Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ll be closing BBC Verify Live shortly, so take a few moments now to read back on what we’ve been covering.

Russia’s brief pause in attacks on Ukraine ended yesterday, so we’ve been assessing the damage after it carried out a series of deadly strikes on cities across the country. Click here to watch our analysis of the latest footage.

After the release of millions of documents related to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, we’ve been debunking misinformation that’s spread widely online.

We’ve exposed viral social media posts that falsely claim New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is connected to the dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And we also separated real and fake emails about Elon Musk visiting Epstein’s island.

Plus, we’ve verified footage of militants attacking an air base in Niger. Here’s what we know.

Join us here tomorrow for more from the BBC Verify team.

Yi Ma
BBC Verify researcher

Earlier today, social media users reported an Iranian drone using the call sign “SEP2501” operating over waters between Oman and Iran.

I was able to verify the drone’s presence by locating an unmanned aerial vehicle with the same call sign on aircraft tracking platform Flightradar24, which recorded it first appearing at 05:09 GMT.

The drone then flew southeast towards the Arabian Sea before later returning toward Iran. The most recent data shows the drone operating close to Iran’s south-western airspace.

Daniel Gustafsson, an aviation specialist at Flightradar24, explained to me that the drone’s country of origin can be identified through a unique code assigned used by transponders and regulated by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The data associated with SEP2501 falls within the range of codes allocated to Iran by ICAO. This does not, however, confirm whether the drone is operated by the Iranian military.

Paul Brown, Benedict Garman and Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify

Across Friday and Saturday 32 people were killed in a series of strikes across Gaza, according to the Hamas-run civil defence authority.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said a series of strikes were conducted in response to a claimed Hamas violation of the ceasefire agreement on Friday.

The IDF said these strikes had hit “four commanders and additional terrorists from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations across the Gaza Strip”.

In one video we see a projectile striking Amer Ben Alaas road, to the northwest of Gaza City and within 100m (330ft) of a maternity hospital and a school. We could be certain of the spot by counting the solar panels and water storage tanks on nearby roofs.

In another clip, filmed in the aftermath of a strike on a police station around a mile (1.5 km) to the north of Gaza City, we see unmoving people on stretchers being carried to ambulances and at least one man with a head wound.

Both these locations are more than two miles (3km) from the Yellow Line boundary of control established by Israel as part of October’s Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.

Meanwhile, in the southern coastal area al-Mawasi, two verified videos of a different incident confirm an attack happened more than 2.5 miles (4km) from the yellow line, close to road which connects to the city of Khan Younis.

Joshua Cheetham and Benedict Garman
BBC Verify

Image source, Telegram

We’re looking into reports of an Israeli air strike at the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.

Quds News Network says the Israeli strike hit a shop and a nearby “mourning tent” which is used for funerals.

Israel has not confirmed that it carried out any strikes in the area. It’s also unclear who was the target and how many casualties there are.

We’ve looked at one video, uploaded online today, which we’ve located to an area of Nuseirat camp.

It’s too graphic to share, but shows several people pulling a baby and an adult from the rubble as clouds of smoke and dust hang in the air.

Kumar Malhotra
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, X

Jihadist media analysts from BBC Monitoring have reported that verified video of an attack on an airport in Niger features branding used by the so-called Islamic State group (IS).

Earlier we looked into video released by ISIS Sahel, which the IS affiliate group claimed shows its fighters attacking a military base next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niger’s capital Niamey last week.

BBC Monitoring notes that the watermark of IS-affiliated outlet Amaq News is present in the video and that the armed men in the footage are speaking in Arabic. Analysts also tracked down other videos of the attack which were shared online on 29 January by other jihadist groups.

However, BBC Verify has also seen two other videos from inside the main airport building said to have been filmed when the attack was underway. People can be seen hurrying away, and crouching or sitting to take cover.

We verified the location by matching features visible in the videos to publicly available images of the airport’s interior, including a sign above the duty free area’s entrance and the design of the ceiling lighting.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Viral posts have been circulating on X about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that falsely claim he is connected to the dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

One post viewed more than 20 million times , externalsays there is a “very real possibility Zohran Mamdani is Jeffrey Epstein’s biological son”.

The post includes a screengrab from an email released by the US Department of Justice in the latest batch of Epstein files.

