Our live coverage of Israel's war in Gaza has moved here.
December 14, 2023 Israel-Hamas war
By Chris Lau, Sana Noor Haq, Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Elise Hammond, Tori B. Powell and Maureen Chowdhury, CNN
Updated 2:39 a.m. ET, December 15, 2023
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Israeli military claims video, disputed by doctor, shows militants handing over weapons outside a hospital
From CNN's Ibrahim Dahman, Abeer Salman, Andrew Carey, Pauline Lockwood, Elizabeth Joseph and Tim Lister
The Israeli military released a video it says shows militants handing in weapons after their surrender from a hospital in northern Gaza.
A hospital doctor told CNN the men, some of whom are stripped to the waist in the video, are civilians who were carrying out weapons belonging to hospital security and police on the orders of Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces have had a heavy presence around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza City for well over a week, maintaining Israel’s operational focus on the strip’s medical facilities, which Israel insists are being used by Hamas to provide civilian cover for its military activities.
In a statement accompanying the release of the video on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said: “During IDF activity in the area, over 70 terrorist operatives came out of the hospital with weapons in hand.” The statement said the men had been handed over to Israeli intelligence units inside Gaza for interrogation.
The video, along with two stills also released Thursday by the IDF, show several men carrying weapons over their heads or in their arms and laying them on the ground.
Another clip on the same video shows a long line of men in civilian clothes, with their hands in the air — many holding their green identity papers — walking single file down a smashed-up street under Israeli guard.
CNN was able to speak briefly by phone to Dr. Hossam Abu-Safia, head of the pediatric department at Kamal Adwan hospital, as the incident was taking place.
“We are unarmed civilians standing in the hospital yard,” Safia said, adding that the Israeli army had instructed civilians to take the weapons outside and then filmed them doing it.
He said they had been given 10 minutes to evacuate the wounded from the hospital, along with medical staff.
“We don’t know where we are going,” he said.
When asked by CNN to respond to Safia’s comments, the IDF re-sent its original statement containing the same links to the video and the stills, but added nothing more.
Some context: Doctors at Kamal Adwan hospital have described frequent intense fighting around the facility for well over a week, with events escalating at the start of this week.
On Monday, a tank shell killed two women in the maternity ward and severely wounded two others, the hospital director told CNN.
A day later, on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry told CNN that Israeli forces had entered the hospital.
Later that day, dozens of medical staff, including the hospital director, were taken from the premises by Israeli troops to a nearby military screening center, a hospital doctor told CNN, withholding his name out of fear for his own safety.
Throughout the week, in response to enquiries about its actions in and around the hospital, the IDF has insisted it “takes all feasible precautions to mitigate harm to non-combatants, and is fighting against the Hamas terrorist organization, and not the civilians in Gaza or the medical teams operating there.”
Images from Gaza of men often stripped to their underwear surrendering to Israeli forces have been emerging over the last two weeks.
The images – usually uploaded unofficially on to social media – have been criticized as demonstrating degrading behavior by Israeli forces, but Israel insists it needs to be certain the people it has captured are not concealing hidden weapons or explosives.
Hamas says Gaza tunnels built to resist possible flooding attempts
From CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali
Hamas built its tunnels to withstand possible attempts to pump water into them, a spokesperson for the militant group said.
The comments from Osama Hamdan, speaking at a news conference in Beirut on Thursday, were in response to reports of potential flooding of tunnels by Israeli forces inside Gaza.
"The tunnels were built by well-trained and educated engineers who considered all possible attacks from the occupation, including pumping water. (The tunnels) are an integral part of the resistance, and all consequences and expected attacks have been taken into account," Hamdan said.
Israel has told the United States it has begun “carefully testing out” flooding some of Hamas’ tunnels with seawater “on a limited basis” to assess whether the operation could be scaled up to degrade the group’s tunnel network on a larger scale.
Israeli officials have assured their American counterparts that they’re only doing this in tunnels where they do not believe hostages are being held.
Separately, Hamdan addressed the issue of possible fresh talks aimed at releasing more hostages held inside Gaza, appearing to lower any expectations of progress.
"There will be no negotiations and no return of the prisoners until after the complete cessation of the aggression against Gaza and responding to the demands of the resistance," Hamdan said.
There are still more than 130 Israeli hostages held inside the enclave.
Yemen’s Houthis claim drone strike on container ship en route to Israel
From CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali
The Iran-backed, Houthi-run Yemeni Armed Forces claimed in a statement Thursday that its naval forces attacked a container ship as it was “heading to the Israeli entity.”
The Houthis said the attack was executed by a drone strike, resulting in a direct hit, and that it came after the ship's crew allegedly refused to respond to calls from the Yemeni naval forces.
The Danish shipping company Maersk said Thursday that it is "deeply concerned" about the incident involving its vessel, the Maersk Gibraltar, and that the ship had been traveling from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Maersk said the crew and vessel were reported safe, but that it is "still working to establish the facts of the incident."
Maersk Gibraltar operates between Europe and the Middle East and sails under the Hong Kong flag, the company said in its statement.
