April 17, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

People living in the area of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza said Israeli military vehicles began an operation there on Monday afternoon, firing shots and rounds of artillery shelling.

Residents told CNN that Israeli forces surrounded three schools, including one — Mahdiyya Al-Shawwa — early Tuesday morning where hundreds of people have been sheltering. Using loudspeakers, they ordered people to leave the schools and detained dozens of men, including some elderly and teenagers over the age of 15.

CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the purpose and results of the operation, which, according to local residents, ended late on Tuesday.

One man, Abu Malek Shibat, said he and his family had returned to Beit Hanoun after being displaced to other areas of Gaza. Shibat insisted he would stay in Beit Hanoun even if it meant putting a tent over the ruins of his house.

A woman, Amani Naseer, told CNN that she and her children were taking shelter at a school in Beit Hanoun, but Israeli forces "have destroyed the entire area," adding, "What can we do? Where are we supposed to go?" Her house had already been destroyed, she said, but she recovered some belongings and clothes from under the rubble.

An elderly woman who was sheltering in one of the schools spoke to CNN as she was fleeing the area. She said Israeli soldiers came in the middle of the night and arrested several men and women.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with British Foreign Minister David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s office said that the prime minister thanked them both for their governments’ “unequivocal support and for the countries' standing in an unprecedented defense against Iran's attack on the State of Israel.”

Netanyahu also addressed the scope of humanitarian aid going into Gaza and the continuation of the fighting there.

“The Prime Minister rejected the claims of international organizations of starvation in Gaza and said that Israel goes above and beyond on the humanitarian issue,” Netanyahu’s office added.

Israel's emergency services, the Magen David Adom (MDA) are on the scene at the village of Arab al Aramshe in northern Israel, where they are treating six people who were wounded by a projectile strike.

Images from the area show a column of smoke rising from the village, and damage to a building.

The MDA says those injured are being evacuated to a hospital in nearby Nahariya. They are all men in their 30’s. One was severely injured, one moderately injured, and the rest were mildly injured, the MDA said.

The Israel Defense Forces says that sirens went off in the area after the strike, but the origin and type of the projectile are unknown.  

The “slightest” attack by Israel on Iran will be “dealt with fiercely and severely,” Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Wednesday. 

The president was speaking during an annual army parade in Tehran where the location was changed from where it's typically held, near the Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum, to a military training center in northeast Tehran. State media did not say why the location was changed this year, but during the Covid-19 pandemic, the main event was also moved. 

Raisi said that the weekend attack on Israel was “limited and punitive,” and warned that if Iran had “carried out a stronger operation, nothing would then have been left out of Israel.” 

“Our armed forces are ensuring security and peace and establishing sovereignty across the region, and are completely reliable,” Raisi added.

Israel weighs response: His attempted assurances and warnings come as Israel continues weighing how it will respond to the weekend barrage. Israel’s war cabinet met for the fifth time on Tuesday to discuss a response to Iran’s attack but did not reach a conclusion. It’s unclear if the cabinet will meet again on Wednesday. 

The United States expects that Israel’s military response to Iran’s strikes will be limited in scope, a senior administration official and a source familiar with the intelligence told CNN. Israel has not given the US an official warning about what their plans may be and when they could occur, the senior administration official said.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has urged governments to do everything they can “to halt the increasingly horrific human rights and humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” as well as what he calls the “rising violence and targeted attacks in the West Bank.”

Turk said in a statement released Tuesday that “resolving the catastrophic situation of civilians in Gaza must remain a priority. Israel continues to impose unlawful restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, and to carry out widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.”

Israel has consistently blamed UN agencies, and especially UNRWA, for failing to distribute aid that is approved for Gaza. But at least 196 humanitarian workers have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza since October, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jamie McGoldrick, said in a statement. 

Turk said that nearly 1.7 million people remain forcibly displaced in Gaza, “living in appalling conditions and under constant threat.” He said that in the past week alone some 10,000 people had been displaced from Nuseirat camp and near Wadi Gaza. 

Turk added that “in the West Bank, escalating violence over the past few days is also a matter of grave concern. Palestinians have been subjected to waves of attacks by hundreds of Israeli settlers, often accompanied or supported by Israeli Security Forces (ISF),” following the killing of a 14-year-old Israeli boy from a settler family.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for a response to that accusation.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has urged the world’s largest economies to coordinate sanctions against Iran to show a “united front.” 

Iran's large-scale attack on Israel over the weekend has raised global concerns that it would escalate conflict in the region.

“We want to see coordinated sanctions against Iran,” Cameron said ahead of a G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Capri, Italy on Wednesday.

“I think there is more we can do to show a united front that Iran is behind so much of the malign activity in this region," he told reporters in Israel, where he and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock attended talks with top Israeli officials in the wake of Iran’s aerial attack.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that the United States would impose new sanctions on Iran.

"We anticipate that our allies and partners will soon be following with their own sanctions,” he said. 

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 16 people in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to the Civil Defense Directorate in the besieged enclave.

Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told CNN that at around 2:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday, a resident had received a telephone warning from Israeli forces to evacuate the building in which they were living in Gaza City's Al Tuffah neighborhood. Basal said that the residents evacuated the building, but 15 minutes later, a six-story building nearby was struck. Nine people were killed, among them two children, a woman and a man, Basal said.

CNN is seeking comment from the Israel Defense Forces about the strike in Al Tuffah and other airstrikes carried out over the last 24 hours.

On Tuesday night, an Israeli airstrike that hit the Yabna refugee camp in Rafah killed seven Palestinians, according to the Civil Defense Directorate. The Civil Defense said the casualties included four children and two women. It said that Israeli planes targeted the home of the Abu El-Honoud family, where several displaced people were sheltering.

Earlier on Tuesday, a strike that targeted Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 13 people, including seven children, according to hospital officials.

The IDF said Wednesday that its troops were continuing activities in central Gaza, and that Israeli planes “eliminated a number of terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure." They said "one of the strikes was on a terrorist cell operating an armed drone toward IDF troops in the area.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has urged his government not to respond militarily to Iran's weekend attacks, saying that the Jewish state had already punished the Islamic Republic "in a humiliating and powerful way."

While Iran's attack was “despicable,” Olmert said, "the state of Israel proved its power, strength and capability when it’s prepared, and not indifferent or arrogant."

He said that launching a "painful" response against Iran would result in "another round of their strikes and our counter-strikes — which is exactly what we want to prevent.”

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock attended talks with top officials in Israel on Wednesday morning, in the wake of Iran’s aerial attack over the weekend.

The UK was among the nations that helped the Israeli military intercept a barrage of Iranian strikes on Israel. In the meetings, Cameron reinforced international pressure on Israel to not escalate tensions with Iran.

"It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act," he told reporters in Israel.

Cameron said he would discuss these points with both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he held a “warm discussion” with Cameron and Baerbock.

Terror listing: During the meetings, Israel's Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, asked the visiting British and German foreign ministers to designate the Iranian government as a terror organization and impose sanctions on Iran's missile project. 

Earlier this week, Cameron told the BBC that “We’ve sanctioned the IRGC … in its entirety, and we’ll continue to look at what further steps we can do.” But the UK government has not declared the IRGC a terror group.