Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ll be closing our live page for the day shortly, so let's take a quick look at what we’ve been working on today.

Our fact-checking team have been glued to day two of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester - here’s a rundown of what they have been looking into:

• A plan to save £47bn that works out at around 0.5% of annual government spending
• Whether the party’s proposal to restrict who can get welfare will apply to EU nationals with settled status
• How civil servant numbers have changed in recent years

Away from British party politics, we began by examining reports of an Ukrainian drone attack on an oil terminal in Russian-occupied Crimea. We’ve used heat map data and video verification techniques to reveal more about the overnight strikes on the largest oil-processing facility on the peninsula.

Plus, what do Trump’s latest Gaza ceasefire map and satellite images tell us about Israeli military control of the territory?

Have you seen questionable claims or unverified videos going viral on your social media feed? Send them now to BBC Verify by clicking here.

BBC Verify Live will be back with you tomorrow morning.

Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride has pledged to cut £47bn of public spending if his party wins the next UK general election.

Almost half the savings would come from reforming welfare, which includes plans to limit who could access benefits.

BBC Verify's Tom Edgington has been assessing how the policy could work.

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, X

Heavy rainfall and flooding in Nepal and eastern India over the weekend has led to dozens of deaths and huge numbers of people being displaced.

We have verified footage showing a portion of a broken bridge and a nearby building collapsing into a fast-flowing, swollen river. A crowd of people can be seen along a road fleeing the area.

The video is from flooding over the last two days and was filmed near the Balason Bridge in Darjeeling, a town in the Indian state of West Bengal.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has advised visitors in the popular tourist destination in the foothills of the Himalayas to stay put until they are safely evacuated.

At least 23 people have died in Darjeeling and 50 in Nepal as a result of the rains and flooding.

Tom Edgington
BBC Verify senior journalist

Earlier today I wrote a post about the Conservatives’ plan to cut £23bn from the welfare budget, which the party has said would be achieved in part by limiting future welfare payments to British citizens only.

I contacted the Conservative Party to find out if this policy would extend to EU nationals with settled status, who have certain protections under the European Union Withdrawal Agreement negotiated and signed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government.

I’ve just heard back from them and a Tory spokesperson told me the policy would not apply to EU nationals with settled status.

As to clarifying how many people would be impacted by the plan, the spokesperson said they have not yet calculated this.

Richard Irvine-Brown and Kumar Malhotra
BBC Verify

As well as verifying images of smoke rising from an oil depot in Russian-occupied Crimea, we’ve been looking at images on social media which claim to show two strikes hours apart near the same power station in a suburb of Belgorod - a city close to the border with Ukraine.

One video, which first appeared shortly before 22:00 local time (20:00 BST) last night on Russian Telegram channels, shows an explosion in the area of a power plant in the city’s south.

We were able to locate the view and approximate location of the blast from the position of a convenience store in the foreground and the view across a nearby street.

Image source, Telegram

A daytime picture and video of smoke rising from the plant also show a combination of identifiable landmarks which can be seen on satellite and streetview imagery, including the power station’s pair of red and white chimneys.

The earliest copies we’ve seen of the picture and video were posted between 12:00 and 13:00 local time today.

Image source, Telegram

We can’t say for certain whether the smoke we see rising is the result of an overnight or a new strike, but we can hear an air raid siren in the background of the video indicating there may have been a second attack.

The governor of Belgorod region also posted a missile warning on Telegram around 13:00 local time and has since said there was another missile strike on the city in which a man died.

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.

Benedict Garman
BBC Verify senior journalist

In an earlier post I outlined the key locations the Israeli military (IDF) would continue to hold in Gaza should a ceasefire go ahead, including the eastern Gaza City neighbourhood of Shejaiya.

Before the war Shejaiya was one of Gaza City’s largest neighbourhoods, filled with shops, homes, schools, and mosques. Little of it remains after being extensively destroyed by Israel.

Recent satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs shows hundreds of structures have been flattened and the IDF has established staging areas, defensive features like berms (high sand banks) and several outposts.

One of the main Israeli forward operating bases in this area is built on a hill called Tel al-Muntar, also known as Hill 70. It has views across most of northern Gaza and is considered strategically critical for the IDF as a result.

Satellite imagery shows this base was paved at the start of this month, which appears to confirm the IDF’s intention to hold onto it long term.

The picture below is a frame from a video published in June showing the view across north Gaza from the base, which BBC Verify has geolocated. It makes clear the extent of the devastation, with almost no buildings visibly left standing.

Image source, Twitter

Tom Edgington
BBC Verify senior journalist

The Conservatives plan to cut a cumulative £23bn from the welfare budget which represents almost half of their £47bn total savings package.

As part of the party’s proposals it wants to limit future welfare payments to British citizens only.

However, under the European Union Withdrawal Agreement - introduced after the Brexit vote - EU nationals with settled status have certain protections. One of these limits the UK government’s ability to restrict access to benefits.

When Reform UK announced it would scrap indefinite leave to remain at its conference last month, the party later clarified that its proposed changes would not apply to EU nationals whose settled status is protected.

BBC Verify has contacted the Conservatives to clarify if its policy apply would apply to EU nationals with settled status or not.

Richard Irvine-Brown and Kumar Malhotra
BBC Verify

As we reported earlier, we’re checking out videos being posted online after Ukraine launched a reported 251 drones towards Russia and occupied Crimea overnight.

