May 16, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Israel-Hamas war news or read through the updates below.

The bodies of two Thai nationals killed during the October 7 attacks on Israel are being held by Hamas in Gaza, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday. 

The two men killed were identified as Sonthaya Oakkharasri and Sudthisak Rinthalak. Six other Thai nationals are still being held by Hamas, the ministry said. 

The pair worked in farms in areas close to Kibbutz Be’eri and “were murdered during the terror attack on the 7th of October, their bodies were taken hostage and are being held currently by Hamas in Gaza,” Hagari said during a briefing. 

The families of the hostages have been notified, Hagari said. 

Thailand expressed its condolences to the families of those killed in October and whose bodies are being held in Gaza. 

“The Royal Thai Government expresses its profound condolences to their families, which have already been contacted by the Royal Thai Embassy in Tel Aviv, while the agencies involved will render all necessary assistance to the families,” Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum (HMFF) also expressed “deep sorrow” for the deaths in a statement on Thursday.

The forum emphasized that protecting citizens within its borders remains Israel’s paramount duty.

This post has been updated with comments from the hostages’ family group and Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a drone attack from south Lebanon hit an area in the Israeli border town of Metula on Thursday and injured three Israeli soldiers.

“The soldiers were evacuated to the hospital for medical treatment. Their families have been notified,” IDF said in a statement.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah claimed Thursday that it targeted several areas inside Israeli territory, including the one in Metula. The group also released a video of the attack on Metula.

Hezbollah on Thursday announced the death of two fighters without providing further details. 

Israel, in an overnight airstrike, hit “a complex of production and storage sites for weapons, which belongs to Hezbollah’s missile precision project in Jebel Shams in the Bekaa,” according to Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari.

“The attack was carried out in response to Hezbollah firing at a military site located near the Golani intersection,” Hagari said in a statement Thursday.

Some background: According to figures released by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday, at least 355 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8 as a result of the “Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon.”

Another 1,426 people were injured, the ministry added. 

At least 93,040 people have been displaced from areas and towns close to the border with Israel since the conflict started, the country’s health ministry added in its report. 

Monica Johnston is interviewed on CNN on Thursday, May 16.

A Portland nurse who traveled from Oregon to the Gaza Strip for what was supposed to be a two-week mission treating burn victims, told CNN of the guilt she feels at the prospect of being able to leave Gaza when Palestinian patients and medical colleagues must stay.

Since the Israeli military seized the Rafah crossing last week, the city’s critical border crossing to Egypt has shut, trapping a team of American healthcare professionals. But now, Monica Johnston, a burns specialist nurse volunteering with the Palestine American Medical Association in southern Gaza, said “it is possible” that “half of her team,” including her, can leave.

Johnston did not say how they would be able to leave but said the “guilt is immense.” 

“My female colleagues, my roommates [are] my best friends now,” Johnston told CNN’s Isa Soares on Thursday. “I’m going to have to leave them behind and with the intensified bombings that happened today, I’m so fearful [for] them.”

Describing the conditions she and her staff must operate in, the American nurse said when it comes to treating burns or wounds, she uses six different types of dressings that come from her bag.

“We’re scraping the bottom of our bags that we brought in, we brought in 300 bags of supplies,” Johnston said. 

“We just had two kids this morning, a one and a 3-year-old with the large burns and I used almost all the Silvadene [a burn cream to prevent infection] that I had in my bag, it’s devastating,” she said.

A CNN report highlighted the plight of dozens of foreign doctors being stuck in Gaza who are calling on the US government to help coordinate the team’s safe exit from Gaza, as humanitarian conditions worsen inside the besieged enclave.

Israeli forces are razing the earth from eastern to central Rafah, according to satellite imagery, ahead of a planned full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said additional forces will participate in the ground operation in Rafah. And the IDF said the operation there remains limited in scope, while it continues operating in two other parts of Gaza.

Here are other headlines you should know:

Developments on the ground

South Africa’s accusations against Israel

Humanitarian aid

President Joe Biden delivers remarks while meeting with the Joint Chiefs and Combatant Commanders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 15.

