March 29, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

The Israel Defense Forces admitted to killing two Palestinian men and burying their bodies with a bulldozer after Al Jazeera published a video purportedly showing the incident Wednesday. 

In a statement, the IDF claimed that the men approached its “operational area” in central Gaza “in a suspicious manner” and didn’t respond to a warning shot. The IDF said it killed them and bulldozed their bodies fearing they carried explosives.

Here are other headlines you should know:

Israel has claimed that a United Nations-backed report on famine in northern Gaza was inaccurate and accused Hamas of controlling the aid. 

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an initiative controlled by UN bodies and major relief agencies, reported last week that 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food to eat. It said that half of the population is on the brink of starvation and famine projected to arrive in the north “anytime between mid-March and May 2024.”

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the agency that controls access to Gaza said Friday, “The report contains multiple factual and methodological flaws.”

COGAT claimed in a statement that there are information gaps in the IPC report which “diminished the reliability of the data” because it’s difficult to conduct surveys and samplings in Gaza while the war is ongoing.

The statement also said the report contains “inaccuracies” because it relies on data provided by local bodies such as Gaza’s Ministry of Health, “which has a strategic interest in presenting a fundamentally misleading information.”

Humanitarian crisis: As of earlier this month, more than two dozen people, including children and babies, have died from starvation and dehydration in the north, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. People have resorted to scavenging, eating grass and animal feed, and drinking polluted water. Starving mothers are unable to produce enough milk to feed their babies and parents beg for infant formula at overwhelmed health facilities, parents and doctors told CNN.

High-level talks between US and Israeli officials over potential military operations in Rafah could take place in Washington, DC, as soon as Monday, US officials tell CNN. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly called off talks scheduled for this week after the United States refused to block a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of captives held by Hamas. 

The Israeli delegation proposed to reschedule the talks for Monday, officials said, acknowledging the timing is complicated by a March 31 deadline facing the Israeli government to design a new law governing conscription for ultra-Orthodox Jews, long exempted from mandatory military service. 

Netanyahu has requested that Israeli’s top court defer the deadline to draft a new plan, and it remains unclear whether the delegation would be authorized to travel to the United States if those plans are in flux. 

US officials have said no date is finalized. 

The White House has said it supports the rescheduling of the talks and is working with its counterparts to do so in a timely manner. 

“We’re now working with them to find a convenient date that’s obviously going to work for both sides,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday.

The Civil Defense in Gaza said its teams recovered eight bodies from the wreckage of a civilian vehicle after an airstrike Friday.

At least five children were killed, according to Al-Ahli Hospital where the bodies and others who were injured were brought.

The media office of the Hamas-run government said a local police officer was killed along with his family when their vehicle was struck near al-Shuja’ya neighborhood. Several bystanders were also killed in the attack on a crowded key road in Gaza, the media office added. 

The deceased police officer was identified as Ahmed El-Batsh, according to a man who told CNN he was El-Batsh’s cousin.

Dr. Mostafa Saidam, a survivor of the strike, said the scene was “like judgment day.”

“We suddenly found a missile falling on us while we were sleeping. Everyone was screaming and trying to check on the rest, if they are OK or not. The neighbors came and carried me and I didn’t know what was happening and they took me to the hospital,” he told CNN.

Software developer Amr Siadam recalled an “unbelievably terrifying” night.

“Your imagination can never match the reality of it,” he said. “You wake up unable to see anything and hear all the screams, calls for help, searching for your wife, son, mother. It’s unbelievably terrifying.”

The Hamas-run government said another Israeli airstrike in the same neighborhood killed at least 10 people, including police officers tasked with securing humanitarian aid. 

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has admitted killing two Palestinian men and burying their bodies with a bulldozer after Al Jazeera published a video purportedly showing the incident Wednesday. 

The men approached its “operational area” in central Gaza “in a suspicious manner” and didn’t respond to a warning shot, the IDF said in a statement to CNN. The Israelis killed them and bulldozed their bodies fearing they carried explosives, it said.

What the video shows: In the video, which is filmed from a distance and has been heavily edited, two men are seen walking along a beach in Gaza, apart from one another; both appear to be waving white flags, to symbolize surrender, as they cautiously approach a group of Israeli soldiers. The video shows one man walking toward the soldiers with his hands in the air. He passes out of view behind some sand and concrete. It’s not clear what happens to him next. The second man turns away from the soldiers. As he hurriedly walks away from the camera, he is seen being followed by an Israeli armored vehicle. Suddenly, he falls to the sand, apparently shot. 

