April 5, 2024 Israel-Gaza updates

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. US officials said although progress was made, talks have been “complex and slow.”

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.

Among the unresolved issues is the return of displaced Gazans to their homes in the north; Hamas wants a larger number of people to return to their homes in northern Gaza than what Israel has proposed.

Hamas also wants a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Israel’s top political and military officials called Hamas’ demands “delusional” and stated that the elimination of the group remains the permanent goal of the Gaza offensive.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dismissed two senior officers and reprimanded others over the deadly strikes on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy that killed seven aid workers in Gaza this week.

The IDF on Friday published a report into the attack, saying the strikes violated its own procedures and should not have happened.

Two senior officers were dismissed: The brigade fire support commander, an officer with the rank of major, and the brigade chief of staff, an officer with the rank of colonel.

"Additionally, the brigade commander and the 162nd Division commander will be formally reprimanded," the IDF said.

The World Central Kitchen (WCK) has criticized the Israeli military for not following its own procedures during strikes that killed seven of its aid workers in Gaza on Monday.

The IDF said it believed it was targeting Hamas operatives when they attacked and killed the aid workers in the WCK convoy, according to an internal inquest that led to the dismissal of two senior officers.

WCK acknowledged that Israel had taken "important steps" in dismissing the officers, but said the investigation showed that "deadly force" was used by the IDF "without regard to its own protocols."

It called for an independent commission to be set up to investigate the killings further, saying: "The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its strike which killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers was carried out in "serious violation of the commands" and procedures, and "should not have happened."

In a statement released Friday, the IDF detailed how the "grave incident" happened.

The IDF said its forces "identified a gunman on one of the aid trucks, following which they identified an additional gunman."

"After the vehicles left the warehouse where the aid had been unloaded, one of the commanders mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists," the report said. "The forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with WCK."

The IDF said its forces then targeted the three WCK vehicles based on "the misclassification of the event and misidentification of the vehicles as having Hamas operatives inside them."

Undercover Israeli border police killed a Palestinian man in the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm in the northwest part of the occupied West Bank on Friday morning.

A police spokesperson said that undercover Border Police forces, working with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), had arrested three men suspected of “involvement in terrorist activities."

In the early morning raid, Israeli forces entered the Nour Shams refugee camp from multiple directions and “besieged” a house in the Jabal al-Nasr neighborhood, sparking confrontations in which a young man was critically injured by Israeli gunfire, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

The man was rushed by ambulance to the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital but was later pronounced dead, according to WAFA. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that 31-year-old Sa'id Nazmi Khudair Al-Awawi was killed after being struck by Israeli fire in the Nour Shams camp.

The Israeli military believed they were targeting Hamas operatives when they attacked and killed seven food aid workers in Gaza on Monday, according to an internal inquest that led to the dismissal of two officers.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday that “those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives,” calling the attack “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification.”

Seven aid workers – three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole – were killed in Monday’s strikes, setting off fury in those countries and sparking even greater scrutiny of Israel’s conduct in Gaza since it launched its war against Hamas in October.

WCK and the heads of many Western nations have called for an independent, third party investigation into the strikes, but Israel has committed only to the internal inquiry released Friday.

CNN’s Benjamin Brown contributed reporting.

The cost of damage to critical infrastructure in Gaza is estimated at around $18.5 billion, according to a report released Friday by the World Bank and United Nations.

The sum is equivalent to 97% of the combined GDP of the West Bank and Gaza from 2022, it added.

The assessment was based on data collected between October 2023 and January 2024. It found that every sector of the economy had been affected, with housing the hardest hit, accounting for 72% of the costs.

The report said 92% of primary roads have been destroyed or damaged, and that 75% of the population has been displaced.

The crossings set to be opened to allow aid to reach Gaza offer a "glimmer of hope" amid a humanitarian catastrophe, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said.

Israel's security cabinet on Thursday approved the opening of the Erez crossing in the north of Gaza. CNN has reported that the first deliveries through the crossing are expected Sunday.

But NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland stressed Israel needed to show "tangible improvement in the situation for civilians on the ground."

Pressure is mounting on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to suspend the sale of arms to Israel following the deadly attack on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza.

Calls for Sunak to stop supplying Israel with weapons grew after an Israeli airstrike on Monday killed seven members of staff from World Central Kitchen, three of whom were British citizens.

The government is still waiting for legal advice from its lawyers on whether or not selling arms to Israel is in breach of international law. Sunak is also under pressure to publish any legal advice he has been provided with on whether or not the Israeli government has breached international law through its actions in Gaza.

A recording emerged at the weekend of Alicia Kearns, who chairs the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, saying she is convinced the government has already received advice that Israel’s actions are illegal and has declined to publish it.

Following the leak, Kearns stood by the report and said in a statement: “I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make.”

The governing Conservative Party is historically supportive of Israel, but the killing of British citizens has shifted the domestic debate.

Read McGee's full analysis on calls for the UK to stop arms sales to Israel.