The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to pass a GOP-led bill to compel the delivery of defensive weapons to Israel as Republicans ramp up pressure on President Joe Biden over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

It is unlikely to be taken up in the Democratic-led Senate and the White House has said that Biden would veto the bill if Congress passed it.

The bill would prevent the president from withholding, halting, reversing or canceling weapons transfers that have been approved by Congress from the United States to Israel, and requires any that have been withheld to be delivered to Israel within 15 days of the bill’s enactment.

The legislation would cut off funds from several key executive-branch entities, including the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council until any withheld weapons are sent to Israel.

The vote was 224-187. Three Republicans crossed over and voted against the measure, and 16 Democrats voted for it. 

The vote comes as Biden has faced pushback from lawmakers in both parties after he said during an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett last week that he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah, where more than a million civilians have been sheltering.

Biden said while the US would continue to provide defensive weapons to Israel, including for its Iron Dome air defense system, other shipments would end should a major ground invasion of Rafah begin.

The families of five Israeli soldiers who were killed as a result of friendly fire during operations in Jabalya in northern Gaza on Wednesday have been notified, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a statement Thursday.

“From the initial investigation of the incident, it appears that our forces fired from a tank at the building where the fighters were, following a misidentification,” Hagari said. 
“This is a dense combat area, where the terrorists fire dozens of RPG rockets at IDF tanks and at soldiers, and the work environment is under very complex operational stress and in a very dense area,” Hagari said.

The five included four sergeants and one captain, ages 20 to 22, who all belonged to the Paratroopers Brigade.

Hagari said the incident is still under investigation and that IDF “will draw the lessons and learn from them.”

“The IDF is engaged in intense fighting in three focal points in the Gaza Strip, where three divisions fighting Hamas are maneuvering,” Hagari said.

South Africa's Vusimuzi Madonsela, seated right, and Cornelius Scholtz, seated second left, attend a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, on May 16.

Israel has responded to South Africa’s remarks at the International Court of Justice about the Israeli military escalating attacks in Gaza.

South Africa accused Israel of using forced evacuation orders in Rafah to “endanger rather than protect civilian life.” South Africa’s delegation also sought an emergency halt to Israel’s offensive in Rafah, saying “Israel’s genocide has reached a new and horrific stage.”

The Israeli foreign ministry accused South Africa of acting as “the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organization,” in efforts to undermine Israel’s obligations to protect its citizens, according to an X post from Oren Marmorstein, the spokesperson for the ministry.

Israel accused South Africa’s allegations of being “morally and factually distorted” and said they are an “abuse of the Genocide Convention and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).” 

Israel also called on the ICJ “to reject South Africa’s appeal and to bring the abuse of the Court to an end.”

Arab leaders are collectively calling for the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces on occupied Palestinian territories until a two-state solution is reached.

At the Arab League summit in Bahrain the leaders issued the ‘Manama Declaration,’ which includes a call to set a timeframe to reach a two-state solution, and for the UN Security Council to issue a resolution to establish a Palestinian state.

The UN does not have peacekeeping troops in Israel or the Palestinian territories but has more than 10,000 peacekeepers along Israel’s border regions, like the UNIFIL in Lebanon and the UNDOF in Syria.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah were among the conference attendees who delivered speeches mainly focused on the war in Gaza. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres were also in attendance, and both delivered speeches. 

Guterres echoed a vision for the two-state solution, saying:

“The only permanent way to end the cycle of violence and instability is through a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states.”

The US has also called for a two-state solution, with President Joe Biden saying in January that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could ultimately be convinced. “There are a number of types of two-state solutions,” Biden said at the time.

As the war in Gaza rages on, the ‘day after’ question is causing rifts inside Israel and among Arab countries. 

Netanyahu told Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, in an interview last week that he envisions help from wealthy Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to run Gaza. But the statement triggered a rare condemnation from the UAE’s foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, adding strain onto the relatively new relationship between Israel and the Gulf state. 

“The UAE stresses that the Israeli Prime Minister does not have any legal capacity to take this step, and the state refuses to be drawn into any plan aimed at providing cover for the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip,” Sheikh Abdullah said on X.   

In the ‘Manama Declaration’, the 22-Arab bloc called for the release of hostages and accused Israel of obstructing ceasefire efforts. 