The video then cuts to another angle, which CNN geolocated after getting a tip from X user FDov21 at Geoconfirmed, an OSINT-led geolocating platform, to an area on the Al Rasheed roadway next to the beach, where an Israeli military bulldozer is seen unceremoniously burying two bodies in sand and debris. It’s not clear whether the bodies shown in the second half of the film are the two men who were filmed at the start of the sequence. Al Jazeera claims the bodies are the same men.

Al Jazeera said in its commentary that the “giant bulldozer shovels the two bodies and buries them in sand and litter. The Israeli soldiers attempt to conceal the executions.”

CNN has asked Al Jazeera for an unedited copy of the footage. Al Jazeera said the incident happened near Al Rasheed Street in central Gaza. CNN geolocated the video and confirmed it showed the incident at the beach. Additional visual evidence – satellite imagery and videos – shows Israeli military engineering vehicles such as bulldozers were deployed there.

What Israel said: The edited video “represents two different incidents,” the IDF said.

“The first incident occurred in the southern part of the corridor. After the suspect did not respond to a warning shot, the (force) fired to his direction and he was shot and slightly wounded,” the IDF said, adding he was released after receiving medical treatment and questioning. 

The second incident occurred in the northern part of the corridor and the two suspects were fired at after approaching Israeli forces “in a suspicious manner,” the IDF said.

“Two suspects with bags on their backs observed our forces and approached them, in a suspicious manner. After not responding to a warning shot, the forces conducted live fire towards them as a result of which they were killed. The bodies were moved from the area using the documented tool out of fear of [there] being explosives on the suspects and risk to the forces,” the IDF said. 

This post has been updated after CNN geolocated the second location.

A series of Israeli airstrikes targeting areas close to the Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday have led to casualties among both civilians and military personnel, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.

Thirty-eight people were killed, according to Reuters, including five members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. One of the Hezbollah fighters was a local field commander whose brother was killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon in November, Reuters said. This makes the strikes some of the deadliest since Israel intensified its military campaign against Iran-backed groups in Syria and others last year.

Israeli warplanes initiated an attack around 1:45 a.m, local time from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo, according to a military source quoted by SANA.

The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the attack.

Israel has previously launched attacks on Aleppo and the Syrian capital Damascus, including before the October 7 war, saying it feared that Iran would turn Syria into “a base for aggression” against the Jewish state.

Remember: Both Syria and Israel consider each other enemies and do not share diplomatic relations.

Israel will conduct its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and anywhere else they find the militant group, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a post on X Friday.

“This is true for Beirut, Baalbek, Tsor, Sidon, Nabatieh and the entire width of the sector and it is also true for much more distant places like Damascus …. wherever we need to act, we will act,” the minister said, while visiting Israel’s Northern Command to examine the killing of a high-ranking Hezbollah missile commander Israel said it killed on Friday.

The Israel Defense Forces said that Ali Abed Akhsan Naim, allegedly the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s Rocket and Missile Unit, had been killed in an airstrike in the area of Bazouriye in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have been engaging in deadly cross-border strikes the last few months, which has displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israeli residents from their homes. 

A Palestinian boy dressed in light blue pajamas cries out for his mother. Doctors in Kamal Adwan Hospital, in northern Gaza, tenderly douse his face in lotion, but he is still whimpering in pain.

CNN video from the hospital in Gaza City on March 21 shows Mosaab Al-Homss’ swollen eyelids and deep red scabs that cover his whole body. The little boy, age 2-and-a-half, sustained severe burns after an Israeli strike on his grandfather’s home in the Abu Iskander area, west of Jabalya, on March 18, according to health officials at the hospital. At least 80 Palestinians were sheltering in the residential building when it was struck, the health officials said, adding that five members of the Al-Homss family were killed — all of whom were children. Mosaab’s mother was severely injured, hospital officials said.

Dr. Ayesh Hossam Abu Warda, a neurosurgeon caring for survivors of the strike in the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said they sustained multiple injuries in the upper and lower limbs.

“Doctors and nurses are doing their best,” said Mosaab’s uncle, Abu Ibrahim. “Women, children and the injured who need medical care … they are receiving elementary treatment.”

Health workers treating wounded Palestinians in Gaza previously told CNN the vast majority of patient arrivals include children with traumatic burns, missing limbs and shrapnel injuries to the chest and abdomen.

Responding to CNN’s questions about the attack on the Al-Homms’ family home in northern Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said it is “operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities.”

CNN’s Benjamin Brown contributed reporting to this post.

Ireland has become the latest nation to say it will intervene in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, in a reflection of the country’s longstanding position of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Ireland announced this week it would file its intervention, adding to growing international pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to dial back its devastating assault on Gaza and end severe restrictions on food aid pushing Palestinians toward famine.

