November 2, 2023 Israel-Hamas war news

Our live coverage of the conflict in Israel and Gaza has moved here.

Al-Shifa hospital, the Gaza Strip’s largest medical facility, will become a “mass grave” as electricity runs out, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah said Thursday.

Hospitals and aid agencies have been warning that medical facilities across the besieged enclave will grind to a halt unless fuel is delivered to keep power lines running, while medics struggle to treat patients with severe injuries from Israeli bombardment.

“Unless there’s electricity, this hospital will turn into a mass grave. It’s as simple as that. if we cannot keep the ventilators running. If we can’t take our critically wounded patients back to the operating room, then there’s nothing for this place other than to come and die,” Abu-Sittah told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

The hospital in Gaza City is currently running on just one generator after the fuel shortage led to one being switched off, and some patients could not safely go into surgery due to the lack of electricity, he added.

Despite the Israeli military’s announcement that it has encircled Gaza City, the doctor said he has no intentions of leaving the hospital.

“I have no plans to leave the hospital or to leave my patients. My day involves operating from 8 o’clock in the morning till very late at night. These surgeries are done out of necessity, not out of some kind of luxury. And so if I’m not there, literally there’s nobody else there to do it,” he said. 

The number of journalists killed covering the Israel-Gaza conflict has risen to 36, according to a statement Thursday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The toll includes 31 Palestinians, four Israelis, and one Lebanese, CPJ added.

Another eight journalists were injured and nine others were reported missing or detained, it added.

The journalism advocacy group says the Israel-Gaza conflict since October 7 has been the deadliest period for journalists since it began tracking in 1992.

Israeli airstrikes on Thursday killed at least 23 people sheltering in four United Nations facilities in the Gaza Strip, according to an update by the UN humanitarian office.

Nearly 20,000 displaced people were sheltering in those facilities run by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) when the deadly strikes hit, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“As of 2 November, nearly 1.5 million people in Gaza were internally displaced, with over 690,400 sheltering in 149 UNRWA facilities,” it said in a statement.

The escalation of bombardment has killed 72 UNRWA staff and damaged 50 of the agency’s facilities since October 7, the statement added.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, earlier described that the agency has received “extraordinary, difficult news” about schools in the refugee camps of Jabalya and Al Shati.

Three schools run by UNRWA have been hit, killing at least 20 people, he said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

Russia will send a shipment of 28 tonnes (around 31 US tons) containing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, according to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry.

“Two aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations will deliver 28 tonnes of humanitarian cargo for the population of the Gaza Strip,” the ministry announced on Telegram on Thursday.

The aid consists of medicine, hemostatic agents as well as dressing materials, and “will be handed over to representatives of the Egyptian Red Crescent Society for further shipment to the Gaza Strip,” the ministry said.

The assistance was organized at the direction of President Vladimir Putin, the ministry said.

Russia already delivered 27 tonnes (around 30 US tons) of food to the besieged enclave in October, it added.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi is set to tell US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the “Israeli war on Gaza” must stop, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign and Expats Affairs’ X account on Thursday.

Safadi is scheduled to meet with Blinken in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Saturday.

“[They] will discuss the catastrophic conditions in Gaza and will stress on the necessity of immediate action to stop the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip,” Ambassador Dr. Sufyan Al-Qudah, the official spokesperson for the ministry, said in the statement.

The meeting will also stress the urgency for allowing humanitarian aid into the enclave, “the protection of civilians, and the need for Israel to adhere to international law and international humanitarian law and stop its continued violations,” the statement added.

The ministry also warned that if the conflict does not end it will lead to a regional war that will threaten world peace.

An 81-year-old Palestinian-American woman received clearance to exit the Gaza Strip – but is unable to do so without support for her medical needs, her attorney Ghassan Shamieh told CNN on Thursday.

Her grandson, Said Bsieso, says his grandmother is running out of time.

“She’s probably lost like 30 pounds at least,” he said at a news conference in San Francisco Thursday. “She’s running out of medication and… I don’t know if she can handle a trip back here by herself.”  

