March 14, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Israel intends to move 1.4 million displaced Palestinians from Gaza's southern city of Rafah to “humanitarian enclaves” before a planned military assault there, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters on Wednesday.

He said the Rafah offensive was “something we need to do" but also that the timing of the assault depends on “the conditions to allow it."

More than half of Gaza's population is now sheltering in Rafah, which borders Egypt, after fleeing the north and center of the enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it is necessary to advance into Rafah to destroy Hamas’ remaining military battalions.

Hagari refused to give the timing of any IDF invasion of the city, where people are living with severe shortages of food, water, medicine and shelter.

Israeli officials told CNN on Monday that an invasion was not imminent and that the cabinet had not yet approved military plans for it.

Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 433 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.

About 4,700 more people were also wounded in that period, the ministry said.

At least 1,208 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence and access restrictions since October, affecting at least 198 households, it said.

Another 537 Palestinians, including 238 children, have been displaced due to the destruction of 82 residential buildings in operations carried out by Israeli forces across the occupied Palestinian territories, the ministry added.

The death toll over the past five months is much higher than in 2022, when 171 Palestinians were killed in the occupied territories, according to the ministry — the highest number in a single year since 2005, during the Second Intifada.

Since October 7, 15 Israelis — including four members of Israeli forces — have been killed and 99 injured in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Israel, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

CNN has asked Israeli authorities for comment.

Settler violence: Even before Israel's war with Hamas, the West Bank was boiling. About 500,000 Israeli Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and many settlements are heavily guarded, fenced-off areas that are off-limits to Palestinians. Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law and Israel has been criticized for allowing their expansion.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify the occupied Palestinian territories where the health ministry says Palestinians were killed.

Delta has said it will resume daily flights between Tel Aviv and New York on June 7.

The service will provide nearly 2,000 weekly seats, Delta said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The route was suspended in October last year after Hamas' attack on Israel triggered the ongoing war.

Delta said the decision to resume the service "follows an extensive security risk assessment by the airline."

Delta was among multiple airlines that halted services to Tel Aviv following the October 7 attack, including American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Air Canada.

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

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini called the number "staggering" on social media and shared a graph comparing the number of children killed in global conflicts 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 Palestinian health officials.

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, according to those figures. 

Here are the major developments in the conflict:

US forces destroyed four drones and one surface-to-air missile in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Wednesday, according to US Central Command, the latest in a series of repeated attempts fend off attacks launched by the Iran-backed militant group against commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

The strike on the Houthi weapons came after the group fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Yemen into the Gulf of Aden, CENTCOM said.

The missile did not hit any ships and there were no injuries reported.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has wiped out entire neighborhoods, crushed the medical system and razed hundreds of mosques – turning religious sanctuaries into relics of war.

At least 1,000 of 1,200 mosques, including ancient sites, have been partially or completely destroyed as of February, the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in Gaza told CNN.

Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 have killed more than 100 preachers, including religious scholars, imams, muezzins (those who perform the call to prayer) and hafiz (Muslims who have memorized the Quran), according to the ministry.

Residents told CNN they cannot find enough space to attend nightly taraweeh prayers because places of worship have been destroyed. Taraweeh prayers are performed every night of Ramadan in a congregation.

Limited access to water means others cannot make the obligatory ablution before prayer.

Many are unable to share communal meals with relatives because forced displacement has separated families across the enclave.

Mohammed Hamouda, a displaced health worker in Rafah, told CNN he is struggling to explain to his young children why they will not be able to feast on traditional Palestinian dishes or receive gifts this Ramadan.

Read more about how Ramadan is anything but normal for Gazans this year.

Palestinians told CNN the war in Gaza has crushed hopes of observing a peaceful month of fasting, festivities and worship during Ramadan this year.

Some are grappling with the reality that they will not find enough sustenance to break their fast as Israel’s siege diminishes critical supplies, inflicting deadly hunger on Palestinians.

These days, Jihad Abu Watfa, 27, finds himself riding his bicycle along the dusty streets of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. He watches as hungry children scavenge for food – but he cannot help them.

Children often search for food in the garbage, he said.

“There are many people who (already) fast like it’s Ramadan,” he told CNN in February, as the holy month approached.

Levels of critical hunger are compounded in the north of the enclave, where Israel concentrated its military offensive in the early days of the war.

Palestinians told CNN they resort to eating water-based soup mixed with herbs, custard or finger-sized biscuits because they have no access to nutrient-rich foods.

Read more about how Palestinians are struggling during the Muslim holy month.

Senior White House officials are planning to meet with Arab, Muslim and Palestinian-American community leaders in Chicago on Thursday, multiple sources familiar with the meeting told CNN, as President Joe Biden continues to grapple with anger and concern across the country about the Israel-Hamas war. 

Thursday’s meeting is part of the Biden White House's efforts to hear concerns about the Gaza situation from these communities, though that is hardly expected to be the only issue discussed.

Officials are also expected to more broadly discuss concerns about Islamophobia in the US in the aftermath of October 7. 

Some context: Along with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden and other top US officials have escalated calls for a ceasefire and more humanitarian aid in recent weeks, urging Israel to do more to protect civilians. 

But negotiations remain stalled, even as the humanitarian toll of Israel’s war in Gaza rises. Biden is confronting mounting discontent within his own party over his handling of the conflict, including young and progressive voters and voters in battleground states like Michigan that will be critical to his 2024 coalition.

The White House declined to comment.

Read more about the planned meeting.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to continue the fight against Israel, saying the Israeli military has been secretive about its losses in the north.

The fighting has continued since October 7 on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel between the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group and the Israeli military. As a result, Israel has ordered the evacuation of communities along the Lebanese border.

The Israeli military has said it killed numerous Hezbollah militants and commanders since October 7. On Monday, it said it struck two Hezbollah compounds in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, the farthest north Israel has struck in Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hamas conflict began. 

Nasrallah said the Israeli prime minister has “lost the war” in Gaza, and that an Israeli invasion of Rafah would not change that.

“After five months of fighting, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] was unable of presenting any spectacle of victory,” he said, adding that Hamas has not been defeated and is still able to impose its conditions on the negotiations.

The Hezbollah leader also decried the US stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict, labeling it as “hypocritical.”