At the conference, President Sisi of Egypt, a mediating country in the now-stalled negotiations between Hamas and Israel, accused Israel of “evading its responsibility” and “maneuvering around the efforts” for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Those who think that security and military solutions are able to secure interests or achieve security are delusional,” Al-Sisi said.  

The US has not seen any indications that Hamas is planning to target the recently completed temporary pier meant to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to a Defense Department spokesperson. 

Singh said the US is working with the Israel Defense Forces, who will help provide security for US forces operating the pier system, which was attached to the Gaza coast overnight.

Mortar rounds have landed near the pier site twice in recent weeks. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks at a press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 16.

The White House warned Israel Thursday that more humanitarian aid needs to be making it into Gaza in order to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the enclave amid Israel’s war against Hamas. 

Jean-Pierre also provided an update on humanitarian aid, saying that since April 5 more than 7,000 trucks have been moved into Gaza and that yesterday nearly 250 trucks moved into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza and a newly opened crossing in northern Gaza. 

She added later: “What I just laid out is not sufficient. We want to get more in. We are continuing to have those conversations with Israel.”

United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq has reiterated that all border crossings to Gaza must be reopened for effective humanitarian aid operations.

The UN is currently finalizing operational plans to distribute humanitarian aid via a newly constructed floating dock, Haq told press at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday, but emphasized that land access to the besieged Palestinian enclave remains vital.

We’re thankful to the US for all the work they’ve done in creating the floating dock. However, getting aid to people in need into and across Gaza cannot and should not depend on a floating dock far from where needs are most acute.
Land routes are the most viable, effective and efficient aid delivery method, which is why we need all crossing points to be opened. To stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza - and for that, we need access by land now.

The US Defense Department has released two aerial images of a newly completed temporary pier being affixed to Gaza’s coast to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. 

In this aerial photo released by the US Defense Department, US Army Soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), US Navy Sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1 and Israel Defense Forces emplace the Trident Pier on the Gaza coast on May 16.

One image shows the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore capability, known as JLOTS, approaching the coast, with the other showing the pier system subsequently attached to the Gaza coast. 

Aid will start entering Gaza via the pier “in the coming days,” the US has said.

In this aerial photo released by the US Defense Department, US Army Soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), US Navy Sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1 and Israel Defense Forces emplace the Trident Pier on the Gaza coast on May 16.

Displaced Palestinians arrive in Deir al Balah, Gaza, after fleeing from Rafah, Gaza, on May 9.

South Africa has accused Israel of using forced evacuation orders in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to “endanger rather than protect civilian life.”

A lawyer for South Africa, Professor Max du Plessis, condemned the forced evacuation of over 600,000 Palestinians from Rafah and the Israeli designation of “humanitarian zones” elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

The measures “endanger rather than protect civilian life,” Du Plessis told a hearing of the International Criminal Court (ICJ) in The Hague on Thursday. “The so-called ‘humanitarian zones’ are not safe, the zones are policed by the same Israeli forces who attacked Palestinians.”

‘Genocidal intent’: Israel’s “full scale bombardment” of Rafah, and the sealing of entry and exit for “life-saving aid to an already devastated population” suggests a “genocidal intent,” the lawyer also argued, saying that the Israeli military’s assault on the city has “deliberately inflicted” conditions to bring about Palestinians’ “physical and biological destruction.”

ICJ hearing: Israel, which has rejected South Africa’s claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as “baseless,” will have a chance to respond to the court on Friday.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during a briefing in Washington, DC, on May 13.

US President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan convened for the first time this week with ambassadors and chiefs of mission representing countries whose citizens were taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, CNN has learned.

Sullivan met with representatives from 17 nations: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom, according to a US official and senior administration official familiar with the meeting.

The group discussed ideas to secure the release of the hostages in Gaza, with a particular focus on ways that they can speak more as a collective group in both public and private settings, the senior administration official said.

Ceasefire negotiations: The meeting came as negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a deal to secure the release of hostages and ceasefire in Gaza appear to have stalled once again. The representatives gathered with Sullivan brainstormed ways to exert pressure on the negotiating parties – including Israel, Egypt and Qatar – to return to the negotiating table and finalize a ceasefire. One idea that was discussed was finding a way to speak as a collective voice to the United Nations, that official said. 