Shamieh said the woman’s son traveled from Gaza to California to escort her for the visit to Gaza in August, but since he is not a US citizen and his US visa is now expired, he is unable to escort her out. 

The attorney declined to detail the woman’s ailments but said her age, combined with a lack of food, water and medication has challenged her mobility.

He is calling on the US State Department to provide the woman with the medical supervision she needs to exit Gaza safely.

“We think that the US has an obligation to evacuate its citizens safely,” he said. 

Some background: Between 20 and 25 US citizens arrived Thursday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing from Gaza, an Egyptian border official told CNN.

Overall, 341 foreign nationals crossed on Thursday, the official said. 

The exodus of the foreign nationals was the result of a deal announced Wednesday brokered by Qatar between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the US, that allows for the departure of those individuals, alongside critically injured civilians from Gaza, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Two Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces carried out a military incursion into the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday evening, according to a statement by the Palestinian Ministry of Health

The men were identified as 31-year-old Suleiman Steti and 26-year-old Mustafa Na’aniya. Several others were injured in the clashes, including one Palestinian suffering from a “serious abdominal injury” who was transferred to the Ibn Sina Specialized Hospital, the statement said. 

Videos obtained by CNN show several Israeli military tanks entering the sprawling camp on Thursday evening, with sounds of gunshots being fired and piles of rubble strewn around the ground. 

One video from Palestine TV shows a dramatic moment when a man was shot, and two others tried to carry him to the hospital, only to come under fire from an Israeli military vehicle nearby. 

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

Israel’s security cabinet announced Thursday that it would send workers from Gaza who are currently in Israeli territory back to the enclave and also cut funding to the Palestinian Authority that is designated for Gaza.

“Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” the government press office said, referring to the Gazan workers who have been stuck in Israel since the October 7 Hamas attack.

The statement did not detail how or when the workers would return to Gaza.

Prior to the Hamas attacks, thousands of Gazans had permits to cross into Israel and work, where they could earn significantly more money than they would in Gaza.

The cabinet also decided to “deduct all funds designated for the Gaza Strip – in addition to the deduction, required by law, of funds paid to terrorists and their families – from Palestinian Authority funds,” according to the government statement.

The Palestinian Authority is a separate government body with limited self-rule in the West Bank. It was established as part of a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would focus on steps to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza as he headed Thursday for high-level talks in Israel.

“[W]e will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimize harm to men, women, and children in Gaza, and this is something that the United States is committed to,” he said.

US President Joe Biden, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have been warning Israel with a growing force that it will become increasingly difficult for it to pursue its military goals in the Hamas-run enclave as global outcry intensifies about the scale of humanitarian suffering there.

Biden – who has offered full-throated support for Israel but increasingly raised concerns about the situation in Gaza – called Wednesday for a humanitarian “pause” to allow aid to reach civilians and help facilitate the release of hostages.

Here’s what else you should know:

US President Joe Biden and his top advisers are warning Israel with growing force that it will become increasingly difficult for it to pursue its military goals in Gaza as global outcry intensifies about the scale of humanitarian suffering there.

Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — who departed Thursday for Israel with a message on protecting civilian lives — have all explicitly pressed the case in recent private conversations with the Israelis, telling them that eroding support will have dire strategic consequences for Israel Defense Forces operations against Hamas.

Behind the scenes, American officials also believe there is limited time for Israel to try to accomplish its stated objective of taking out Hamas in its current operation before uproar over the humanitarian suffering and civilian casualties — and calls for a ceasefire —reaches a tipping point.

In fact, there is recognition within the administration that that moment may arrive quickly: Some of the president’s close advisers believe that there are only weeks, not months, until rebuffing the pressure on the US government to publicly call for a ceasefire becomes untenable, sources told CNN.

There have been no signs that Israel’s offensive is slowing. The Israeli military said Thursday it is surrounding Gaza City and “deepening” its operations there. CNN witnessed the skies of northern Gaza illuminated by flares and explosions as the bombardment intensified late Thursday night.

