During Saturday’s edition of BBC Breakfast, Naga Munchetty interrupted the programme to deliver urgent live ‘breaking’ news.
While discussing headline stories, a ‘breaking’ banner suddenly appeared on screen, signalling an important development.
Naga told viewers: “The release of three Israeli hostages by Hamas is currently taking place in Gaza and it’s the latest stage in the ceasefire deal which will also see the release of more than 180 Palestinian prisoners by Israel.”
Subsequently, she passed the broadcast over to Yolande Knell, the BBC Middle East correspondent, as another large ‘breaking’ banner flashed on screen, reading: “Hamas to release 3 male hostages”.
The correspondent reported: “What we’ve seen in the past hour is a much more orderly handover than the previous release of hostages.”
Detailing the events, she said: “We saw Hamas masked gunmen lining up in unison in the south of Gaza and keeping a crowd well back and the Red Cross was quickly there and then we saw these two Israeli men being handed over to them – Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas”, adding that they were expecting a third Israeli man, Keith Siegel, who was born in the US, to be released imminently, reports the Express.
Naga and Charlie Stayt, her co-host, led the Saturday show. This comes just after Naga and Charlie had earlier in the week broken into Thursday’s live broadcast with some tragic “breaking” news.
On the show which aired on (January 30), the pair informed viewers that a plane and helicopter had crashed into each other above Washington DC before plunging into the Potomac River.
The jet, which was coming from Wichita, Kansas, was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, and three US Army soldiers were on board the military helicopter.
“A plane with more than 65 people on board and a military helicopter has crashed just above Washington, DC, and plunged into the Potomac River,” Naga explained.
Live images were then shown from the scene in Washington DC, where North America correspondent Merlyn Thomas was on hand to bring viewers more updates.
Charlie added: “Here’s some of the live images coming through from Washington this morning. In the last few minutes, there has been a press conference”, adding: “We’ll bring you the very latest.”
BBC Breakfast airs every day from 6am on BBC One.