May 9, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

The UN’s main relief agency in Gaza (UNRWA) estimates that nearly 79,000 people have fled the southern city of Rafah since Monday as an Israeli offensive in the city expands.

"Rafah today: now daily scene of forcibly displaced families fleeing area," the agency's communications officer Louise Wateridge wrote on X on Thursday. 

Wateridge said there is "extreme fear from significant bombardment in Rafah overnight and continuing throughout this morning."

Some context: Palestinians in parts of eastern Rafah were told to evacuate on Monday by the Israeli military as it launched an offensive in the city. Israel’s attack in Rafah has since expanded from airstrikes to ground operations, satellite images obtained by CNN from Planet Labs show.

Rafah is "hanging on the edge of a precipice" and those left in the southern Gazan city, including 600,000 children, are the most vulnerable and living in "shocking" conditions, according to an official with the United Nations Children's Fund in Rafah.

Young said that malnutrition rates in Rafah are increasing, and children are "in real trouble" after the closure of one of the main hospitals in the city "greatly reduced the ability for children to reach medical services."

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that hospitals in southern Gaza only have three days of fuel left, "which means services may soon come to a halt."

"We’re rationing the fuel already for hospitals, scaling down operations as we can. When that fuel runs out, life support systems in hospitals stop."

If the generators stop running, patients on ventilators and children relying on incubators are at extreme risk, he said.

"People on ventilators, I don't know what happens to them when the ventilator stops running. Children in incubators, little tiny babies, often it's two and three jammed into one incubator because we haven't been able to bring enough in," Young said.

President Joe Biden said he would halt some shipments of US weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in an exclusive interview, referring to 2,000-pound bombs that Biden paused shipments of last week.

Biden's comments echo global alarm mounting over Israel's moves in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have fled and Hamas is believed to have regrouped after Israel’s destruction of much of the strip’s north.

The Israeli military's operation in Rafah has expanded from airstrikes to ground operations, which include bulldozing, new satellite imagery obtained by CNN from Planet Labs shows.

Here are the latest developments:

Clashes between Israeli police and the family members of hostages held in Gaza broke out Wednesday night in Tel Aviv.

Police say two people were arrested after protestors pushed against barriers and confronted officers. Two police officers were slightly injured in the scuffle, the police statement said. 

The police statement said officers continue to be present at the protest sites to maintain security and public order. 

Natalie Zangauker, the sister of Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker, was among those injured during clashes. 

In a social media video, Natalie Zangauker's mother sits next to her in the hospital room. Earlier in the protest, social media videos showed Zangauker on top of a car during the protests, holding pictures of her missing brother. 

The Norwegian Refugee Council said none of its aid trucks managed to cross into the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, Israel said the aid crossing had been reopened. However, Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told CNN's Isa Soares that although he heard the Kerem Shalom border crossing would open, "we have no trucks going over. I have heard of no humanitarian trucks over Kerem Shalom."

Egeland said the Norwegian Refugee Council had a few aid trucks enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing late last week, but since then, the NRC has run out of fuel and has no cash to rent a car or trucks to deliver the additional aid.

Asked for a reaction on the United States' decision to pause a shipment of bombs to Israel amid concerns over their potential use in a Rafah incursion, Egeland said: 

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said numerous launches were identified from the area of Rafah toward the Kerem Shalom Crossing but did not go into Israeli territory and fell in the Gaza Strip.

President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel – which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza – if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.

The president’s announcement that he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel’s actions amounts to a turning point in the seven-month conflict between Israel and Hamas. And his acknowledgment that American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza was a stark recognition of the United States’ role in the war.

The president has come under extraordinary pressure, including from members of his own party, to limit shipments of arms amid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The US has already paused a shipment of “high-payload munitions” due to Israel’s possible operations in Rafah without a plan for the civilians there, according to the Pentagon, though it said a final decision on that shipment hadn’t been made. The administration has said it is reviewing the potential sale or transfer of other munitions.

Read more on Biden's comments.

The Israeli military has denied any involvement in the burials at the third mass grave found inside the Al-Shifa medical complex. 

Palestinian medical teams discovered a third mass grave inside the Al-Shifa Hospital medical complex, retrieving an additional 49 bodies, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said in a statement.

It is the seventh mass grave found inside hospitals across Gaza, according to the health ministry. Aside from the three uncovered at Al-Shifa, one mass grave at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia and three at the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis were discovered. 

Gazan authorities said they have recovered 520 bodies in total from the graves. 

Four people were killed and around two dozen others were injured in Israeli airstrikes in the Tal Al Sultan neighborhood in western Rafah on Wednesday, according to the Al-Kuwaiti hospital.

The four deceased bodies and more than 25 wounded people have arrived at the hospital, which is located in central Rafah.

Al-Kuwaiti hospital also said most of those injured are children, and two people are in critical condition.

CNN reached out to the Israeli military for comment on this incident.

CNN footage shows casualties arriving at the Al Kuwaiti hospital following strikes in western Rafah. The footage shows what appears to be a corpse and two body bags. It also shows panicked children arriving in ambulances without their parents and one barely responsive child with a heavily bandaged arm being carried on a stretcher.

The hospital said earlier it had begun expanding into makeshift facilities to try and accommodate more patients.

After the closure and relocation of the Abu Yousef Al Najjar hospital, Al Kuwaiti and the European hospital are the only hospitals left in Rafah. According to the World Health Organization, they are only “partially operating.”

Three mortar rounds landed near the intended offload site for the Gaza pier used for humanitarian aid distribution on Wednesday, according to a US defense official.  

The mortars did not cause any injuries or result in damage, the official said, but stressed that the information was based on initial reports of the attack. It is also not clear what the mortar launches were targeting at this point.

The official said the mortars did not damage the two sections of the humanitarian pier, which are not connected to the Gaza coastline at this time. The causeway that will ultimately connect to the coast remains offshore, while the floating pier is currently at the Israeli port of Ashdod following its completion.

Some background: The attack is similar to another round of mortars that impacted the same area two weeks ago. On April 24, a number of mortars landed near the offload site for the humanitarian aid that will eventually come off the pier. A US military official said at the time that they do not assess the attack had anything to do with the mission of the pier.