April 9, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

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.

The top US Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says he is not yet ready to sign off on the sale of dozens of American-made F-15 fighter jets and related munitions to Israel as he seeks “assurances” on how the weapons would be used.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York, told CNN on Tuesday he would seek answers on the proposed sale during classified briefings in Washington, DC, this week. As one of the leading lawmakers on a key weapons-approving committee, Meeks holds an effective veto on any proposed weapons sales, making his comments to CNN notable.

“I want to make sure I know the types of weapons and what the weapons would be utilized for,” he told CNN's Kate Bolduan on "CNN News Center." He didn’t answer directly when asked if he would support efforts to block the sale.

Key context: Since Hamas’ attack on Israel in October, which killed over 1,200 Israelis, the US has made more than 100 foreign military sales to Israel. Most of those have fallen under the specific dollar amount that requires a notification to Congress, an official familiar with the matter previously told CNN.

But an $18 billion F-15 sale is large enough that it requires congressional notification, and the administration informally notified the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees of the F-15 sale in late January, according to people familiar with the matter.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert believes his successor Benjamin Netanyahu is running his governing coalition — and the war in Gaza — on the “basis of personal interest,” and in order to remain in power, Olmert told CNN Monday.

On Monday, Netanyahu said a date for the assault on Rafah had been set. His announcement came after Ben Gvir posted on X that if Netanyahu abandoned plans for a ground offensive in Rafah, he may lose the support of the coalition that has kept him in power.

Facing growing protests against the government, Netanyahu and his coalition have closed ranks and continue to hold on. But the former Israeli leader thinks his successor’s defiant posture — in the face of mounting international pressure, including from the United States — will be his demise. 

“The effect that he faces the pressures from America, in a way I think that he likes to appear, is the opponent of President Biden. It plays into his interest in Israeli politics. Netanyahu has this need to show that he's the only guy that can face the world leaders and prevail,” he explained. 

The families of American-Israeli hostages in Gaza met with US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday in Washington to press for their immediate release, according to the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters.

The forum says at least eight American-Israelis were taken hostage by Hamas. Five of them are still thought to be held alive in Gaza. Another, 19-year-old Itay Chen, was confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Forces last month. 

The families shared their concerns with Sullivan that their loved ones will be next if negotiations continue to drag out, according to the forum, and told Sullivan that all hostages, “both the living and the murdered,” must be brought home immediately.

The National Security Council has not commented on the meeting, but according to the forum, Sullivan told attendees that the Biden administration is doing all it can to advance a deal that the US, Israel, Qatar, and Egypt have agreed to. CIA Director Bill Burns traveled to Cairo over the weekend where he presented a new proposal to try and help broker a deal between Israel and Hamas and bridge the gap between the two sides.

Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to meet with the families this afternoon, the second such meeting since Hamas' deadly attack on Israel on October 7 last year, according to an advisory from her office. The meeting is closed to the press.

Jihad Abu Watfa was standing in the rubble along a dark stretch of coastal road southwest of Gaza City when he saw Israeli military tanks approaching. He began recording on his phone just as a heavy barrage of gunfire flashed before his eyes.

“We are now under siege, a tank is beside us and it’s shelling,” Abu Watfa could be heard saying in the video, which he shared with CNN.

The 27-year-old was surrounded by hundreds of other Palestinians who had gathered for an aid delivery on February 29 when Israeli soldiers accompanying the humanitarian convoy opened fire. More than 100 people were killed and 700 injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The tragedy, which has become known among Palestinians as the “Flour Massacre,” is one of the single deadliest mass casualty events to take place in Gaza since Israel launched its assault on the strip following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack. It came after more than a month of Israel denying aid into Gaza City and northern Gaza and followed what the United Nations has called “a pattern of Israeli attacks” on civilians desperately seeking food, amid unprecedented levels of starvation.

CNN collected testimonies and videos from 22 eyewitnesses, many of whom had traveled from other cities across Gaza in the hopes of finding something for their families to eat.

Read more of CNN's analysis of what happened the night a Gaza aid delivery in February turned deadly.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that “no force in the world” will stop Israeli troops from entering Rafah in southern Gaza to eliminate Hamas units said to be there.

Speaking at a recruitment event at a military base, Netanyahu said: "We will complete the elimination of the Hamas battalions, including in Rafah. There is no force in the world that will stop us."

“Many forces are trying to do this, but it will not help, because this enemy, after what it has done, will not do it again, it will cease to exist,” Netanyahu added.

Earlier this week, Netanyahu said that a date had been set for the Rafah operation, but did not specify when it would begin. 

Netanyahu also told the event: “We have three goals: one, to return the abductees. All the observers, and not only them, all together. We'll get them all back. The second goal —eliminate Hamas. The third goal — to ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

Netanyahu went on: “There is a fourth goal — Hamas is part of Iran's evil axis that aims to destroy us. When we defeat Hamas, it's not just defeating Hamas — it's defeating the Axis.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed the mayor of the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in a strike in central Gaza on Monday, the IDF and Hamas both said.

Hamas called it “a cowardly assassination of the mayor of Al-Maghazi, Mr. Hatem Saleh Al-Ghamri,” saying Israeli “warplanes directly and without warning bombed the building of the Joint Services Council of the central governorate’s municipalities.” 

Hamas said the strike was “a war crime contrary to international laws that grant immunity and protection to civilian figures.” 

The IDF said its fighter jet struck and “eliminated the terrorist,” characterizing Al-Ghamri as a “Hamas military wing operative in the field of projectile launches within the Maghazi Battalion of the Central Camps.”

Some background: The Al-Maghazi refugee camp is located in the central part of the coastal enclave south of Wadi Gaza, the waterway that divides north from south Gaza.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the camp is filled with narrow alleys, where 33,000 people lived before the conflict, in a relatively densely packed area no more than 0.6 square kilometers (about 0.2 square miles).

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Kathleen Magramo contributed reporting to this post.

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet Tuesday with US families whose loved ones were taken hostage by Hamas amid ongoing negotiations for the release of remaining hostages and a ceasefire in Israel's war in Gaza.

Harris will meet with them in the afternoon, the second such meeting since Hamas' deadly attack on Israel on October 7 last year, according to an advisory from her office. The meeting is closed to the press. 

Her meeting comes after US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with the families on Monday evening.  

CIA Director Bill Burns traveled to Cairo over the weekend where he presented a new proposal to try and help broker a deal between Israel and Hamas and bridge the gap between the two sides.