March 11, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

As Israel continues its military operations across the Gaza Strip, the number of children dying due to malnutrition and dehydration is increasing. 

Two newborn baby girls, Wala’ Zeyara and Wala’ Samour, died due to malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza on Monday, Dr. Samer Libd, a pediatrician at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, told CNN. 

The Kamal Adwan Hospital is under immense pressure because it is the only hospital covering northern Gaza, Libd said, adding that it "urgently needs humanitarian aid, food and medical supplies."

Journalist Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed to this report.

At least 67 people were killed and 106 injured in overnight Israeli attacks on Gaza, the Ministry of Health in the enclave said Monday.  

In Gaza City, at least 21 people were killed, and dozens of others injured after Israeli strikes on a residential neighborhood, the head of the Emergency Department at the Shifa Medical Complex, Amjad Alaiwa told CNN. 

In Rafah, at least three people were killed after an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Jeneina neighborhood, east of the city, journalist Ahmad Hijazi told CNN.  

The strike took place at 3:30 a.m. local time when people had been gathered in the neighborhood for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal Muslims eat during Ramadan, Hijazi said.

Three women from the Al Barakat family were buried at 6:30 a.m., Hijazi said.

In a video shared by photographer Mahmoud Bassam, the building reportedly housing the Al Barakat family can be seen ablaze. 

The Israel Defense Forces said Monday it had been operating on the ground and with airstrikes in central Gaza, with special forces in the Hamad area of southern Gaza, and with aerial forces, sniper fire and tanks in the Al-Qarara area of Khan Younis.

In each area, the IDF claimed that the people it killed were terrorists. 

Journalist Khader Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed to this report.

Humanitarian aid is needed immediately in Gaza, a spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres said Monday, when asked to comment on a US timeline for building a floating pier to deliver aid by sea.

US officials said that the pier will take one or two months to build and make fully operational..

“There is no alternative for a rapid land-based increase of humanitarian aid coming into Gaza from other crossing points using the Ashdod port, which already exists,” Dujarric said.

More about the pier: The extended timeline reflects the complicated nature of the project, which is the second such extraordinary measure the Biden administration has announced in just under a week to try to alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation caused by Israel’s refusal to open additional land crossings or surge more aid by land into the enclave as it continues to fight Hamas.

The initiative will aim to augment a maritime corridor that the US, the European Commission, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, and the UK, have been working to open to deliver assistance directly.

Queen Rania of Jordan on Monday condemned Israel’s war tactics, calling out what she described as the bombing of aid convoys and the starvation of vulnerable people, and urged allied countries to use “political leverage” to push for a ceasefire.

Rania went on to say that despite the efforts to provide aid in Gaza via airdrops, there is still an urgent need to help vulnerable people who are trying to survive the “Israeli-made” strategy of enforcing what she described as “deprivation by design.”

The queen stressed that the solution to the conflict must rely on the end of the occupation by finding “a way to share these holy lands in peace.”

The Israeli government has not presented the United States with a humanitarian or military plan for Rafah, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.

Miller said he would not speak to conversations the US has had with the Israeli government, “but we have made clear both in the private conversations” and publicly “that it is our judgment that they cannot or should not go into Rafah without a humanitarian assistance plan that is credible.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that he intends to move forward with an operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced people have fled.

President Joe Biden said in an MSNBC interview Saturday that an operation into Rafah “is a red line,” but added that he would continue to support Israel. 

The Biden administration is currently not anticipating that Israeli forces will imminently expand their military operations into Rafah, two US officials told CNN on Sunday.

CNN's MJ Lee and Alex Marquardt contributed to this report.

The head of the United Nation’s called for ceasefire in Gaza and for the removal of all obstacles to ensure aid deliveries into the enclave, in honor of the month of Ramadan.

Monday marks the first day of the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims globally, but “the killing, bombing and bloodshed continue in Gaza."

“I call on political, religious and community leaders everywhere to do everything in their power to make this holy period a time for empathy, action and peace,” Guterres said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and US President Joe Biden agreed that Israel has to destroy Hamas, and that there is no "middle way," during an interview with Fox Channel on Monday. 

Netanyahu also said that Israel should first enable the safe departure of the civilian population from Rafah before going in.

"We agree with that," he said, adding, "that's what we intend to do."

Divisions between the leaders of the two countries burst into the open at the weekend, when Biden said Netanyahu was "hurting Israel more than helping Israel" by disregarding the "innocent lives being lost" in Gaza during an interview with MSNBC.

Biden warned Netanyahu risked losing the support of the international community over mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, where the death toll has passed 31,000.

Following Biden's comments, Netanyahu gave interviews to many news outlets and said he would push ahead with a military offensive in Rafah, where 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

Israeli officials have cautioned that a Rafah offensive during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan has not been ruled out.

Ramadan began on Sunday night throughout the Middle East and will last for four weeks. 

The US military conducted another airdrop into northern Gaza on Monday afternoon local time, US Central Command announced Monday. 

The airdrop involved US Air Force C-130 aircraft and US Army soldiers. 

CENTCOM added that the Department of Defense humanitarian drops "are part of a sustained effort, and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries."

More on the airdrop: The US has joined several other countries in airdropping aid into Gaza, which is grappling with a humanitarian crisis. With aid deliveries on land falling far short of the numbers needed to ward off famine in the enclave, it is hoped these airdrops will provide a lifeline to people in Gaza.

But the United Nations and aid agencies have questioned how effective they will be at alleviating the situation, and their risks were shown starkly on Friday when malfunctioning parachutes caused aid pallets to hurtle from the sky at breakneck speed, killing five unsuspecting civilians.

Divisions between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu burst out into the open again over the weekend as the two traded barbs in interviews over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

In a Saturday interview with MSNBC, Biden said Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in his war on Gaza, adding that he wants “to see a ceasefire” in the context of a deal that also brings back Israeli hostages held there by Hamas.

Biden has for months warned that Israel risks losing international support over mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, where the death toll has passed 31,000.

Netanyahu in response said the American president was wrong in his assessment and fiercely defended his policies in Gaza, especially a looming ground operation into the southernmost city of Rafah that Biden and other world leaders have warned against.

An estimated 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, which has been under Israeli bombardment for weeks. Crammed into a sprawling tent city packed against the Egyptian border, families there are living with severe shortages of food, water, medicine and shelter, and the daily risk of being killed.

Read more about the tensions between the two leaders.

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