IDF says it killed Hamas militant responsible for rockets fired from Syria toward Israel
From CNN's Amir Tal
Israel's military said it has killed a Hamas militant in Syria who it says was a central figure in firing rockets from Syria toward Israel in recent weeks.
Hassan Hakashah was killed in the southern town of Beit Jinn on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
"We will not allow terrorism from Syrian territory and hold Syria responsible for all activity emanating from its territory. The IDF will continue to act against any threat posed to the State of Israel," the statement said.
Hamas has so far not publicly commented on Hakashah's death.
2:17 p.m. ET, January 8, 2024
What it's like on the ground inside central Gaza
From CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Al-Bureij, Gaza
A view of central Gaza. CNN
Some buildings are flattened or partially collapsed. Others are riddled with bullets or scarred by smoke. Civilians are nowhere to be found.
This is the scene CNN found on the outskirts of Al-Bureij in central Gaza after three months of war.
CNN embedded with the Israeli military on Monday, getting a glimpse of the destruction inside Gaza and a rare look inside the alleged Hamas underground and weapons manufacturing infrastructure uncovered by the Israeli military.
Alongside now-bulldozed farmlands and inside a nondescript building, the Israeli military took reporters inside the opening of what it said was a tunnel system leading to a weapons manufacturing facility both above and below ground.
“We are standing in one of the main entrances to the manufacturing terror center,” said an officer identified only as Maj. Ariel of the 188th Brigade, which uncovered the tunnel entrance.
Under a nearby shed, the Israeli military showed another shaft leading into the same tunnel.
The Israeli military also showed reporters the above-ground manufacturing facility, where CNN saw mortar shells which Israeli commanders said were made there. Another tunnel shaft lay in the corner of the factory, leading to what the Israeli military said was an underground facility where explosive material – made in some cases from dual-use materials like fertilizer – was packed into the shells.
The Israeli military did not allow reporters underground, saying the chemicals made it too dangerous, but provided a video it said was filmed inside that underground facility in which large vats and industrial material could be seen.
“What we're seeing is using the embedded civilian industries to build a rocket industry,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari told CNN inside the weapons facility, a point he repeatedly raised throughout the day.
Pressed whether he was stressing the connection between Hamas infrastructure and civilian buildings to justify the heavy civilian death toll in Gaza, Hagari said: “We are focusing on Hamas, not, not – we're focusing on a war on Hamas, we’re not fighting the people of Gaza.”
“Every death of every child is a tragedy. We didn’t want this war,” Hagari said.
Israel expanded its ground offensive into central Gaza in late December and over the last two weeks, it has carried out strikes and pushed its ground forces into areas where it had previously urged civilians to evacuate.
But there are indications that it is slowing its offensive in parts of Gaza, moving to a lower-intensity phase of the war following significant American pressure.
“There’s big change because it's a different level of intensity. Now, it's not in the same intensity, high intensity that we worked in the north (of Gaza)," Hagari said. "It's more continuous effort in the center of gravity so we can make sure that the population is being distinguished from the terrorists and focusing on Hamas frameworks,” he added.
1:15 p.m. ET, January 8, 2024
UN experts say alleged sexual torture by Hamas on October 7 may amount to crimes against humanity
From CNN's Richard Roth
Security forces search for identification and personal effects at the Supernova Music Festival site on October 12 in Kibbutz Re'im, Israel, where hundreds were killed and dozens taken by Hamas militants near the border with Gaza. Leon Neal/Getty Images
Experts at the United Nations say crimes committed against civilians during Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel amounted to war crimes and could qualify as crimes against humanity.
In a statement from Geneva, the experts — Alice Jill Edwards, a special rapporteur on torture and other punishment, and Morris Tidball-Binz, a special rapporteur on "extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions" — called for full accountability for the widespread killings and alleged sexual torture.
“As armed Palestinian groups rampaged through communities in Israel bordering the Gaza strip, thousands of people were subjected to targeted and brutal attacks, the vast majority of whom were civilians,” the statement said. “The growing body of evidence about reported sexual violence is particularly harrowing."
The UN experts said that allegations of sexual torture included rape and gang rapes and that there were mutilations and gunshot wounds to genital areas of victims as well as other signs of sexual violence.
“These acts constitute gross violations of international law, amounting to war crimes which, given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks, may also qualify as crimes against humanity," the experts said.
Hamas has repeatedly denied allegations that its fighters committed sexual violence during the attack despite the evidence.
1:12 p.m. ET, January 8, 2024
Israeli hostage appears in Islamic Jihad video, urges new deal to secure freedom for hostages
From CNN’s Tim Lister
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Monday released a video showing an Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Elad Katzir, 47, speaks for about three-and-a-half minutes in the video published by the Quds brigade. In the video, he stands in front of the group’s banner.
It’s the second time he has appeared in one of the group’s videos. The first was in mid-December.
In the new video, Katzir speaks in both English and Hebrew and mentions the name of another man who had been held hostage, Tamir Adar.
Elad Katzir. from Hostages and Missing Families Forum
The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum in Israel announced last week that Adar, 38, had died, without providing further details.
Like Adar, Katzir is from Kibbutz Nir Oz, the community in southern Israel from which some 40 people were abducted on October 7.
It is not clear if he is speaking under duress.
Katzir says: “Tamir Adar, my dear friend, may you rest in peace, may your memory be blessed, I share your family's grief.”
Katzir goes on to say:
“It's a miracle I'm still alive….I'd like to tell my family that I love them very, very much, and I miss them very, very much.”