The case was brought to the ICJ by South Africa, and in an initial ruling in January, the court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of accusing it of genocide. According to reports, Ireland is expected to include in its intervention the argument that Israel’s blocking of food aid to Gaza could be considered an act of genocide.

In a speech on Wednesday, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said that both the Hamas October 7 attack in Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza “represents the blatant violation of international law on a mass scale.”

Zoë Lawlor, who leads the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), said there has been “deep empathy and sympathy in Ireland with Palestinian people.” That solidarity is largely born out of a shared experience of subjugation by an occupying state. The island nation was under English and then British rule for more than 800 years, after Anglo-Norman invaders seized huge stretches of land from the native Irish in the 12th Century.

Read more about how Ireland’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict has made it an outlier among European governments.

The Israel Defense Forces told CNN that 20 rockets and two anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon toward Israel on Friday.

The IDF said the two anti-tank missile launches were identified as coming from Ayta ash Shab in southern Lebanon. The IDF said it struck the launcher and what it alleged was a Hezbollah military compound adjacent to the launcher.

The IDF also says it struck other Hezbollah targets, including what it described as “military compounds and terrorist infrastructure,” in the area of Chebaa in southern Lebanon.

Earlier on Friday, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon announced it had launched attacks in retaliation to what it claimed were Israeli attacks on Damascus and Aleppo.

The Israeli military said it killed a high-ranking Hezbollah missile commander in an airstrike in Lebanon Friday.

The Israel Defense Forces said that Ali Abed Akhsan Naim, allegedly the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s Rocket and Missile Unit, had been killed in an airstrike in the area of Bazouriye in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah on Friday acknowledged his death in a statement without giving his title or saying how he died.

The IDF said Friday that he was considered “a significant source of knowledge” in Hezbollah and a “leader in the field of rockets.” It added he was one of the Iranian-backed militia’s leaders for heavy-warhead rocket fire and “responsible for conducting and planning attacks against Israeli civilians.”

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on a drone strike on a car near Bazouriye Friday. It said that two people had died in the strike without providing information on their identities.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel on Thursday to enable the unhindered flow of aid into Gaza “without delay” to avert a famine, as Israel’s siege condemns Gazans to severe hunger.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, entered its twelfth day. More traumatic allegations of abuse emerged from Palestinians who fled the facility, and those still trapped there — including two malnourished teenage siblings who’ve had limbs amputated.

Here are the latest developments:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized an Israeli negotiating delegation to travel to Qatar and Egypt in the coming days for talks on the release of hostages still held in Gaza, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken with the Director of the Mossad and the Director of the ISA, and has approved the next round of talks – in the coming days – in Doha and Cairo, with guidelines for moving forward in the negotiations,” the office said on Friday.

The Israel Security Agency (ISA), also known as Shin Bet or Shabak, is Israel’s domestic security agency.

Some background: Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar traveled back to Israel last Saturday without a breakthrough in indirect ceasefire-hostage talks with Hamas, mediated by Qatar and Egypt. CIA Director Bill Burns was also in Doha late last week to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari counterparts. Burns put forward a proposal that was accepted by Israel and sent back to Hamas, according to a source and an Israeli official.

On Tuesday morning, Israel was informed that the proposal was rejected by Hamas, the Israeli official said, and Israel decided to pull back the team of negotiators that had remained in Doha after Burns and Barnea had left Qatar.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 14 Palestinians sheltering inside a house in Rafah, in southern Gaza, a Rafah hospital official told CNN. 

Among those killed were four women and seven children, according to a list of victims shared by the Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.

Emergency workers recovered a number of victims from the rubble of the blown-out house in the northeast neighborhood of Al-Nasr, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. Pictures shared by the Civil Defense showed huge concrete slabs strewn across the site of the attack, where rescue personnel carried shrouded bodies.

Crews rescued a woman from the rubble of the house, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. It transported “a number of injured people,” according to a statement on Friday.

Asked for a response by CNN, the Israel Defense Forces said it did not have the required information to comment on the attack, despite being provided by CNN with the date, time and a rough location of the strike.

This post has been updated with the number and description of people killed, according to the hospital.

The Gaza Civil Defense called on international agencies to rescue Palestinians trapped in and around Al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, as Israel’s raid around the complex enters a twelfth day.

“We need the international agencies, the Red Cross and the UN to intervene to rescue the people present around the Shifa complex. Every minute that passes by, we could lose a life there,” Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told CNN. 