Particularly jarring to Biden and his national security team, two sources familiar with the matter said, were Israeli airstrikes this week that targeted a refugee camp in northern Gaza, resulting in grim scenes of widespread destruction and deaths. The president “didn’t like this at all,” one of the sources said. 

“The problem for [Israel] is that the criticism is getting louder, not just among their detractors, but from their best friends,” one senior administration official said. 

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus claimed the strike was targeting a Hamas commander hiding in an underground bunker and that when the complex imploded it possibly collapsed nearby buildings.  

Already, protests have blocked streets in Western capitals and even interrupted a private fundraiser Biden attended Wednesday in Minnesota. “As a rabbi I need you to call for a ceasefire right now,” an audience member shouted.

Biden responded by making an explicit call for a break in the fighting: “I think we need a pause,” he said, adding later when pressed by the protester: “A pause means give time to get the prisoners out.”

The president has not established any red lines for Israel, officials insist. And up until this point, the White House has taken great pains to avoid calling for a ceasefire, arguing that doing so would only help Hamas by giving the terrorist organization time to regroup and plot future operations. 

Read more.

CNN’s Oren Liebermann and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

The skies of northern Gaza were illuminated by flares and explosions as the bombardment intensified late Thursday night.

CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson in Sderot, Israel, saw missiles raining down on Gaza for more than 30 minutes, with multiple flares illuminating the night sky. The volume of flares was more intense than had been seen in the past weeks since October 7.

The focus of the flares appears to be in the northern Gaza area of Beit Hanoun, around 2.5 miles away from Sderot, Robertson said. 

CNN’s Ben Wedeman, who has reported for years in the Gaza Strip, described Beit Hanoun, which is not as populous as the nearby Gaza City, as one of the areas that has traditionally experienced the first military moves by the Israel Defense Forces during past operations.

There also appears to be a smoke screen covering the ground suggesting the possible movement of troops in the areas.

Robertson said it appeared that two rockets were fired out of Gaza during this time. Artillery fire was also heard nearby.

Mark Regev, senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the Israeli military is keeping up the pressure on Hamas.

“We are hitting its military machine,” Regev said. “Our goal is to destroy Hamas’ military machine and to dismantle its political control over Gaza.”

Regev said he could not provide further details, as the operation is ongoing. 

The intensified fire comes after the Israeli military announced that they had encircled Gaza City.

The post has been updated with Regev’s comments.

A Palestine TV correspondent and 11 members of his family were killed Thursday in southern Gaza following what the Palestinian Authority-run television network said was an Israeli airstrike on his home.

The deaths of Mohammad Abu Hattab and his family were the result of a “devastating Israeli airstrike” on his home in Khan Younis, the WAFA news agency reported. 

Al Hatab had been reporting live on-air Thursday night outside of Nasser Hospital in Gaza – 30 minutes later, he was killed after returning home, the network reported. 

CNN cannot independently confirm the source of the blast at the house, and Palestine TV did not publish evidence linking it directly to an Israeli strike.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incident.

In an emotional on-air report after his death, Al Hatab’s colleague and fellow journalist, Salman Al Bashir, took off his protective gear, including his helmet and vest, saying “No protection, no international protection at all, no immunity to anything, this protection gear does not protect us and not those helmets. These are just slogans that we are wearing, it doesn’t protect any journalist at all. This protection gear does not protect us.”  

“Our colleague Mohammad Abu Hattab was standing here only 30 minutes ago, and now he left us along with his wife, his brother and many members of his family are now victims here inside the hospital,” Al Bashir said.  

The continued Israeli bombing has become unbearable for the people of Gaza, he said.  

“We are dying one after the other and no one cares about us or the large-scale catastrophe and the crime in Gaza,” Al Bashir said.

Al Hatab’s last on-air report was about Israeli airstrikes on neighborhoods in Khan Younis, according to a Palestinian television video. 

This post has been updated.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it received fresh food, water, relief and medical supplies as at least 106 aid trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent crossed into Gaza via the Rafah crossing on Thursday.

