January 30, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel “will not release thousands of terrorists,” as part of a deal with Hamas, vowing to press on until Israel’s original war aims are achieved.

And he pushed back at Hamas’s main stated aim in any deal, saying Israel would not pull troops out of Gaza.

Netanyahu said he was committed to “total victory …. And the majority of our nation and we are not going to compromise for less than that.”

The prime minister's comments came as Hamas has said it is studying a proposal for a potential hostage deal and ceasefire but that it wants the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.  

Three US service members injured in the drone attack on a base in Jordan on Sunday are expected to arrive at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany this evening, according to a spokesperson. More than 40 US service members were injured in the attack.

All three are reported to be stable, but one is in critical condition, Kirk Frady, a spokesperson for Medical Readiness Command, Europe, said. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center is the largest Defense Department hospital outside the United States.

Once they arrive at the hospital, they will undergo an examination from the trauma team, which will determined whether any of the service members require evacuation to the US for further treatment.

Both Iceland and Estonia announced they are suspending funds to UNRWA, the main United Nations relief agency in Gaza. The move is in light of the allegations brought by Israel that some of the UN agency’s employees were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna announced the suspension and called for a "quick and in-depth investigation" into the "very serious allegations." 

Iceland's Foreign Minister Bjarni Benediktsson also called for a thorough investigation and said contributions would be frozen until consultations with the other Nordic countries, the United Nation’s Regional Information Centre for Western Europe said in a press release on Monday.

So far, the agency has fired the employees in question. But advocates have warned that lack of funding would spell disaster for the civilians.

Who else has halted funding: Many Western countries, who are also among the agency's top donors, have decided to suspend the funding. This includes Finland, United States, Italy, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, the UK, France, Japan, Austria, Romania and New Zealand.

Who continues to fund: Norway has already said it will continue funding UNRWA, along with Ireland, Turkey, Luxembourg, Jordan and the European Union.

The Gaza Crossings Authority says that 100 unidentified bodies have been returned to Gaza from Israel.

Hisham Adwan, a spokesperson for the Crossings Authority, told CNN that “100 unidentified bodies were delivered from the Israeli side through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday morning in a container.”

He said the bodies had been taken from the Gaza Strip, and it was possible that some of them were taken from cemeteries in Gaza. CNN has previously reported that the Israeli military desecrated at least 16 cemeteries in its ground offensive in Gaza, leaving gravestones ruined, soil upturned, and, in some cases, bodies unearthed.

In Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, where fighting escalated recently, Israeli forces destroyed a cemetery, removing bodies in what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN was part of a search for the remains of hostages seized by Hamas during the October 7 terror attacks.

The bodies returned on Tuesday were later buried in an open space in Rafah in southern Gaza.

In response to a question from CNN about the remains of 100 Palestinians, the IDF said bodies had been returned to Gaza once it was established they were not those of Israeli hostages. The IDF said it “is committed to fulfilling its urgent mission to rescue the hostages, and find and return the bodies of hostages that are held in Gaza.”

This post has been updated to reflect that the IDF confirmed the return of bodies to Gaza but did not specify a number.

CNN's Lauren Izso contributed reporting to this post.

Israeli protesters have again blocked trucks carrying aid for Gaza, demanding that humanitarian aid only be delivered in exchange for the release of the hostages. 

Activists with the "Tsav 9’" movement evaded police roadblocks to reach the Nitzana crossing, where aid trucks are inspected before being sent to Rafah to cross into Gaza.

Here's a look at where the crossings are located:

Tsav 9 comprises of families of hostages, fallen soldiers, demobilized reservists, and displaced Israeli civilians.

On Tuesday morning, Tsav 9 said the crossing was closed to traffic and “not a single supply truck to Hamas passes through here.”

One woman, whose brother was killed in the Gaza Strip, said, "No truck will enter until the last of the abductees returns." 

There has been no comment so far from Israeli police or the agency that administers the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza. 

