May 17, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel over the weekend, according to a US official, as the ceasefire and hostages negotiations have stalled and Israel continues to threaten to intensify its military operations in Rafah.

He will meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their respective countries, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

US officials have said that they have not yet seen Israeli forces begin a major ground incursion into southern Gaza yet, while reiterating Biden’s warning that if Israel were to make such a move, the US would hold back on additional offensive weapons shipments to its ally.

Israeli officials have assured their US counterparts that they have no intention of launching a major military operation into Rafah until more conversations have taken place between the two sides, according to this US official, including the various meetings Sullivan plans to have over the weekend while in Israel.

Sullivan’s trip to Saudi Arabia also comes as the Biden administration continues to push for a deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The post was updated with details about who Sullivan will meet during his trip.

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza have begun moving ashore after arriving through the floating pier built by the US military, according to the US Central Command (CENTCOM).

The pier was anchored to a beach in Gaza on Thursday and will be used to funnel aid from various countries into the besieged strip, with most border crossings to the enclave closed and a catastrophic humanitarian disaster unfolding inside.

The maritime corridor is coming at a critical moment – with the Rafah border crossing to Gaza having been closed for more than a week, preventing aid from getting through. That crossing was the only one between Gaza and Egypt – with all other border points in the strip controlled by Israel.

Here are key things to know about the pier and the aid that is starting to enter Gaza:

How much aid is expected? The goal is to get about 500 tons of humanitarian assistance into Gaza through the pier daily, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM. That means about 90 trucks worth of aid a day, and the goal is to build up to 150 trucks a day.

How was the pier built and how will it work? The US began building the floating pier in late April at a cost of $320 million and with the help of some 1,000 US soldiers and sailors. The US said that it is only a temporary measure that is “entirely humanitarian in nature.” Pieces for the pier were loaded aboard ships on the East Coast of the US and then “transported 6,000 miles across the ocean,” according to CENTCOM’s Cooper. The pieces were assembled off the coast of Gaza, with final assembly taking place in the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Why is aid being shipped this way? Most land crossings into Gaza remain either shut or congested due to lengthy inspections by Israel. That has led the US and other countries to start air-dropping aid into Gaza, which human rights organizations have criticized as insufficient. The UN has warned of famine setting in in parts of Gaza, calling on Israel to open more land crossings for aid. 

How much aid is getting into Gaza now? The US State Department has said that “not nearly enough” trucks are getting into Gaza. The UN estimates that 500 trucks are needed per day to alleviate the suffering of Gazans, but on May 11, UN figures showed that only six trucks entered. No data is available after that date.

Keep reading about the pier and aid being delivered.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 31 people and injured 56 in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the strip on Friday.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 has now surpassed 35,300, with 79,261 injuries, the ministry added. CNN cannot verify the ministry’s numbers, and it does not distinguish between casualties among fighters and civilians.

It does not include in its figures the several thousand people thought to be missing in Gaza since October 7.

Earlier Friday morning, civil defense officials and local journalists said that Israeli strikes on the enclave had killed at least 10 people and wounded others.

An airstrike on the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed at least six people, according to civil defense officials who arrived on the scene and evacuated a number of wounded. The Jabalya district of northern Gaza has seen intense combat operations in recent days. A hospital in northern Gaza received several bodies and many injured people after Israeli strikes on Thursday, according to a CNN stringer present.

Persistent gunfire could be heard throughout the night Thursday into Friday in Jabalya, according to residents in the area.

Salama Maroof, head of the government media office in Gaza, said in a Thursday statement that the Israeli military had invaded Jabalya and cut off the northeastern settlement of Beit Hanoun.

In a separate attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, at least four people were killed when Israeli warplanes struck the Al-Jaouni School, which shelters displaced people. Local journalists witnessed the bodies arriving at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.

This post has been updated with additional figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The aid shipment delivered to Gaza via a US-built pier included British humanitarian aid.

