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you are watching the context on. bbc news. >> in favor 143, against 9, abstentions 25. draft resolution is adopted. >> with sick and twisted irony, the very body established to prevent is now welcoming a terrorist state into its ranks. >> a yes vote is a vote for palestinian existence. it is not against any state. >> this is largely symbolic. the general assembly does not have the power to confirm full membership on new states. that power only belongs to the security council. ♪ >> welcome to the program.

israeli fury is the u.n. generall assembly recognizes the state of palestine. a symbolic vote only but it could have major ramifications for the human relations -- u.n. relations with israel. and look making inroads in the east of ukraine. the u.k. economy grew, beating expectations and taking the country out of recession. and we will bring you the latest from new york as donald trump's criminal trial wraps up a busy fourth week. we will start with the united nations general assembly vote backing a palestinian bid to become a full member of the u.n. a move that would enhance its status of the organization and effectively recognize a

palestinian state. here's the moment the resolution went through. >> the result of the vote is as follows -- in favor 143,gainst 9, abstentions 25. draft resolution 8-es10-rev 1 is adopted. [applause] lewis: the vote is largely symbolic. membership can only be decided upon by the un security council and with the u.s. veto, it is extremely unlikely that resolution could pass. even so, israel has reacted with fury. the foreign minister says the vote was an absurd decision that is a prize for hamas. take a look at this. israel's permanent representative at the u.n.

shredding the u.n. charter during his speech just ahead of the vote. this is what he said. >> today with sick and twisted irony, the very body established to prevent evil is now welcoming a terror state into its ranks. what would churchill say if he were alive today? what would roosevelt think? they are turning in their graves. turning in their graves. lewis: this comes as pri minister netanyahu war cabinet approved an expansion of military action in rafah. u.s. president biden said they would stop sending american weapons if there's a full israeli attack on rafah. more than one million palestinians are sheltering their, most of them children. let's speak to the former u.s. ambassor to iraq and turkey, special envoy to the global coalition to defeat isis.

thank you for coming on the program. >> thanks for having me. lewis: to get your assessments of the events of the u.n.? >> it is not unexpected. in 1947, it was the un's general assembly, not the security council in resolution 181 that called for both the jewish state which is now israel and in arab and palestinian state which is what we are talking about now. it is nothing new and it reflects the fact that most countries including the u.s. do believe there should be a two state solution. secondly, criticism of israel's behavior in the west bank over the past 15 or 10 years. so, it is symbolic, but it does hurt israel because it is fighting an element of the palestinian political entity, hamas, right now. lewis: you said it is not new but what did you make of the specific timing here? james: again, the timing is a way to send symbolic criticism. most reasonable countries don't

like t civilian casualties in the fighting in gaza. on the other hand, they understand that hamas is part of that volatile collection of extremist islamic thinking, the iranian, sunni extremists groups in the middle east that has torn the region apart the last 20 years and threatened the streets of their own capitals in europe and the united states in north america. they are ambivalent about this and this gives them a way to send a signal without doing anything really important. lewis: let's move on to the u.s.-israel relationship. what do you make of netanyahu's response to biden's actions about withholding certain military supplies, if it will be used in rafah? james: right. unlike much of what netanyahu

has done, and his coalition, his words reflect were most of the israeli people are and where israelis and most of us who have a strategic background think israel should be which is they have to finish the dismantling of hamas and that requires more operations in rafah. but the second thing is no leader of any self-respecting country is going to let any other leader, in this case, the american leader, dictate existential security questions. i think what president biden did is to perhaps make it more likely that netanyahu will launch a major offensive into gaza. pe not. but i think that may be the result of this. just to show that you cannot a order another state around. lewis: the presumption is that the remaining hamas command unit in rafah still represents an existential threat to israel, is

that right? james: that is right. there's about 15,000 of them. they are much diminished, but they are sti organized. the point is there's nobody to replace them. most israelis don't want the israeli defense forces to remain long-term in gaza but who's going to come in if hamas with 15,000 soldiers left controlling the rafah crossing, the smuggling outside of egypt, is going to be contesting that terrain? we will not see anybody come back and rebuild gaza. joe biden ould tell us how is this going to help long-term the people of gaza? lewis: onto the operations in rafah. what do you make of the way it has been carried out so far and the chances of carrying out that mission, as you have been outlining, without significant civilian casualties? james: so far, the israelis have listened to joe biden.