Some of the videos are said to show an oil depot on fire in Feodosia, a town on the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea. Because they were filmed at night they are too dark to make out any landmarks but photographs posted this morning show the depot is still on fire.

In one, we can see a tall, dark plume of smoke at the western side of the depot. To be certain of the location, we matched the tower blocks on the right of the picture to those around the Crimean Marketplace area in the centre of the town.

Image source, Telegram

In another, which appears to have been taken from a car on a motorway we can see smoke in the distance. The motorway barriers, as well as some trees and hills match a spot on the E97 road to the north of Feodosia.

The fire seen closest to the road appears to be in the countryside. A second plume in the distance - to the left of the larger smoke cloud - looks to be from the oil depot fire but it’s hard to be sure from this distance.

Image source, Telegram

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, PA Media

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride told the Conservative conference this morning that it would reduce the size of the civil service if the party were to win the next general election.

The Conservatives want to bring the number of civil servants back down to 2016 levels, a pledge previously made - but not fulfilled - by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Back in 2016 there were about 384,000 civil servants, the smallest number since World War Two.

Currently there are 517,000 full-time civil servants, external - up by 4,000 compared with the year before.

But the vast majority of the civil servants the party says it wants to cut were hired under the previous Conservative government, external - with extra staff hired for Brexit preparations and during the Covid pandemic.

There are 94,000 more people working in the civil service now than in March 2020 when the first pandemic lockdown began.

More than two-thirds of the workforce is based in five government departments - Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Justice, HM Revenue and Customs, Ministry of Defence and the Home Office – according to separate government data from March 2025, external.

Benedict Garman
BBC Verify senior journalist

Donald Trump shared a new map, external of Gaza on Saturday which the US president said shows where the Israeli military (IDF) has agreed to withdraw if the ceasefire and peace plan terms are successfully negotiated.

This map is more precise than the one the White House published last week, which was essentially a rough sketch of potential withdrawal lines. The yellow lines on both maps represent the proposed initial withdrawal.

It confirms our assessment that the first phase of withdrawal would leave about 55% of Gaza under IDF control, but suggests its forces would fall back to a position slightly further north of Gaza City than previously indicated. This would in effect reverse the Israeli advance made over the past month, while holding on to most of the eastern neighbourhood of Shejaiya.

The IDF would also hold onto about a third of the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, a road created by Israel in early 2024 and used to separate the north and south of the territory to control population movement.

In southern Gaza the withdrawal lines appear to follow existing military partitions created earlier this year:

• The Morag Corridor dividing Gaza between the regions of Rafah and Khan Younis
• The Magin Oz Axis splitting the region (and city) of Khan Younis from east to west

These military corridors already more or less demarcate the extent of IDF control in southern Gaza, suggesting there would be no significant withdrawal there.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

At the Conservative Party conference this morning, shadow chancellor Mel Stride set out how he would save £47bn if his party were to win the next election.

But remember, that’s £47bn over the course of the next parliament which would be less than £10bn a year.

To put that into context, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which makes forecasts for the government, predicts that government spending will be £1.5tn., external

So the suggested annual savings would be a touch over half a percent of annual government spending.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the OBR is currently expecting total annual welfare spending to increase by £47bn a year between now and 2029-30.

Image source, PA Media

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ve been tracking reports overnight of a Ukrainian drone attack on the Feodosia oil terminal in Russian-occupied Crimea, the largest oil-processing facility on the peninsula.

While the team are working to verify nighttime footage of the attack and the resulting fire, we have checked Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (Firms) which detects active hot spots on the planet’s surface.

There are two clear hot spots visible in the Firms data, indicating that a large fire was burning at the site overnight.

Below is a map of what that looks like:

Image source, NASA

This latest reported strike comes alongside Ukraine stepping up its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent weeks. The Feodosia oil terminal has a capacity for an estimated 250,000 tonnes of fuel and plays a key role in supplying Russia forces from Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.

This apparent attack, however, would not be the first on the huge oil depot.

Almost exactly one year ago, a Ukrainian strike on the facility led to a local emergency being declared and 300 people evacuated.

A plume of smoke from the blaze was clearly visible in satellite imagery from the time.

Image source, Planet Labs

Update 9 October 2025: This has been updated to say that Firms data indicated a large fire was burning at the Feodosia site overnight and not at the time the post was published.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Welcome to Monday’s BBC Verify Live - we’ll bring you updates here on what we’re fact-checking and the footage we’re authenticating for stories running across BBC News.

The team are starting this morning by collating and verifying material being posted online from Russia following reports of drone strikes overnight. The Ministry of Defence in Moscow says its forces destroyed 251 Ukrainian drones. We’re looking to see what has been hit - Ukrainian media says an oil refinery is on fire in Russian-occupied Crimea.

The UK’s main opposition party - the Conservatives - are holding their conference in Manchester this week.

We’re listening to a speech from shadow chancellor Mel Stride. We're looking into Conservative plans to give young people a £5,000 tax rebate towards their first home which would be paid for by cutting public spending by £47bn over five years.

South Asia continues to be hit by severe flooding which have triggered landslides in parts of India as well as affecting areas of Nepal and Afghanistan. We’re in the process of checking footage being posted online including one video where a building is washed away near the city of Darjeeling.

And with Israel and Hamas due to hold indirect ceasefire talks in Egypt today we’re using open source material like social media posts to get a picture of what is happening in Gaza as Israeli attacks continue.