“Israel continues the bombardment of the houses surrounding the complex, and the arrest of citizens to push for displacement,” Bassal claimed, adding that fuel supplies are dwindling amid Israel’s siege on the strip. “Unfortunately, civil defense haven’t been able to reach this area,” he added.

Earlier on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli intelligence were conducting “precise operational activity” in the area of Al-Shifa hospital, the IDF said in a statement Friday. The IDF said it was “mitigating harm” to civilians, patients and medical teams and equipment.

Palestinians inside Al-Shifa and around it have previously reported civilian casualties and arrests, as well as large-scale destruction at the hospital complex. Heavy fighting around the hospital has also been reported by Israel, Hamas and civilians, with United Nations officials saying hospitals must not be battlegrounds.

CNN’s Benjamin Brown in London contributed reporting to this post.

The father of Mohammad Al-Najjar, a young Palestinian child who died from malnutrition on Thursday, said his son “was dying in front of our eyes” after the family could not find food or drink for him as Israel’s siege condemns Gazans to severe hunger.

“What did we do [to deserve this]! He was dying in front of our eyes. He died in front of our eyes,” Naim Al-Najjar said from Kamal Adwan Hospital, in northern Gaza, in a video obtained by CNN. “If we found food and drink, in addition to the medications they prescribed, he might have recovered.”

Mohammad passed away from malnutrition, dehydration and the scarcity of medical supplies, according to medical sources speaking to CNN. Mohammed’s father said Israel’s siege is “suffocating” Gaza and that children “are dying in front of our eyes.”

He described Mohammed as a “lovely and bright” child before the malnutrition set in. In the video, Al-Najjar showed old pictures of his son looking happy and healthy – a stark contrast to his final days, where his breaths were labored and his frame was visibly thin from starvation. At least 30 Palestinians have died of malnutrition in Gaza, including 24 children, according to the Ministry of Health there.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to enable the unhindered flow of aid into Gaza “without delay” to avert a famine, as the number of Palestinians starving to death rises inside the besieged enclave.

In a unanimous decision, the world court issued additional provisional measures against Israel, in the ongoing genocide case brought by South Africa. The court compelled Israel to allow more aid into Gaza in light of famine “setting in.”

The ICJ voted that Israel should allow “urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” into Gaza, including access to food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, and medical supplies.

It reaffirmed its original ruling earlier this year that Israel should take measures to prevent genocide in the Palestinian enclave.

Condemned to starvation: Israel’s severe restrictions on aid entering Gaza have drained essential supplies. UN experts accused Israel of “intentionally starving” Palestinians in Gaza. At least 30 Palestinians have died of malnutrition in Gaza – including 24 children – according to the Ministry of Health there.

What does Israel say? Israel has called allegations that it is blocking aid into the strip “wholly unfounded.” Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime on aid trucks has meant that only a tiny fraction of the amount of food and other supplies that used to enter Gaza daily before the war is getting in now.

CNN’s Abeer Salman contributed reporting.

A Palestinian paramedic who was detained by the Israeli military for three days at Al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, claims he was stripped naked, left outside in rainy and cold weather, beaten and prevented from using the bathroom.

“The army came to us and forced us out one by one. They stripped us naked and seated us in the yard,” Mohammad Al Shawwa, in his 30s, alleged on Thursday.

“They tied our hands and blindfolded us. They humiliated us and beat us,” Al Shawwa told CNN, while speaking in the courtyard of the nearby Al Ahli Baptist Hospital. “They bulldozed the cemetery in the yard and dug up all the graves, all the dead bodies of the martyrs were dug up.”

Al Shawwa claims the IDF eventually told him to leave Al-Shifa, and he walked for about 1.25 miles (2km) to Al Ahli Baptist Hospital. “I ran away with other guys between the vehicles, partly blindfolded and tied,” the paramedic said. CNN previously asked the IDF about the movement of people to Al Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Al Shawwa says he was forced to leave his relatives behind. He says the fate of his mother, a cancer patient, sister, wife and son is unknown – after the family was separated during their detention. He is especially worried about his father, aged 60, who, he says, “was taken by the army.” “I don’t know if they are alive or dead,” he told CNN.

CNN has asked the IDF about Al Shawwa’s claims of mistreatment.

Strikes launched by the Israeli military have killed medical workers, patients and people sheltering at the besieged Al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials.

An Israeli bombing has also damaged the surgical building of Al-Shifa, the Ministry of Health in Gaza alleged.

Hundreds of bodies: Local residents told CNN on Thursday there was heavy fire in the vicinity of the hospital. One family said there was an air strike on their property near the maternity facilities at Al-Shifa, leaving hundreds of bodies strewn.