This brings the total number of trucks that have crossed successfully from Egypt into Gaza to 374, according to the PRCS.

In its statement, the aid group highlighted once again that fuel supplies have still not been allowed into the besieged enclave. 

Dire humanitarian situation: The head of the main United Nations agency in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), warned Thursday that the last remaining public services in Gaza have “completely collapsed.”

Philippe Lazzarini said the “handful” of aid trucks currently being allowed to enter the territory “basically don’t do anything to reverse the fact” Gaza is “being strangled by the siege.” 

Doctors in Gaza hospitals also describe dire conditions and not enough medical supplies to treat injured and displaced people.

The US has intelligence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to provide the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah with a Russian-made missile defense system, according to two people familiar with the intelligence.

The Russian mercenary organization Wagner Group, which operates in Syria, has been tasked with carrying out the delivery of the surface-to-air SA-22 missile system, the people said.

It is not clear whether it has already been delivered or how close it is to delivery. The system was originally provided by Russia for use by the Syrian government, the sources said.

One of the sources said the US has been monitoring recent movement of the system, which is also known as a Pantsir. The other source said the US assessment was based partly on intelligence obtained about discussions among Assad, Wagner, and Hezbollah about the delivery of the system.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Wagner may provide the system to Hezbollah. Assad’s role has not been previously reported.

Wagner and Hezbollah fighters have both operated in Syria for years, where they have been working alongside Russian and Syrian armed forces to bolster the Assad regime against the Syrian opposition.

Hezbollah began to pull its fighters out in recent years, but the group is also backed by Iran, which is a close Assad ally. A third source familiar with Western intelligence said there was evidence of increasing collaboration between Hezbollah and Wagner in Syria.

The possibility that Hezbollah could soon have a new air defense system comes amid concerns that the militants are considering opening a new front in Israel’s war against Hamas, on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. The US has repeatedly warned Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups to stay out of the conflict and has positioned aircraft carriers and troops in the region to try to deter a potential escalation.

Israel has also targeted these missile systems inside of Syria before, as part of broader Israeli attacks on Iranian military sites in the country.

It is not clear how much influence Russia had over the decision to provide the system to Hezbollah. Since the death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in August, the Kremlin has made some attempts to absorb Wagner mercenaries and the group’s assets. But as of late September, the US had not seen a decisive shift in terms of the Kremlin taking full ownership over the fighters, CNN previously reported.

Read more about the Russian missile defense system

CNN’s Oren Liebermann contributed to this report.

Iran’s foreign minister spoke with Hamas’ political leader on Thursday night, the Iranian official said on social media.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he and Hamas’ political lead Ismail Haniyeh discussed “the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Further details on the meeting have not been released yet. 

Some background: Iran for years has provided funding, arms and training to the various proxy groups across the region, relationships that it uses to counter Israel and the United States and wield influence across the Middle East — all while maintaining a degree of deniability about its involvement. Hamas, the group that carried out the October attack on Israel is among those groups.

But, while Iran has praised the October 7 attack on Israel, officials are now saying publicly that they do not seek a widening of the war and warning that the situation risks spiraling.

Al-Quds hospital, the second-largest in Gaza City, and the surrounding area have come under increased fire in recent days, wounding several people and damaging the hospital structure, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

Ramped up Israeli airstrikes and gunfire are “endangering the lives of the dedicated medical personnel” and thousands of civilians in the area, the PRCS said in a statement Thursday.

Israeli military vehicles fired bullets “indiscriminately” into the area from about a kilometer south of the hospital, wounding a child and young man standing in front of the medical center, and penetrating the walls of the hospital’s sixth-floor shelter for displaced women and children, according to the aid organization. 

The incoming fire also damaged the hospital’s central air-conditioning units and one of its water tanks, the PRCS says.

The PRCS also accused the Israel Defense Forces of firing on an ambulance while aid workers were transferring dead and wounded Palestinians. The PRCS released images of two paramedics who it said suffered gunshot and shrapnel injuries.

