April 6, 2024 Israel-Gaza news

The body of an Israeli hostage, who was killed while held captive by the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, has been returned to the family, the Israeli military said Saturday. 

The body of Elad Katzir was rescued overnight from the city of Khan Younis in Gaza and returned to his family in Israel following identification procedures, according to a joint statement by the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Security Agency. 

Katzir was abducted by Islamic Jihad from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the attacks on October 7, according to the statement. His mother, Hanna, was also abducted by the terrorist group and released on November 24 as part of the agreement for the release of hostages. His father, Avraham, was killed in the kibbutz, the statement said. 

She also lashed out at the Israeli leadershi, saying they did not do enough to bring the hostages home. 

Following Katzir's return, a total of 133 hostages remain held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. Of that number, 129 hostages are from the October 7 attack, and 99 of them are believed to be alive.

A doctor at a field hospital for detained Palestinians at Israel's Sde Teiman army base has described "deplorable" conditions, with amputations being carried out on prisoners with handcuff injuries on a "routine" basis, according to an exclusive report from the newspaper Haaretz. 

In a letter to Israel's attorney general and defense and health ministers obtained by Haaretz, the doctor said the conditions at Sde Teiman field hospital compromise inmates' health and violate medical ethics. 

Haaretz reported that the doctor said "inmates are fed through straws, defecate in diapers and are held (in) constant restraints, which violate medical ethics and the law."

CNN spoke to a source who has a medical background and previously visited the Sde Teiman field hospital. They confirmed seeing detainees held in constant restraints.

In a written statement to CNN responding to the claims, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said: "The IDF operates according to the law and within the framework of the law when it comes to the treatment of detainees. Every procedure is documented and supervised, and is done with extreme care for the human dignity of the detainees, in accordance with the principles of Israeli and international law."

Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has joined House Democrat calls to halt US arms sales to Israel, citing the recent strike against aid workers and the spiraling humanitarian situation.

In a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Pelosi and dozens of other congressional Democrats expressed their "shared concern and outrage" over the Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers.

The letter acknowledges the Biden administration's recent efforts to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but warns they are not sufficient to meet the needs of civilians on the ground.

US Sen. Bernie Sanders has also been calling for a halt in military aid.

“The bottom line is, we are looking at one of the worst humanitarian disasters we’ve seen in a very long time," he told CNN's The Lead. “To my mind, Israel should not be getting another nickel in military aid until these policies are fundamentally changed."

Australia has "not yet received sufficient information" about the death of citizen Laizawmi "Zomi" Frankcom, its foreign ministry said, after she was killed along with six other aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) non-profit in an Israeli military strike.

Speaking during a press briefing in Adelaide, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she had conveyed the message during a verbal briefing with Israel, in which she told them: "We have not yet received sufficient information to satisfy our expectations."

Frankcom and the other workers were killed in an Israeli military strike in Gaza on Monday. She had worked with WCK since 2019, most recently as a senior manager of its operations in Asia.

Wong said she had written to Israeli counterparts following the deaths this week to reiterate expectations about consequences for those who carried out the strikes.

More background: Israel said it made a "grave mistake" in its preliminary findings over the incident, and fired two senior officers.

But the WCK and some Western leaders have called for an independent, third-party investigation into the strike, and the Palestinian ambassador to the UN has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the workers.

The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack that could come as soon as within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.

The two governments are working to get in position ahead of what is to come, as they anticipate that Iran’s attack could unfold in a number of different ways – and that both US and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted.

A forthcoming Iranian attack was a major topic of discussion on President Joe Biden’s phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. As of Friday, the two governments did not know when or how Iran planned to strike back, the official said.

A direct strike on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration is bracing for, as it would guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East. Such a strike could lead to the Israel-Hamas war broadening into a wider, regional conflict – something Biden has long sought to avoid.

The US received Israel’s report on the deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy in Gaza and is “reviewing it very carefully,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

There are "no plans" for the US to conduct an independent or separate investigation, according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

The Israel Defense Forces fired two of its officers and reprimanded others for their involvement in the strikes, but the WCK charity said Israel could not be trusted to investigate its own errors in Gaza.

Here are other headlines you should know:

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concerns over reports of Israel's use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

His words come amid intensifying international scrutiny of Israel’s military campaign, after targeted airstrikes killed several foreign aid workers delivering food in the Palestinian enclave.

A recent investigation by online news publication +972 Magazine also revealed that Israel's military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, and cited Israeli intelligence officials who had been involved in the alleged program.

When asked about the allegations, a spokesperson for the Israeli military did not dispute the existence of the tool but denied AI was being used to identify suspected terrorists.

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the World Central Kitchen staff killed by a strike in Gaza this week.

"The killing of the aid workers from the World Central Kitchen is not an isolated incident," the ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.

"Israel knew very well who it was targeting, hitting three cars in three locations, despite the fact that they were identifiable and had gotten coordinated with Israel," Mansour added.

The ambassador said "it took the deaths of foreigners" for the international community to acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 180 days. The strike killed one Palestinian, three Britons, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole, according to the organization.

Israeli report: On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces published a report into the killings, which it said violated its own protocols and should not have happened.

The report found that IDF forces "mistakenly assumed" there were Hamas gunmen traveling in the aid convoy and opened fire on the vehicles.

The WCK has called for further independent investigations, saying the IDF cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

Read more about the IDF report.

The World Health Organization completed a “highly complex mission” delivering medical aid to hospitals in northern Gaza on Thursday.

Despite “ongoing hostilities” in Gaza City, the supplies were delivered to around 1,000 patients at both Al Sahaba and Al Ahli hospitals, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X Friday. 

Al Sahaba hospital also received one pallet of canned food, and a patient with complex lower-limb injuries was successfully moved from Al Ahli to a field hospital in Rafah, Tedros said.

Tedros concluded by repeating calls for a “sustained and safe passage for humanitarian aid” and appealed for an immediate ceasefire.

Some context: The successful delivery of much-needed medical supplies follows several months of difficulty getting aid where it is needed most in Gaza. The UN agency reported that heavy bombardment, movement restrictions and interrupted communications were making it nearly impossible to deliver medical supplies regularly and safely.  

Medical aid relief teams were forced to call off repeated delivery missions in January after failing to receive security guarantees, the WHO said at the time.

Israeli authorities denied 30% of humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza in March, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.