March 11, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Famine is imminent in northern Gaza if the size of aid entering the enclave does not increase "exponentially," Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Cindy McCain said on Monday.

"Right now, WFP is gravely concerned about humanitarian conditions across Gaza, particularly the north which is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe," McCain said at a news conference in Rome for the launch of the initiative "Food for Gaza."

The WFP was “forced” to temporarily pause aid deliveries to the north on February 20 due to safety concerns and a breakdown of law and order, McCain said. But the program is “leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to get sufficient food aid to people,” she added.

 A ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza that was expected to depart Sunday from Larnaca, Cyprus, is delayed due to “practical issues,” the Cypriot government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said in a briefing Monday.

The spokesperson said all protocols have been followed and checks done to ensure the ship was ready for deployment.

“You realize that this is an initiative, the complexity of which requires both due diligence and attention, so that, precisely, the ship can depart and the cargo can safely reach the civilian population of Gaza,” he said.

The US intelligence community assesses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” to be “in jeopardy,” according to an annual unclassified threat assessment from the US intelligence community.

In an interview over the weekend, President Joe Biden said that Netanyahu is "hurting Israel more than helping Israel" as a result of the high death toll in Gaza. The Biden administration has been pushing Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, and has said that an Israeli operation in the Rafah region would be “a red line.” 

More background: In an interview in January, war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot said Israel needed fresh elections because the public no longer trusts Netanyahu’s leadership. His remarks were a symptom of rifts within Israel’s coalition government, as well as growing discontent with Netanyahu’s war plans. Established shortly after Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack, the Israeli war cabinet includes some ministers already at odds with one another.

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.