March 7, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

The United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process condemned Israel’s plan for new housing units in settlements in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

Israel advanced more than 3,000 new housing units in three occupied West Bank settlements to final approval stages.

The UN urged Israeli authorities to cease all settlement activity and reiterated that settlements are illegal under international law.

Remember: Settler violence in the occupied West Bank has jumped sharply since the war began, with settlers burning cars, destroying infrastructure and assaulting and killing Palestinians. Last month, the US State Department announced the first round of sanctions targeting Israeli settlers accused of perpetrating violence in the West Bank. The sanctions block their financial assets and bar them from entering the US. They mark one of the more significant moves US President Joe Biden has taken to critique Israel since the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7.

An Israeli woman taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza has described the "hell" of being held captive after her husband and daughter were murdered, telling CNN her captors would not allow her surviving young children to cry and tried to convince them they “had been forgotten.”

Chen Almog Goldstein, who was kidnapped with her surviving children during Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, said they were held in tunnels and an apartment in Gaza until their release after 51 days.

Almog Goldstein witnessed her husband Nadav and her oldest daughter Yam murdered by Hamas gunmen who broke into their home near the border with Gaza on October 7.

“I took Yam’s large teddy bear, the size of a human, and put it on top of us to protect us from the shooting,” she said. “Within a few seconds, five of them came into the safe room, screaming, (and) as I turned around, Nadav was shot in the chest, point blank.”

Moments later, her daughter was shot in the face, and Almog Goldstein was bundled into a family car along with her three surviving children and driven across the border. She recalled the two Hamas militants in the car taking selfies as they drove back to Gaza.

Hamas’ attacks on October 7 killed around 1,200 Israelis, with more than 200 people taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel believes that 99 people are still being held in Gaza, along with the bodies of 31 dead hostages.

Read more about Almog Goldstein's story.

A senior US administration official says the Israeli government has "prepared a new land crossing directly into northern Gaza," a development that comes after weeks of increasing US pressure as the humanitarian crisis worsens.

“As the UN confirmed today, we expect the first deliveries to transit this crossing over the coming weeks, starting with a pilot and then ramping up,” the official continued.

Calls for more aid: The move for the Israeli government to allow aid to flow overland comes after the US has ratcheted up its public and private rhetoric about the “unacceptable and unsustainable” humanitarian situation in Gaza. That message was conveyed to both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Israel and his chief political rival, Benny Gantz, in Washington this week.

Earlier today, US officials said President Joe Biden would announce new steps to establish a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid during his State of the Union address Thursday evening.

The Israeli government allowed just a quarter of the planned United Nations and humanitarian partner aid missions to enter areas of northern Gaza in February, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement on Thursday. 

"Only six of 24 planned missions to areas north of Wadi Gaza were facilitated in February, primarily due to an operational pause, after an UN-coordinated food convoy was struck by Israeli naval fire on 5 February," according to the OCHA statement. 

The main United Nations relief agency in Gaza said on February 5 that one of its trucks waiting to take aid to northern Gaza was hit by Israeli fire.

Growing hunger: At least 20 people have died in Gaza due to malnutrition and dehydration since the war began in Gaza, including a 15-year-old boy who was declared dead at the Al-Shifa medical complex on Wednesday from starvation, the Palestinian health ministry in the enclave said. 

CNN cannot independently confirm the deaths or their causes due to the lack of international media access to Gaza, but there have been increasingly urgent warnings about hunger in the strip from international agencies as Israel maintains a tight siege.

US President Joe Biden is set to announce new steps to establish a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid during his State of the Union address Thursday evening, senior administration officials said.

The port will include a temporary pier, a second senior official said, which “will provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day” to be coordinated with Israel, the United Nations, and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. Initial aid shipments will come via Cyprus, the official said.

It was not immediately clear when the port would be up and running: “This new significant capability will take a number of weeks to plan and execute. The forces that will be required to complete this mission are either already in the region or will begin to move there soon,” a second official said. 

As Israel’s severe restrictions on aid entering the Gaza Strip drain essential supplies, displaced Palestinians have told CNN they are struggling to feed themselves and their children.

While US officials believe delivering aid via land routes is “the most efficient, cost-effective way to get assistance in,” Biden’s announcement underscores the urgency of the moment.

The US and Jordanian militaries conducted a third joint airdrop of thousands of meals into Gaza on Thursday, United States Central Command said on X, formerly Twitter. 

“The combined, joint operation included US Air Force and Jordanian C-130 aircraft and US Army soldiers specialized in aerial delivery of US humanitarian assistance supplies,” according to the CENTCOM post. “US C-130s dropped over 38,000 meals, providing life-saving humanitarian assistance in Northern Gaza, to enable civilian access to critical aid.”

The first joint airdrop operation happened on Saturday, with the second occurring Tuesday.  

Parents in Gaza are being forced to ration food among their starving children, a Palestinian aid worker warned Thursday, as Israel’s siege condemns civilians to severe hunger and officials warn of a deadly surge in child malnutrition.

Some adults in Gaza are subsisting on just one mug of coffee a day, rationing whatever food they have among their children, said Mahmoud Shalabi, who is the senior program manager of the nongovernmental organization Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Shalabi recounted seeing a Gazan father at a market buying chips for his two children.

"I remember him saying, 'This is for your breakfast and lunch, so make sure you calculate your portions properly, because I have nothing left. And this is your food for the day,'" the aid worker said.

"Everybody I know in Gaza Strip has lost weight. The average weight loss ranges between 10 to 15 kilograms (about 22 to 33 pounds). Some people have even exceeded 20 kilograms of weight loss," he continued.  

Markets in northern Gaza have nothing but nuts and spices left to sell, according to Shalabi. "We don't have any rice left in the market," he said. "No lentils, no beans — nothing."

Chef José Andrés, founder of the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, has been instrumental in getting aid to hungry people in Gaza.

Andrés told CNN's Jim Acosta that the organization plans to build 100 kitchens across the strip, but "we need a constant flow of food, constant flow of water, and this unfortunately is not happening."

World Central Kitchen was able to airdrop 48,000 meals into Gaza, Andrés said, but the operations are expensive and require a lot of coordination.

Andrés added that he hopes to hear US President Joe Biden say in his State of the Union address Thursday night that "the humanitarian crisis should stop."

"Food and water is a universal right ... no person should be going hungry. I hope that he will push for a ceasefire. I hope, yes, he can say we need to be protecting our partner Israel, but you can be also be protecting the men and woman and children of Palestine today," he said.

Watch the interview:

The Turkish Red Crescent sent its largest aid ship to Gaza Thursday, carrying about 3,000 tons of aid, according to a statement on X from the organization.  

"This ship is the largest ship we have ever sent. These aid supplies, such as container kitchens, food, clothes and medicine, will be a great morale boost for the people of Gaza," Turkish Red Crescent President Fatma Meriç Yilmaz wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

This is the largest of the seven aid ships Turkey has sent to Gaza. It will depart Thursday to the Egyptian port of Al-Arish. From there, the aid will be loaded in trucks for Gaza, she said. 

In addition to the ships, Turkey has so far sent 12 aid planes during the war in Gaza, according to Turkey's state media Anadolu Agency.

Remember: A growing number of children in Gaza are dying of starvation and dehydration, according to the World Health Organization and Palestinian officials, amid desperate conditions due to Israel’s throttling of aid and destruction of the besieged enclave.

The United Nations warns Gaza is on the brink of famine, and Israel faces increasing pressure to allow more aid into the strip.