May 14, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Israel-Hamas war news or read through the updates below.

Palestinians pack their belongings as they prepare to flee Rafah in southern Gaza on May 13.

Almost 450,000 people who have fled Rafah over the last week lack shelter, water and latrines, according to the UN’s main relief agency in Gaza (UNRWA).

UNRWA reported Tuesday that families continue to flee Rafah in search of safety, fleeing wherever they can – including to rubble and sand dunes.

The report said families displaced from Rafah are arriving at sites that lack shelter, latrines and water points.

The UN report said all parties must respect international humanitarian law and civilians’ essential needs “including food, shelter, water and health – must be met, wherever they are in Gaza and whether they move or stay. ”

It is impossible to improve the situation at displacement sites if supplies can’t enter Gaza, it said.

The report also said that Israeli settlers attacked aid trucks bound for Gaza in the occupied West Bank on Monday, according to the agency’s office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The settlers offloaded and vandalized the vehicles at the Tarqumiya checkpoint and near the Barrier by Beit ‘Awwa. Several trucks were damaged,” OCHA said.

The UN called for Israel to do more to protect aid trucks from violence by Israeli settlers and ensure that all allegations of settler violence are investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted.

The Biden administration on Tuesday began the early stages of a process to move ahead with a new $1 billion arms deal for Israel, according to two congressional sources.

The State Department has now opened discussions with the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees about the possible sale. There is no set timeline for when Congress would officially be notified of the sale, setting into motion a clock for its approval. 

The potential sale would include the potential transfer of $700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, one of the congressional sources said. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the administration’s discussions with Congress about this sale. 

The weapons under discussion would not arrive in Israel imminently. The sale would still need to be officially notified to Congress and receive congressional approval, which could take years.

The decision to get the wheels in motion for this new weapons deal comes as the Biden administration has paused the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs and 500-pound bombs to Israel, citing opposition to the weapons being used in the densely populated areas of Rafah. 

While US officials have said that other cases of weapons shipments to Israel would be under review, they have also said that the US will continue to make sure that Israel has the military capacity to defend itself, indicating that longer-term weapons deals are not going to be halted at this time. 

“We are continuing to send military assistance, and we will ensure that Israel receives the full amount provided in the supplemental. We have paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs because we do not believe they should be dropped in densely populated cities. We are talking to the Israeli government about this,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday. 

The State Department did not comment on the informal notification other than to point to Sullivan’s remarks.

The Pentagon also declined to comment.

President Joe Biden returns to the Oval Office from the Rose Garden on Tuesday, May 14.

US President Joe Biden would veto the GOP-led bill that would compel the delivery of defensive weapons to Israel amid blowback on Capitol Hill following Biden’s decision to withhold at least one arms shipment to Israel over concerns about an extensive incursion into Rafah, the White House said Tuesday.  

“The bill is a misguided reaction to a deliberate distortion of the Administration’s approach to Israel. The President has been clear: we will always ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself. Our commitment to Israel is ironclad,” according to a statement released by the Office of Management and Budget.

The bill, which is expected to be voted on Thursday in the House, aims to prohibit the administration from withholding, halting, reversing or canceling the delivery of defense articles or defense services from the United States to Israel, and requires any defense articles or defense services that have already been withheld to be released within 15 days of the bill’s enactment. 

“The bill would undermine the President’s ability to execute an effective foreign policy. This bill could raise serious concerns about infringement on the President’s authorities under Article II of the Constitution, including his duties as Commander-in-Chief and Chief Executive and his power to conduct foreign relations,” the statement added. 

The bill, as CNN has reported, is unlikely to be taken up in the Democratic-led Senate.

Jon and Rachel Goldberg Polinwere during a CNN interview on Tuesday, May 14.

The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American hostage held in Gaza, have suggested that a hostage family member and a Gazan civilian should be in the negotiation room to help end the deadlock in ceasefire negotiations.

Polin said while they don’t have diplomatic experience and they are not politicians, they have something else that is very valuable: “We are deeply emotionally connected to solving this conflict.”

