January 26, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Vital medical services "have collapsed" at Nasser Hospital, which is the largest functioning hospital in the Gaza Strip, according to Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said access to resupply the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis "remains challenging" due to intense fighting in the vicinity.

"[H]undreds of patients and health workers have fled," he said in a statement on Friday. "Currently 350 patients and 5000 displaced people remain at the hospital."

Earlier on Friday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said “fragments of shrapnel” were going through the walls of their headquarters at the Al-Amal Hospital building in Khan Younis, which the aid agency said was surrounded by Israeli tanks.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said Hamas was operating from inside the Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals. CNN cannot independently verify those claims.

CNN's Celine Alkhaldi and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

The Marlin Luanda oil tanker is on fire in the Gulf of Aden after it was struck by a missile, the commodities group Trafigura, said on Friday.

Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement they fired missiles toward the "British oil tanker" in response to the "American-British aggression against our country (Yemen)" and in support of the Palestinian people. 

Trafigura, which has offices in Britain, said it is monitoring the situation and that military ships in the region are headed to provide assistance.

A US destroyer, the USS Carney, is among the vessels responding to the distress call, according to a US official. The Carney shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by the Houthis toward the destroyer earlier Friday, according to US Central Command.

The British government has yet to comment on the attack.

This post has been updated to note that a US destroyer is responding to the commercial vessel's distress call.

CNN's Oren Liebermann and Haley Britzky contributed to this report.

Israeli Master Sgt. Omri Erental was kneeling at the mouth of a tunnel shaft in Gaza, standing guard while waiting for a specialized unit to arrive, when he suddenly spotted movement down below.

Other soldiers in his Israel Defense Forces combat engineering unit had already thrown two grenades into the tunnel shaft, so Erental turned his flashlight on.

The impact was a 7.62-millimeter bullet that pierced his cheek and took out a fragment of his jaw, before lodging in his neck – very close to critical nerves and arteries, according to Erental and his doctor. As Erental crawled back to safety, his fellow soldiers killed the militant who shot him from inside the tunnel, he said. 

Exposing tunnels is central to the Israeli military’s campaign against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave, but the work presents big challenges and dangers. Israel uses enormous bunker-busting bombs to penetrate deep underground, targeting what it says are Hamas command centers and fighters – but these often leave gaping craters where civilian buildings once stood and can kill large numbers of civilians.

Members of Israel’s combat engineering forces also send drones, dogs and sometimes troops deep into booby-trapped tunnels in order to clear them of Hamas fighters, uncover potentially useful intelligence, and then ultimately detonate them.

Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel (Res.), a former member of Israel’s national security council, estimates Israel has only discovered about 60% of the hundreds of miles of tunnels below Gaza and has detonated about 20.

Israeli officials believe that many Hamas fighters — including Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar — are surviving in sophisticated tunnels equipped with electricity, bathrooms and stocks of food and water. They could last in the underground shelters for up to two months, Nuriel predicts.

Watch Jeremy Diamond's report:

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Friday that he hopes Israel will comply with Friday's ruling from the UN's top court, the International Court of Justice, ordering the country to take action to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. 

In a statement from the UN chief's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, Guterres reiterated the legally binding nature of ICJ decisions, adding that he trusts "that all parties will duly comply with the Order from the Court." 

The UN chief has repeatedly called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, expressing deep concern about the high reported number of civilian casualties and the "catastrophic" humanitarian situation in the enclave. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier hailed the preliminary ruling on South Africa's accusation of genocide as a rejection of discrimination against his country. 

Israel's foreign ministry said it is expecting the main United Nations relief agency in Gaza to conduct an urgent internal investigation after it fired staff members allegedly involved in the brutal and deadly October 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel.

CNN reached out to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, for details about the nature of the alleged involvement and what information Israeli authorities shared with the agency, but they had no additional information to share.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said an investigation is being launched, and anyone involved will be held accountable, "including through criminal prosecution."

A new video released by Hamas' militant wing, Al Qassam Brigades, shows three female Israeli hostages in an apparent attempt to ramp up pressure on Israeli leaders amid reports of a hostage deal being on the table. 

The video, released on Telegram, opens with an animation of an hourglass with the three women's pictures on it, and text reading, "Time is running out, more than 107 days have passed, before it is too late." Then, there are heavily edited clips of each of the three hostages speaking.