i have carriedut a limited operation and it has been praised by spokesperson kirby here in washington, d.c. because it has been limited. they have been giving warnings to limited numbers of the civilian populatioto move out. and they have seized something strategic which is the rafah crossing and they are in position to cut off most of the smuggling tunnels, what we call the philadelphia corridor along the egyptian border. if the israelis do this step-by-step -- with the diminished military capabilities of hamas, the israelis can do this more slowly. it will not be the way that washington seems to prefer but it could be something much less than we have seen in the preceding months. in that sense, washington and jerusalem are trying to come up with a common position. lewis: former u.s. ambassador

james jeffrey, thank you for your analysis. james: thank you. lewis: meanwhile, ongoing tensions at the eurovision song contest around israel's entry. the entry for the netherlands has reportedly been stopped from her cursing by organizers -- from rehearsing by organizers. they are investigating an incident involving the dutch artist. he will not be rehearsing until further notice. on thursday, it told the israeli entrant that she should answer a question about whether her parents was compromising the safety of other participants. my colleague is there and sent this update. >> tonight, the jury final takes place which means all the 26 acts will sing for the jury. the jury will vote based on the performance tonight. today, all the acts were going through the rehearsals in the order they would do them on the actual night tonight. for some reason, they skipped

past the dutch act. there was no indication given as to why this happened. there was no indication other than the fact they said there was an incident that involved the dutch act, and they decided at that point to not allow the dutch act to continue to do the rehearsal. the props for his show were on stage when the decision was taken, so that is why there was a huge amount of confusion. you mentioned earlier there was a little bit of an incident during a press conference between the israeli delegation and klein. i want you to listen to jost at some point after the question is asked to the israeli act, you can hear jost in the background asking why not? >> have you ever felt by being here, you bring risk and danger for other participants? >> you don't have to answer that question if you don't want to. >> why not? >> if you want to answer it,

please. >> i think we are all here for one reason and one reason only. the ebu is taking all safety precautions to make this a safe and united place for everyone. so, i think it is safe for everyone. lewis: the politics thereof eurovision final tomorrow. we will keep on track for you. this is bbc news. ♪

♪ lewis: this is bbc news. we will go to the u.s. week four of donald trump's trial has wrapped up in new york. the past two days of testimony with stormy daniels. today was far slower. lawyers on both sides get into the intricate details of phone records which provided slightly

drier listening matter. the main witness of the day being donald trump former white house assistant. let's get details of what happened. our correspondent is in new york. we will get into the review of the week as a whole in a moment. just talk us through what we need to know about today. >> yeah, as you mentioned, there was a far slower day in court. the court finished at about midday so half a day here. it was a day sandwiched in between one massive witness who was stormy daniels the day before, and a very big witness coming up, trump's former lawyer michael cohen. today, as you say, just going over phone records which will be important to this case because donald trump, it has been established even before this trial and then during testimony through several witnesses that

he did not use email or text messages or even a computer. most of his conversations were over the phone. so a lot of those phone conversations will be dissected when michael cohen takes the stand. remember, he says that donald trump directed him to make that hush-money payments which prosecutors say amounted to an illegal campaign donation. of course, donald trump denies all wrongdoing, but those phone records will add evidence, prosecutors hope, to cooperate a lot of what michael cohen will say. the defense will hit back at the phone records don't prove anything. besides that, we have the executive assistant of the oval office. compared to stormy daniels and michael: cohen to come, she is someone who thought of donald trump quite favorably. she wrote a book about how much she admired her former boss. lewis: before we get onto looking to next week, which you

have outlined a little bit. just the week as a whole, what will standdown most -- stand out most? nada: yeah, look, i think it is important for people to know there's not really one smoking gun, per se, in this case. it is rather a series of blocks building to a central point for prosecutors, that all roads lead to donald trump. what we had today, this week rather, or a series of witnesses that tried to corroborate a lot of the prosecution's case. we had stormy daniels talking about, trying to prove that she had not lied about the sexual encounter with donald trump which he denied. trying to say was all about the election. previous witnesses, again,

pulling up some of donald trump's own statements, own words where he talked about the importance of loyalty to him above all else. so, we have seen prosecutors building up bits of evidence that they hope will help the narrative when they have their star witness michael cohen take the stand. the defense continued this approach of trying to sow enough doubt in the jury to help the jury side with them and find there is not enough -- that there is reasonable doubt and not enough evidence to convict donald trump. lewis: thank you very much for that. here, the u.k. is out of recession after a stronger-than-expected growth to the start of the year. the economy shrunk toward the end of last year, as prices and higher interest rates rose. the economy has real momentum, but admitted there is more work to do. let's speak to vicki price, chief economic advisor at the

center for economics and business research. thank you for coming on the program. how should we assess e growth figures for the start of this year? vicki: it is quite positive. as you said, we had recession the last two quarters of 2023 and now we have growth and that growth is faster than anyone was anticipating. if you look at any views before, we were talking about possibly .2% or .4% if we were lucky and now here we are at .6%. it is quite a positive change that has taken place. it is not just here. if you look across the waters in the european union, what you've got is also an improvement in gdp. that is all happening because inflation has been coming down. there was hope or interest rates to also start coming down so there's a bit of an improvement in confidence. lewis: what areconomists

expecting r the next quarter and the rest of the year? vicky: growth again. there are some slight worries. one of them being the consumers -- even though confidence is improved, they are reluctant to go out and spend, particularly if they don't have to. particularly if the weather is not good. now, we have some rather good weekend whether. we saw figures for april. if you are looking at the next quarter, following the q1 data we just got, the april readout says there are a lot of concerns about particul sectors. the hospitality sector in particular, hotels and restaurants. a lot about entertainment. people are not going out and spending enough. there is this concern the people are waiting to see what's going to happen next. there is political uncertainty around. i think there will be growth. bear in mind the forecast for the year overall, even the bank of england suggested just .5%.

