived in the UK by small boat in the year to June 2025. That is down 7% on the same period in the previous year, which was just before Labour came to power.

Three-quarters of small boat returns in this period were of Albanians.

Small boat crossings were first recorded by the government in 2018 and since that time just over 6,000 people arriving via this route have been returned. That’s just 4% of the total number of small boat arrivals from 2018 up to the year ending June 2025.

The government has pledged to increase returns of people with no legal right to be in the UK. On Wednesday the Home Office announced it had signed a deal with the Iraqi government to speed up returns, external of small boat migrants.

A video, analysed by BBC Verify, shows the moment a strike hits southern Gaza City causing an explosion near the Sabra neighbourhood, close to an area known to have previously been a temporary tent camp for people displaced by the war.

In recent days we’ve seen satellite imagery that shows the camp is one of many that has recently emptied - we'll bring you more on that soon.

The video was shared on Instagram on 20 August 2025. We have asked the Israel Defense Forces to confirm the date of the strike.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp defended the Conservatives’ record on asylum hotels while in government on BBC Breakfast this morning.

He said: “Under the last government, in the last I think even nine months of the last government, the number of hotels pretty much halved.”

He’s right that the number of hotels being used to house asylum seekers roughly halved during this time but Philp is comparing it with a peak year.

At the end of September 2023 there were 398 hotels being used to house asylum seekers, the highest number on record. But nine months later at the end of June 2024 - days before Labour came to power - that number had fallen to 213 hotels.

The use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers slowly began to rise after the Covid pandemic. In March 2020 there were just 10 hotels but two years later this had increased to 217.

This period also saw a sharp rise in the number of people arriving on small boats - the vast majority of whom go on to claim asylum.

The government does not regularly publish figures on the number of asylum hotels used so BBC Verify obtained these figures through sending Freedom of Information requests to the Home Office.

Rob England
BBC Verify senior data journalist

Our data team is busy analysing new immigration statistics released this morning by the UK government.

Immediately we can see the number of asylum seekers in hotels has fallen slightly quarter-on-quarter. This issue has been politically divisive over the last few months so we’re looking here first.

As of June 2025, 32,059 people were in hotels. That’s down about 1% on March but 8% higher than at the end of June 2024 just before the general election, according to the Home Office’s figures.

The fall follows higher than usual levels of small boat crossings of the English Channel this year.

The government has pledged to end hotel use for asylum seekers by 2029. It says this will be done by cutting crossings and opening new government-run accommodation.

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

Most live in self-catered properties such as houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), but hotels have been used since 2020 when regular supply ran out.

We’ll be poring over this new data for most of today and we’ll bring you our analysis here.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

We're currently reviewing new satellite imagery from Gaza City captured by Planet Labs on 19 and 20 August.

Yesterday the Israeli military announced 60,000 reservists were being called up after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz approved plans to capture and occupy Gaza City.

Initial analysis of the new imagery shows continued activity in south-eastern areas of the city where we've previously observed the presence of Israeli military vehicles and dismantling of camps for displaced people.

The new images show a continuation of those trends, as well as signs of further demolition of buildings in nearby areas.

While we continue to check the imagery we’re also looking for any useful footage being posted from inside Gaza.

We’ll bring you what we’ve learned from the satellite pictures during the course of the day.

Image source, Planet Labs

Paul Brown and Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify

Image source, X

We’re verifying video and photos posted online following strikes in Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine’s Air Force said, external overnight Russia launched more than 600 drones and missiles which hit 11 locations while debris from downed targets fell on three locations.

We’ve verified a photo captured in the city of Mukachevo, in the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia. It shows heavy black smoke billowing above a group of buildings. According to Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs the complex belongs to a US electronics manufacturer.

In the centre of Lviv, western Ukraine, we have also verified video which shows damage to what appears to be an office block and a two-storey building. According to the city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy, the attack killed one person and injured three. Twenty-six buildings and a kindergarten were damaged, he said.

Russia also reported Ukrainian drone attacks across 10 areas, the majority of them in the south-western Rostov region. We’re monitoring videos apparently showing fire and smoke at the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery. We’ll post an update here if this is confirmed.

Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (Firms), which detects active hot spots from space, is detecting activity at that site today.

Image source, NASA

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning.

It's looking like a busy day for BBC Verify's verification specialists, data journalists and fact-checkers.

Based on what's been discussed in our morning editorial meeting we're going to be working on these stories:

• Russia launched a major drone and missile attack overnight - we've verified images showing that cities and towns including Lviv in the west of Ukraine were hit. One person was killed there, according to the regional head
• The Israeli military has established footholds on the outskirts of Gaza City ahead of a planned operation to capture and occupy the area - despite criticism from international bodies and allies. We're assessing satellite imagery of the military build-up and verifying video showing the situation on the ground
• The UK government has published immigration data for the period from April to June which will include the number of asylum seekers living in hotels - we'll explain what the numbers tell us

As well as those stories we're also looking into a potentially AI-generated image that has surfaced recently - more on that when we have something to share.