April 5, 2024 Israel-Gaza updates

The World Health Organization (WHO) completed a “highly complex mission” delivering medical aid to hospitals in northern Gaza on Thursday.

Despite “ongoing hostilities” in Gaza City, the supplies were delivered to around 1,000 patients at both Al Sahaba and Al Ahli hospitals, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X Friday. 

Al Sahaba hospital also received one pallet of canned food, and a patient with complex lower limb injuries was successfully moved from Al Ahli to a field hospital in Rafah, Tedros said.

Tedros concluded by repeating calls for a “sustained and safe passage for humanitarian aid” and appealed for an immediate ceasefire.

Some context: The successful delivery of much-needed medical supplies follows several months of difficulty getting aid where it is needed most in Gaza. The UN agency reported that heavy bombardment, movement restrictions and interrupted communications were making it nearly impossible to deliver medical supplies regularly and safely.  

Medical aid relief teams were forced to call off repeated delivery missions in January after failing to receive security guarantees, WHO said at the time.

Israeli authorities denied 30% of humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza in March, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

The Israel Defense Forces findings on the deadly strike on World Central Kitchen aid workers were shared Thursday after the call between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a US official told CNN. 

Officials were also briefed from a number of other countries, including those that had nationals killed in the strike, the official said. They were shown IDF video of the strike during the briefing.

The US official echoed National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby's comments, saying Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks Friday were not calling for a separate investigation, but rather a reiteration of past comments about the probe that was already being worked on. The official, like Kirby, said the IDF report was not public, so Blinken could not speak to it yet.

World Central Kitchen has called for further independent investigations into the strike, saying Israel cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday that there are "no plans" for the United States to conduct an independent or separate investigation into the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza.

Kirby made the comments as the White House looked to clarify Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks earlier Friday calling for an “independent, thorough, and fully publicized investigation” into the strike. The White House said he was referring to the Israeli report on the strike that was later released.

“Secretary Blinken did refer to an independent investigation but that was before, he was referring to the one that they were working on. And he said that before Israel came out with a report that we are now examining,” Kirby told reporters on Friday. 

Before leaving Belgium and after the Israeli report on the strike had been released, Blinken added that the US is reviewing the report on the deadly strike “very carefully.”

“It's very important that Israel is taking full responsibility for this incident. It's also important that it appears to be taking steps to hold those responsible accountable,” Blinken said in remarks before departing Belgium.

World Central Kitchen has called for further independent investigations into the strike, saying Israel cannot be trusted to investigate its own errors in Gaza.

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the World Central Kitchen staff killed by a strike in Gaza this week.

"The killing of the aid workers from the World Central Kitchen is not an isolated incident," the ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.

"Israel knew very well who it was targeting, hitting three cars in three locations, despite the fact that they were identifiable and had gotten coordinated with Israel," Mansour added.

The ambassador said "it took the deaths of foreigners" for the international community to acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 180 days. The strike killed one Palestinian, three Britons, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole, according to the organization.

Israeli report: On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces published a report into the killings, which it said violated its own protocols and should not have happened.

The report found that IDF forces "mistakenly assumed" there were Hamas gunmen traveling in the aid convoy and opened fire on the vehicles.

The WCK has called for further independent investigations, saying the IDF cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

Read more about the IDF report.

John Kelly, the appointed US representative to the UN, highlighted the urgent need for the protection of humanitarian personnel in conflict zones in the wake of the Israeli drone strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza.

“We are deeply concerned Israel has not done enough to protect humanitarian aid workers or civilians,” Kelly told a UN Security Council meeting Friday.

“An incident such as this should never have happened and must never happen again. We all know moreover, this was not a stand-alone incident,” Kelly added.

His comments come as Israel’s military fired two senior officers after a report released Friday concluded that the attack that killed seven food aid workers in Gaza was a result of "mistaken identification" and "serious violations" of standard procedure.

Hamas has turned down Israel’s latest counterproposal from earlier this week, a diplomat familiar with the discussions said.

Earlier this week an Israeli proposal had been sent to Hamas which the diplomat said did not accept two key Hamas demands: that there be unrestricted return of Gazans to the north and the pullback of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday said their position has not changed since delivering these two key demands to mediators on March 14. Hamdan said the last round of talks held in Egypt this week have not yielded “any progress."

The diplomat says Israel continued to insist that inspections of those moving north be allowed and that the IDF not redeploy away from central Gaza.

CIA Director William Burns, Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar will meet in Egypt this weekend to continue ceasefire talks, according to a source familiar with the talks and an Israeli government official source. Barnea, Bar and Burns met last month in Doha for talks with mediators, but no clear breakthrough was reached.

Hamas and Israel have for months failed to agree over a three-phased framework seeking the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a six-week ceasefire, the release of Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Mostafa Salem contributed reporting to this post.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged Israel’s government on Friday to “quickly implement” its plans to reopen the Erez land crossing and port of Ashdod to allow more aid into Gaza, saying there are “no more excuses.”

Both crossings are expected to reopen this weekend, CNN earlier reported. US President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu to allow more aid into Gaza in a phone call on Thursday.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that while the Israeli government has admitted mistakes in the killing of seven aid workers earlier this week, there must be independent investigations and “meaningful” change on the ground.

In remarks delivered Friday in New York, Guterres said that “the essential problem is not who made the mistakes” in the killing of the World Central Kitchen staff, but the “military procedures in place that allow for those mistakes to multiply time and time again.”

Guterres also said that he was “deeply troubled" by reports that the Israeli military’s bombing campaign involved Artificial Intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s week began with the chants of thousands of protesters demanding a hostage deal and early elections outside the Knesset and his official residence. It ended with a scolding from US President Joe Biden over the Israeli military’s killing of seven humanitarian aid workers and the rapidly spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In between, the Israeli prime minister’s chief political rival and war cabinet member raised his voice in support of early elections for the first time, ratcheting up the political pressure. And yet, Netanyahu’s grip on power doesn’t appear to be in any imminent danger of slipping away.

Even as the walls appear to be closing in and a majority of Israelis continue to disapprove of Netanyahu’s performance, the mounting international and domestic political pressure has yet to fundamentally change the dynamics of his governing coalition – whose collapse would trigger new elections – nor his willingness to remain in office.

Read more about Netanyahu's grip on power despite obstacles.