CNN has reached out to the IDF to comment. In previous statements, it has maintained it “has requested and continues to request that all civilians move south of Wadi Gaza for greater safety.”

Some background: The hospital is located in the Tal Al Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, north of Wadi Gaza — the line south of which Israel has urged people in Gaza to flee. 

The Red Crescent said Sunday that it received a warning from the Israeli military to immediately evacuate ahead of possible bombardment — a task the World Health Organization deemed “impossible” without endangering the lives of patients.

Al-Quds Hospital is treating hundreds of patients, including wounded people, patients in intensive care and children in incubators, the PRCS said. Thousands of internally displaced civilians have also sheltered at the hospital.

Israel will respond with actions, not words, in response to any escalation from Hezbollah at the northern border, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said.

The comments from Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari come as the Israeli military has traded fire with Hezbollah militants for the past several weeks. The Israeli military said Thursday it struck several Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to launches from the country toward Israel.  

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is expected to weigh in on the war on Friday.

The group released a statement Thursday saying it hit an Israeli military barracks in the Shebaa Farms area with two attack drones, claiming they made “very direct hits inside the barracks.” Shebaa Farms is disputed territory along the Israel-Lebanon border. 

Asked about the potential for escalation in light of Nasrallah’s speech, Hagari reiterated Israel would respond with action, noting they are highly prepared. 

It is unclear what Nasrallah may announce in Friday’s speech, but Hezbollah-owned media have been effusive in their support for Hamas since October 7. Observers will watch the speech for signs of a new phase in the conflict, or modifications to the loosely defined rules of engagement that extend beyond the current tit-for-tat. 

In anticipation of the speech, White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday, “Our message to him or to anybody else is that they’re thinking about widening and escalating and deepening this conflict: You shouldn’t do it.”

Some background: Hezbollah is widely considered to be the regional wildcard that could tip the Israel-Hamas war into a regional conflict. It has a more sophisticated arsenal than Hamas, and its increased involvement in the war could rope in Iran’s paramilitary partners in Iraq and Yemen. 

CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Jo Shelley, Ben Wedeman and Charbel Mallo contributed reporting to this post.

The United States believes Israel is “making efforts to try to minimize civilian casualties,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said Thursday — but he declined repeatedly to say whether President Joe Biden’s administration sees Israel as having tried to minimize civilian deaths in its airstrikes on the Jabalya refugee camp.

Kirby told CNN earlier this week that it was “obvious” to the US that Israel is “trying to minimize” civilian deaths. When asked Thursday whether that remains the White House’s view after Israel struck the camp twice in two days, Kirby told CNN’s MJ Lee, “We see in the scope of their operations that they are making efforts to try to minimize civilian casualties.”

“That does not mean, and I did not say, that they aren’t still causing some (casualties),” Kirby added. “Each one’s tragic, each one shouldn’t happen, and we have been crystal-clear about that.”

Israel’s strikes on Jabalya prompted the United Nations Human Rights Office to express concern that the strikes “could amount to war crimes.” The Israeli military said the strikes targeted Hamas commanders and the militant group’s infrastructure.

Pressed again on the airstrikes on Jabalya specifically, Kirby said Thursday, “I’m not going to talk about specifics because I’m not going to litigate an operational event that our military is not involved in almost real time.” 

Any questions about the breadth of civilian casualties should come from the Israeli Defense Forces, not the US, Kirby said. 

“They should have to answer your questions about the decisions they’re making on the battlefield and how they’re doing their targeting and how they’re doing operations. We’re not going to throw it in from the sidelines here all the way in Washington, DC,” he said.

Kirby reiterated that US officials are stressing the importance of preserving civilian lives with their counterparts in Israel.

The US is “not putting constraints on Israel in terms of how they conduct their operations,” according to Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder. He was responding to a question about if the US was putting restrictions on the weapons it was providing.

“They are a professional military, well trained, well-led, and so I’ll just leave it at that,” he said. 

The head of the main United Nations agency in Gaza said on Thursday that its fuel supplies are “completely depleted,” and the last remaining public services in Gaza have “completely collapsed.”