Rachel Goldberg Polin, the hostage’s mother, told CNN they feel tremendous frustration every time negotiations stall.

“Those people in that room should actually be locked in that room until they can come up with a solution,” she said. 

Remember: Goldberg-Polin, then 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ attacks on Israel when more than 1,200 people died and more than 200 people were taken hostage. An end to the war in Gaza appears as far off as ever after the latest round of indirect talks on a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release deal ended in deadlock late last week. Qatari and Egyptian mediators have said significant differences remain between Israel and Hamas over halting fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Aid agencies are warning any escalation in Rafah risks exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. Officials from UNICEF, Doctors without Borders and the Palestine Red Crescent Society all voiced concerns that hostilities were increasing at the same time as a squeeze on the entry of aid into the enclave.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s call for Egypt to reopen the Rafah border crossing has sparked a heated exchange with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, who characterized Katz’s comments as an attempt to shift blame for the Gaza humanitarian crisis onto Egypt.

Here’s what else to know:

A deadly heat wave in Gaza in April, which saw punishing temperatures worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis, was made hotter and more likely by the human-caused climate crisis, according to an analysis published Tuesday.

Gaza was not alone. Several heat waves spanning a vast area of the Asian continent last month during the world’s hottest April on record were made more intense and likely by the climate crisis, the analysis from the World Weather Attribution initiative (WWA) found.

The WWA report divided the heat waves into three areas: West Asia, the Philippines and a region spanning South and Southeast Asia.

In West Asia, the analysis focused on the Palestinian territories, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, where temperatures spiked above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) last month. It found climate change made the heat in this region around five times more likely and 1.7 degrees Celsius hotter than it would have been before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

Soaring temperatures had a particularly stark impact on the 1.7 million displaced people in Gaza, already struggling with insufficient water access and inadequate healthcare. There was little respite from the relentless heat for those crammed into makeshift tents and shelters, often covered with plastic sheets. At least three people, including two children, reportedly died from the heat, the analysis notes.

“From Gaza to Delhi to Manila, people suffered and died when April temperatures soared in Asia,” Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment and a report author, said in a statement. “Heat waves have always happened. But the additional heat, driven by emissions from oil, gas and coal, is resulting in death for many people.”

Read more about climate’s effect on humanitarian conditions.

Ahed Bseso's right leg was amputated at home in Gaza after a tank fired at her building, bringing a wall and debris crashing down on her. 

Ahed Bseso lay on the kitchen table in her home in Gaza, watching as her uncle amputated her wounded right leg. Standing by, her mother cried, “Ahed is dead!”

But 18-year-old Bseso was very much alive, and she survived to tell her story from a hospital in Greenville, South Carolina.

Bseso said that on December 19, she went to the top floor of her house in Gaza to get a phone signal when an Israeli tank outside fired at her building. It destroyed part of her home’s wall, which came crashing down on her leg, along with heavy debris. With her neighborhood under siege and no possibility of medical attention, her uncle, who used to work as an orthopedic surgeon, used kitchen supplies to amputate her leg below the knee and dress it with unsterilized gauze.

“For four days, I couldn’t leave the house because the Israelis wouldn’t let me,” she told CNN through a translator, at the Shriners Children’s hospital. “There was no medication I could take to inhibit the pain or to help me with my condition. So, I just sat in agony for four days.”

A video of her amputation went viral and caught the attention of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), a US organization that provides free health care to thousands of injured and ill Palestinian children in the Middle East. The organization worked for weeks to bring her to the US for medical care, according to Tareq Hailat, head of the Treatment Abroad program at PCRF.

She is one of three Palestinians who received PCRF’s help to come to the US for leg injury treatment.

At least 1,000 children in Gaza have had one or both legs amputated, UNICEF reported in December. Though he couldn’t give an exact figure, UNICEF spokesperson Joe English told CNN that the number has since grown.

Read the full story here.

US Army soldiers and sailors attached to the MV Roy P. Benavidez assemble the Roll-On, Roll-Off Distribution Facility, or floating pier, off the shore of Gaza, on April 26.