“There are between 150 to 200 martyrs in the street we saw. We call on the Arab nations to wake up and ask how long this bloodbath is going to continue?” said one family member, Samir Al-Ajour. Another relative, Fahmi Al-Ajour, told CNN his daughter and infant son were killed. “He is the only son I have,” he said.

What Israel is saying: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli intelligence said on Friday it was carrying out “precise operational activity” for a twelfth day in the area of Al-Shifa. On Thursday, the IDF claimed “approximately 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital since the beginning of the activity” at Al-Shifa. It said that “over the past day, terrorists fired at IDF troops from within and outside of the ER building.”

The IDF claimed troops evacuated civilians, patients, and medical teams to alternative medical facilities that the IDF set up to enable proper medical treatment to continue. CNN cannot independently verify IDF statements.

A doctor who cared for patients trapped inside Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza told CNN he fears two severely malnourished siblings will not survive due to a lack of care and medication.

Dr Ali Alghaliz treated Rafiq Dughmosh, 15, and his sister Rafif Dughmosh, 13, at Al-Shifa before the Israeli military laid siege to the hospital on March 18. The doctor was not at the hospital when the raid began.

Both siblings had limbs amputated after surviving an Israeli airstrike on their home that killed their mother and 10 other relatives, according to the UK-based NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). The Israeli military forced their uncle Mahmoud to evacuate, MAP said.

The siblings were left without a guardian inside the hospital, said Alghaliz.

Alghaliz told CNN that he spoke to Rafiq on Monday night and that the siblings have had no food, medication, or wound dressings for more than one week.

“I hope he will not be dead by the end of this siege. I have fears that he might get septic shock that will end his life.”

The Palestinian boy “feels desperate,” he said.

“He told me, ‘Now look at me Dr Ali, the bed sores are getting worse, the bad odor is coming from the sores, and from my amputated limbs… I feel I’m going to die.’”

Alghaliz said he hopes both siblings will be evacuated.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told CNN on Friday that people in Gaza were hopeful when the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, but that hope has since disappeared as Israeli bombing of the enclave continues.

“When that announcement was made, there was a breath, there was a palpable relief, but that hope has been drowned out by bombs,” Elder said from Gaza.

“Right now, it’s meant nothing. Hostages are still here, bombardments continue, restrictions on aid continue.”

Elder said the conditions in Gaza have “deteriorated massively” since prior visits, with the nutrition situation having “rapidly declined” and cities becoming “unrecognizable.”

“Everything continues to get worse,” he said. “Everyone’s life has unfortunately just deteriorated into levels that I didn’t think I’d see.”

Elder said people told him on a recent visit to northern Gaza that they need basic humanitarian resources.

“Why did they keep telling me they need food, water and medicine? They assume the world doesn’t know, because if the world knew, how could this possibly be happening?” Elder said.

Dignity is being denied to young women on an unprecedented level in Gaza, UNICEF global spokesperson James Elder told CNN’s Michael Holmes on Friday.

Elder was asked about his comments in a press briefing this week, in which he said UNICEF workers in Gaza spoke with “teenage girls hoping they are killed” to escape the conditions in the enclave.

“For a girl, it’s 850 people to a toilet. For an adolescent girl, it’s three-and-a-half thousand people to a shower… the dignity being denied these young women is kind of like we haven’t really seen before,” Elder told CNN.

Elder said Israel’s planned ground offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah “would lead to potentially the biggest catastrophe of this war” as the city is many people’s “last hope.”

A series of Israeli airstrikes targeting areas close to the Syrian city of Aleppo have led to casualties among both civilians and military personnel early on Friday, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.

According to a military source quoted by SANA, Israeli warplanes initiated an attack around 1:45 a.m. local time from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo.

Israel has not publicly commented.

Israel has for years launched airstrikes on Syria to target Iran-backed militant groups, with their frequency increasing since the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Israeli forces last week launched another military operation on Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, bringing the sprawling medical facility in the north of the enclave back into the spotlight.

The raid comes despite the Israel Defense Forces in January saying it had completed dismantling Hamas’ command structure in northern Gaza.

While the IDF said civilians, patients, and medical teams were evacuated during the operation, Palestinians inside and around Al-Shifa have reported civilian casualties and arrests, as well as large-scale destruction at the complex.

Heavy fighting around the hospital has also been reported by Israel, Hamas and civilians, with the UN saying hospitals must not be battlegrounds.

Here’s what we know about the raid:

Why are Israeli forces raiding Al-Shifa? Israeli forces said they were conducting “precise operational activities against terrorists” at Al-Shifa.

