March 29, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

President Joe Biden said Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries are “prepared to fully recognize Israel” during remarks at an off-camera fundraiser Thursday night, according to reporters in the room.

Biden repeated calls for a “post-Gaza plan” for Israel, including “a train to a two-state solution.” 

The remarks reflect Biden’s increased willingness to publicly call for Israel to increase efforts to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“But there has to be a post-Gaza plan, and there has to be a train to a two-state solution, it doesn't have to occur today, but there has to be a progression, and I think we can do that,” Biden said. 

Arab states offered to recognize Israel in 2002 in exchange for a Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel rejected the proposal then.

The fundraiser, which featured Biden in conversation with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, was interrupted at least four times by protesters, with at least three calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

“But we can't forget, Israel is in a position where its very existence is at stake. You have to have all those people. They weren't killed. They were massacred. They were massacred.”

This post has been updated to add background on Israel's relations with Arab nations.

Israel has not been provided every weapon it has asked the US for, according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair CQ Brown.

“Although we’ve been supporting them with capability, they have not received everything that they’ve asked for,” Brown told reporters on Thursday. 

“Some of that is because they've asked for stuff that we either don't have the capacity right now to provide or are not willing to provide right now in particular."

Brown also told reporters that during the meetings he had with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and his team this week in DC, “they did make requests” for different forms of military assistance.

Some background: CNN previously reported that Gallant reiterated Israel’s desire to buy a new squadron of F-15 and F-35 fighter jets and Apache helicopters. 

The growing weapons sales from the US remain top of mind for Israeli defense officials, who have been pushing their US counterparts for faster approval and progress on the weapons transfers, multiple officials and people familiar with the requests told CNN.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Thursday, Annelle Sheline discussed her decision to publicly resign from her fellowship with the State Department, where she worked in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Sheline said she speaks for "many people" when she stands against the US government's relationship with Israel and its actions in Gaza, telling Amanpour that "people are shocked and appalled by what the US government is doing."

Here are the latest developments in the conflict:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of soldiers kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas that the country's forces “will not leave anyone behind," according to a statement from his office Thursday.

He said Israel’s military had “conquered” the north of Gaza and Khan Younis.

Netanyahu told the families: "I know that every day you go through is hell”. He said to date “we have returned 123 of our abductees” adding: “I am obliged to return them all, including everyone.”

He said all assets Israel has, including military pressure on Hamas, “need to be used wisely in the negotiations that I conduct myself every day - to get them all back and not just some."

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Thursday, Annelle Sheline discussed her decision to publicly resign from her fellowship with the State Department, where she worked in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Israel has repeatedly justified its military action in Gaza by stating that it is in self-defense. A senior US defense official told reporters on Tuesday that the US “will continue to stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in accordance with the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law, and to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.”

Sheline said that she speaks for "many people" when she stands against the US government's relationship with Israel and its actions in Gaza, telling Amanpour that "people are shocked and appalled by what the US government is doing."

The former employee suggested that the US has made a "political calculation" to "maintain extreme support for Israel regardless of the illegal behaviors that Israel engages in."  

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller addressed questions about Sheline's resignation during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Watch the interview.

Israel has committed to help protect US troops who are traveling to the eastern Mediterranean to build and operate a floating dock and causeway that will be used to transport humanitarian aid to Gaza, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff C.Q. Brown said on Thursday.  

His comments come as Republican senators have posed questions to the White House and Pentagon about how the military plans to protect the approximately 1,000 US personnel who will be involved in the construction of the pier, which will be based off the coast of Gaza and therefore a potential target for terror groups like Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. 

Brown said other US partners and allies have capabilities that they will be contributing to help protect the troops in the area. 

He added that he spoke recently to his Israeli counterpart about the pier, and he does feel he has received the necessary assurances that the floating dock won’t just be another bottleneck for humanitarian aid into Gaza — as it has been via land crossings into the enclave. 

On Thursday, a group of 12 senators wrote to President Joe Biden asking what force protection risks the mission entails, and what the rules of engagement are for US troops if they are fired upon by Hamas or another terrorist group. 

The Pentagon has said repeatedly that US forces will not step foot on shore in Gaza and that a regional partner or ally will help to secure the causeway built by the US military to the shore.

Israel's government responded to additional provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday in the genocide case brought against it by South Africa. The provisional measures call on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip in light of famine “setting in."

Hamas “is to blame for the situation in the Gaza Strip and is responsible for the war” because it launched “an unprecedented terrorist attack on the State of Israel and its citizens while committing atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity,” he added. The statement said Israel “goes to great lengths in order to mitigate the harm to the civilian population while fighting Hamas.”

Israel said it is committed to “its legal obligations” with respect to “allowing and facilitating” the transfer of aid, and “places no limitations on the amount of essential humanitarian aid that enters the Gaza Strip, including in particular food, water, shelter equipment and medicines."

It will continue to “promote new initiatives, and to expand existing ones, in order to enable and facilitate the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip in a continuous and extensive manner, by land, air, and sea, together with UN bodies and other partners in the international community.”

Israel accused Hamas of “using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. Hamas displays utter disdain for international law and the lives of civilians, Israelis and Palestinians alike, and deliberately harms the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the population of Gaza.”

CNN's Niamh Kennedy, Amy Cassidy and Sugam Pokharel in London contributed to this report.

Israel will “copy and paste Gaza onto Lebanon” if militant group Hezbollah escalates tensions, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday. 

With “increased activity” on Israel’s border with Lebanon, Israel was “returning fire to the source of fire,” Hyman added.

The spokesperson alleged that Iranian proxies were seeking to attack Israel on multiple fronts and that Israel would “take them out one by one when the time is right and at the time of [its] choosing.”

At least 16 people were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to Lebanese state media.

At least one person was killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on the city of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel on Wednesday, according to Israel’s national emergency medical service.

Hezbollah said it had launched “dozens of rockets” targeting the northern Israeli city in response to an attack on a medical facility in the town of Habariyeh in southern Lebanon.

There are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is “committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza,” the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has said.

Francesca Albanese made the remarks Wednesday following the submission of her latest report called “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Israel said it “utterly rejects” the report, which it said “brings shame” on the Human Rights Council.

It is “no surprise, that the premise of this report is that the creation of the Jewish State in 1948 was an act of ‘settler colonialism,’ and genocide is an ‘inherent part’ of that act,” the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva said in a statement on X on Monday.

The statement also blamed the UN expert for “delegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israel.”