The US Defense Department has announced that the World Food Programme will be the organization that will receive and distribute aid to Gaza from the American-built temporary floating pier.

“The US government and other international donors are providing aid commodities for delivery from Cyprus to the beach in Gaza by way of US and partner nation military and civilian vessels, and a temporary floating pier,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told a briefing.

“The World Food Programme will take receipt of that aid once ashore in Gaza and coordinate its onward movement and distribution to people in need.”

Ryder did not say when exactly the pier would be ready to receive aid beyond “the coming days.”

“I’m not going to get into specific dates, but in the coming days you can expect to see this effort underway,” said Ryder.

He also called on “all parties” not to interfere with the distribution of aid.

A damaged UN vehicle is seen in front of a hospital after a United Nations employee was killed in an attack, according to Israeli media, in Gaza on Monday, May 13.

The United Nations assembled a fact-finding panel to investigate an attack that killed one staff member and injured another in Rafah, in southern Gaza.

A vehicle branded with UN insignia was targeted on Monday, prompting swift condemnation from international leaders.

Initial assessments suggest the fatal shot was fired from a tank in the neighborhood, striking the back of the UN vehicle, according to deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq. Discussions are underway with Israeli authorities to determine the circumstances of the attack and the nature of the explosion.

Casualties: The deceased UN staffer was from India. His death marked the first time an international UN worker was killed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The injured colleague, from Jordan, is hospitalized. Both were employed by the UN Department for Safety and Security.

With 71 international staff members stationed in Gaza, the attack underscores the dangers faced by humanitarian workers in war zones. At least 254 UN aid workers have been killed since October, according to the agency.

Palestinian truck drivers and United Nations vehicles wait near the Rafah border gate on the Gazan side to cross into the Egyptian side on Tuesday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s call for Egypt to reopen the Rafah border crossing has sparked a heated exchange with his Egyptian counterpart.

Katz said on Twitter that he had spoken to the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Alma Baerbock “about the need to persuade Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing to allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

But the comments were blasted by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who characterized them as an attempt to shift blame for the Gaza humanitarian crisis onto Egypt.

Shoukry accused Israel of causing the crisis through its military actions and its control over the Palestinian side of the crossing. He called on Israel to fulfill its obligations as the occupying power and allow aid to enter Gaza through the land ports under its control.

But Katz reiterated Israel’s stance that Hamas would not be allowed to control the Rafah crossing, saying “this is a security necessity on which we will not compromise.”

Chidlren watch smoke billowing into the sky east of Rafah in Gaza on Monday.

Aid agencies are warning any escalation in Rafah risks exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

Officials from UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society all voiced concerns that hostilities were increasing at the same time as a squeeze on the entry of aid into the enclave.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) called for border crossings to be opened to allow more aid in.

“The ongoing closure of crossings by the Israeli occupation forces, especially the vital Rafah crossing – which is the main artery supply to the entire Gaza Strip – prevents the entry of humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, as well as fuel, and poses an imminent humanitarian and health disaster,” the PRCS said in a statement.

UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khodr, echoed those concerns.

“Civilians – already exhausted, malnourished, and facing numerous traumatic events – are now facing increased death, injury, and displacement among the ruins of their communities,” Khodr said.

“Major hospitals in the north within evacuation zones, including Kamal Adwan, Al Awda, and the Indonesian Hospital, find themselves in the crossfire, which severely disrupts the delivery of critical medical supplies and puts numerous lives at risk. Those at imminent risk of famine are now cut off from any help,” Khodr added.

Doctors without Borders (MSF) said they had to stop providing care at the Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah due to the Israeli offensive.

“We have had to leave 12 different health structures and have endured 26 violent incidents, which include airstrikes damaging hospitals, tanks being fired at agreed deconflicted shelters, ground offensives into medical centers, and convoys fired upon,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of emergency operations.

MSF have resumed operations at Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, with a focus on orthopedic surgery, burn care, and occupational therapy. MSF staff fled Nasser hospital in mid-February as Israeli forces ordered evacuation ahead of raiding the facility, the organization said.

