Tracking youth protests across Morocco after two killed in police gunfire

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

It’s been a very busy day for BBC Verify investigating the deadly stabbing attack at a synagogue in Manchester. This live page will be closing soon but the BBC main live page will have more of our analysis of what police have declared a terrorist incident.

We began the day by presenting our investigation into the impact of drone recent strikes on Russia’s oil facilities. Collaborating with colleagues from BBC News Russian, the team has tracked Ukraine’s dramatic increase in the number of attacks and what impact they have had on Russian fuel prices. Click here to watch our video.

We’ve been monitoring Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a group of boats carrying activists who were seeking to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Our fact checkers have also dug into the police misconduct data after an undercover BBC Panorama investigation found racist and sexist attitudes being expressed by Metropolitan Police officers.

Plus, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has claimed the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Is he right?

BBC Verify Live will be back with more tomorrow morning.

Richard Irvine-Brown and Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

We’ve been tracking the Global Sumud Flotilla since it approached Gaza yesterday.

As we reported earlier, the vast majority of the flotilla’s boats seem to have been intercepted by Israel’s navy around 50 nautical miles (58 miles; 93 km) from Gaza.

The boats were then redirected and their passengers transported to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Data from the MarineTraffic platform and from the flotilla’s own tracking website, however, appears to show one vessel – the Mikeno VI – sailed within eight nautical miles of Gaza, as of 09:05 BST (11:05 local time).

The Mikeno and its passengers are now the only part of the flotilla still unaccounted for, organisers have confirmed to BBC Verify.

The Israel Defence Forces and the Israel Foreign Ministry have not responded to our questions on the location of the Mikeno VI and its passengers.

A video, which has gathered more than 70,000 views is being reshared with the false claim that it shows the Mikeno arriving in Gaza to cheering crowds waving Palestinian flags. In reality, it depicts the flotilla departing from the port of Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia in mid-September.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Home Office data suggests that religious hate crimes against Jewish people in England and Wales have doubled in the latest year, external.

Police recorded 3,282 of these offences in the year ending March 2024, up from 1,543 hate crimes recorded the year before. Offences against Jewish people made up a third of all religious hate crimes recorded by police.

Although there were more hate crimes targeting Muslims in the latest year, Jewish people were targeted at a higher rate.

There were 121 religious hate crimes per 10,000 people in the population targeted at Jewish people – the highest rate of all religious groups – and 10 per 10,000 targeted at Muslims.

The Home Office says that religious hate crimes against both Jewish people and Muslims has risen since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Images of the suspect in the Manchester attack that appear to have been manipulated using AI techniques started to circulate online shortly after a photo showing him standing outside the Heaton Park Synagogue first emerged.

In a picture we have verified a man can be seen standing outside the synagogue with items strapped around his waist and holding an unidentified object in his right hand.

The most significant difference in the manipulated images is the removal of a fence, which had obscured the suspect in the verified photo.

The enhanced image has changed the colour and style of the suspect’s trousers while the object in his right hand now more clearly resembles a knife.

Windows which show people peering out in the original photo, have become blurred squares in the altered images, and the man’s arm and shoulder appear to blend into the door in the background of the photo.

Simran Sohal
BBC Verify researcher

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch told BBC Essex earlier that “unemployment has gone up every single month” under the current Labour government.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) releases unemployment figures every month, expressed as a rolling three-month average percentage.

This ONS data shows the unemployment rate has not risen every month since the general election, external in July last year, when Labour took power.

From July to September 2024 the rate was 4.3% and has slowly increased to 4.7%, according to the latest figures covering May to July this year.

For four months in this period the rate stayed the same at 4.4%. However, unemployment has increased for every financial quarter that Labour have been in office.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

A key part of our investigation into Ukraine’s wave of strikes on Russian oil refineries was trying to establish the extent to which ordinary civilians are feeling the impact of fuel shortages.

But reporting on Russia is tricky. Since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 authorities have become more repressive, with more than 20,000 people jailed for criticising the war, according to the independent monitoring group OVD-Info.

Most Russians are extremely reluctant to speak to foreign journalists and many of those we contacted didn’t want to go on the record or have their names in the story.

Our colleagues at BBC Russian face additional hurdles. Many of the groups and experts that they rely on to add context to coverage have been added to the country’s register of undesirable organisations – meaning they face legal penalties for quoting them in their coverage.

Marianna Spring
Social media investigations correspondent

This conclusion from the coroner – that high-profile conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani influenced her daughter Paloma to reject chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma which contributed to her death – has been a long time coming.

In her conclusion, the Kent and Medway coroner found that 23-year-old Paloma’s death “could have and should have been avoided” and was “unnatural” in so much as it didn’t need to happen.

While Paloma’s case is extreme, I’ve found how it’s symptomatic of the wider mainstreaming of health misinformation both online and in the real world.