Maersk condemned the rising trend of attacks on commercial vessels in the Bab al-Mandab Strait between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
"The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Bad al-Mandab Strait are extremely concerning. The current situation puts seafarer lives at risk and is unsustainable for global trade," Maersk said.
US Central Command said in a statement that it was monitoring the situation but it did not involve US forces. A ballistic missile was fired toward the international shipping lane from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen on Thursday before Houthis contacted the container ship, threatening further strikes, according to US Central Command.
Other recent activity: Over the past 48 hours, Houthi armed forces have successfully prevented the passage of several ships bound for Israel, according to a Houthi statement.
"The Yemeni armed forces confirm that they continue to prevent all ships heading to Israeli ports from navigating in the Arab and Red Seas until they bring in the food and medicine that our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip need," the statement read.
Houthi forces also attempted to board a commercial tanker on Wednesday in the Red Sea, US Central Command said in a statement earlier Thursday.
In November, Houthis seized a commercial ship linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen.
Some context: The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are a Shia political and military organization that have been fighting a civil war against a Saudi Arabia-backed coalition since 2014.
There has been an uptick in their maritime activities since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, and the group has said any ship heading to Israel was a “legitimate target.”
In the next couple days, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will address enhancing the international response to the Houthi threat to shipping in the Red Sea, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview Thursday with Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 News.
“What the Houthis are doing is a threat, not just to Israel but to the entire international community. It is a threat to freedom of navigation. It’s a threat to commercial shipping. It is a threat at a critical choke point, a critical artery in global commerce,” Sullivan said.
CNN's Mitchell McCluskey and Haley Britzky contributed reporting to this post.
The US is not trying to dictate terms to Israel over fighting in Gaza, war cabinet member says
From CNN's Sugam Pokharel in London and Tamar Michaelis in Tel Aviv
A key member of Israel’s war cabinet — and the man opinion polls suggest could be the country’s next prime minister — has struck an emollient tone toward the Biden administration and its position on the war in Gaza.
Amid a sense of growing disagreement between Israel’s leader and the White House over how to prosecute the war, Benny Gantz sounded a more measured tone, in comments made a few hours after a meeting with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Tel Aviv.
"I think the Americans are conducting a strategic and professional discourse with us that is appropriate and measured. They are not trying to dictate anything to us,” Gantz said.
Earlier this week, President Joe Biden accused Israeli forces of conducting "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza, and US officials emphasized their wish to see the war move to a lower intensity phase within weeks.
In addition, the US has been warning against Israel occupying Gaza after the war and has stressed a future role there for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly rejected.
“Yes, there is disagreement (with the US) about 'the day after Hamas' and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well,” Netanyahu said Tuesday.
Apparently taking direct aim at those comments by Netanyahu, Gantz dismissed the idea of a rift between the US and Israel, saying “some are busy generating false disputes in the minds of the [Israeli] public, and damaging our ties with the US.”
“We’re at the beginning of a process which will last years. The principles, framework and direction of action are clear. It is time to work with our partners, behind closed doors, with full trust," Gantz said.
Gantz also made clear that Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza will continue.
Gantz was in opposition in Israel’s parliament before October 7, but joined a hastily-constructed war cabinet, along with several other leading lawmakers from outside Netanyahu’s government.
Opinion polls suggest Gantz would win a general election if one was to be held soon.
He is also known to be significantly more supportive of the Palestinian Authority than Netanyahu.
Hamas leader "might have been" in Turkey during October 7 attack, Turkish official says
From CNN's Scott McLean and Isil Sariyuce
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief foreign policy and security adviser has defended his country’s decision to host senior Hamas figures, saying Turkey is engaging with Hamas “to bring about peace.”
Hamas members can freely come and go from Turkey and have a permanent presence in the country.
Its senior figures have met with Erdogan periodically throughout the years. Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh met Erdogan in July and there are unconfirmed reports Haniyeh was in Turkey – and not his regular domicile of Qatar – during the October 7 attacks.
In his first English-language interview since the war in Gaza began, Akif Cagatay Kilic said he didn’t know if Haniyeh was in Turkey on October 7, but conceded “he might have been.”
Kilic defended Turkey’s longstanding ties with Hamas, which many countries consider to be a terror group. Turkey does not.
“The issue is not where (Hamas members) are at what time, the issue is how can we resolve the conflict that we’re having, the war that we’re having right now,” he said.
“We’re talking on this issue in light of today’s events, but the reality is that in the past for example, the Israeli government itself asked us … more than 10 years ago, to engage with Hamas, to work with them.”
Kilic also warned Israel against following through on its domestic security service’s vow to assassinate Hamas leaders abroad.
Kilic said that any Israeli assassination attempt on Turkish soil would be “unacceptable on any terms.” Unnamed Turkish officials had previously warned Israel that there would be “serious consequences.”
Erdogan has been among the world’s most outspoken leaders since the war began. He has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “the butcher of Gaza” and said he will be tried in international court as a war criminal.
