Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

We’re looking into the Afghan data leak story, which was revealed yesterday after a court ruling was lifted.

The previous Conservative government set up a resettlement scheme – the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) for Afghans affected by the data breach and its existence was kept secret until yesterday, when it was closed by the government.

There have been various claims about how much it could end up costing the government, with figures as high as £7bn. We’ve been trying to get to the bottom of them.

Defence Secretary John Healey told the Commons yesterday that the £7bn figure “was a previous estimate”, covering not only the ARR, but the “total cost of all government Afghan schemes for the entire period in which they may operate”.

He gave a lower overall figure of “between £5.5 billion and £6 billion” because of “policy decisions”. Hi didn’t specify what those were but earlier in July two other Afghan schemes were closed.

The specific cost of bringing 900 people and 3,600 family members to the UK under the ARR scheme is about £400m, with similar additional costs for those who still to arrive, Healey said.

But this does not include the legal costs of keeping the case out of the media, nor does it include potential compensation claims by Afghans whose lives may have been put at risk by the data leak.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Defence Secretary John Healey said yesterday that 4,500 people and their families are in the UK or on their way under a hitherto secret Afghanistan Response Route (ARR), set up for people affected by a massive data leak.

The 2022 leak – which emerged yesterday after a court ruling was lifted – accidentally revealed names, contact details and some family information of people potentially at risk of harm from the Taliban

Healey said the scheme had been closed but the government “will honour the 600 invitations already made to any named persons still in Afghanistan and their immediate family”.

It isn’t clear from his statement whether the 600 figure includes immediate family members and we are asking the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Home Office for more detail on these figures.

So what we know so far – from Healey’s statement – is that if all of the invitations are accepted – there will be at least 5,100 ARR arrivals.

This is significantly lower than the 18,714 names of Afghan applicants on the data leak. We’ve asked the MoD to explain the discrepancy between the figures.

Peter Mwai
BBC Verify senior journalist

We are following up on the incident this morning where the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) says 20 people died at one of its aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip.

The GHF statement said 19 of those were killed when “trampled”, while another was stabbed.

We have verified two videos filmed at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis showing at least six young men reported to be casualties of the incident. Some of them appear lifeless.

In one clip, a man accompanying the victims was says: “They opened the gates, with fences on both sides, and people stampeded over them.”

We can tell the clips were filmed at the hospital by matching details from previously verified footage. The two clips are filmed from different angles but we can see the same individuals – responders and victims – at the scene. Reverse image search shows no versions of the clips, other than from today, are available online.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Good morning from BBC Verify Live.

It’s a busy morning here. Our fact-checkers, data journalists and verification specialists are working on these stories today:

• We are investigating the aftermath of a deadly incident at an aid distribution site in Gaza, in which 20 people have been killed
• Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) officials say that 19 people were trampled in a crush at the site, while another person was stabbed
• We will be looking into the broader situation at the controversial aid centres, where satellite images have shown dense crowds in recent days
• And our fact-checkers are digging into the figures behind the news that the UK has resettled thousands of Afghan nationals after a data breach exposed their identities to the Taliban

All that to come, and later our fact-check team will be gearing up for Prime Minister’s Questions, where Sir Keir Starmer will be grilled by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the final clash before summer recess.