Israelis march with national flags in Sderot, Israel, on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of far-right protesters in the southern city of Sderot, in Israel, called for the construction of settlements in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as right-wing rhetoric over Israel’s military campaign in the enclave gains momentum.

People marched in a “returning home” demonstration for “extensive settlement in the Gaza Strip to guarantee the achievements of the war.” Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip would “correct the past mistakes of Oslo and the ‘disengagement,’” organizers said, adding that 50,000 people attended. CNN could not confirm the number of attendees and Israeli police does not provide attendance figures for rallies.

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told the rally that officials must work towards “encouraging immigration. To encourage the voluntary departure of the residents of Gaza.” Such language has prompted accusations against far-right Israelis of advocating to ethnically cleanse Palestinians in Gaza.

Gush Katif: The disengagement refers to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. At the time, the Israeli military forcibly evacuated a bloc of 21 Israeli settlements known as Gush Katif. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon invested much of his political future in his pullout plan, which was aimed at strengthening the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The Oslo Accords: The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, were to be a key step in an Israeli-Palestinian peace process and saw the establishment of limited Palestinian self-governance over parts of the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israelis gather ahead of the march in Sderot on Tuesday.

An employee of UNRWA looks at the site of an Israeli strike on a school in Nuseirat, Gaza, on Tuesday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck a “Hamas war room” embedded inside a school operated by the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Tuesday.

The IDF claimed the room was being used by Hamas commanders and that over 10 members of the group were killed in the strike. CNN cannot independently confirm the IDF claim.

A UNRWA official said the agency is not able to confirm the claims from the Israeli military.

“Like we have said on several occasions, any report of a violation of a UN premises must be investigated. We remind all parties to the conflict that UN installations must be protected at all times and must never be used for military purposes/ fighting purposes,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, told CNN in a statement.

Al Awda hospital in Gaza said it had received 11 bodies from this strike.

“Based on IDF and ISA intelligence, the IAF carried out a precise strike on a central Hamas war room commanders embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat,” the IDF said.

“The war room was used by terrorist operatives in Hamas’ military wing. The strike was carried out using precise munitions in order to minimize harm to uninvolved civilians.”

The IDF went on to claim that the war room had been used by Hamas to “plan multiple attacks” against IDF troops in central Gaza in recent weeks.

The Israeli military also confirmed a strike on a second location in Nuseirat on Tuesday, claiming they struck “terrorist infrastructure.”

Gaza’s Al Aqsa hospital said it had received bodies of 36 people including 18 children from this strike.

Rescue workers have continued efforts to find bodies underneath the rubble of a four-story building that was demolished in the strike, witnesses said. They also said that dozens of people had been sheltering in the building’s yard.

The strike at the UNRWA school occurred about two hours after the strike on the four-story building, according to witnesses.

Journalist Mohammad Al Sawalhi in Nuseirat, in central Gaza and CNN’s Tim Lister contributed reporting.

People inspect the site of the strike in Nuseirat on Tuesday.

A body is pulled out from under the rubble of a collapsed building as a civil defense team and residents carry out a search and rescue operation at the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on May 14.

Colorful blankets, mangled mattresses and dusty books are scattered over what used to be the Karaja family’s home, where 100 displaced Palestinians were also staying. Separately, dozens of Palestinian men, women and children climb atop a mountain of debris searching for loved ones.

These are scenes captured on video by CNN after two Israeli airstrikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp overnight. At least 40 people were killed; nine children were among them, according to local hospital officials.

The video shows relatives of those still missing rummaging through the ruins, many of their faces red with grief. “They are all buried under the ground, including children … What fault did they have?” said Ashraf Al Jalees. “I swear to God they are all innocent civilians.” 

Hamdan Karaja, told CNN that his father was killed in the attack.

“My children, both girls and boys, are under the rubble, my wife as well,” the father-of-seven said, his head wrapped in badages. “We were targeted while we were asleep, without any prior warning.”  