if we take that seriously, we need to see that as being interpreted as perhaps not that fast growth over the next few quarters. this last quarter saw growth over the previous years if you compare the first quarter to 2023 of just .2%. we are not out of the woods yet. emphasis is put on what will happen? will there be an extra giveaway? a fiscal event just before the elections? we may get a little more of a boost. will interest rates fall significantly? that will also give people a lot of a boost. and maybe people will feel happier about going out and spending. we are not seeing investment recovery and i think that is why the forecast generally our for quite slow growth. lewis: thank you. vicky: thank you. lewis: we will turn to ukraine now. president zelenskyy says a fierce battle is underway in

kharkiv, which russia launching what some have described as a surprise attack. small groups of troops with armored vehicles pushed to the front line. sources say that the advanced a kilometer before going back. reinforcements have been sent to the region. here's president zelenskyy. offensive actions of the kharkiv region. ukrainian forces met them there. it is important to understand they can increase and bring more forces in this direction. that is a fact. lewis: we will speak now to patrick, former nato analyst and defense expert at the university of perth. thank you for coming on the program. how should we assess what's going on here? patrick: it is difficult to get the total grand truth that the moment. president zelenskyy would

suggest they are taking it seriously. it looks like a reconnaissance force moving troops into the area around the village on th border and taking some ground, as you said. the question is, is this the opening of a new front which some news agencies are saying, or will it be more limited? we have to go back and see what the context is. president putin has been talking about creating a buffer zone in the area to stop ukraine from launching drone missile attacks. they are taking 10 kilometers and advancing. if you are going to do that, this would be a great way to start because the reconnaissance force can see what the defenses are like. if there's a crack emerging, you could reinforce that and exploit it. if not, you go back to trying to keep your buffer zone going. there's a psychological element of taking more ukrainian territory. the fear factor of kharkiv, which is unlikely to follow the moment. it also has that dimension.

finally, it is about pulling sparse ukrainian reserves away from other areas where the russians are attacking near done tsk. lewis: we have been hearing a lot about this gap between u.s. supplies getting into ukraine. what would be expecting more incursions like this from the russian side, trying to use that cap? or is the whole idea of a time pressure not bearing out? patrick: i think it is really important. unfortunately, back in october 2023, the u.s. $60 billion, $30 billion will actually do military hardware. that did not come in. that handed a window of opportunity in terms of kits. we are talking about short and long-range air defense equipment, patriot missile, the halt gamut.

mainly the stuff they need to secure the lines and secure their airspace. then, you have the ukrainian decision to mobilize and get that through to generate the force they needed. they probably needed to do that around october and only getting around to it now. finally, the fortification issue. if you were serious about going on the defense, getting ahead of the curve, you started to need to build more. they are starting to do that but it is the time-lapse. humility leak, this attendant -- cumulatively, this has handed russia a window of time. they will their best to exploit that. the two areas people have been expecting is around kharkiv and near donetsk which is high ground and there are a lot of important roads. if they were able to get through there, it would be quite significant but there are no signs of that quite yet. lewis: given those two potential areas, which will be keeping a

close eye on, is the overall strategic aim this year from a ukrainian point of view basically they'd would be happy to get to the end of the year with nohange? patrick: i think so. if you go and speak to ukrainian soldiers and hear the reports, they would privately admittedly -- the reality of them being a smaller nation taking losses seems to be slipping away certainly this year. the net effect of all this is if the aid and ukraine got its ducks in a row a bit better, there was a chance that once they weathered the storm, they could do a large offensive towards the end of the summer. that is gone. if they were going to do it, and again, the mood is not going that way, it would be in 2025. it is about holding on, holding what they'veot. making it difficult for the russians to advance. if they can do that, then that

sets the conditions for hopefully some sort of emergence of a negotiation but we have to wait and see. lewis: ok, fascinating. thank you very much for talking us through it, patrick bury. we appreciate your analysis as always. right. i will be back in just a couple of minutes. we want to take you to these live pictures over in the middle east because we are keeping an eye on events there, given the latest events in new york at the united nations. that u.n. general assembly vote there, symbolic vote enhancing the case for palestinian statehood. not in and of itself that vote tbestowing, put a vote in that principal. this is bbc news. ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program

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