February 28, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas has moved here.

The New Zealand government designated all of Hamas as a “terrorist entity” on Thursday, broadening its policy on the Islamist group.

The country now considers Hamas’ political wing a “terrorist entity”. It designated the military wing of Hamas a “terrorist entity” in 2010.

“What happened on 7 October reinforces we can no longer distinguish between the military and political wings of Hamas,” New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.

He said that the “organisation as a whole bears responsibility for these horrific terrorist attacks.”

The move means that any assets of Hamas in New Zealand will be frozen, and any financial or property transactions or material support to Hamas is now a criminal offense in the country.

Calls to end violence: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon clarified that “this designation targets Hamas, not the provision of private humanitarian support to Palestinian civilians.”

It will also not hinder New Zealand’s efforts to provide humanitarian and development assistance to the civilians in Gaza, Luxon said.

Consular support to New Zealand citizens or permanent residents in the conflict zone will also not be affected.

Peters said that Wellington remains “gravely concerned” about the impact of the conflict on civilians in Gaza and called “for an end to the violence and an urgent resumption of the Middle East Peace Process.”

“A lasting solution to the conflict will only be achieved by peaceful means,” Peters said.

A child carries a sack filled with personal belongings at a camp for displaced Palestinians, in Rafah, Gaza, on February 28.

The United States is considering possibility of airdropping aid into Gaza as the humanitarian crisis there worsens and as aid fails to reach people in the war-torn strip, two US officials told CNN Wednesday.

US officials have consistently said that much more must be done in order for critically-necessary assistance to reach people in Gaza, where more than 2 million people are at “imminent risk” of famine, according to the United Nations. 

One US official said the prospect of airdrops is being seriously considered based on conditions on the ground. Axios first reported that the US is exploring the move.

Earlier this week, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar and France airdropped relief aid on various areas in the Gaza Strip in a sign of how desperate the situation has become. 

Top US officials have called on Israel to open additional crossings to allow aid to enter Gaza, as the flow of trucks into the enclave trickled down to less than 100 per day last week, according to Samantha Power, administrator for the US Agency for International Development.

“It is absolutely clear, that as conditions continue to deteriorate in Gaza, for the Gazan people, two crossings is not enough,” Power said Wednesday in a video message from the Kerem Shalom crossing. “This is a matter of life and death.”

Power met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, one of the US officials told CNN.

A woman mourns a loved one killed during Israeli bombardment, outside Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza on February 28.

At least 20 people died following Israeli airstrikes on buildings in central Gaza Wednesday evening local time, according to health officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

The health officials did not provide further details but said the death toll could rise, as many people remain under the rubble. 

Several witnesses told CNN Wednesday that airstrikes hit residential buildings in Al Bureij and Nuseirat, in central Gaza.

CNN cannot independently verify the number of casualties.

A video obtained by CNN from Al-Aqsa Hospital shows a number of deceased people being brought from the area to the facility. It shows the bodies of several people being wrapped in white cloths. The footage showed family members weeping and crying hysterically near the bodies. 

The video also shows several wounded people being carried on stretchers.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to CNN about Wednesday’s deadly central Gaza strikes saying, “The IDF struck a target of the terrorist organization Hamas at the time and location described. A tunnel is also known to be there.”

This post has been updated with the latest comments from the IDF.

A German warship accidentally fired on a US drone over the Red Sea on Tuesday, mistaking it as a Houthi drone, according to a US defense official familiar with the incident.  

The Hessen, a German frigate that was operating in the Red Sea as part of an EU effort to safeguard the critical waterway, fired on the US MQ-9 drone, but missed it, the official said.

It was unclear what weapon the frigate fired at the US drone, the official said. 

On Tuesday, Germany’s armed forces said on social media that the Hessen engaged two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs.)

In both cases, the German military said the frigate “initiated defensive measures” and successfully “fought” the drones.

“On the frigate, there were no injuries or damage to property,” the military said.

The German military’s statement did not mention mistakenly firing at the US drone. 