US national security advisor briefed on details of Israel's military campaign, White House says
From CNN's Samantha Waldenberg
A top United States national security official was briefed on the details of Israel's military campaign in Gaza on Thursday, according to a White House readout.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in Tel Aviv.
The briefing on Israel's military operations included details on its "objectives, phasing, and setting conditions for shifts over time from high-intensity clearing operations to lower intensity surgical operations against Hamas remnants,” the readout said.
Some more background: During his meetings with the Israeli prime minister, the White House previously said Sullivan asked “hard questions” about the Israeli offensive, including efforts to be more surgical and precise in the Israel Defense Forces' targeting.
He also raised the imperative of moving to a new phase of the conflict, which has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza, US officials said.
The Biden administration has been signaling to Israel that it wants it to transition to a lower intensity phase of its war on Hamas within weeks, a senior US official said.
Next, Sullivan will go to the West Bank on Friday to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to an administration official.
CNN's Kevin Liptak contributed reporting to this post.
US official says Hamas leader's “days are numbered”
From CNN's Kevin Liptak
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s “days are numbered,” a senior US official said, as Israel looks to eliminate the highest-ranking leader in Gaza.
“I think it's safe to say his days are numbered. I also think it's safe to say it doesn't matter how long that takes,” the official said on Thursday, following meetings in Israel between United States National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli officials.
Noting that several Americans were killed in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, the official said Sinwar had US “blood on his hands.”
Israel has publicly accused Sinwar of being the “mastermind” behind Hamas’ terror attack against Israel – though experts say he is likely one of several – making him one of the key targets of its war in Gaza.
“Doesn't matter how long it takes but justice will be served on Sinwar,” the official said.
While in Israel, Sullivan held extensive meetings with Israeli leadership, including the war cabinet and the Mossad intelligence chief that lasted two hours.
The talks included “heavy discussion” on protecting civilians, and the Israelis briefed Sullivan on efforts to separate civilians from Hamas.
The talks also included detailed discussions of efforts to free hostages held in Gaza.
“There are a number of initiatives now being pursued” to secure the release of additional hostages, the official said, though could not “state with any confidence which initiative might gain traction.”
US wants lower-intensity phase of war — but Israel says fighting won't end soon. Here's what to know
From CNN staff
The Biden administration has signaled it wants Israel to do more to protect civilian lives and enter a lower-intensity phase of its war on Hamas, according to a senior US official. With more than 18,000 people killed in the Gaza Strip in less than three months, there is a rising international outcry about the rising toll.
But Israeli officials are warning the war likely won't be over any time soon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country will keep fighting until Hamas is eliminated. And Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the war would last "more than several months."
Meantime, CNN got a rare look at what it was like inside a field hospital in southern Gaza where doctors warned of severe consequences of the local health systems collapsing.
Here's what to know:
- Military operations: Israeli forces said they are battling Hamas militants in close-quarters combat in locations across Gaza, including in Shejaiya and Jabalya in the north, and further south in Khan Younis. The Israel Defense Forces called on people to move from parts of Khan Younis to displacement shelters in the same area to “ensure safety,” the latest in a series of social media messages telling Palestinians to flee from one place to another.
- US-Israel relationship: US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Netanyahu on Thursday. It comes at a time when tensions between the US and Israel are ramping up over Israel's prosecution of the war. President Joe Biden's administration has signaled that it wants Israel to transition to a more targeted phase in the war. Biden himself on Thursday said he wants Israel to focus more on "how to save civilian lives." On Capitol Hill, while approval of emergency aid for Israel is still stalled, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is introducing a new resolution condemning Hamas’ use of sexual violence and rape as a weapon of war, according to a copy of the resolution.
- Gaza death toll: More than 18,600 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the strip. CNN cannot independently verify that number, but the IDF said it has struck more than 22,000 targets in Gaza since the beginning of the war. Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided, according to a US intelligence assessment.
- Inside Gaza: CNN was able to make a brief visit to Gaza this week — the first Western media outlet to report independently from the southern part of the enclave. The horror of modern warfare was visible in the streets strewn with trash and rubble from destroyed buildings. Despite the heavy bombardment, people wandered around outside like zombies – perhaps trying to fathom their lives, perhaps with nothing else to do. In the field hospital, 8-year-old Jinan Sahar Mughari was immobilized in a full-body cast. In another room, 20-month-old Amir Taha was too young to understand he was now an orphan.
- In the West Bank: Sullivan will continue his trip with a visit to the West Bank on Friday. A US official said he will meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Meantime, extremist Israeli settlers will now be banned from entering the United Kingdom, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said, joining a host of politicians who have called on Israel to take action against those carrying out attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. It comes as Israeli forces have completed their latest military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the IDF said. It said seven Israeli soldiers and 10 “terrorists" were killed.
- Terrorism arrests: Four alleged Hamas members suspected of plotting terror attacks on European soil have been arrested by German and Dutch authorities, Germany’s federal prosecutor said. The incident comes after the European Commissioner for Home Affairs warned the war between Israel and Hamas has increased polarization within European society.