‘International concern’: Those same 18 countries had released a statement in late April calling on the release of all hostages, warning that the fate of those individuals is “of international concern.”

Bulldozed areas are seen in Rafah, Gaza, on May 15.

Israeli forces are razing the earth from eastern to central Rafah, according to satellite imagery, ahead of a planned full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city.

Israeli bulldozing operations have been conducted almost a mile north of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, according to the latest imagery released by Planet Labs on May 15. Entire blocks have been destroyed or sustained significant damage since May 9.

Empty streets: On Saturday, the Israeli military expanded the Rafah evacuation zone further west, a precursor to its widening assault on the city. 

The recent satellite images indicate emptied streets in Rafah, where, prior to the ground invasion, over one million Palestinians were seeking refuge from Israel’s bombardment in the enclave. Many of the tent cities that held the sprawling refugee population have almost disappeared. 

Deserted streets are seen in Rafah, Gaza, on May 15.

Forced to evacuate: At least 600,000 Palestinians have been forced to evacuate Rafah since May 6, the UN’s Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated. In the past 48 hours, 150,000 people are believed to have fled.

South Africa's Vusimuzi Madonsela, seated right, and Cornelius Scholtz, seated second left, talk prior to the start of hearings at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands, on May 16.

South Africa is seeking an emergency halt to Israel’s offensive in the southern city of Rafah after last year filing proceedings at the UN”s top court accusing Israel of genocide.

During a public hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa’s delegation said Israel’s attacks in Gaza had only escalated in defiance of the court.

“Israel’s genocide has reached a new and horrific stage…South Africa has traveled here today to do what it can to urgently stop this genocide…Israel is escalating its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, and in so doing, is willfully breaching the binding orders of this court,” Vusi Madonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, said in South Africa’s opening statement.

Madonsela said while the Rafah offensive was the impetus for calling the hearing, Israel’s “intensifying attacks” all over the Gaza Strip in recent weeks have warranted the attention of the court and have “shocked the conscience of humanity”.

“Sadly, South Africa is yet again compelled to return to this court in recognition of its obligation under the Genocide Convention due to the continuing annihilation of the Palestinian people with over 35,000 killed and most of Gaza reduced to rubble,” he added.

Israel will have a chance to respond tomorrow in the two-day hearing to consider the emergency measures proposed by South Africa.

In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to do all in its power to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian aid to Gaza but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.

Players pose for a photo following a solidarity match between the Irish and Palestinian women’s football teams on May 15, in Dublin, Ireland.

Ireland hosted the Palestinian women’s football team for a fundraiser game on Wednesday night, in the country’s latest show of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Dublin football club, Bohemians F.C paid for the Palestinian side to travel to the Irish capital for the match which raised funds for a number of NGOs helping people in Gaza. The Palestinian side snatched a 2-1 victory at the sold-out game.

Bohemians’ Chief Operating Officer Dan Lambert described the game as an “unbelievably emotional occasion” for players and spectators alike.

“On one level it was a football game. To anyone who was there, who looks at the pictures it was far far more,” Lambert told CNN. “To see both groups of players together at the end holding Irish and Palestinian flags shows the deep solidarity Irish people have with Palestine.”

Speaking to Irish newspaper, The Irish Times in advance of the game, Chair of the Football Association of Palestine Jibril Rajoub described it as a “very important” milestone for the team.

Ireland is one of the most pro-Palestinian nations in Europe.

The country’s government has been a vocal critic of Israel with the Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris previously telling his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu that the Irish people were “repulsed by [his] actions” in Gaza. Israel. for its part, has not shied away from firing back, with Israel’s ambassador to Ireland earlier this year complaining of hearing only “one-sided” views of her country.

A hospital in northern Gaza has received several bodies and many injured people after Israeli strikes on Thursday, CNN witnessed. Video also showed the casualties being brought into Kamal Adwan hospital Thursday morning.

The footage showed people praying over four bodies wrapped in white cloth in front of the hospital, with women and children crying.  

One man who gave his name as Abu Ahmad said he was holding the body of his last child, after the rest of his family had been killed earlier.

