April 9, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

Tuesday saw the highest number of aid trucks to enter Gaza since October 7, according to Israel’s agency that controls access to Gaza.

After inspection, 468 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were transferred to Gaza on Tuesday, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said.

Additionally, 303 packages carrying "thousands" of meals were airdropped over Gaza on Tuesday, Israel’s military said. Humanitarian organizations have warned that airdrops are "good photo opportunities but a lousy way to deliver aid."

Before the conflict, an average of 450 to 500 trucks would enter Gaza daily with supplies, according to UN figures. The previous highest number had been reached on Monday, with 419 trucks entering the Strip.

Israel has not done enough to get food into Gaza amid “famine-like conditions,” USAID Administrator Samantha Power said Tuesday.

Power said that there has been “a sea change” over the past few days in the amount of aid Israel is allowing into Gaza after “a series of restrictions over many, many months” from Israel.

“We have famine-like conditions in Gaza, and supermarkets filled with food within a few kilometers away. So it’s incredibly important that the food that is available get to the people,” Power said. “Especially in the case of very young children, we’re getting a growing number of reports of death by malnutrition or diseases induced by malnutrition.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant did not indicate to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on a phone call Monday that a date has been set for Israel's incursion into Rafah, multiple people familiar with the call told CNN.

He told Austin that Israel is still putting together a plan for a potential assault on the southern Gaza city and making necessary preparations, including when it comes to the protection of civilians, the sources said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said on Tuesday that Israel has not told the US any date for a Rafah incursion, but that he expected the Biden administration to see “Israeli colleagues again next week” for discussions on the issue.

US President Joe Biden’s top national security aide said he asked interlocutors for Hamas to press for a quick response to a proposal for Gaza ceasefire and hostage release.

National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said he made the request in a phone call Tuesday morning with Qatar’s prime minister, who has acted as a mediator in the ongoing talks to free hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not shared his plans for an invasion of Rafah with the United States after saying Monday a date had been set for the operation. “If he has a date, he hasn’t shared it with us,” Sullivan said, repeating US concerns at over a massive ground invasion of the southern Gaza city. 

“There are better ways to go after Hamas,” he said, adding that the White House had presented those options to Israeli officials last week.

Health workers in northern Gaza exhumed the first corpses from mass graves in and around Al-Shifa Hospital on Tuesday, after they said Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinians and left their bodies to decompose during their two-week siege of the complex.

At least 381 bodies were recovered from the vicinity of the complex since Israeli forces withdrew on April 1, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said on Tuesday, adding that the total figure did not include people buried within the grounds of the hospital.

Witnesses and civilians who were trapped inside the hospital when it was raided say the vicinity “was full of bodies,” according to Basal. “The occupation forces have plowed these bodies and buried them in the ground,” he added. 

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

“The smell of the dead is all over the place,” Motasem Salah, an official from the Ministry of Health in Gaza leading recovery efforts, told CNN. “We try to identify the bodies of these civilians as their families are awaiting news about their loved ones – if they are alive or missing.”

Khadr Al-Za’anoun of Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, contributed to this report.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel still has not told the US the date of their announced invasion of Rafah, but that he expects the Biden administration will see “Israeli colleagues again next week” for discussions on the issue.

When it comes to the timing of a possible Rafah operation Blinken said he does not expect "any actions being taken" before the US talks with Israel on Rafah next week, adding: “I don’t see anything imminent."

Blinken said the US is talking to Israel about “alternatives” to an incursion into the southern Gaza city that would be more effective at “solving a problem that needs to be solved, but doing it in a way that does not endanger the innocent.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that a date for an invasion into Rafah had been set, but he did not disclose it.

On aid entering the enclave, Blinken said that 400 aid trucks were cleared to enter Gaza on Monday, the highest daily number since the war began on October 7. “But what matters is results and sustained results, and this is what we will be looking at very carefully in the days ahead,” Blinken added.

In his first remarks after being elected as the new prime minister of Ireland, Simon Harris condemned Israel for slaughtering and starving Palestinians in Gaza, vowing "not to be silent" on the war.

Ireland, he promised, will "play [its] part" in "helping bring about the ceasefire and the lasting peace" in the besieged enclave. 

This follows a speech last week which saw Harris make a scathing personal address to his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu. He said "the Irish people could not be clearer. We are repulsed by your actions."

More background: Ireland has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel's war in Gaza, with Harris' predecessor Leo Varadkar previously describing its actions as "something approaching revenge." 

Israel has not shied away from firing back at Ireland. Its heritage minister, Amihai Eliyahu, said in November that Palestinians in Gaza “can go to Ireland or deserts,” among other incendiary comments that Netanyahu has tried to distance himself from. In February, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, said in an interview with radio station Newstalk that she only heard a “one-sided view, portraying Israel as the only villain.”

CNN's Eoin McSweeney contributed reporting to this post.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers Tuesday that to his knowledge, the United States does not have evidence of Israel committing genocide in its war in Gaza.

“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created” by Israel, Austin said at a Senate Armed Services hearing on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, last week said that she believes international courts could interpret Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, according to a video posted by a GBH News reporter, after noting she thinks “what Israel is doing is wrong.”

“If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren said at the Islamic Center of Boston in response to a question from an audience member on whether she thinks “Israel is committing a genocide.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously called charges of genocide against Israel “meritless.”

CNN's Morgan Rimmer contributed reporting to this post.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US military’s pier in Gaza, for delivering aid by sea, would "probably" be ready “by the third weekend of this month,” which would be by Sunday, April 21.

Austin also said that the protection of the US forces involved with the pier project is the Defense Department’s “number one priority.”

“We’re using a capability that we have, joint logistics over the shore, and certainly our troops search are trained to be able to put this into place,” said Austin.