February 8, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

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.

The US conducted self-defense strikes on Wednesday against two Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles preparing to launch against ships in the Red Sea, according to a statement from US Central Command. Later that day, CENTCOM forces conducted a second strike against a Houthi mobile land attack cruise missile that was prepared to launch, the statement added. 

“These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy and merchant vessels.”

The US has regularly been conducting dynamic self-defense strikes against Houthi weaponry and equipment inside Yemen, and has also conducted larger-scale strikes against the Houthis alongside the UK.

The Houthis have said they will not stop their attacks until Israel ends its war in Gaza.

The Jordanian King, Abdullah II, has departed on a tour through several Western capitals, including a stop in Washington to meet US President Joe Biden and press for a ceasefire in Gaza.

 “The royal tour aims to mobilize international support for a ceasefire in Gaza, protect civilians, provide humanitarian aid to the Strip on a permanent and sufficient basis, and emphasize the importance of finding a political horizon that leads to a comprehensive settlement that ends the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” a statement from Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court said Thursday.  

King Abdullah II will also meet Canadian Prime Minister in Ottawa, French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and then a number of senior Western and European officials at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

King Abdullah has joined other Middle Eastern countries in calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian aid to reach people in the enclave. Last month, he said Israel had created "an entire generation" of orphans.

A Hamas delegation led by deputy leader Khalil Al-Hayya arrived in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Thursday for talks on Gaza, the militant group said in a statement.

CNN reported on Wednesday that Hamas had presented its response, proposing a three-phase deal — with each lasting 45 days — that would see the gradual release of hostages held in the enclave in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel, as well as the start of a massive humanitarian and rebuilding effort. 

Contrary to earlier demands, Hamas did not call for an immediate end to the war.

Negotiations for a permanent ceasefire would take place during the truce, and the remaining hostages would only be released once a final deal to end the war was agreed, the document said.

Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for saying Wednesday that he had not committed to the "delusional" demands of Hamas and that Israel's aim is "complete victory." He also called on the US to stop supporting Israel.