Germany said the ship was operating as part of EUNAVFOR ASPIDES, the European Union military operation to safeguard commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The EU operation works alongside Operation Prosperity Guardian, the US mission to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

In a statement about the same incident on Tuesday evening, US Central Command said US aircraft and a “coalition warship” shot down five Houthi one-way attack drones in the Red Sea. Central Command did not name the ship or its country, but the US defense official confirmed to CNN that this ship was the Hessen.

Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have distanced themselves from US President Joe Biden’s comments after he projected optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, 

Earlier this week, CNN reported Hamas had backed off some key demands in the negotiations for a deal and pause in the fighting in Gaza, bringing the negotiating parties closer to an initial agreement that could halt the fighting and see a group of Israeli hostages released, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Here are other headlines you should know:

At least two people were killed and 14 others wounded as a result of Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon Wednesday night local time, according to Lebanon’s state-run NNA news. 

The airstrikes hit areas in the towns Kafra and Seddiqine, situated near the border with Israel, NNA said. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a short statement Wednesday night that “IDF fighter jets struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the areas of Kafra and Seddiqine in southern Lebanon.”

“In addition, IDF artillery struck in the area of Houla,” the IDF said. 

Some context: According to figures released by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health on February 23, at least 199 people have been killed and 941 people have been wounded since October 8 as a result of “Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon.”

Nearly 90,000 people have been displaced from areas and towns close to the border with Israel since the conflict started, the Lebanese health ministry said in its report. 

The United States called on Israel to sign a letter pledging it will not commit human rights violations with US weapons, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller confirmed. He noted the request is not specific to Israel, but applies to all nations who receive US military assistance.

He said the letter calls on countries receiving US assistance to “provide us written assurances that recipients, number one, will use the weapons in accordance with the US with a law of war and, number two, will facilitate and not arbitrarily deny or restrict humanitarian assistance.”

“There is a process that we are engaged in with every country that receives military assistance for the United States to make sure they are aware of the requirements of the national security memorandum, make sure that they are aware of the timeline that is outlined in the national security memorandum,” Miller explained at a State Department briefing Wednesday.
“It requires a 45-day timeline for these countries to provide written assurances, so we’re going about that process now,” he said.

More context: Israel has come under immense scrutiny for the way it has prosecuted its war in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and US officials have repeatedly called on Israel to do more to decrease the death toll. There are growing calls from Congress to condition military aid to Israel. Nations around the world are sounding the alarm against a potential military offensive in Rafah, where more than a million people have been displaced.

Miller previously confirmed that the US is assessing civilian harm from US weapons in Israel.

Displaced Palestinians arrive at Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City to take shelter on February 22.

At least six children died in recent days as a result of dehydration and malnutrition in Gaza, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health in Gaza. 

At least four children died at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the past few days, and two children died at the Al-Shifa Medical Complex on Wednesday, the health ministry and a local doctor said.

“Another baby died today as a result of malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is the only pediatrics hospital in northern Gaza,” Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the acting director and head of the pediatrics at Kamal Adwan Hospital, said in a statement Wednesday.

Safiya said the generators would stop working tonight because of the hospital’s fuel shortage, “which means our incubators and oxygen supply will stop and only will run on solar panels during the day.”

“The hospital is out of service starting today due to running out of fuel,” and “surgical operations in the hospital were completely stopped as a result of lack of medical supplies,” Safiya added. 

Safiya also pointed out the lack of medical aid and baby formula in the hospital and said babies are getting milk that’s “diluted and not concentrated” every five or six hours instead of the recommended three to four hours.

Mothers are unable to produce natural milk “due to dehydration and lack of nutritional food,” Safiya said.

The United Nations is urging an investigation into indiscriminate Israeli fire that killed half of a family in Gaza, after a CNN report about it was published Wednesday.

“We call for a full investigation into what was reported,” the UN secretary-general’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday during a news conference, in response to a question from CNN. 

The UN does not have its own information on the incident, “but they need to be investigated,” Dujarric said, reiterating the UN’s plea for Israel to allow more journalists in Gaza.  