The IDF said Wednesday that “approximately 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital since the beginning of the activity.”

What are Palestinians saying? About 3,000 people were sheltering in Al-Shifa at the time of the raid, Gaza’s Health Ministry said, adding that those attempting to leave were being targeted by snipers and fire from helicopters.

Hundreds of those stranded in the hospital have little food or water — and were warned by the Israeli military that they would be shot if they left the hospital without receiving instructions to evacuate.

Eyewitnesses said medical personnel and other civilians were detained by Israeli troops.

One eyewitness estimated about 400 to 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and their families arrived at the hospital in mid-March. Some of them appeared to be members of Hamas’ political branch, while others were armed militants.

Read the full story.

President Joe Biden said Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries are “prepared to fully recognize Israel” during remarks at an off-camera fundraiser Thursday night, according to reporters in the room.

Biden repeated calls for a “post-Gaza plan” for Israel, including “a train to a two-state solution.” 

The remarks reflect Biden’s increased willingness to publicly call for Israel to increase efforts to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“I won’t go into detail now. But look, I’ve been working with the Saudis and with all the other Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan and Qatar. They’re prepared to fully recognize Israel, fully recognize Israel for the first time,” Biden said, according to reports from journalists in the room.

“But there has to be a post-Gaza plan, and there has to be a train to a two-state solution, it doesn’t have to occur today, but there has to be a progression, and I think we can do that,” Biden said. 

Arab states offered to recognize Israel in 2002 in exchange for a Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel rejected the proposal then.

The fundraiser, which featured Biden in conversation with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, was interrupted at least four times by protesters, with at least three calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

“That’s alright. Let them go. There’s a lot of people who are very, very — there are too many innocent victims, Israeli and Palestinian. We’ve got to get more food and medicine, supplies in to the Palestinians,” Biden said, according to reports.

“But we can’t forget, Israel is in a position where its very existence is at stake. You have to have all those people. They weren’t killed. They were massacred. They were massacred.”

This post has been updated to add background on Israel’s relations with Arab nations.

Israel has not been provided every weapon it has asked the US for, according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair CQ Brown.

“Although we’ve been supporting them with capability, they have not received everything that they’ve asked for,” Brown told reporters on Thursday. 

“Some of that is because they’ve asked for stuff that we either don’t have the capacity right now to provide or are not willing to provide right now in particular.”

Brown’s spokesperson Navy Captain Jereal Dorsey said the chairman’s comments “were solely in reference to a standard practice before providing military aid to any of our allies and partners. We assess US stockpiles and any possible impact on our own readiness to determine our ability to provide the requested aid. There is no change in US policy. The United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas.”

Brown also told reporters that during the meetings he had with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and his team this week in DC, “they did make requests” for different forms of military assistance.

Some background: CNN previously reported that Gallant reiterated Israel’s desire to buy a new squadron of F-15 and F-35 fighter jets and Apache helicopters. 

The growing weapons sales from the US remain top of mind for Israeli defense officials, who have been pushing their US counterparts for faster approval and progress on the weapons transfers, multiple officials and people familiar with the requests told CNN.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Thursday, Annelle Sheline discussed her decision to publicly resign from her fellowship with the State Department, where she worked in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

“As it became clear what US policy was going to be as far as enabling the ongoing military operations in Gaza, as well as the intentional use of starvation as a weapon… eventually it became clear that from my position inside State, there was really very little that I could do,” Sheline said.

Sheline said she speaks for “many people” when she stands against the US government’s relationship with Israel and its actions in Gaza, telling Amanpour that “people are shocked and appalled by what the US government is doing.”

Here are the latest developments in the conflict:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told families of soldiers kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas that the country’s forces “will not leave anyone behind,” according to a statement from his office Thursday.

He said Israel’s military had “conquered” the north of Gaza and Khan Younis.

Netanyahu told the families: “I know that every day you go through is hell”. He said to date “we have returned 123 of our abductees” adding: “I am obliged to return them all, including everyone.”

He said all assets Israel has, including military pressure on Hamas, “need to be used wisely in the negotiations that I conduct myself every day - to get them all back and not just some.”

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Thursday, Annelle Sheline discussed her decision to publicly resign from her fellowship with the State Department, where she worked in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

“As it became clear what US policy was going to be as far as enabling the ongoing military operations in Gaza, as well as the intentional use of starvation as a weapon… eventually it became clear that from my position inside State, there was really very little that I could do,” Sheline said.

Israel has repeatedly justified its military action in Gaza by stating that it is in self-defense. A senior US defense official told reporters on Tuesday that the US “will continue to stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself in accordance with the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law, and to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.”