The shipment, which had the aid provided by the United Kingdom, will be enough to feed 11,000 people for a month, British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said Friday.

“The UK continues to play a key role in this herculean international effort,” Shapps wrote on X. 

The UK is supporting logistics coordination in Cyprus and has deployed a Navy vessel to help US personnel construct and operate the pier, he added.

How it works: The content of the aid shipments to Gaza is inspected in Cyprus. Upon reaching the Gaza shore, the aid is moved on the pier by trucks already on the ships to a facility in Gaza. The World Food Programme will then act as the logistical arm of the United Nations to deliver the aid to other agencies or distribute it, a UN official told CNN.

CNN’s Kareem Khadder and Sarah El Sirgany in Jerusalem contributed reporting to this post.

Lebanese group Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for dozens of rocket launches toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Friday.

In a statement, the militant group said it launched 50 Katyusha rockets targeting an Israeli military base in Golan in response to the Israeli attack on Al-Najariya in southern Lebanon earlier in the day, which Lebanon's official National News Agency had reported killed two boys. 

In later statements, Hezbollah said it also targeted an additional Israeli site in Golan with rockets and another at the Lebanon-Israel border with artillery shells.

In additional exchanges across Israel’s northern border, as the war in Gaza rages on, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that approximately 75 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory on Friday and "dozens" were intercepted.

Israeli emergency services reported that two men were slightly injured in the Galilee area and were taken to the hospital.

The IDF said that earlier Friday, “IDF soldiers identified a Hezbollah launcher in the area of Yaroun which was ready to fire launches toward Israeli territory.”

“A short while afterward, an IDF fighter jet struck and dismantled the launcher, preventing a large number of launches," the military added.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has received at least 112 bodies and treated 308 injured people since the Israeli operation in the north began nearly a week ago, the hospital's director, Dr. Husam Abu Saifya, told CNN on Friday. 

Safiya said that of the total number of bodies, 12 were killed overnight Thursday into Friday, when bombardment in the area continued throughout the night. The injuries the hospital received comprised of burns and severed limbs, he added. 

He warned of dwindling fuel and medical supplies, saying the last fuel delivery from the World Health Organization (WHO) "was five days ago."

He said he doesn’t know when the WHO would deliver fuel and supplies or whether it would be enough.

For context: The Israeli military renewed ground operations in northern Gaza on Saturday, saying Hamas was trying to "reassemble" in the area. The north has been hit with intense Israeli shelling and gunfire, especially in and around the Jabalya refugee camp. 

Israeli airstrikes killed two boys in the town of Al-Najariya in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA). 

The two Syrian siblings, Ossama and Hani Al-Khalid, succumbed to their injuries from the air raid, NNA said.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military says the airstrikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in Al-Najariya that “posed a threat to Israeli aircraft,” accusing the group of operating in civilian areas and endangering lives.

Around the same time, Hezbollah announced the death of one of its members, 62-year-old Hussein Khidr Mahdi, in the same area on Friday.

It is unclear if he was killed in the same airstrikes.

The Israel Defense Forces says that the brigade leading the offensive in Jabalya in northern Gaza is now “fighting in the city center.”

The IDF posted an operational update Friday saying that its 7th Brigade “eliminated more than 60 terrorists in the past days in Jabalya.”

“The 7th Brigade led the divisional-level offensive in Jabaliya and is now fighting in the city center," the IDF said.

The IDF said that in less than a week of operations, “the soldiers encountered dozens of terrorists, initiated contact, and eliminated more than 60 terrorists through ground and aerial operations. Even now, the soldiers are exchanging fire with terrorist cells in the area.”

The IDF also asserted that soldiers located a weapons warehouse “with dozens of long-range rockets ready for use, dozens of rocket parts, explosives, and other weapons. The weapons warehouse is located about ten meters (about 33 feet) from a shelter complex from which the population was evacuated and where 20 terrorists were apprehended,” it said.