Israel still has not provided evidence to support its allegations that members of the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks, according to the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“To my knowledge, up to today, there (hasn’t) been any new information transmitted to UNRWA and to the United Nations,” the organization’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in his first one-on-one TV interview since the allegations emerged in January.
“We keep now calling to the Israeli authority to cooperate with the investigation team so that we can come to a swift conclusion,” he continued.

“We haven’t received anything more than what we see on the media,” he said.

Lazzarini called footage that purports to show a UNRWA staff member participating in the kidnapping of Yonatan Samerano — who was killed in kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 — “shocking images.”

Background on the footage: A video screened last week during a press conference with the Hostage and Missing Families Forum showed a white SUV approaching the entrance of what appears to be the kibbutz. Two men exit the vehicle and are seen carrying a body from the road into the vehicle. One of the men is identified in the footage as an UNWRA worker. CNN could not independently verify the identity of the men or Israel’s allegations about his involvement with Hamas.

Lazzarini said Wednesday that he “personally cannot recognize the person on the video.” He called for “more forensic evidence to be provided,” while acknowledging the name of the accused man in the video “matched our staff list” and that his UNRWA contract was terminated.

Remember: UNRWA fired 10 of the 12 staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 attacks and launched an investigation into the allegations, in hopes of keeping international funding to the agency flowing at a critical time. At least 16 countries have paused or suspended funding to UNRWA since the allegations emerged, Lazzarini said, warning that operations beyond March will be impacted unless more money is donated.

The Dome of the Rock, in the al-Aqsa mosque compound, is seen in the distance as an Israeli soldier stands guard during Friday noon prayer along a street in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud, on January 26.

The US called on Israel to allow worshippers to go to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem for Ramadan, as Hamas calls for Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march on the mosque on the first day of the holy month.

Far-right Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben Gvir has proposed increased restrictions to the holy site for Palestinians during Ramadan. Such restrictions, if instituted, threaten to ignite already increased tensions.

About the site: The al-Aqsa compound is one of the most revered places in Islam and Judaism. The sacred grounds — known to Muslims as Al Haram Al Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as Temple Mount — have been a flashpoint of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians for decades. 

“We continue to urge Israel to facilitate access to the Temple Mount for peaceful worshippers during Ramadan, consistent with past practice, and that will continue to be our position,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller at a briefing on Wednesday. 

Miller said allowing access to al-Aqsa is “a matter that directly is important to Israel’s security,” adding that “it is not in Israel’s security interest to inflame tensions in the West Bank or in the broader region.”

CNN’s Salam Abdelaziz and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

After US President Joe Biden projected optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have distanced themselves from his comments.

Meetings are currently taking place, but there are disagreements over “numbers, ratios and troop movements,” Majed Al-Ansari, a Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh said the militant group has displayed flexibility in negotiations but remains ready to continue fighting.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza is approaching 30,000 people, according to the health ministry in the enclave. The total number of people killed in Gaza is around 29,878, with the number of injured reaching 70,215, since October 7, according to the ministry.

Here’s what else to know:

The right side of Roba Abu Jibba’s face is almost completely gone – a deep, bloody wound is where her eye should be.

The 18-year-old, confused and in pain, lies on a gurney in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. She tries to explain how she got there. She had been sheltering with her family for two months in an industrial warehouse on Salaheddin Street, the strip’s main north-south highway, she explains, when they came under heavy fire from the Israeli military.

In a whisper, she recalls being shot at, explosions and bulldozing. She says she watched her brothers and sisters die around her. Her mother and three of her siblings were able to flee, but she’s not sure where they went.

After a chance encounter and the discovery of Roba’s identification card under rubble, a weeks-long CNN investigation has been able to piece together what happened during one terrifying night in early January, which left five of her siblings dead. Their story offers a window into the Israeli military’s overwhelming and often indiscriminate use of force in areas where civilians were told they would be safe, helping to uncover an atrocity that would otherwise have remained hidden.

CNN interviewed seven eyewitnesses to the attack, tracking down relatives now scattered across the enclave, including Roba’s mother. Their testimonies were cross-referenced with hospital records, satellite imagery and dozens of videos and photos from the scene, reviewed by forensics and ballistic experts, who analyzed the damage to the building and injuries of the people found inside of it.