The email indicates that Mamdani’s mother attended a party at the house of Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2009. It also includes AI-generated photos purporting to show Epstein stood alongside a young Mamdani and his mother, Mira Nair.

The claim that Mamdani is related to Epstein appears to come from a 2002 interview with the New Yorker, external where Mira Nair spoke of marrying a man called Mitch Epstein in 1981.

However, Zohran Mamdani was born in 1991 during his mother’s second marriage to Mahmood Mamdani.

There’s no evidence that Mitch and Jeffrey Epstein are related.

Russia’s brief halt to attacks on Ukrainian cities ended with several strikes on Sunday.

In one attack at a coal mine in the east of the country at least 12 miners were killed, according to local officials.

Several homes and a maternity hospital have also been hit elsewhere in Ukraine. President Voldymyr Zelensky has said Russia’s “evil must be stopped”.

BBC Verify’s Richard Irvine-Brown has been looking into these latest attacks.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Elon Musk’s name appears more than 1,000 times in the newly released Epstein files, but fake emails claiming to be from the world’s wealthiest man have also gathered tens of millions of views online.

One fake email appears to show Musk, who is the CEO of car manufacturer Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX, asking Epstein about plans for an “epic island vacation” and a party with “girls”.

The fictitious exchange of emails then appears to show Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former associate and herself a convicted sex offender, telling Musk that Epstein was “thinking of winding down“ his island “operation”.

This email does not appear in the newly released documents.

Reverse image searches indicate the picture was first shared on X in a post viewed more than 11 million times. The account which shared it later admitted in a follow-up post that the emails were fake.

The documents released by US authorities do show Musk discussing travelling to Epstein’s island multiple times.

In November 2012 Musk asked Epstein: "What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” and on Christmas Day of that year Musk inquired whether the financier had any parties planned because he needs to "let loose".

Further emails in 2013 show the pair planning a visit to the island but there is no evidence it ever took place. Musk has never been accused of any wrongdoing and has previously said he declined an invitation to go there.

Musk said in an X post on Saturday that he was "well aware that some email correspondence with [Epstein] could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name".

He added: "I don't care about that, but what I do care about is that we at least attempt to prosecute those who committed serious crimes with Epstein, especially regarding heinous exploitation of underage girls."

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

At BBC Verify we analyse countless AI-generated videos.

As various models have become readily available to people around the world, we've tracked all kinds of ways that creators try to mislead audiences into believing that their fake videos are real.

Here's a quick guide on how to spot disguised AI watermarks.

Produced by Aisha Sembhi. Graphics by Sally Nicholls.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

As BBC Verify continues to trawl through the latest batch of Epstein files, we found a short video which appears to show Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell being interviewed by authorities.

In the video dated 22 April 2016, Maxwell is asked whether she was unaware of female minors coming to Epstein’s home to perform massages.

“When I was there... at the time I was present the people that gave Jeffrey – men and women – who gave Jeffrey massages were adult, so over the age of 18,” she replied.

She is then asked whether she was ever present when a female under the age of 18 was giving Epstein a massage.

Maxwell refuses to provide a yes or no answer, saying instead: “It’s entirely possible that I could have been in a room or in the vicinity of Palm Beach when somebody came but I would not know, how would I know if somebody was in the house?”

Image source, US Department of Justice

Parts of the video are redacted. Reverse image searches indicate the clip was not in the public domain before Friday’s release.

The video likely comes from a deposition Maxwell gave as part of legal action taken by Epstein victim Virginia Guiffre.

We found a transcript from that deposition - with the same date and remarks as the video - published by this legal website in 2020, external.

In 2022 Maxwell was sentenced in the US to 20 years in prison for recruiting and trafficking minors for sexual abuse by Epstein.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

We’re keen to hear what you think the BBC Verify team should be looking into.

We're interested in investigating claims you may've seen online in your social feeds. We're also keen to know if you've think an image may have been made using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation.

You can also get in touch with BBC Verify if you've got a question about how we verify video posted online or work with satellite imagery.

You can send your suggestions to the team here.

Kumar Malhotra and Thomas Spencer
BBC Verify

Last week we reported that satellite imagery revealed signs of damage at a military base next to Diori Hamani International Airport in the capital of Niger, Niamey.