In the second attack, Israeli forces struck a school run by the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees in Nuseirat. Displaced children can be seen looking bewildered, as men kiss and embrace, offering words of comfort.  

At least 450,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah, according to the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), as Israeli officials say they will press ahead with plans for a full-scale ground invasion of the city.

Many Gazans who have been forced out of the city were already displaced. Streams have returned to their destroyed neighborhoods in Khan Younis, telling CNN they now have “no place to stay.”

Here are the latest developments:

Relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack mourn at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue in Deir Balah, Gaza, on May 14.

Two Israeli airstrikes killed 36 Palestinians in the Nuseirat camp overnight, according to local health officials, as the Israeli military intensified its attacks on central Gaza.

At least 25 bodies from the aftermath of one strike were taken to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another 11 were taken to the Al-Awda Hospital after the second strike.

The first attack, at around 1 a.m., hit a four-story home belonging to a family that was sheltering at least 100 people displaced by the war, the Civil Defense in Gaza said in a statement earlier on Tuesday.

Four families and other displaced Palestinians in the vicinity of the house were trapped under the rubble, added Civil Defense spokesperson Rami Al Aida. Witnesses said earlier that dozens of people had been sheltering in the building’s yard, as emergency workers recovered bodies from the debris.

Palestinians search for casualties trapped under the rubble of of a house hit in an Israeli strike i Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, May 14, 2024. REUTERS/

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has demolished roads and drastically cut critical supplies. Al Aida said crews were “operating in extremely challenging conditions due to a lack of fuel and equipment.”

“We hope to find people alive. We appeal to all international organizations to provide the Civil Defense with the necessary tools, bulldozers, and fuel,” Al Aida said.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza, on May 14.

The second strike hit a school run by the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees in Nuseirat, almost two hours after the first, according to witnesses.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on the two strikes.

Mohamed Abu Daqqa, a resident of Bani Suheila, returned to the rubble of his destroyed neighbourhood in Khan Younis, after fleeing Rafah.

Mohamed Abu Daqqa is surrounded by a huge expanse of rubble, his curly tufts of hair gently fluttering in the breeze. 

CNN video shows clothes and pieces of barbed wire sticking out from the debris of destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Daqqa is one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forced to leave Rafah, in southern Gaza, after the Israeli military ordered people to evacuate the city last week ahead of a threatened ground assault. Many Palestinians forced to evacuare Rafah were already displaced.  

The resident of Bani Suheila told CNN he returned to Khan Younis, only to find his neighborhood razed to the ground. At least 450,000 Palestinians have been forced to leave Rafah since May 6, according to the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees. 

“You can see what the Israelis did to us. They destroyed us. They left us no place to stay. No shelter. They destroyed the town, destroyed the houses. People find their houses scattered in different areas,” said Daqqa.

“I don’t know what to say. There is no life left for us. And now they are invading Rafah and telling us to go back … We are just waiting for God’s grace,” he said. “It’s better than the humiliation we lived under in Rafah and in the tents and shelters. (But) no one is helping, no one is donating.”  

Palestinians stand next to a vehicle in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, on April 2, where employees from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Israeli forces have struck known locations of aid workers in Gaza at least eight times since October 7 despite agencies providing their coordinates “to ensure their protection,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

At least 15 people, including two children, were killed in the eight attacks, HRW said in a report on Tuesday. Israeli authorities did not issue advance warning to any of the relief organizations before the strikes, HRW alleged.

The strike in one of the reported attacks — on January 18 — was most likely carried out with a US-made munition that included British-made components, the UK-based NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians said, citing UN inspectors. The bomb was delivered by an F-16 aircraft.

The governments that continue to provide arms to the Israeli government risk complicity in war crimes,” HRW added. 

The eight attacks “reveal fundamental flaws with the so-called deconfliction system, meant to protect aid workers,” according to the report.

Staff from 11 humanitarian organizations and UN agencies in Gaza told HRW that Israeli attacks on aid workers “forced them to take various measures,” including suspending or “severely restricting” operations, and reducing employees in the enclave. The UN has reported that 254 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October.

“Israeli authorities are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival.”

CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces for a response to the HRW report.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani addresses the opening session of the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on May 14.

Talks on a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release deal are “almost” at a stalemate over a “fundamental difference” between Israel and Hamas over halting fighting in the enclave, according to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani.

“Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward,“ the leader said Tuesday, referring to Israel’s increased strikes on the southern Gaza city ahead of a planned full-scale ground assault.

Both parties remain in disagreement on “a baseline” after a “very long” negotiation process, he said.

The prime minister, who also serves as the country’s foreign minister, said he does not think Israel is “considering” stopping the war. Hamas has demanded a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal from Gaza to release all hostages.

“There is one party who wants to end the war and then talk about the hostages, there’s another party that wants the hostages and wants to continue the war,” he told an economic conference in Doha.

Key mediator: The Arab nation said last month that it is reconsidering its role as the central mediator between Israel and Hamas amounted to a public declaration of frustration at criticism of its ties to the Palestinian militant group. “We didn’t want to be used or abused as a mediator,” Al Thani said.

A view of the damaged UN vehicle in front of a hospital in Gaza on Monday.

The Israeli military has said that a UN vehicle struck in Rafah on Monday was in “an active combat zone.”

“A report was received from the (United Nations Department for Safety and Security) that two of the organization’s workers were injured today in the area of Rafah,” a military statement said late Monday. 

One of the UN workers was killed. 

The Israel Defense Forces said that “an initial inquiry conducted indicates that the vehicle was hit in an area declared an active combat zone. The IDF had not been made aware of the route of the vehicle.”

It said the incident was under review.

The UN agency responsible for humanitarian aid in Gaza said Tuesday that about 450,000 have fled the city of Rafah over the past week – at least one-third of the population that had converged on the area as Israeli military attacks intensified elsewhere in the enclave.

The figure is 90,000 more than that given by UNRWA on Monday.

People are streaming out of Rafah following Israeli evacuation calls ahead of a planned major ground offensive.

“@UNRWA estimates that nearly 450,000 people have been forcibly displaced from Rafah since 6 May. People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear. Nowhere is safe. An immediate #ceasefire is the only hope,” the agency posted on X.

The UN and humanitarian groups have estimated that between 1.2 and 1.4 million people were living in the Rafah area before an Israeli military offensive in the eastern part of the city began last week.

Satellite imagery examined by CNN last week showed that tent cities in several parts of Rafah were more empty than previously.

Relatives of Palestinians killed during Israeli attacks mourn in Rafah, Gaza, on May 13.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 82 people were killed in the most recent 24-hour reporting period as a result of Israeli operations.

A total of 234 people were wounded, the ministry said.  

The ministry said the most recent casualties brought the total since October 7 to 35,173 killed and 79,061 wounded.

CNN cannot verify the numbers of the ministry, which does not distinguish between casualties among fighters and civilians. It does not include in its figures the several thousand people thought to be missing in Gaza since October 7.

Palestinians sift through the rubble of a building following an Israeli bombardment in Nuseirat, Gaza, late on May 13.

An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza has killed at least 13 displaced Palestinians and left families buried in the rubble, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital spokesperson told CNN.

The strike hit a four-storey building belonging to the Karaja family that was sheltering at least 100 people displaced by the war, Civil Defense in Gaza said in a statement on Tuesday.

The bodies of the children were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

The building was struck at around 2:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday while people were sleeping.

The death toll is expected to rise. A CNN stringer filming the aftermath said he had spoken to four people who said they had at least six family members missing in the rubble.

Videos shared on social media show people, including children, trapped under thick slabs of cement as rescue teams try to save them. The building has been demolished. 

Israeli forces have repeatedly struck Nuseirat camp, located north of Deir el-Balah, in recent months.

Tuesday’s strike caused a fire at a nearby UN-run school, which is seen engulfed in flames in videos from the scene. Another person was killed at a fire in a warehouse, according to our CNN stringer on the ground. 

CNN has reached out to the Israeli military and the UN for comment. 

People stand outside the emergency ward of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Friday.