Read more about the CNN special report here.

Watch the full report here:

Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, is pictured speaking to media in Istanbul, Turkey, in September 2023.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday the militant group has displayed flexibility in negotiations but remains ready to continue fighting.

“Any flexibility we show in negotiations out of concern for the blood of our people and to put an end to their great pain and enormous sacrifices…is paralleled by a willingness to defend our people,” Haniyeh said in a televised statement.

“We are reaffirming to the Zionists and Americans…that what they have failed to impose on the battlefield they will not take through political machinations,” he said.

Haniyeh called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al Aqsa Mosque on the first day of Ramadan.

A photo taken from northern Israel shows a launch by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system to intercept rockets being fired from Lebanon, on February 28.

Lebanon and Israel exchanged fire near the border on Wednesday, a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

Approximately “10 launches” crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, with sirens sounding near Kiryat Shmona, the IDF said.

The IDF said it successfully intercepted “a number of the launches” and “struck the sources of the fire” in Lebanon in response. 

Strikes against Hezbollah military targets were also carried out by the IDF in Ramyeh, southern Lebanon.

IDF fighter jets struck a “Hezbollah weapons storage facility” and “military structures” in Ramyeh, the statement said. 

A “Hezbollah weapons manufacturing site” was also hit by the IDF in the Khirbet Selm area overnight, the IDF added.

Palestinian political faction Fatah told CNN it would attend an intra-Palestinian meeting on Thursday in Moscow.

Earlier this month, Russia invited all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, to meet in Moscow.

The meeting will tackle ways to “unite the Palestinian factions under the Palestinian Liberation Organization,” Fatah spokesperson Hussein Hamayel told CNN. The aim is to form a new government capable of working in East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, he said.

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank, which held administrative control over Gaza until 2007. Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled the faction from the enclave. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and the PA governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Fatah’s delegation will be represented by officials Samir Al Rifai and Azzam Al Ahmad, the spokesperson said.

Hamayel said Hamas had not confirmed its attendance but that he is optimistic they would join and send a “high ranking official from their political office to represent them.”

Hamas has not responded to CNN’s request for confirmation of their attendance.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Tuesday that “all parties” agreed to participate in the Moscow meeting.

“Of course, they have agreed,” he said, adding that “some want to send two representatives or even more, that is more than we invited.”

Supporters of the movement urging Michigan Democratic voters to check “uncommitted” in protest of the Biden administration’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza said their campaign had been a success.

“We know Joe Biden is going to be our nominee. So it’s a very, very significant outcome,” former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a supporter of the “uncommitted” effort, told CNN on Tuesday night.

“My worry was that this primary would happen, and the president wouldn’t get the message about how mad people are.”

Levin said that the message that Biden can’t win Michigan in November unless he “changes course” had been “effectively communicated” through Tuesday’s result.

The campaign kept its focus narrow, aiming to convince Biden’s White House to seek a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“Uncommitted” campaign exceeds expectations: Organizers of the movement had hoped at least 10,000 people would support the cause, a nod to the 10,700-vote margin that delivered the state to Donald Trump in 2016. 

More than 100,000 voters checked “uncommitted,” a raw total well over Trump’s margin of victory in 2016.

A Biden campaign email touting the president’s Michigan win made no mention of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Read more about the impact of the “Uncommitted” protest vote in the Michigan Democratic primary.

Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza hold signs depicting some of the hostages in Re'im, Israel, as they begin a four-day protest march to Jerusalem on February 28.

Families of hostages in Gaza have started a four-day march from the site of the Nova Festival in southern Israel’s Re’im to Jerusalem, repeating calls for the release of those kidnapped on October 7.

“March with us for the hostages,” the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters said on Wednesday.

“No one should be left behind. The State of Israel cannot be fully restored without securing the release of all the hostages, the living and the murdered.”

An aerial view shows the march setting out on a road in Re'im on Wednesday.

Remember: Hamas militants stormed the Nova Festival on October 7 in an attack that killed over 360 people.

In the attacks on Israel that day, 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 were taken hostage.