The lack of fuel means the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) will not be able to supply hospitals, the water station and bakeries “in the coming days,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner general. The agency may also be unable to move its trucks within the Gaza Strip to provide humanitarian assistance.

The UNRWA now needs to look at what other fuel is available in the strip, Lazzarini said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

“There was commercial fuel, which was available, and there was also fuel which was brought in by the international community to supply the electric plant,” he explained, adding that over the last week the agency has also worked with Israeli officials through deconfliction channels to pick up fuel reserves.

Collapse of public services: The last remaining public services in Gaza have “completely collapsed,” the UN official said, and the “handful” of aid trucks currently being allowed to enter the territory “basically don’t do anything to reverse the fact” Gaza is “being strangled by the siege.” 

“It’s extremely sad to see how much now this population is completely dependent on an international humanitarian community, which is not in a position anymore to deliver at scope what they need,” Lazzarini said, adding that, “Hunger is turning into anger.”

Claims on Hamas’ fuel reserves: Amanpour asked the relief agency leader about reports that Hamas was storing and hoarding fuel.

The Israel Defense Forces has maintained publicly that Hamas holds significant amounts of fuel for its military operations — and that it is not using the supplies to provide for the humanitarian needs of Gaza civilians.

“What I can tell you is that no one right now is taking care of the civilian need. When it comes to the fuel, I have no idea what the military build-up has been of Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” Lazzarini said.  

The Israeli military has completed its encirclement of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday. 

The Israeli engineering corps is now working to locate and neutralize underground infrastructure, explosives and other threats to allow the IDF to move freely in the area, Hagari said.

Earlier Thursday, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the Israeli military is surrounding Gaza City and “deepening” its operations there.

“Our forces are in very significant areas of Gaza City,” Halevi said.

Egypt’s foreign minister on Thursday told CNN that a leaked Israeli intelligence ministry document that proposed the relocation of millions of Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt was a “ludicrous proposition.” 

“I don’t think we would — anyone would — raise such a ludicrous proposition,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “If that was the case, maybe the United States would also contemplate providing the same access to its southern border that might be expected for us in the Sinai.”

The document — downplayed earlier this week by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — proposes relocating Gaza’s civilian population to the northern Sinai, arguing such a plan would be best for Israel’s long-term security. Tent cities would be constructed in the area under the plan, with more permanent cities being constructed at a later date.

The plan also calls for a humanitarian corridor to aid the resettled population and a security perimeter be created to prevent them from entering Israel.

Shoukry told Amanpour he had not communicated with Israel about the plan.

“States are sovereign and they are well-defined by their borders, by their populations. And the issue of displacement in itself is a matter that is in contravention, is in violation of international humanitarian law,” Shoukry said. “So I think that nobody would undertake an illegal activity.” 

Netanyahu’s office downplayed the document in a statement, writing, “This is a preliminary paper, like dozens of such papers prepared by all political and security echelons.”

“The ‘day after’ is a topic that has not been discussed by official Israeli channels, which are now focused on dismantling Hamas’ governing and military abilities,” the statement added.

In Al Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, a dazed and drowsy woman sits on the floor with a bleeding leg. A younger man lies flat on blood-stained tiles, his neck and legs wrapped in bandages.

The rest of the emergency room on Tuesday was crowded with men, women and children of different ages — some crying, some trembling and some asleep on makeshift beds on the floor.

“The situation in hospitals is miserable … (it) makes you weep,” Rajaa Musleh, a 50-year-old woman sheltering at Al Shifa told CNN on Thursday.

“There is no equipment, people are piled up on top of one another,” said Musleh, who is also Gaza’s country representative for the MedGlobal healthcare charity.

Musleh lost her home in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and says that soon there won’t be any fuel left to power this hospital, which is housing both patients and the countless displaced who have nowhere else to go.

More than 1.4 million people in Gaza were internally displaced as of Wednesday, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. More than half a million are seeking refuge in facilities run by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which are accommodating numbers three times their intended capacity.