I’ve been contacted by dozens of others whose relatives and friends have been harmed by anti-medicine conspiracy theories on their social media feeds at times when they have been vulnerable.

The most striking of all was how the coroner underlined that, had she not been influenced and misinformed, had she been properly advised and supported, she had no doubt she would have chosen to live, to undergo chemotherapy.

Kate Shemirani has insisted she did not influence her daughter’s decisions about treatment and blames the NHS for her death. She did not respond to my latest interview request.

As we’ve mentioned here on BBC Verify Live, we’ve been tracking reported Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries for the last year to see how they have affected the industry and ordinary Russians.

The number of attacks – some deep inside Russian territory – has surged since August, sparking price hikes and fuel shortages in some parts of the country.

Watch BBC Verify’s Olga Robinson’s report by clicking play below.

Nicholas Barrett
BBC Verify researcher

Speaking to BBC Radio Solent this morning, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said “we live in one of the most nature depleted countries in the world”.

BBC Verify asked the Green Party for their source for this claim and they told us it comes from the State of Nature report, which was published in 2023 , externalby the previous Conservative government.

The report looked at data on species’ populations across the country. It said “the UK is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth”.

According to the report: “Since 1970 UK species have declined by about 19% on average, and nearly 1 in 6 species are now threatened with extinction.”

The report does not include any international comparisons.

But researchers at the Natural History Museum have developed a “Biodiversity Intactness Index” to measure biodiversity loss, external around the world.

This study found the UK’ is “well below the global average and places us in the bottom 10% of the world’s countries, last in the G7 and also a long way behind China”.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

After a BBC Panorama undercover investigation found racist and sexist attitudes being expressed by Metropolitan Police officers, the force said it has “pursued and removed almost 1,500 officers and staff who failed to meet our standards” over the past three years.

Police officers who are accused of falling short of these standards face misconduct proceedings which can result in a range of actions, depending on the severity of a proven allegation.

Here’s what we can say from the official data about how many end up losing their jobs:

Across England and Wales just over 1,300 officers were referred for misconduct proceedings in the year to March 2024, according to the latest Home Office figures, external.

Nearly all of those referred for the most serious type of proceeding (324) were found guilty of gross misconduct.

The most common outcome recorded was “would have been dismissed”, which accounted for 59% of all outcomes (191 cases). This means officers would have been sacked if they hadn’t already left. A further 35% (114) were sacked.

Of those that retained their jobs – 4% received a final written warning, 1% had no action taken and 1% had their rank reduced.

Richard Irvine-Brown and Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

We’re monitoring Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a group of boats carrying activists who were seeking to break the blockade of Gaza.

The vast majority seem to have been intercepted by Israel’s navy when they were still a significant distance from Gaza.

But one vessel appears to have come close to the Palestinian territory’s shoreline. According to ship-tracking website MarineTraffic, the Mikeno got to within 8 nautical miles (15kms) of Gaza.

As of 09:05 BST (11:05 local time) – when its position was last recorded – it apparently had not moved.

The flotilla is running a livestream from CCTV cameras on many of the boats, although the feeds dropped out at about 08:30 for two hours. It is also posting shorter videos of interceptions on Instagram from these feeds.

Last night, the Alma – the ship on which Greta Thunberg was sailing – was one of those intercepted.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry published a video showing Thunberg being attended to by a man in helmet and face covering. It said she and others with her were unhurt and had been taken to an Israeli port.

Nick Beake and Joshua Cheetham
BBC Verify in Washington DC

The US government and law enforcement agencies have hit out at developers and users of apps which track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), arguing they threaten the lives of agents.

The FBI says the man who targeted an ICE facility in Dallas – killing two detainees – had used these types of apps to track the movements of agents and their vehicles.

Special Agent Joseph Rothrock said: “It’s no different than giving a hitman the location of their intended target”. This claim has been disputed by the developer of one of the most popular apps.

BBC Verify has been looking at what the apps do and the potential impact they are having. Read the full story here.

Olga Robinson
BBC Verify assistant editor

A major challenge in reporting on Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, which we’ve been tracking for over a year with colleagues from BBC News Russian, is getting a reliable assessment of their impact.

Russian authorities designated petrol production data as classified in May last year during an earlier series of refinery strikes. This made it harder to analyse the extent to which the attacks were affecting their current output.

So instead we had to rely on reports in tightly-controlled Russian media – largely business outlets and regional publications – as well as social media footage.

We also made sure to speak to ordinary Russians about whether they have been affected by the resulting fuel shortages.

A lot of the people we contacted were reluctant to talk on the record or outright refused to speak to the BBC – which is viewed with hostility in Russia. Some suggested anonymously that the fuel shortages have had no or limited impact on them, while others said they were unaware of any shortages or that they were caused by Ukranian drones.

The lack of awareness is perhaps not surprising, given Russian media tends not to mention why refineries are suddenly undergoing “unscheduled repairs”.