There are believed to be 130 hostages still in Gaza, of which 99 are believed to be alive.

Pressure is mounting for a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza, with negotiations ongoing.

This post has been updated to reflect the latest information provided by authorities.

17-year-old US citizen Mohammad Ahmad Khdour was shot to death in the West Bank.

The last moments of Mohammad Khdour’s life could be those of any American teenager: taking the car out during a study break, snacking on chocolate waffles, posing for Instagram.

Those carefree moments with his cousin along the hillsides of Biddu, in the occupied West Bank, were captured in photos and videos reviewed by CNN.

They were snuffed out, his family says, when an Israeli gunman opened fire on their car, shooting the 17-year-old Khdour in the head.

The death of Khdour, a Florida-born US citizen, just weeks after another 17-year-old American citizen was shot under strikingly similar circumstances in the occupied West Bank, has underscored the frustrations among Palestinian-Americans who say the United States is doing little to respond to the deaths of their loved ones.

Videos from the aftermath of the February 10 shooting show several people rushing to the damaged car, pulling Khdour’s limp, bloodied body out from the shattered glass.

Khdour died hours later at a Ramallah hospital, his family said.

The Israel Defense Forces referred questions about the case to the Israeli Security Agency, which did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Some context: The killing or detention of American citizens in occupied Palestinian territories by Israelis and the concerns about a lack of accountability date back years.

In 2003, 23-year-old American activist Rachel Corrie was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to block it from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza. Nine years later, an Israeli civil court ruled Corrie’s death an accident.

Read more about Palestinian Americans who were killed in the region.

An interior view of St. Philip's Church in Gaza, on February 13.

A small, curly-haired boy walks wearily through the chapel of St. Philip in Gaza City, northern Gaza, as Israeli drones whir overhead.

Smashed concrete and blown-up buildings surround the luminous white walls and pink, stained-glass windows of the church, which has been turned into a makeshift emergency ward for Palestinians wounded in Israel’s military offensive.

Mohammed Taysser Sadallah Al-Zarik, an amputee, is one of those patients.

“I call all the world to help me get out (of Gaza) to get an artificial limb for my leg,” he told CNN on Tuesday. “I can’t stay like this anymore.”

Al-Zarik, 22, says he was wounded in an attack on the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, which also killed his cousin. His disability was compounded when doctors found a tumor and had to remove another part of his leg, according to his father, Abu Mohammed Al-Zarik.

In recent weeks, the Israeli military ramped up aerial attacks on parts of central and northern Gaza.

Entire families have been erased and displacement shelters flattened. Hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians who once found refuge in hospitals are now on the run again — as medical facilities across the enclave are crushed by bombardment or besieged.

Further south, in Rafah, some civilians are rushing northwards ahead of an anticipated Israeli ground offensive. Several Palestinians told CNN there is no peace to be found among the rubble.

“I call on all authorities and the world to look at my son and have mercy on him,” the elder Al-Zarik pleaded. “The young man is only 22 years old … He just started his life.”

Read more about the situation in northern Gaza.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House on February 8.

After US President Joe Biden projected optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have distanced themselves from his comments.

While meetings are taking place, there are disagreements over “numbers, ratios and troop movements,” Majed Al-Ansari, a Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday, without elaborating. He is likely referring to the number of hostages released for Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from parts of Gaza.

Earlier this week, CNN reported Hamas had backed off some key demands in the negotiations for a deal and pause in the fighting in Gaza, bringing the negotiating parties closer to an initial agreement that could halt the fighting and see a group of Israeli hostages released, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Reuters and Al Jazeera reported that Hamas was reviewing a draft proposal for an initial ceasefire lasting roughly six weeks, during which 40 Israeli hostages would be exchanged for 400 Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli official confirmed to CNN on Tuesday that the hope was for about 40 hostages to be freed in the initial stage of the deal, and that Israel was insisting that women soldiers were included in the group.

How a truce might look: Teams from the US, Egypt, Israel, and Qatar met in Paris on Friday and in Qatar on Monday.

