February 10, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Saturday called for a political solution to end the war in Gaza and said that Tehran is in diplomatic talks with Riyadh to work on the issue.

"The end of the war means the end of Netanyahu and his extreme cabinet," the Iranian foreign minister added, also warning Israel against further escalation in Lebanon, saying it cannot fight effectively on two fronts.

Amir-Abdollahian earlier met with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah during his visit to Lebanon.

Remember: Conflict involving Western powers and Iranian proxies, like the powerful paramilitary group Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, is central to concerns the Israel-Hamas war could spread into a wider Mideast conflict.

The US conducted more strikes against targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen Friday, according to US Central Command, which said the strikes destroyed weapons that posed a threat to Navy and commercial ships.

The targets included two mobile unmanned surface vessels, four mobile anti-ship cruise missiles and one mobile land attack cruise missile, all of which were “prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea,” according to the CENTCOM statement.

The US said the targets "presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region."

Some context: The US has been trying to degrade the Iran-backed militant group's ability to threaten shipping in the region.

The Houthi rebels say their strikes on ships in the Red Sea are in response to Israel's military campaign in Gaza. There are fears that the attacks could help escalate Israel’s war against Hamas into a wider regional conflict.

Seeking to avoid a regional war with Tehran, the US has not targeted Iran directly, instead going after some of its most powerful proxies in the region.

Iran funds, arms and supplies these groups to different degrees, but its leadership does not control them directly.

Hamas on Saturday warned against attacks on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, calling on the UN and other intergovernmental organizations to prevent operations that it claims Israel is conducting "with the aim of displacing our Palestinian people."

According to the United Nations figures, more than 1.3 million people are believed to be in Rafah, the majority displaced from other parts of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed the military to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from Rafah.

In its statement, Hamas urged the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the UN Security Council "to take urgent and serious action" to prevent attacks in Rafah.

Hamas also called out the US government for continuing to provide Israel with weapons, even as American authorities have raised concerns about a potential expansion of Israeli military operations into Gaza's southernmost city.

A spokesperson for the United States State Department said Thursday that the U.S. would not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah “without serious planning.”

Israeli airstrikes and shelling targeting the southern Gazan city of Rafah resulted in multiple deaths and injuries, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa on Saturday.

According to medical officials cited by Wafa, 25 people, mainly women and children, were killed as a result of airstrikes and artillery shelling on homes in central and northern Rafah.

When asked by CNN for further details about reported strikes in Rafah, an IDF spokesperson said, "In response to Hamas' barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities.

"In stark contrast to Hamas' intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm," the spokesperson added.

There is mounting international alarm over Rafah, home to more than one million people, after Israel said it would soon enter the city as part of its ground campaign against Hamas.

Scattered around a huge crater are the remnants of a life that is gone. Random pieces of clothing and a red makeup bag lie in the mud. Nearby, an English language textbook, bits of broken furniture and a pillow with floral embroidery are jumbled together in one large pile.

The crater sits right in the middle of a residential neighborhood in central Khan Younis, the besieged city in southern Gaza that is the current epicenter of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The city is the hometown of Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a major Hamas stronghold. It’s also an area to which the Israeli military urged large numbers of civilians to flee in the early days of the war.

Looking around, it’s clear that the IDF went into Khan Younis with full force.

According to the IDF, the crater is all that is left of a building similar to the others in the area. The military said it was flattened because it sat on top of an entrance to a vast underground tunnel complex.

The IDF says the complex has been used by Sinwar and other Hamas officials to hide since the war began and some of the hostages kidnapped from Israel by Hamas on October 7 were held there.

Read CNN's full report from Khan Younis here.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the War Cabinet on Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah must be complete by the start of Ramadan on March 10, an Israeli official told CNN on Saturday.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement Friday that the Israeli prime minister had directed the military to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from Rafah.

Netanyahu also said on Thursday that the IDF would “soon go into Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion."

More than 1.3 million people are believed to be in Rafah, the majority displaced from other parts of Gaza, according to the United Nations.

On Friday, Rafah residents and people who had been displaced from elsewhere in Gaza told CNN they were afraid and have nowhere else to go if Israel enters the city in the south of the Gaza strip close to the Egyptian border.

The United Nations is "extremely worried" about the fate of civilians in the city, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Friday, while UN Humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned: "There's nowhere left to go in Gaza."

He added: "Civilians must be protected and their essential needs, including shelter, food and health, must be met." 

The Hamas-run government media office on Saturday called on the UN Security Council to “convene immediately” following threats from Israel over a possible invasion into Rafah, a city in the south of the Gaza strip close to the Egyptian border.

More than 1.3 million people are believed to be in Rafah, the majority displaced from other parts of Gaza, according to the United Nations. The city is the last major population center in Gaza not occupied by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Netanyahu on Thursday said that IDF would “soon go into Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion,” and the next day directed the military to plan for the “evacuation of the population” from the city alongside the defeat of Hamas, his office said in a statement. He added it was not possible to both eliminate Hamas and leave “four Hamas battalions in Rafah.”

'Ethnic cleansing': Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative on Saturday said any attack on Rafah would “lead not only to massacres but also to a wide ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza, which is part of genocide.”

Human Rights Watch has warned that the repercussions of forcibly evacuating displaced Palestinians in Rafah would have “catastrophic consequences,” adding the Israeli military has a responsibility to protect civilians whether they evacuate or not.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for a discussion on ”the latest political and security developments in the region, especially in the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, and the rest of the fronts of the resistance axis,” according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA).

Amir-Abdollahian is in Lebanon for meeting with officials.

The leader of Hezbollah and the Iranian FM last met in November last year where they discussed “the existing possibilities regarding the course of events and efforts to stop Israeli aggression on Gaza."

Some background: Since Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel and the Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed, the militant group Hezbollah has engaged in frequent confrontations with Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched a series of attacks on commercial ships and Western military vessels in the Red Sea, a major artery for international trade. And Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria have launched dozens of attacks aimed at US military positions in those countries, leading to a number of close calls.

The US and other international powers have hit back with strikes on the Houthis and other groups allied with Iran.

At least one person was killed and others were injured by Israeli gunfire at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis early Saturday, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza said in a statement.

CNN cannot independently verify the allegations and has reached out to the Israeli military for comment. The Israel Defenses Forces (IDF) said on Saturday that its troops “continue to conduct targeted raids on terrorist targets” in western Khan Younis.

A frontline hospital: Earlier on Friday, a medical doctor inside the hospital said in a video on his Instagram account that continuous gunfire by the Israeli military was preventing medical staff from moving from one hospital building to another.

In a statement on Thursday, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza warned of a “health and humanitarian crisis” as a result of what it described as an Israeli “siege and targeting,” adding that there are 300 medical staff, 450 injured people and 10,000 displaced people in the Nasser Medical Complex.