Sheline said that she speaks for “many people” when she stands against the US government’s relationship with Israel and its actions in Gaza, telling Amanpour that “people are shocked and appalled by what the US government is doing.”

The former employee suggested that the US has made a “political calculation” to “maintain extreme support for Israel regardless of the illegal behaviors that Israel engages in.”  

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller addressed questions about Sheline’s resignation during a press briefing on Wednesday.

“There is a broad diversity of views inside the State Department about our policy with respect to Gaza, just as there is a broad diversity within the State Department about our policy in a number of important foreign policy issues, as there is a broad diversity of views and opinions throughout American society about this issue and others,” he said. “What we try to do in the State Department – what the Secretary has instructed his team to do – is to make sure that people have an opportunity to make their views known.”

Watch the interview.

Israel has committed to help protect US troops who are traveling to the eastern Mediterranean to build and operate a floating dock and causeway that will be used to transport humanitarian aid to Gaza, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff C.Q. Brown said on Thursday.  

His comments come as Republican senators have posed questions to the White House and Pentagon about how the military plans to protect the approximately 1,000 US personnel who will be involved in the construction of the pier, which will be based off the coast of Gaza and therefore a potential target for terror groups like Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. 

“Force protection is at the top of the list, anytime our forces are being placed in harm’s way,” Brown told a small group of reporters, “there will be our own capability and capacity to protect our forces, but you know, the Israelis have also committed to help protect the forces in the area.”

Brown said other US partners and allies have capabilities that they will be contributing to help protect the troops in the area. 

He added that he spoke recently to his Israeli counterpart about the pier, and he does feel he has received the necessary assurances that the floating dock won’t just be another bottleneck for humanitarian aid into Gaza — as it has been via land crossings into the enclave. 

On Thursday, a group of 12 senators wrote to President Joe Biden asking what force protection risks the mission entails, and what the rules of engagement are for US troops if they are fired upon by Hamas or another terrorist group. 

The Pentagon has said repeatedly that US forces will not step foot on shore in Gaza and that a regional partner or ally will help to secure the causeway built by the US military to the shore.

Israel’s government responded to additional provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday in the genocide case brought against it by South Africa. The provisional measures call on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip in light of famine “setting in.”

“South Africa has failed yet again in its cynical attempts to exploit the ICJ in order to undermine Israel’s inherent right and obligation to defend its citizens from the ongoing Hamas attacks and to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza in brutal captivity,” Lior Haiat, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, said in a statement.

Hamas “is to blame for the situation in the Gaza Strip and is responsible for the war” because it launched “an unprecedented terrorist attack on the State of Israel and its citizens while committing atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity,” he added. The statement said Israel “goes to great lengths in order to mitigate the harm to the civilian population while fighting Hamas.”

Israel said it is committed to “its legal obligations” with respect to “allowing and facilitating” the transfer of aid, and “places no limitations on the amount of essential humanitarian aid that enters the Gaza Strip, including in particular food, water, shelter equipment and medicines.”

It will continue to “promote new initiatives, and to expand existing ones, in order to enable and facilitate the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip in a continuous and extensive manner, by land, air, and sea, together with UN bodies and other partners in the international community.”

Israel accused Hamas of “using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. Hamas displays utter disdain for international law and the lives of civilians, Israelis and Palestinians alike, and deliberately harms the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the population of Gaza.”

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy, Amy Cassidy and Sugam Pokharel in London contributed to this report.

Israel will “copy and paste Gaza onto Lebanon” if militant group Hezbollah escalates tensions, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday. 

With “increased activity” on Israel’s border with Lebanon, Israel was “returning fire to the source of fire,” Hyman added.

The spokesperson alleged that Iranian proxies were seeking to attack Israel on multiple fronts and that Israel would “take them out one by one when the time is right and at the time of [its] choosing.”

At least 16 people were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to Lebanese state media.

At least one person was killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack on the city of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel on Wednesday, according to Israel’s national emergency medical service.

Hezbollah said it had launched “dozens of rockets” targeting the northern Israeli city in response to an attack on a medical facility in the town of Habariyeh in southern Lebanon.

There are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is “committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza,” the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has said.

Francesca Albanese made the remarks Wednesday following the submission of her latest report called “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

“Israel has committed three acts of genocide with a requisite intent: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” she said.

Israel said it “utterly rejects” the report, which it said “brings shame” on the Human Rights Council.

It is “no surprise, that the premise of this report is that the creation of the Jewish State in 1948 was an act of ‘settler colonialism,’ and genocide is an ‘inherent part’ of that act,” the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva said in a statement on X on Monday.