“This is my daughter; all of my children are gone. They have struck my house without a warning; all of my children and the children of my siblings are all killed. The entire house was targeted and all four floors are destroyed. Ten martyrs and my daughter the eleventh martyr.”

Separately, social media video uploaded Thursday showed a huge explosion in the northern district of Jabalya, with a fireball releasing dense clouds of grey and black smoke. Israeli forces have pushed into the Jabalya refugee camp in recent days.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, in December 2023.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says additional forces will participate in the ground operation in Rafah.

In a video statement recorded in Rafah Wednesday, Gallant said that following an assessment on the Gaza border, more troops will be deployed to the city.

“This operation will continue with additional forces that will enter [the area]. Several tunnels in the area have been destroyed by our forces and more tunnels will be destroyed soon,” Gallant says.

He said that overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, the IDF deployed the Commando Brigade to Rafah, joining the 162nd Division’s Givati and 401st brigades which have been there since earlier this month. 

“This operation will intensify and Hamas is not an organization that can regenerate itself now, it has no reserves, it has no ability to manufacture weapons, it has no supplies, it has no munitions, it has no ability to properly treat terrorists who are injured, and the meaning is that we are wearing it down,” Gallant said.

Israel began a military offensive in and around the southern Gazan city of Rafah on May 6. Over a million Palestinians had been sheltering there after being forced to flee other parts of the besieged enclave.

Presiding judge Nawaf Salam, third from right, opens the hearings at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands, on May 16.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) to hold public hearings today and Friday on South Africa’s request for additional emergency measures ordering Israel to withdraw from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza strip.

South Africa last week filed an urgent request for additional measures in its genocide case against Israel to protect Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have been sheltering and which faces a looming ground offensive.

In December last year South Africa filed its initial case against Israel to the ICJ – the UN’s top court – arguing that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

In its original ruling in January, the ICJ ordered Israel to “take all measures” to prevent genocide but stopped short of ordering Israel to halt the war as South Africa had asked.

Israel hailed the decision as a win given the absence of a ceasefire order.  

The case at the ICJ marked the first time Israel has been brought before the court on accusations of violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which was drafted in part due to the mass killings of Jewish people in the Holocaust during the Second World War.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Thursday that 39 people had been killed and 64 injured by Israeli military operations during the latest 24-hour period.

As usual, the Ministry cautioned that “a number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.”

It said the total killed in the besieged Gaza strip since October 7 now stood at 35,272, with 79,205 injured.

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.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, on May 15.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says that the operation in Rafah remains limited in scope, while it continues operating in two other parts of Gaza.

IDF International spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, told CNN during a briefing Thursday that the operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city, which began ten days ago, remained “limited in space and in targets.”

“We’re operating in specific places according to our intelligence, and where we know Hamas are hiding,” Shoshani said.

The operation was aimed at locating tunnel shafts operated by Hamas and had recovered “ammunition of many types,” including anti-tank missiles. He said “more than 100 terrorists” had been killed.

While a broader offensive has been long expected in Rafah, Israel is battling elsewhere in Gaza to prevent Hamas regrouping.

Shoshani said operations were continuing in Jabalya, in northern Gaza, and in Zeitoun, in central Gaza.

He said the deaths of five Israeli soldiers on Wednesday night in Jabalya – in Israeli tank fire - came amid fighting in a “dense, very complicated area.”

Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system over the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on May 16.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says it has launched more than 60 rockets at different targets in northern Israel.

Hezbollah said that the barrage was fired “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks last night on the Bekaa region” of Lebanon.
It said it had carried out a missile attack with “more than 60 Katyusha rockets on the leadership of the [IDF’s] Golan 210 division in Nafah, the air defense barracks in Keila, and the northern region support artillery in Yoav.”

The Israel Defense Forces said that “approximately 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon toward the Golan Heights.”

“Several of the launches were successfully intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array. No injuries were reported. The IDF struck the sources of fire.”

In addition, five launches had been detected from Lebanese territory towards the area of Zarit. There were no injuries, the IDF said. 

Israeli fighter jets “struck one of the military posts from which they were fired,” and the IDF had also struck two other Hezbollah military structures.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that soldiers were hunting for a man who stabbed an IDF officer in the occupied West Bank early Thursday.