He adds: “I want them [the government] to get me back, as well as all other hostages, and end this damn war…..With each day of the war, more soldiers and more hostages are being killed. Stop the war and bring us hostages home in peace. Make a deal to exchange prisoners of war, together with the Hamas, and bring us home.”
Katzir’s mother, Hana, was in the first group of hostages to be released during a short-lived truce in November. Her release was a surprise to many Israelis because Islamic Jihad had announced days earlier that she had died. Hana’s husband was killed on October 7, their daughter Karmit told CNN.
It’s unclear when the latest video was shot, but Adar’s death was announced publicly on January 5.
12:05 p.m. ET, January 8, 2024
Barrage of rockets fired at Israel Monday with several interceptions reported, CNN teams report
From CNN's Nic Robertson, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Richard Allen Greene
A barrage of rockets was fired from the Gaza Strip on Monday evening local time, with Israel’s Iron Dome system making at least several interceptions.
CNN teams in Tel Aviv counted at least half a dozen interceptions south of the city.
A large area of southern Israel from Ashdod northward to Tel Aviv received warnings of the rocket attack.
Hamas’ military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, said on Telegram: “We hit “Tel Aviv” with a rocket barrage in response to the massacres against civilians.”
There are no reports of casualties.
10:34 a.m. ET, January 8, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hezbollah is "underestimating" Israel
From Lauren Izso in Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes the weekly cabinet meeting at the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, on January 7. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops stationed close to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, telling them that the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah “underestimated us big-time in 2006, and is underestimating us again.”
Netanyahu visited the 769 Brigade, telling them: "I chose to come to Kiryat Shmona on the day of anti-tank fire upon us.”
“Hezbollah underestimated us big-time in 2006, and is underestimating us again.”
In July 2006, after the ambush of an Israeli military patrol, Israeli forces crossed the border into Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah positions, while air strikes also targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and commanders.
Netanyahu said that Hezbollah had thought “we were like spiders’ cobwebs. Suddenly it sees what kind of spider.” Hezbollah faced “tremendous power, the unification of a people, a determination to do whatever is necessary to restore security to the north.”
Netanyahu said: “We will do everything to restore security to the north and allow your families, because many of you are local, to return home safely and know that we cannot be messed with. We will do whatever it takes. Of course, we prefer that this be done without a wide campaign, but that will not stop us.”
He added: “We gave them an example of what is happening to their friends in the south, this is what will happen here in the north. We will do everything to restore security.”
10:47 a.m. ET, January 8, 2024
About 1 in 100 people in Gaza has been killed since October 7, Palestinian statistics show
From CNN’s Kareem Khadder, Richard Allen Greene and Ivana Kottasova
About one out of every 100 people in Gaza has been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, Palestinian statistics show.
At least 22,835 people have been killed, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah announced in its daily update on Monday. That’s 1% of Gaza’s total population of 2.27 million people, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
The Ministry generates its data from hospitals in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
It said 58,416 people had been injured. That is more than 2.6% of the population, or more than one in 40 people.
The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza, which tends to have slightly higher numbers than the ministry in Ramallah due to delays in transmitting information to the West Bank, put the total at 23,084 dead on Monday. It said 58,926 people had been injured.
Israel has said more than 8,000 of the dead are militants it is targeting in its war on Hamas.
The Ministry of Health in Ramallah says more than 5,300 of the dead are women and more than 9,000 of them are children. Together that would make up nearly two-thirds of the dead.
9:43 a.m. ET, January 8, 2024
Conflict in Gaza has created "an entire generation of orphans," says King of Jordan
From CNN’s Catherine Nicholls and Caroline Faraj
Jordan's King Abdullah II speaks during his visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda, in this handout picture released on January 8. Royal Hashemite Court/Reuters
The conflict in Gaza has created “an entire generation of orphans,” King Abdullah II of Jordan said in a statement Monday.
“More children have died in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world this past year,” the statement said. “Of those who have survived, many have lost one or both parents—an entire generation of orphans.”
The statement comes after King Abdullah II of Jordan met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Amman on Sunday, where the two “agreed to continue close coordination for sustained humanitarian assistance" in Gaza, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Sunday.
King Abdullah II also warned Blinken of the “catastrophic consequences of the continuing war in Gaza,” according to a palace statement released after their meeting.
“How can indiscriminate aggression and shelling bring peace? How can they guarantee security, when they build on hatred?” he asked.
“Without a just peace, on the basis of the two-state solution, the world will continue to pay a heavy price for failing to resolve this conflict, and we will never know true peace and stability in the Middle East,” the king added.
9:37 a.m. ET, January 8, 2024
At least 79 journalists killed during Israel-Hamas war, journalism advocacy group reports
From CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq
Colleagues and family members mourn over the body of Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqa, who was killed during Israeli bombardment, during his funeral in Khan Younis, Gaza, on December 16. Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
In the three months since the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas began, at least 79 journalists have been killed in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Monday.
As of January 8, the deaths include 72 Palestinians, four Israelis, and three Lebanese, according to CPJ's data.
The CPJ statement listed the names of all journalists killed since October 7, saying thye reporting was "based on information obtained from CPJ's sources in the region and media reports." It includes Al Jazeera photojournalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Palestinian freelance videographer Mustafa Thuraya, who were killed in Gaza on Sunday.
"Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and extensive power outages," CPJ said in the statement.
"CPJ emphasizes that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties," said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.
"CPJ is investigating all reports of journalists and media workers killed, injured, or missing in the war, which has led to the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992," the journalism advocacy group said.