Nineteen-year-old soldiers Karina Ariev and Daniel Gilboa, and 30-year-old Doron Steinbrecher call on the Israeli government for their release and are likely speaking under duress. 

This latest video, like previous hostage videos from the militant group, is highly produced and edited with jump cuts connecting soundbites from the hostages together. The videos also include dramatized sound effects, transitions and graphics — an example of Hamas' tactics involving using hostages as leverage and taunting the captives' families, in what the Israeli military has previously referred to as "psychological torment."

CNN is not airing the video, and it is not immediately possible to verify when and where it was filmed.

There are no "imminent developments" on an agreement to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza, the White House says, even amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to reach a deal.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby described ongoing talks as productive but not yet reaching the point of success.

He said on Friday, Biden had spoken to Egypt's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi as well as Qatar's emir to discuss ongoing hostage talks and that the US is doing "everything we can to facilitate another hostage deal just like we did back in November."

Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, was returning to Washington on Friday from meetings in the region, Kirby said. He described those talks as a "good set of discussions."

The 17-judge panel of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued emergency measures ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts that could fall foul of the Genocide Convention.

It comes as at least 26,083 people have been killed and 64,000 injured by Israeli attacks in Gaza since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said Friday. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Here's more about the preliminary ruling and other latest news from the war in Gaza:

What UN's top court ordered: The ICJ made a preliminary ruling with six emergency measures in the genocide case South Africa filed against Israel. It said Israel must “ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts” that could go against the Genocide Convention. The court’s decisions are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no way of enforcing them.

The reaction from involved parties: Israel, South Africa and Palestinians welcomed the ruling, even though no one got what they asked for. It rejected Israel’s request for the case to be thrown out, but it also stopped short of ordering Israel to halt the war as South Africa has asked. A number of countries in the Middle East — including Qatar, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — also said they approved of the ruling.

US pauses funding to main UN relief agency in Gaza: The US State Department "has temporarily paused additional funding" to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East amid allegations that some of the UN agency’s employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, spokesperson Matt Miller announced Friday. The commissioner general of the agency terminated the contracts of the individuals in question and said they will be investigated.

Meanwhile, in Gaza: Israel's siege on hospitals in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis continued for the fifth day, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, aid workers and doctors, as the Israel Defense Forces said that Hamas militants were operating in them. The IDF had issued an evacuation call, but eyewitnesses say that civilians were shot at whenever they tried moving locations. In a video obtained by CNN, Mohammaed El Helo, a journalist in Khan Younis, is seen running while carrying a bleeding man on his shoulders. Israeli forces “don’t distinguish between one and another. They target everybody,” he said.

And in Israel, Netanyahu faces domestic opposition: More than 40 senior former Israeli national security officials, celebrated scientists and prominent business leaders have sent a letter to Israel’s president and speaker of parliament demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be removed from office for posing what they say is an “existential” threat to the country. They say Netanyahu is responsible for “creating the circumstances” that led to the massacre in Israel on October 7. “The victim’s blood is on Netanyahu’s hands,” the letter reads. It comes as other political figures have also called for fresh elections, saying the public has no trust in its government.

Efforts to release hostages: US President Joe Biden has deployed his point person on hostage talks to Europe for multiparty talks on the contours of a possible agreement — the latest in a spate of recent diplomatic efforts to free the more than 100 hostages held in Gaza while brokering a prolonged pause in fighting. CIA Director Bill Burns’ meetings over the coming days with the Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs and the Qatari prime minister are a sign of ongoing progress as the White House presses for a deal. However, officials voiced caution that discussions so far have been volatile, and that hurdles remain in coming to a deal that all sides can agree on.

The US State Department said Friday’s International Court of Justice ruling is consistent with the Biden administration’s position that Israel must do more to protect civilians. 

The ruling is also in line with the US view that Israel has a right to defend itself and "to take action to ensure the terrorist attacks of October 7 cannot be repeated, in accordance with international law,” according to the spokesperson.

The official added that the US maintains “that allegations of genocide are unfounded and note the court did not make a finding about genocide or call for a ceasefire in its ruling and that it called for the unconditional, immediate release of all hostages being held by Hamas."