Editor’s Note: Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of injury

Raneem Hijazi remembers how tightly she held her one-year-old son Azzouz before the Israeli airstrike hit. The drone flying over their building in Gaza was getting louder and she had a feeling that something bad was about to happen.

“Whatever happens to me, happens to him,” she says of her reasoning in holding him so close to her baby bump.

She does not remember the moment of impact, but the memory of the aftermath is imprinted in her brain.

She immediately started feeling around, searching for Azzouz, until her mother-in-law screamed. “She found him over my belly. She picked him up. His body was in her hands and his head dropped on my belly,” she recalls.

By the time she reached the hospital she was presumed dead, she says. Her eight-month pregnancy made doctors look again and they delivered her daughter Mariam by cesarian.

Hijazi tells her story in a faint voice lying in a hospital bed in Doha, Qatar’s capital. Her left arm was amputated, and both legs sustained extensive damage, requiring bone grafts to repair them.

Despite the occasional groans of pain, the relatively quiet hallways of the Gaza ward at Hamad Hospital in Doha are starkly different from the overwhelmed medical facilities in Gaza.

Behind every door is a story of a miraculous survival tainted by inconsolable loss.

Mothers being treated for life-altering injuries can finally begin to process the loss of a child and struggle with their diminished ability to care for their surviving children.

Read the full story.

A damaged United Nations vehicle is seen in front of a hospital after a UN employee was killed in an attack on a vehicle in Gaza, according to Israeli media.

The US has assessed that Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah to launch a full-scale incursion in the coming days, but senior American officials are unsure if a decision to carry out the offensive has been made, two senior administration officials told CNN.

The White House believes an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would be a mistake and is “urgently” working toward a ceasefire, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday.

The Biden administration is urging Israel to connect their military operations to a “clear” end game for the war, Sullivan told reporters. And, a top State Department official said the US and Israel are “struggling over what the theory of victory is” for Israel in Gaza, and that the US does not believe that the kind of total victory Israel says it is fighting for against Hamas is “likely or possible.”

Here are the major developments:

Unclear military strategy: The Israeli military has renewed its fighting in northern Gaza where it previously claimed to have dismantled Hamas’ command structure. But it now says the Palestinian militant group is trying to “reassemble” in the area, raising doubts about whether Israel’s goal to eradicate the group in the enclave is realistic and renewing questions about its long-term military strategy.

Hamas treated in Turkey: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “more than 1,000 Hamas members are currently under treatment” in Turkish hospitals. He said he does not see Hamas as a “terrorist organization” but as a “resistance organization.”

Death toll unchanged: The United Nations has clarified the war’s death toll in Gaza, tallied by the enclave’s Health Ministry, remains unchanged at over 35,000, after its casualties report caused confusion.

Aid ransacked: Israeli activists opposed to helping Palestinians in Gaza intercepted and ransacked an aid shipment. Video from a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank shows at least two trucks ransacked. Other footage showed activists blocking the path of the trucks, throwing packages on the ground and stomping on boxes. It’s unclear whether the aid was coming from Jordan or the Palestinian Authority.

United Nations staffer killed and wounded: At least one UN aid worker was killed and another wounded after a vehicle marked as belonging to the agency was attacked in Rafah, according to a UN secretary-general spokesperson, who did not assign blame to either Israel or Hamas for the attack.

Palestinians pack their belongings as they prepare to flee Rafah in southern Gaza on May 13.

The US has assessed that Israel has amassed enough troops on the edge of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah to launch a full-scale incursion in the coming days, but senior American officials are unsure if a decision to carry out the offensive has been made, two senior administration officials told CNN.

One of the officials also warned that Israel has not come anywhere close to making adequate preparations – including building infrastructure related to food, hygiene and shelter – ahead of potentially evacuating more than 1 million Gazans in Rafah.

If Israel were to proceed with a major ground operation into Rafah, it would be going against months of warnings from the US to forego a full-scale offensive into the densely populated city.

Biden himself voiced that warning in his most explicit terms yet last week, telling CNN’s Erin Burnett that the US would withhold some arms shipments to Israel if they were to take such a step.

