March 13, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

The United Kingdom said it is "doing everything we can" to get more aid into Gaza, including pressing Israel to lift restrictions and open more border crossings. 

The UK is providing planning support to the Jordanian Armed Forces for their humanitarian aid efforts and has provided around 500 parachutes to enable more airdrops. The UK is also working with Qatar to get more aid into Gaza. 

The UK has halted its own airdrops in Gaza but may review that decision as the situation on the ground changes, according to CNN reporting.

So far, the UK's Royal Air Force has delivered 74 tonnes of aid for people in Gaza through Egypt, including tents, blankets and wound care packs. In January, the country also delivered 87 tonnes of British and Cypriot aid.

The US military conducted the ninth airdrop of humanitarian aid into northern Gaza on Wednesday.

The forces airdropped “over 35,712 US meal equivalents and 28,800 bottles of water into Northern Gaza, an area of great need, allowing for civilian access to the critical aid,” CENTCOM said in a release. 

What the United Nations has said about airdrops: Aid delivered as airdrops will never match the volume necessary to meet the requirements of northern Gaza, according to the UN World Food Programme.

"Road access and the use of existing ports and crossings is the only way to get aid into Gaza at the scale that is now required,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain, adding that 300 trucks of food are needed to enter every single day.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini called for an investigation into attacks against UN facilities, emphasizing "the need for accountability."

His call comes following an Israeli strike that killed five Palestinians and injured another 22 people at a UNRWA food distribution center in Rafah, according to a statement from the UNRWA.

At least one UNRWA staff was among those killed, the statement said.

He said the coordinates of all UNRWA facilities across the Gaza Strip are shared "with parties to the conflict."

"The Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday," Lazzarini said.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Tuesday with the parents of Itay Chen — an Israeli-American hostage killed on October 7.

Blinken reiterated that there is a “very strong proposal on the table right now,” but said the ball is in Hamas’ court to accept it.

 “The question – will Hamas take it? Does Hamas want to end the suffering that it’s provoked?” he asked. “The question is there but I can tell you that we're intensely engaged every single day, almost every single hour with Qatar, with Egypt, to see if we can get a ceasefire agreement that will get the hostages out, get more aid in and create a pathway perhaps for a more lasting, secure solution.”

The top US diplomat also reiterated that ensuring Israel can “effectively defend itself” is “an enduring commitment that’s not going to go away." Blinken said the US remains focused on trying “to make sure that October 7 never happens again.”

He also reiterated that Israel must take steps to protect civilians and get humanitarian aid to those who need it.

This post has been updated with additional comments from Blinken.

Five Palestinians were killed after an Israeli strike hit a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) building in Rafah, the director of Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital told CNN on Wednesday.

“Since morning, 38 injuries have arrived at Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital, including injuries from the bombing inside the UNRWA building in Rafah,” according to Dr. Marwan Al-Hams.

At least one UNRWA staff member was among the deaths, according to a statement sent to CNN by the agency on Wednesday.

The building serves as a food aid distribution center situated in the central part of Rafah, according to Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA's media adviser in Gaza.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the “very survival” of the population in Gaza is at stake now, as he met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department. 

“We need to act. The very survival of the population in Gaza is at the stake today,” Borrell said.

Borrell thanked Blinken for his “personal efforts” to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza, but also pressed that routes into Gaza by land must be opened. 

For context: While airdrops evade the often rigorous and lengthy examinations carried out at land checkpoints, aid agencies say their drawbacks overwhelmingly outweigh their benefits. They are more expensive, have limited delivery capacity and may culminate in chaos.

The US is moving forward with a plan to establish a temporary pier off Gaza's coast for aid delivery, but the Pentagon said it will take about 60 days for it to be completed and operational.  

Hamas operative Hadi Ali Mustafa was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, according to a statement published by the Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday.

According to the IDF, Mustafa was responsible for “Hamas’ international terrorist activities, directing terrorist cells and activities in the field, and advancing terror attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets in various countries around the world."

Hamas' military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, confirmed Mustafa's death, saying he was killed in southern Lebanon on Wednesday without disclosing further details.

The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported on Wednesday a "hostile drone" strike in Sur Al-Hosh in southern Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of a Palestinian and a Syrian who happened to be riding a motorcycle nearby.

Two Palestinian men were killed and four others were injured in an Israeli military raid on the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, health officials said.

The men were killed after Israeli soldiers shot at a group of civilians standing in front of the Jenin Government Hospital’s emergency department, the hospital director said. Rabih Al-Noursi and Mahmoud Abu-Haija died after sustaining severe gunshot wounds, he said.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the shooting.

Seen in Jenin: Videos obtained by CNN show Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers storming Jenin in the early hours of Wednesday. Bulldozers can be seen destroying streets and sewage lines and downing electricity poles.

In a statement on the Jenin incursion, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its “fighters uncovered and destroyed charges planted under routes with the aim of harming the troops,” adding that the military “arrested a wanted man.”

Multiple dead in east Jerusalem and West Bank: A total of six Palestinians were killed in separate incidents, hours apart, around occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank on Wednesday, health officials said.

The number includes a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot and killed by a border police officer in Shuafat refugee camp, who the IDF said “endangered the forces while firing aerial fireworks in their direction.”

Additionally, a 23-year-old and 16-year-old were shot in the town of Al Jib, north of Jerusalem. The IDF said the Palestinians “threw Molotov cocktails over a security barrier fence,” which runs along an Israeli settlement Givat Ze’ev.

The toll also includes a 15-year-old Palestinian boy who Israeli police say was suspected of a stabbing attack at a military checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.

More children were killed during four months of war in Gaza than in four years of conflict worldwide, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini called the number "staggering" in a post Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.

Lazzarini shared a graph comparing the number of children killed in conflicts around the world between the years of 2019 and 2022 to the number of those killed between October 2023 and February 2024 in Gaza, citing the UN and the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

According to the figures, a total of 12,193 children were killed between 2019 and 2022 globally, and a total of 12,300 children were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and February 2024. 

Death toll: According to numbers published by Palestinian health officials, the amount of children killed in Gaza since October 7 is greater than that shared by Lazzarini. The Ministry of Health in Ramallah in a report Wednesday said the number of children killed has reached 13,450. And the health ministry in Gaza said Wednesday that 72% of a total of 31,272 deaths are women and children.

CNN cannot independently confirm the numbers due to the lack of international media access to Gaza.