“Following the report of a stabbing attack in the Samaria area, a short while ago, a terrorist arrived at the Yitzhar junction, stabbed an IDF NCO who was in his vehicle and fled,” the IDF said.

“IDF soldiers are searching for the terrorist and have blocked roads in the area.”
“The NCO was moderately injured and has been evacuated to the hospital for medical treatment.”

Three Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem during an overnight Israeli military incursion, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and an Israeli source.

An Israeli security representative, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, said that the Israel Defense Forces used live fire and killed three “terrorists” who “planted explosive devices” in the area. 

The Palestinian Health Ministry said three Palestinians were shot by “occupation fire” in Tulkarem early Thursday morning, and named the victims as Ahmed Mubarak, 26, Hossam Imad Dabas, 22, and Muhammad Youssef Nasrallah, 27. 

Residents in Tulkarem told CNN that Israeli snipers were on top of residential buildings in the city during the incursion. 

The Israeli security source told CNN that Israeli troops also opened fire on other “terrorists” in the area and “hits were identified.” Two wanted suspects were also apprehended overnight, the source said. 

According to eyewitnesses and video shared on social media, the Israeli military also carried out military incursions into other cities and towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, including Nablus, Tubas, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Burqeen south of Jenin and other areas in the occupied West Bank.

In this image provided by the U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary) and sailors attached to the MV Roy P. Benavidez assemble the Roll-On, Roll-Off Distribution Facility (RRDF), or floating pier, off the shore of Gaza on April 26.

A floating pier that will facilitate humanitarian aid into Gaza has been anchored to a beach in Gaza, US Central Command said Thursday. 

“Today at approximately 7:40 a.m. (Gaza time) United States Central Command personnel supporting the humanitarian mission to deliver additional humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in need anchored a temporary pier to the beach in Gaza.” 

CENTCOM said trucks carrying the aid are expected to begin moving ashore in the coming days. The UN will receive the assistance and coordinate distribution in Gaza. 

Security concerns and sea conditions had delayed the pier’s movement for several days, but on Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that the pier should be operational “in the coming days.”

The temporary pier is intended to supplement the aid going in through the land crossings into Gaza.

The initial goal is to allow 90 truckloads of aid to enter Gaza each day through the pier, the UK said, a number that could increase to 150 truckloads per day when the pier is fully operational. Aid agencies have long warned not enough aid is reaching Gaza.

Read the full story.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a press conference at Israel's Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 18.

Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant has called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly rule out Israeli governance over Gaza and to lay out his post-war plans for civilian rule in the enclave.

“The ‘day after Hamas,’ will only be achieved with Palestinian entities taking control of Gaza, accompanied by international actors, establishing a governing alternative to Hamas’ rule,” Gallant said during a news conference at Israel’s military headquarters Wednesday.
“⁠I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza strip, that Israel will not establish military governance in the Gaza Strip, and that a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be raised immediately.” 

Gallant’s remarks come as serious questions about Israel’s long-term strategy in Gaza are being raised both inside and outside of Israel after the Israeli military sent troops back into areas of northern Gaza it had withdrawn from months ago to battle Hamas militants who had returned amid a power vacuum.

Israeli military officials have quietly warned that the lack of a long-term strategy for post-war governance will result in this pattern repeating throughout Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to respond to Gallant’s remarks later on Wednesday, saying in a video statement posted to social media that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority would be acceptable entities to govern Gaza.

Read the full story.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday that five soldiers were killed as a result of friendly fire during operations in Jabalya in northern Gaza. 

The five killed on Wednesday included four sergeants and one captain, aged 20 to 22, who all belonged to the Paratroopers Brigade and were killed after a tank operating in the same battalion opened fire, according to the IDF. 

It comes after a senior officer, Rear Admiral Yogev Bar-Sheshet, was wounded in Gaza last week, the IDF said.

Bar-Sheshet was wounded on the same day that five Israeli soldiers were killed in the Zeitoun area of Gaza. Four of the five were sergeants who were killed by an explosive device.

The latest deaths brings the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in the Gaza conflict to 278.

Israel has renewed fighting in northern Gaza despite having previously said it had cleared the area of Hamas.