Last week, protestors disrupted aid traffic passing through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, before the Israeli military declared it a closed military zone.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it lost contact with a team in central Gaza that was dispatched to rescue a 6-year-old girl, for more than 18 hours. 

The girl, Hind, was trapped in a car after it was fired on Monday. She was in the car with six of her family members, all of whom were killed in the attack, PRCS said. 

“We are deeply concerned about the safety of the ambulance team that has set out yesterday evening on a mission to rescue the 6-year-old girl Hind Rajab from Gaza City,” PRCS said. “We still remain unaware of their fate, uncertain whether they succeeded in evacuating her or not."

PRCS released an audio clip purporting to be the moment gunfire was directed at the car. In the clip, 15-year-old Layan Hamadeh, who is related to Hind, is heard speaking to a PRCS paramedic, crying for help. 

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the audio clip released by PRCS, and allegations made that six people were killed after a car was shot at in Gaza City. 

Hamas said it is studying a new truce proposal received by the head of its political bureau at a meeting in Paris that involved officials from Israel, Egypt, Qatar and the United States. 

CNN has previously reported that a broad framework for a hostage release and potential ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel would call for the release of civilian hostages over a six-week pause, and that three Palestinian prisoners would be released for each civilian hostage returned from Gaza.

However, whether the deal goes through depends on if the two sides can reach an agreement on Israeli troops in Gaza. Hamas said its priority was a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, but Israel has said repeatedly that it will not accept an indefinite cessation of hostilities. 

Hamas' assessment of the truce comes at a critical time, as Israeli forces acknowledge that pockets of resistance by the militant group continue in the north of the territory. The IDF has instructed civilians to evacuate from northern Gaza for the south as fighting intensifies around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Catch up with the latest here:

The Israeli military has ordered 41% of Gaza to evacuate since it started dividing the strip into numbered blocks in December, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Tuesday.

Since December 1,158 square kilometers (447 square miles) of the Gaza Strip, which 1.38 million people called home before October 7, was put under the orders, OHCA said. That area contained 161 shelters hosting an estimated 700,750 internally displaced persons (IDPs), it added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has been instructing people to leave particular areas of Gaza to avoid fighting in its war against Hamas.

On Monday, the Israeli military ”urged” residents of Al-Nassar, Al-Sheikh Radwan, Al-Shati Refugee Camp, northern and southern Rimal, Sabra, Al-Sheikh Ajlin, and Tel Al-Hawa in western Gaza City to evacuate “for your safety” towards “designated shelters” to the south. 

The new order covered an area of 12.43 square kilometers, which amounts to 3.4% of the Gaza Strip. This area was home to almost 300,000 Palestinians before October 7, containing 59 shelters with about 88,000 IDPs sheltered there, OCHA said. 

Some background: As of January 26, there were an estimated 1.7 million internally displaced people in Gaza, OCHA said, citing UNRWA, adding that the ongoing fighting and subsequent evacuation orders have forced some households to move away from the shelters where they were initially registered. 

“They are weak now, they always have diarrhea, their faces are yellow,” Hanadi Gamal Saed El Jamara, 38, whose family was displaced from northern Gaza, told CNN on January 9. “My 17-year-old daughter tells me she feels dizziness, my husband is not eating.”

She tries to feed her kids at least once a day, she says, while tending to her husband, a cancer and diabetes patient.

As Gaza spirals toward full-scale famine, displaced civilians and health workers told CNN they go hungry so their children can eat what little is available. If Palestinians find water, it is likely undrinkable.

When relief trucks trickle into the strip, people clamber over each other to grab aid. Children living on the streets, after being forced from their homes by Israel’s bombardment, cry and fight over stale bread. Others reportedly walk for hours in the cold searching for food, risking exposure to Israeli strikes.

Even before the war, two out of three people in Gaza relied on food support, Arif Husain, the chief economist at the World Food Programme (WFP), told CNN. Palestinians have lived through 17 years of partial blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt.

Learn more about the looming famine in Gaza.