The statement also blamed the UN expert for “delegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israel.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has agreed to reschedule a planned meeting with US and Israeli officials to discuss a planned ground offensive in Rafah, the White House confirmed Wednesday, just days after Netanyahu canceled the delegation.

“The Prime Minister’s Office has agreed to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

“So, we’re now working with them to set to find a convenient date that’s obviously going to work for both sides, but his office has agreed to reschedule that meeting which would be dedicated to Rafah, which is a good thing.”

During Wednesday’s briefing, the press secretary declined to say when the administration is hoping to reschedule the meeting, but emphasized it’s an “urgent” priority.

The meetings come after Netanyahu canceled the delegation’s planned trip this week, following the US abstaining from a UN Security Council vote calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of US members of Congress that he is confident his country will defeat Hamas in Gaza within the next few weeks.

“We’ve killed many senior leaders (of Hamas), including number four in Hamas, number three in Hamas. We’ll get number two and number one. That’s victory. Victory is within reach. It’s a few weeks away,” Netanyahu said while speaking to the bipartisan group on Wednesday.

Hosting a congressional delegation organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — a prominent pro-Israel lobby — in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said it was “very important to maintain bipartisan support” but “especially in these trying times.”

He said that Israel has “no choice” but to move into Rafah as the country’s “very existence is on the line.”

The prime minister said that since the October 7 Hamas attack, Israel has had a “remarkable alignment” with US President Joe Biden’s administration but has fundamentally different views on an Israeli move into Rafah.

Israel has faced criticism internationally ahead of its planned offensive on the city of Rafah, in which more than 1 million displaced people are currently sheltering.

Netanyahu had earlier told the delegation that displaced Palestinians in Gaza could “move with their tents” out of Rafah.

“There’s all of the Gaza Strip north of Rafah,” Netanyahu said. “People move down, they can move up.”

Talks over a hostage deal and a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas have reached another stalemate but are not over, according to three people familiar with the negotiations.

A diplomat described the talks as “stuck but ongoing,” saying that there continue to be “proposals going back and forth.” A second source confirmed the parties are still engaged but said the negotiations are in a “pause.”

There was no breakthrough after CIA Director Bill Burns traveled to Doha late last week to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari counterparts. Burns put forward a proposal that was accepted by Israel and sent back to Hamas, the second source and an Israeli official told CNN.

Major discussion points – for just the first phase – are still being fiercely debated: the ability of Gazans in the south to return home to the north, a surge of humanitarian aid for Gaza, and the locations of Israeli troops.

Hamas has regularly taken a more maximalist approach to what is expected to be a three-phase deal: demanding eventual discussions on an end to the war and the full withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza. Israel has refused to engage on either point, insisting on the need to continue efforts to dismantle Hamas.

What the US State Department says: Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Wednesday pushed back on the idea that talks are at an impasse, despite the difficulty of resolving the remaining issues. He added that the US is still pushing to “bridge the differences” between Hamas and Israel.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

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The Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government to stop funding religious schools whose students defy the country’s mandatory military service on April 1, posing one of the most serious threats to date for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Netanyahu relies on two Ultra-Orthodox parties — Shas and United Torah Judaism — to maintain a governing coalition. His wartime cabinet partners, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, of the National Unity Party, have been heavily critical of Netanyahu’s approach to the issue of Ultra-Orthodox conscription.

“The judges of the High Court of Justice want to saw off the branch of existence of the Jewish people,” Ariyeh Deri, leader of the Shas party, said in a statement on X. “The people of Israel are engaged in a war of existence on several fronts and the High Court of Justice judges did everything tonight to create a fratricidal war as well.” 

More background: Young men studying in yeshivas have since the country’s founding been exempt from mandatory military service — in practice, exempting all Ultra-Orthodox Israelis. But the exemption has never been enshrined in a law that the Supreme Court views as equitable, and for years has been carried out by patch-work government mandates. Netanyahu this week attempted to delay the Supreme Court’s deadline to pass a law that would make official the exemption.

After decades of rulings on the subject, the Supreme Court told the government that it was illegal for the government to both fund yeshivas and exempt their students from conscription. In a ruling late Thursday, the Supreme Court said that starting on April 1, the government could no longer transfer funds to yeshivas whose students did not receive legitimate deferments.

Yitzhak Goldknopf, leader of the United Torah Judaism party, called the ruling “a sign of disgrace and contempt.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews view religious study as fundamental to the preservation of Judaism. For many of those who live in Israel, that means study is just as important to Israel’s defense as the military.