March 8, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

US President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans for the US military to establish a temporary port along the Gaza coast to bring desperately needed additional humanitarian aid into the war-torn strip.

Speaking during his State of the Union address, Biden said the structure on the Mediterranean coast would receive "large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters."

No US boots will be on the ground in Gaza, the president said. It was not immediately clear when the port would be up and running.

Earlier, a senior Biden administration official said the additional assistance would be coordinated with Israel, the United Nations and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. Initial aid shipments will come via Cyprus, the official said.

New land crossing: A senior US administration official also said earlier that Israel 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. The Israeli government allowed just a quarter of the planned UN and humanitarian partner aid missions to enter areas of northern Gaza in February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Thursday. 

Journalist Khader Al Za'anoun told CNN on Thursday that he witnessed Israeli tanks firing at civilians gathered at the Kuwaiti roundabout in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

Al Za'anoun said he sustained injuries to his face, right arm and right ear.  

Al-Za'anoun, who regularly works with CNN, said that a group of civilians was gathered waiting for aid trucks coming from southern Gaza on Salah Eddin Street in the early hours of Thursday.

At around 1 a.m. local time, Israeli tanks started shelling the area, he said, and many people who had been waiting for the aid trucks fled the area.  

Shortly after the Israeli fire, four aid trucks arrived, he said. He was waiting for the trucks' arrival with his children. 

Al Za'anoun climbed on one of the trucks to grab a sack of flour for his family when Israeli tanks began firing again, he said, and he was shot trying to run away. He was rushed to the hospital and unable to receive any of the aid. 

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

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

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.

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 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement on Thursday. 

The main UN 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.

Israel has "prepared a new land crossing directly into northern Gaza," a senior US administration official said Thursday, following weeks of increasing US pressure as the humanitarian crisis worsens.

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.