Piles of both trash and people line the hospital’s corridors, Musleh said, with many “sleeping on the floors because residents feel hospitals are safe.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah warned Wednesday that the medical complex would be out of service in less than 24 hours as it runs out of the fuel needed to power generators.

Located in Gaza City, Al Shifa hospital is also becoming part of the front line, as Israel last week claimed that the facility is the site of a major Hamas command and control center.

Hospital staff are exhausted, Dr. Alaa Shitali, a medical officer at Al Shifa’s emergency department, told CNN Tuesday.

“You couldn’t, as a human being and a medical officer, bear this situation,” he said, standing in the emergency department, surrounded by patients.

Shitali has not seen his family for days and has to spend his nights at the hospital to treat the massive crowd of patients constantly flowing in. “We are overloaded,” he said.

Doctors at Al Shifa are also seeing children with the majority of their body and faces burned, missing limbs and other “catastrophic injuries,” said Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care and humanitarian doctor with the aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières.

“And the doctors are left to treat them with limited pain control, (as they are) running out of anesthetic drugs.” she told CNN. “We do not have enough antibiotics to treat wound infections, we don’t have enough dressings.”

The few other remaining hospitals in Gaza are also suffering, with some completely shutting down.

Read more about Gaza’s deteriorating health care situation.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss steps Israel “can and should” take to minimize civilian casualties during his upcoming visit to Tel Aviv.

“[W]e will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimize harm to men, women, and children in Gaza, and this is something that the United States is committed to,” Blinken said Thursday.

While the secretary didn’t offer any other details, he did reiterate that the topic is on the agenda for the visit. Blinken is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders of the Israeli government, according to the State Department.

“When I see a Palestinian child, a boy or a girl pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in Israel or anywhere else. So this is something that we have an obligation to respond to, and we will,” he said.

Asked if Israel had shown restraint in its offensive in Gaza, Blinken did not offer a yes or no answer, and instead reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself and the “responsibility to do everything possible to protect civilians.” 

He said that this was “a crossfire … of Hamas’ making.”

Blinken leaves Thursday for a trip to Israel, Jordan, Japan, South Korea and India. He emphasized again on the tarmac ahead of his trip that the US is “determined to deter any escalation.” 

Blinken also added that there must be a focus on what comes next. 

“We do have to have conversations now about how we can best set the conditions for a durable, sustainable peace, durable, sustainable security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” he said.

CNN’s Michael Conte contributed reporting to this post.

The Israeli military is surrounding Gaza City and “deepening” its operations there, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff said in a TV interview Thursday.

“Our soldiers have been operating in Gaza City for the past few days, surrounding it from several directions, deepening the operation,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said. “Our forces are in very significant areas of Gaza City.”

The Israeli army began its full ground operation in Gaza on Friday, moving tanks, bulldozers, infantry, and combat engineer units into the strip. While the ground operation around Gaza’s largest population center has developed slowly, Israel has maintained its constant bombardment of the strip by air.

Devastating Israeli strikes: Israel bombed the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza for the second time in two days Wednesday, prompting warnings of war crimes from the international community. The round of strikes that began Wednesday evening continued into Thursday morning, medical officials and relief workers told CNN. The latest attacks killed more than 20 people sheltering at United Nations schools in Jabalya and the Al Shati refugee camp Thursday, the head of the main UN relief agency working in the enclave told CNN.

At least 9,025 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to figures released Thursday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. More than 22,000 others have been wounded.

Crisis at Gaza hospitals: Airstrikes also hit the vicinity of the Al Quds hospital in Gaza City, where doctors say up to 14,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the director of the hospital. Nearly half of all hospitals in Gaza are out of service due to bombardments and fuel shortages, including the leading cancer hospital in the strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It warned on Wednesday Gaza’s largest hospital Al Shifa would be forced to stop operating soon.

Piles of both trash and people line the Al Shifa hospital’s corridors, according to a woman sheltering there, with many “sleeping on the floors because residents feel hospitals are safe.”

