February 8, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

The US killed or wounded more than 40 militants in its strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on February 2, according to the Defense Department.

US Central Command is still assessing the results of the strikes, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said at a briefing Thursday. The strikes included more than 85 targets the militant groups have used to attack US forces, he said.

Strikes on Houthi targets: Ryder also provided an update on February 3 strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, saying those attacks destroyed or damaged 35 Houthi targets at 13 locations.

Remember: The US has described recent attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria and attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes by the Houthis, who are also affiliated with Tehran, as "distinct but related challenges."

In both cases, Washington is seeking to deter further attacks while avoiding wider conflict in a region already roiled by the Israel-Hamas war.

Two American citizens were detained by the Israel Defense Forces during a raid of a home in Gaza early Thursday morning local time, according to a family member in the United States.

Hashem Alagha, 20, and Borak Alagha, 18, were among a group of roughly 20 men detained by IDF soldiers during the raid, according to Yasmeen Elagha, who identified herself as their cousin.

She said both men are American citizens, born in the suburbs of Chicago.

Elagha told CNN that she spoke over the phone with Hashem’s mother — her aunt — who was present during the raid and claims IDF broke through the door while the group was sleeping, tied up the women and children inside the home, and took the men into custody.  

They do not know where the men have been taken at this point.

Elagha says the home belongs to her uncle and her family has no ties to Hamas.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment. 

The US is aware of reports that the Israeli military has detained two American citizens in Gaza and is "seeking additional information," State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a news briefing. Patel did not share further details.

The United States would not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah "without serious planning" around the more than million displaced civilians, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said.

Patel said the US would not support such a military operation without planning "as it relates to the more than a million people who are sheltering there as well as without considering the impacts on humanitarian assistance and the safe departure of foreign nationals."

Patel added that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made this clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in meetings in Israel Wednesday.

Asked where the more than a million people in Rafah would be able to go, given they cannot return to northern Gaza and the ongoing military action in the South, Patel said, "These are legitimate questions that we believe that the Israelis should answer."

Patel claimed "we have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation" in Rafah.

Despite repeated follow-ups, he would not give details about this "evidence" or whether it came from Blinken’s briefing with Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi and other top officials Wednesday.

Netanyahu said publicly on Wednesday that the "IDF is preparing to fight in Rafah."

An Israeli airstrike targeting a room in the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City killed five people on Thursday, journalist Khader Zaanoun told CNN, who received his information from health officials in the city.

In Khan Younis, a doctor inside the Nasser Medical Complex, Ahmad Al Moghrabi, posted a video on Instagram showing a bleeding colleague who he said had been shot by a sniper while inside the medical facility.

“The sniper shot my nurse friend beside me on his chest at the operative theatre. He is seriously injured,” Moghrabi wrote in the caption.

Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesperson of the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, said that there are 300 medical staff, 450 injured people and 10,000 displaced people in the Nasser hospital complex.

They are exposed to disease and hunger, as well as health hazards due to the accumulation of medical and non-medical waste as Israeli forces are preventing its removal, he added.

At the nearby Al-Amal hospital, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said there was “intense and continuous gunfire” in the vicinity of the facility Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday it was intensifying fighting in western Khan Younis.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the attacks on the medical facilities.

The Israeli military consistently says it does not target medical facilities as such but that it will attack Hamas fighters wherever they are.

The death toll in Gaza is approaching 28,000, the Hamas-controlled health ministry reports, as fears grow over Israel's plans to embark on a ground assault in Rafah. The southern city is currently home to many people already displaced from other parts of the enclave by Israel's offensive.

Here are the latest developments:

The Iraqi Armed Forces said Thursday they are compelled “more than ever” to terminate the United States’ mission in Iraq, citing the overnight drone attack on a vehicle in the capital Baghdad, that killed a senior commander with the pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah militia.

American forces “conducted a blatant assassination through an airstrike in the heart of a residential neighborhood in the capital, Baghdad, showing no regard for civilian lives or international laws,” the statement added. 

“By this act, the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens. Even more concerning is that the coalition consistently deviates from the reasons and objectives for its presence on our territory,” the statement said.

The US military strike on Wednesday in Baghdad killed a Kataib Hezbollah commander who was responsible for attacks on American forces in the region, according to US Central Command.

The strike came as the US has been planning retaliatory attacks against Iran-backed militants who launched a drone attack at a US outpost in Jordan last month that killed three American soldiers.

The US has blamed that attack on an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

At least 14 people were killed, including 5 children, after Israeli airstrikes targeted several residential buildings in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, an eyewitness and local journalist Tareq Al Hilou told CNN.

Airstrikes hit the Tal Al-Sultan and Saudi neighborhoods in the western part of Rafah, Al Hilou said, adding that there was heavy bombardment south of city near the border with Egypt. 

In Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, dozens of rockets were launched over residential neighborhoods in the early hours of Thursday, particularly in the eastern part of the city, Al Hilou said. 

In central Gaza, in Deir El-Balah, a journalist working for Palestine TV, Nafez Abdul Jawad, was killed after an Israeli missile struck the house he was staying in, eyewitness and journalist Mohammad Al-Sawalhi, who is in central Gaza, told CNN Thursday.

In Gaza City, north of the strip, eyewitness, and journalist Khader Al Zaanoun told CNN that there were several deaths and injuries after Israeli forces “opened fire on civilians in alleys and streets” in the western part of the city, particularly in in University Square, Al Sina’a , Al Matar Intersection, and Al-Saraya. 

CNN reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on claims Israeli forces opened fire on civilians in Gaza City, and that residential buildings were targeted across the strip.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed the Middle East Thursday after voicing optimism that there is still room to reach a deal to free the hostages and pause the fighting in Gaza. 

The top US diplomat's comments come despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just hours earlier dismissing the response as "delusional" and vowing to continue the offensive until "complete victory." 

On Wednesday, Blinken also traveled to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, whom he pressed on the need to take steps to “reform and revitalize” the PA.

Prior to Israel, the top US diplomat traveled to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar, where the meetings “focused on ensuring … that we can use any pause to continue to build out plans for the day after in Gaza – the security, humanitarian, reconstruction, governance.”

Blinken has consistently outlined a series of principles for Gaza after the conflict ends – no reoccupation by Israeli forces and no reduction in territory among them.

However, Netanyahu has publicly dismissed many of these key tenets, as recently as Wednesday after meeting with Blinken.

Blinken met with additional Israeli officials on Thursday, as well as with the families of the hostages.

International alarm is mounting ahead of an anticipated Israeli ground assault in Rafah, a southern Gaza city close to the border with Egypt where many displaced people living in the enclave have sought refuge.

One million people are estimated to be crammed into a tent city, with satellite images showing that the makeshift shelter is rapidly expanding.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned Israel against expanding its operations into Rafah, saying it would be “fatal for displaced civilians and humanitarian aid.”

“An expansion of hostilities could turn Rafah into a zone of bloodshed and destruction that people won’t be able to escape. There is nowhere left for people to flee to,” the NRC’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director Angelita Caredda said in a statement Thursday.

Egypt has also warned of the dangers of an operation in Rafah, with the country in particular concerned that large numbers of people living in Gaza could be displaced into Egypt.

“No doubt, targeting this area of the Strip, which is filled with so many civilians, poses a danger,” a foreign ministry spokesperson, Ahmed Abu Zeid, said in an interview with Al-Ghad TV.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israeli soldiers will soon shift the focus of their ground offensive to Rafah.

“Our soldiers are now in Khan Yunis, Hamas’s main stronghold. They’ll soon go into Rafah, Hamas’s last bastion,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday.