April 9, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

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.

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.