Those involved in the discussions said an agreement would likely be implemented in multiple phases. Once an initial deal is made it could lead to a truce lasting as long as six weeks, with a group of Israeli hostages released including women, children, the elderly and sick in exchange for a smaller number of Palestinian prisoners than Hamas had initially demanded.

During a truce, negotiations would take place over more sensitive topics such as the release of male Israeli soldiers who are hostages, Palestinian prisoners serving longer sentences, the withdrawal of IDF forces, and bringing a permanent end to the war alongside the so-called “day after” issues.

Israeli director Yuval Abraham, left, and Palestinian director Basel Adra speak on stage during the awards ceremony of the 74th Berlinale International Film Festival, in Berlin on February 24.

Israeli journalist and film director Yuval Abraham said he is receiving death threats and has canceled his flight home from the Berlin International Film Festival amid backlash to an acceptance speech in which he decried the “situation of apartheid” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Abraham and his Palestinian co-director Basel Adra accepted the Best Documentary award for their film “No Other Land,” which chronicles evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank by Israeli authorities, on Saturday.

Their speeches were met with accusations of antisemitism by high-level German and Israeli officials, including the mayor of Berlin and Israel’s Ambassador to Germany.

“A right-wing Israeli mob came to my family’s home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night,” Abraham alleged in a social media post Tuesday.
“I am still getting death threats and had to cancel my flight home. This happened after Israeli media and German politicians absurdly labeled my Berlinale award speech — where I called for equality between Israelis and Palestinians, a ceasefire and an end to apartheid — as ‘antisemitic’.”

Read the full story.

Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against US President Joe Biden’s optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week.

An Israeli official told CNN Tuesday that Israel was “surprised that he [Biden] used the word Monday and that he used the word ceasefire.”

A Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson said he remains hopeful that an agreement can be reached before the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on March 10 or 11.

Here’s what else you should know:

Members of a Palestinian family warm themselves beside a campfire and makeshift tent, near the Egyptian border in Rafah, Gaza, on February 27.

Israel will take measures to protect civilians if it expands military operations in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, a military spokesperson said Tuesday.

Conducting a large-scale military operation in Rafah — where more than a million displaced Palestinians are crammed against the Egyptian border in a dire humanitarian situation — “needs to be with the right conditions, and we will make sure those conditions occur if we act,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told CNN.

Hagari said a safer zone will be made for civilians before conducting any large-scale military operation and that Israel must create conditions “of food, humanitarian aid, medicine, hospitals, field hospitals. So there will be conditions for the population if we act.”

Some context: Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, in response to its deadly October 7 attacks.

Earlier this month, Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz warned that Israeli forces will expand military operations in Rafah if hostages held by Hamas are not returned by the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, expected to begin March 10 or 11.

White House National Security spokesman John Kirby told CNN Tuesday that the US won’t support Israel’s planned offensive into Rafah until officials have seen a plan that ensures the safety of refugees seeking shelter in the city.

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari is seen during a weekly press briefing in Doha, Qatar, on February 20.

Israel and Hamas have yet to reach an agreement to pause fighting in exchange for the release of hostages from Gaza, Qatar’s foreign ministry’s spokesperson said.

But he remains hopeful that a final agreement can be reached before the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on March 10 or 11.

Remember: Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against US President Joe Biden’s optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, suggesting that differences remain as negotiators work to secure an agreement.

The United States won’t support Israel’s planned offensive into Rafah until officials have seen a plan that ensures the safety of refugees seeking shelter in the southern Gaza city, US National Security spokesperson John Kirby told CNN Tuesday.

This comes despite comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicating Israel will move into Rafah regardless of whether a humanitarian pause is negotiated in Gaza.

Kirby cited comments from Netanyahu earlier this month that he’d ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to produce “a plan for operations in Rafah — to include in that a plan for securing the safety of the more than a million refugees that are there.”

But Kirby acknowledged US officials “have not been presented with such a plan” to date.

A Marine rapid response force is expected to leave the eastern Mediterranean Sea in the coming weeks and return to the United States, according to two defense officials, in a significant reduction of US forces in the region.