Initial reporting indicated militants had carried out an attack there on Thursday morning. An Islamic State group affiliate in west Africa, ISIS Sahel, has now released footage of the attack which it said its fighters carried out.

The video shows fighters, many on motorbikes, firing small arms while a fire can be seen burning in an aircraft hangar.

We were able to match buildings seen in the footage with recent satellite imagery showing damage at the airport. We also checked the airport terminal building against pictures uploaded to Google.

Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Telegram/Ihor Taburets

We’ve been checking reports of an overnight strike near an electricity substation in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy.

The head of the Cherkasy Regional Military Administration, Ihor Taburets, told local media four people were injured in a drone attack on two residential buildings and several businesses.

We used photos apparently showing the aftermath of the attack to confirm it happened near the substation.

In one picture, a damaged house still has its number. Using that information, along with the shape of a window frame, chimney and a nearby telegraph pole, we were able to match it up on Google Street View. Based on what this information shows it appears the strike was less than 500 meters from the substation.

We also carried out reverse-image searches to confirm the footage was newly uploaded.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

On Friday, three million new pages of documents, pictures and videos relating to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released by the US Department of Justice.

Teams across BBC News have been checking through the documents to report what they reveal.

At BBC Verify, there are three things we can do to add more insights into what the pictures and videos show:

• Reverse image searches – we use this technique to check if an image already exists online
• Geolocation – this is how we work out where a picture or video was taken – like these photographs of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling over a female which match the interior of Jeffrey Epstein’s New York City mansion.
• Facial recognition – where there is an individual whose identity we suspect but need to confirm, we might use these tools to help do this

Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, State Emergency Service of Ukraine

On top of looking into yesterday’s drone strike which killed 12 miners in a town in eastern Ukraine, BBC Verify has reviewed videos posted across social media showing damage to a maternity hospital in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia following another Russian attack.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said in a social media post that three women had been hurt, while Zaporizhzhia City Council reported 29 buildings damaged across the city.

We’ve examined three videos, released by Ukranian authorioties, showing the damage sustained inside and outside a wing of Maternity Hospital No 3 in the east of Zaporizhzhia.

Offices, rooms with beds for patients, and a children's room had their windows broken and were covered in debris. Some rooms appear to be fire-damaged in the videos, including visible flames in a first-storey window.

Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify journalist

Video posted on the Telegram messaging app shows the moment a drone struck the eastern Ukrainian town of Ternivka. Twelve coal miners were killed, according to the energy firm DTEK that owns the site.

The video, which we’ve verified by checking visible features in the footage with publicly available street level mapping, shows a delta-wing drone in flight before it explodes near the Shakta Ternivka coal mine.

The video was shot in the west of Ternivka about 500m (1,600ft) from the mine, based on matching a chimney at the site, a pylon and a billboard seen in the footage with online mapping. The position of the low winter sun helped us confirm the person was facing towards the mine.

Video from the scene shows nine bodies on the floor - some appear to be badly burned.

Having verified this video we could check the location of photos said to show the aftermath, based on the same pavement, 200m further along, a single-storey building with a pitched corrugated roof and the now-setting sun in the south-west.

Russia resumed attacks on Ukraine yesterday after agreeing not to target population centres and energy infrastructure during a cold snap that has gripped the country.

At least two people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Ukraine on Sunday. Six people were injured when a drone hit a maternity hospital in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Welcome to our live page where we bring you regular updates on what BBC Verify’s journalists and researchers are working on throughout the day.

Today we’re looking to provide reporting and analysis on:

Ukraine: We’ve verified video showing what appears to be a Russian drone strike in Ternivka, in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, where officials say 12 miners were killed. There have been reports of further strikes in the area last night that we’re checking.

Epstein: Bogus claims and fake AI pictures have been going viral online following the latest release of millions of US Department of Justice files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. We’ll debunk the fakery and bring you some of the genuine material that we analysed over the weekend.

Niger: Dramatic newly-emerged footage which appears to show an attack on the main airport in Niger’s capital Niamey. We’re checking whether the video, supposedly filmed by militants, is genuine and what more it tells us about what happened last Thursday.

We’re also keeping an eye on military activity in the Middle East as speculation continues about the possibility of US strikes on Iran.