January 8, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

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.

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.

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.

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:

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. 

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.

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.”

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.”

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.  

The conflict in Gaza has created “an entire generation of orphans,” King Abdullah II of Jordan said in a statement Monday. 

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.

“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.

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 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.

A senior Hezbollah commander, Wissam Tawil, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on his car in southern Lebanon, a Lebanese security source told CNN on Monday. 

In a statement this afternoon, Hezbollah also acknowledged the death of Tawil, known as Hajj Jawad, in an Israeli attack. 

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment. 

Tawil is the most senior Hezbollah commander to be killed in an Israeli strike since the onset of daily crossfire between the Lebanon-based group and Israeli forces in October.

The organization published photographs of Tawil posing with top officials, including slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani as well as slain Hezbollah militant leaders Imad Mughniyyeh and Mustafa Badreddine, further indicating that he was a high-ranking Hezbollah commander. 

Some background: On Saturday, Hezbollah launched a rocket barrage on an Israeli airbase in northern Israel, in an attack the group said was a “preliminary response” to the suspected Israeli attack that killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in southern Beirut last week.

Israel and Hezbollah have since traded strikes over the past day, three months since hostilities broke out in October. 

Overnight and into this morning, Israeli fighter jets, a helicopter and a drone struck southern Lebanon where Hezbollah operates.

Israeli fighter jets struck a Hezbollah military compound in the area of Marwahin and an Israeli helicopter targeted an area where an anti-tank missile launch was fired earlier. The IDF also said that an Israeli drone struck a launcher which was used to fire in Israeli territory. 

Hezbollah-owned Al Manar said the group had been targeting Israeli forces on the border between Lebanon and Israel. 

This morning Israeli air force struck “a series of Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon, including military sites,” after an anti-tank missile was launched toward the city of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. 

Read the full story here.

The UN's main agency in Gaza says there have been 220 incidents involving its premises, including 63 direct hits during the three-month-long war.

In a situation report published Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) also said there had been 23 incidents of "military use and/or interference" at UNRWA facilities since October 7. It did not say who was responsible.

As of January 6, 146 of its employees have been killed, the UN agency added.

UNRWA has more than 30,000 staff, most of whom are Palestinian refugees, according to its website. More than 13,000 staff members are based in the Gaza Strip, according to agency statistics.

One of its two headquarter offices is located in the Gaza Strip.

The agency's shelters are still harboring huge numbers of internally displaced Palestinians, the report said, highlighting that the average shelter is currently housing four times its capacity.

As of January 2, close to 1.4 million internally displaced people were sheltering in 155 UNRWA installations, the report said. 

The agency's chief, Philippe Lazzarini, highlighted the devastating impact of the conflict in a recent social media post, saying Gaza is "simply becoming uninhabitable."