The USS Bataan amphibious ready group and the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are expected to begin sailing toward the US in March, one official said, though an exact timeline for the departure is unclear. The Pentagon could still decide to keep the group in the region if the situation rapidly deteriorates.

The Marine rapid response force first deployed in July and was sent to the region in October. It had previously been extended to remain in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, as CNN reported. Capable of carrying out amphibious operations and certain special operations, the Marines are also trained to assist in evacuation operations, one of the reasons they were sent at the beginning of the Gaza war. But as the war nears its fifth month, the need for an evacuation of American citizens has not materialized.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Remember: The US has maintained an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea since shortly after the October 7 attacks in Israel. The warships were intended to deter Iranian proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, from escalating the already volatile situation and risking a wider regional conflict.

Read more about the expected move by US forces.

Palestinians jostle to collect food aid in Beit Lahia, inorthern Gaza, on February 26.

More than a half a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine, United Nations agencies warned on Tuesday, as the UN Security Council discussed food security in the stricken Palestinian enclave.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 576,000 people across Gaza are “facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” 

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned “of a real prospect of famine by May, with 500,000 people at risk if the threat is allowed to materialize.”

“Today, food aid is required by almost the entire population of 2.2 million people. Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world,” Carl Skau, WFP Deputy Executive Director, told the Security Council.

“One child in every six under the age of 2 is acutely malnourished.”

Ready for action: As ceasefire negotiations continue, Skau said the WFP “is ready to swiftly expand and scale up operations” if an agreement is reached.

“Immediate action is required to enable a huge increase in the volume of food and other humanitarian supplies,” he said.

CNN’s Nic Robertson reports increasing food shortages in Gaza are causing citizens to become increasingly desperate and instances of looting food aid trucks have paused delivery in some areas.

Take a look at the dire situation unfolding in northern Gaza:

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03:13 - Source: cnn

Hospitals in Gaza are facing dire conditions, with some operating without electricity, water and low levels of medical supplies, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.

The situation is particularly critical at the Nasser medical complex in southern Gaza, the ministry said, adding that the hospital’s generator has stopped, the sewage network has broken down, water was cut off, and a lack of medical capabilities has hindered the facility’s work.

“We need to evacuate more than 120 patients from Nasser Medical Complex to other hospitals to receive health care,” the ministry said on Tuesday.

In northern Gaza, the Al-Awda Health and Community Association said that its hospital cannot carry out medical services due to the lack of medical supplies, warning of the possibility of a “complete cessation” of services in the next 48 hours. 

The Israeli military is working on a way to get aid into northern Gaza “quickly,” an Israeli official told CNN earlier Tuesday. The Israel Defense Forces is working out where aid would cross into Gaza, the source said.

Death toll approaches 30,000: The total number of people killed in Gaza since October 7 is up to 29,878, with the number of injured reaching 70,215, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry.

CNN cannot independently confirm the numbers due to the lack of international media access to Gaza. 

CNN’s Richard Allen Greene contributed reporting to this post.

The top US humanitarian aid official on Tuesday called for additional assistance to be able to reach those inside of Gaza as she announced the United States will provide $53 million in additional humanitarian aid to the war-torn strip and the occupied West Bank.

Much of this aid will support food assistance, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power said in an announcement, as more than 2 million people in Gaza are at “imminent risk” of famine.

“That assistance has to reach people in need,” Power said in a taped message outside a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in Amman, Jordan.
“Right now, the bureaucratic bottlenecks and inspection delays have to get resolved. The number of access points into Gaza has to grow significantly.
“The aid workers who on the ground in Gaza are risking their lives to get food to people in desperate, desperate need, those aid workers have to be protected. They have to know they can do their jobs without being shot at and killed.”

Power is slated to travel from Jordan to Israel and the West Bank as part of the effort to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that is veering into catastrophe.

US officials have repeatedly said the amount of aid entering Gaza is not nearly enough. Last week, only 85 trucks a day were able to enter through the Rafah crossing, Power said, down from 500 before the conflict began.

Keep reading about aid challenges in Gaza.

President Joe Biden looks on during a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 27.

Officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against US President Joe Biden’s optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, suggesting that differences remain as negotiators work to secure an agreement.