Marianna Spring
Disinformation and social media correspondent

I began to investigate the death of Paloma Shemirani over the summer, when her brothers told me they believe their mother’s anti-medicine conspiracy theories were responsible for her death at the age of 23.

Paloma was diagnosed with blood cancer non-Hodgkin lymphoma in December 2023 and having rejected chemotherapy she died months later.

Her mother is Kate Shemirani – who rose to prominence during the Covid pandemic and was struck off as a nurse.

The inquest into her death has felt like a clash between a world punctuated by conspiracy theories and the reality of how systems like coroners’ courts work.

Kate Shemirani and medical doctors have been talking about different realities – the latter based on evidence, the former on unproven theories.

The atmosphere has been fractious, with the coroner repeatedly having to warn everyone – particularly Paloma’s parents – about interruptions and misleading questions.

I’m at court in Maidstone where the coroner’s conclusion is due to be delivered today.

Kate Shemirani did not want to do an interview for the original investigation but did claim to have evidence that “Paloma died as a result of medical interventions given without confirmed diagnosis or lawful consent”. I have still seen nothing to substantiate this.

She is adamant that she did not influence her daughter’s decisions about treatment and blames the NHS for her death. She did not respond to my latest interview request.

Listen to the Marianna in Conspiracyland II Podcast series on BBC Sounds.

The BBC Panorama documentary on Paloma Shemirani is availible on iPlayer here.

Tom Edgington
BBC Verify senior journalist

Setting out government plans to reform settlement rules for refugees, migration and citizenship minister Mike Tapp told BBC Breakfast: “We have removed and deported 35,000 people already.”

The claim is false. Here’s why:

The 35,000 figure covers all “return” categories as defined by the Home Office – including people who left the UK independently without notifying officials.

A “deportation” is a specific type of “enforced return” used for criminals or people whose removal would be in the public interest. The broader “enforced return” category, which applies to people with no legal right to remain in the UK, may involve an immigration officer escorting someone onto a plane to ensure their removal.

Between 5 July 2024 and 4 July 2025, only 9,115 of the total 35,052 returns were “enforced”. , external

The majority were recorded by the Home Office as “voluntary”. While some voluntary returns involve government help (including financial assistance), past data shows many leave without officials knowing.

The government has repeatedly made variations of this false and misleading claim, as BBC Verify has previously demonstrated.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Police say this morning’s attack took place at the Heaton Park synagogue in the Crumpsall area of Manchester. The synagogue was opened in 1967.

Officers were called to the scene at 09:31 BST, Greater Manchester Police said in a statement.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

As we’ve been reporting, BBC Verify has authenticated footage
circulating online which appears to show the moment police opened fire on a
suspect at the Manchester Synagogue.

In the clip – which appears to have been taken by a passerby – two
armed officers can be seen standing pointing their weapons at a figure lying
prone on the ground.

As the camera pans, a different person is seen lying at the gate to the
synagogue surrounded by a pool of blood and a black car stopped immediately to
his right.

One of the officers then approaches the fence, where a small group
of people had gathered, and shouts: “Everybody else, he has a bomb. Go
away.”

Seconds later the figure being watched by police attempts to stand
up. Sharp cracks ring out and the man falls to the ground.

Kayleen Devlin
BBC Verify senior journalist

BBC Verify has been looking at footage linked to the attack at a synagogue in Manchester.

The video shows armed police officers outside a synagogue on Middleton Road standing in front of a person lying on the ground. Another person outside the synagogue is also lying on the ground surrounded by blood.

We matched images from the footage with what we could see on Google Maps to verify the location.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad and Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify

We have been verifying videos being posted online after another night of protests across Morocco.

The youth-led protests, which began on 27 September, are thought to have been triggered by anger at the state of public services such as schools and hospitals in the country.

One video, posted to Facebook last night, shows a fire inside a building in the south-western city of Taroudant. A car is also seen burning nearby before a number of protesters run away from the scene.

We have matched the building in the video with Google imagery of the Taroudant Prefecture’s administrative headquarters in the north-east of the city.

Another video, posted on Instagram, shows a large group of demonstrators marching down a road in the north-western city of Tangier.

By matching the logo of a restaurant and a pharmacy on the same road we were able to locate the video to a boulevard near the city’s port.

BBC Verify is continuing to assess more videos from last night’s protests.

Olga Robinson
BBC Verify assistant editor

For more than a year my team and colleagues from BBC News Russian have been tracking reported Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries across Russia and the impact they’re having.

The number of attacks – some deep inside Russian territory – have surged since August leading to shortages and higher prices at petrol pumps in parts of the country and occupied Ukraine.

To see what has been struck we’ve collated media reports and official statements from Russia and Ukraine as well as footage we’ve verified ourselves alongside satellite imagery and heat source-tracking.

You can read our analysis in full here – and I’ll be posting on BBC Verify Live later about how we put this story together as well as some of the challenges in getting insights from inside Russia.