“The president was clear that he would not supply certain offensive weapons for such an operation were to occur,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House Monday. “It has not yet occurred.”

As the war enters its eighth month, US officials are increasingly questioning Israel’s approach to the war, including publicly suggesting it is unlikely to achieve its stated aim of destroying Hamas.

On Monday, Kurt Campbell, the State Department’s No. 2 official, said there have plainly been tensions between the two countries on “what the theory of victory is.”

“Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talk about mostly the idea of some sort of sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory. I don’t think we believe that that is likely or possible,” Campbell said.

“We view that there has to be more of a political solution,” Campbell said.

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Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, on Monday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that “more than 1,000 Hamas members are currently under treatment” in Turkish hospitals.

He also said that calling Hamas a “terrorist organization” would be “a cruel approach.”

“I do not see Hamas as a terrorist organization. On the contrary, Hamas is a resistance organization whose lands have been occupied since 1947 and after the occupation they have protected their lands. They are resistance organization struggling to protect those places,” Erdogan added, according to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu.

A screengrab of a video shows Israeli activists blocking the path of the aid trucks and throwing aid packages on the ground.

A shipment of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza was intercepted and ransacked by Israeli activists opposed to sending help to Palestinians living in the besieged enclave.

Video from the Tarkumiya checkpoint near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, through which the convoy was traveling, shows at least two trucks ransacked, with sacks and boxes of food strewn across the road.

Other footage showed activists blocking the path of the aid trucks, throwing the aid packages on the ground, and stomping on the boxes. It’s unclear whether the aid was coming from Jordan or the Palestinian Authority.

The Regavim movement, which opposes the transfer of aid to Gaza, said: “We will not be the ‘silver platter’ of the Palestinian Authority.” Regavim and activists from another group, Tsav 9, were involved in the disruption of the convoy.

“Unfathomable to the mind and heart, that precisely on the day of Remembrance Day for the fallen soldiers of Israel’s battles and the victims of hostilities, the Israeli government opens a supply route from the Palestinian Authority in Hebron to the Hamas terrorists in Gaza,” the Regavim movement said.

Israeli police said they have since opened an investigation and arrested several activists over the interception.

The US raised the incident with the Israeli government. The US State Department previously condemned several other attacks on aid convoys by Israeli activists and called on Israel to hold the alleged perpetrators accountable.

People mourn next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on May 11.

The United Nations has clarified that the Gaza death toll tallied by the enclave’s Health Ministry remains unchanged, at more than 35,000 since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published a report on May 8 with revised data on the number of Palestinian casualties in the war. The report showed the number of women and children believed to have been killed in the war reduced by nearly half.

The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of dead women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.

What the UN says: UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said Gaza’s Health Ministry recently published two death tolls — an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) were documented was published, leading to confusion.

What the ministry says: CNN spoke to two officials from the Palestinian Health Ministry. They said although the ministry keeps a separate death toll for identified and unidentified individuals, the total number of people killed remains unchanged. The total number of dead does not include the approximately 10,000 people who are still missing and trapped under the rubble, the officials said.

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The Israeli military has renewed its fighting in northern Gaza where it previously claimed to have dismantled Hamas’ command structure. But it now says the Palestinian militant group is trying to “reassemble” in the area, raising doubts about whether Israel’s goal to eradicate the group in Gaza is realistic.

Israel’s renewed ground operation began on Saturday, with intense shelling and gunfire gripping much of the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The Israeli military also began operating in the area of Zeitoun in central Gaza, as it continues its offensive in eastern Rafah and near the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

Israel’s return to pockets it had supposedly cleared of Hamas renews questions about its long-term military strategy, which — after more than seven months of war — has left more than 35,000 Gazans dead and much of the enclave in ruins, but more than 100 hostages from Israel still in captivity and Hamas’ top leadership still at large.

The resumption in fighting in the north comes as talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire-for-hostages deal have stalled, and as the Biden administration signals that the United States is losing patience with its closest ally in the Middle East.