Biden said Monday he hoped there would be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by “next Monday,” as the death toll in Gaza approaches 30,000.

What Israel says: Israel was “surprised that he (Biden) used the word “ceasefire” on Monday, an Israeli official told CNN Tuesday, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject. “I don’t know on what basis he said it.”

“Israel will be ready to release (Palestinian) prisoners even today if conditions are met,” the official added.

What Hamas says: Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told CNN Tuesday that the group was unaware of any ceasefire agreement that could be brokered by next Monday. “There is nothing,” Naim said.

What Qatar says: Qatar, which along with the US is a key mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, added further caution on Tuesday and hinted at a different timeline than was suggested by Biden. “If there was an agreement, you would see me more in a cheered attitude,” Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatar Foreign Ministry, said, adding that meetings are still taking place, which signal a positive trajectory.

Palestinians hold out empty containers to be filled with food by charity organizations in Rafah, Gaza, on February 25.

Humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza declined 50% in February compared to January, according to the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Monday.

“Aid was supposed to increase not decrease to address the huge needs of 2 million Palestinians in desperate living conditions,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

He blamed a lack of political will, regular closing of crossing points and lack of security due to military operations among the reasons for the decline in aid deliveries as well as what he called the “collapse of civil order.”

Israeli protesters have repeatedly blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, saying no aid should go in as long as hostages are being held by Hamas.

On February 20, the World Food Programme announced it had paused aid deliveries to northern Gaza, citing “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order” in the area with crowds of hungry people attempting to board the agency’s trucks and loot their contents.

Lazzarini said UN agencies had been warning of the looming threat of famine and appealed for more access to deliver desperately needed assistance.

Mohammad Shtayyeh chairs the weekly cabinet meeting where he announced the government's resignation, in Ramallah, Palestinian Territories on February 24.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and his government have submitted their resignations, he announced on Monday.

“I would like to inform the honorable council and our great people that I placed the government’s resignation at the disposal of Mr. President (Mahmoud Abbas), last Tuesday, and today I submit it in writing,” Shtayyeh said in a post on Facebook.

The resignation comes as the Palestinian Authority comes under intense pressure from the United States to reform and improve its governance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The PA has long been seen as corrupt by US politicians and Palestinians themselves.

The PA was set up in the mid-1990s as an interim government pending Palestinian independence after the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords with Israel. It is headquartered in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and exercises nominal self-rule in parts of the territory.

The government, which is dominated by the Fatah political party, held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled it from the strip. Israel has rejected the prospect of the PA returning to Gaza after the war, and has dismissed the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in the territories.

The US, however, favors a reformed PA being in control of both the West Bank and Gaza as part of a future independent state.

Keep reading here about the resignation.

A tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the Israeli offensive is seen in Rafah, Gaza, on Tuesday, February 27.

The Israeli military has submitted a plan to the war cabinet for “evacuating the population” of Gaza from areas of fighting, amid warnings that an offensive on the southern city of Rafah will take place soon.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had directed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to draw up a plan for the evacuation of civilians from Rafah, where more than a million people are crammed.

That “upcoming operational plan” was submitted for approval on Monday, Netanyahu’s office said, though its Monday statement did not mention Rafah by name. CNN has not seen a copy of the plan.

Some important context: Fears are growing in Gaza and across the international community over the IDF’s planned offensive on Rafah, which lies next to the shuttered border with Egypt. The city has become home to the majority of displaced Palestinians as the Israeli military advanced south through the enclave, but those civilians seemingly have no further place to escape.

The US has warned it would not support a campaign on the city without a “credible” plan to evacuate Palestinians.

Monday’s statement from Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet also approved a plan for providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza “in a manner that will prevent the looting that has occurred in the northern Strip and other areas.”

The Israeli leader pledged to press ahead with the effort in Rafah during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.

Netanyahu indicated he had asked the IDF to submit a “double plan”; one to “enable the evacuation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” and another “to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions.”

CNN’s Sana Noor Haq, Camila DeChalus, Sam Fossum, Richard Roth and Lucas Lilieholm contributed reporting