“The smell of death is everywhere,” she said. “The smell of blood is everywhere.”

An American pediatrician who crossed into Egypt after being stuck in Gaza told CNN on Thursday she and others from her group were staying in United Nations facilities that were filled with Gazans seeking refuge, adding the amount of toilets and water “inadequate for the tens of thousands of people who showed up.” 

US President Joe Biden – who has offered full-throated support for Israel but increasingly raised concerns about the situation in Gaza – called for a humanitarian “pause” in the war to allow aid to reach civilians and help facilitate the release of hostages.

Israeli hostages: The number of hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza after the October 7 attacks in Israel has been updated to 242, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday morning. Israel’s expansion of ground operations has complicated efforts to free the hostages. Hagari added that 332 IDF soldiers have died since October 7.

More foreigners cross out of Gaza: More foreign nationals have made their way out of Gaza and into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, with 341 having crossed on Thursday, an Egyptian border official told CNN — a figure that includes American citizens. Here is a breakdown by country. The deal allowing people to leave Gaza came together after weeks of intensive, multi-party diplomatic efforts, sources familiar with the negotiations told CNN.

Clashes at Israel-Lebanon border: The IDF said it was responding to multiple launches Thursday from Lebanon toward Israeli territory. A CNN team in northern Israel saw an increase in the pace of rocket fire from Lebanon today, with Israel’s Iron Dome engaging with two of them. Israel and Hezbollah — an Iran-backed armed group that dominates southern Lebanon — have been engaged in daily cross-border exchanges of fire since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, raising fears that the fighting could escalate into a regional war.

Diplomatic news: US Vice President Kamala Harris met Thursday with UN Secretary General António Guterres, focusing mostly on Gaza humanitarian access and aid deliveries, according to a White House official. Meanwhile, officials said newly confirmed US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew will travel with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel Thursday. Earlier today and Wednesday, international backlash grew in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and the Jabalya strikes. Jordan and Bahrain have recalled their ambassadors to Israel, while the United Nations Human Rights Office warned strikes on the refugee camp “could amount to war crimes.”

The United States intelligence community believes – for now – that Iran and its proxies are calibrating their response to Israel’s military intervention in Gaza to avoid direct conflict with Israel or the US while still exacting costs on its adversaries.

But the US is also keenly aware that Iran does not maintain perfect control of its umbrella of proxies – in particular over Lebanese Hezbollah, the largest and most capable of the various groups. Hezbollah is an ally of Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on October 7, and has long positioned itself as fighting against Israel. US officials are deeply concerned that the group’s internal politics may cause Hezbollah to escalate simmering tensions.

The US also does not always have perfect visibility into the communications between Iran and its various proxies, according to sources familiar with US intelligence in the region.

“The problem is the proxies are not all equally deferential to Tehran — lumping them together is a mistake,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence analyst specializing in the region. “The question is, if Hamas really looks like it’s in trouble, will Hezbollah and Iran agree on Hezbollah launching a full-scale attack to save Hamas or are they going to disagree — and I don’t think we know that yet.”

Tehran knows that if Hezbollah escalates the conflict with Israel or the United States it would likely provoke direct counterattacks against Iran that could be devastating to it, said one US official, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity. The kind of lower-level attacks that different proxy groups have launched against Israel and the US since October 7 have caused the US to deploy significant military assets, forced Israel to spread out its forces and munitions, and allowed Iran to be seen as “doing something” about the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, this person said — all while avoiding direct conflict.

US officials believe it’s a coordinated strategy. The Iranian military general in charge of managing Iran’s web of proxies has been in and out of Beirut since October 7, according to local media, where he has been in meetings with members of Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Iranian-supported groups. All consider themselves part of the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.

But that strategy could backfire in ways that cause the conflict to spread – even if none of the parties want it to, multiple US officials warn.

Senior Biden administration officials have repeatedly and publicly warned Iran and its proxies not to escalate the conflict. The president in the days after the attack said his message to Iran and Hezbollah was: “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”

Keep reading.

The chief of the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza said on Thursday that 72 of its staff members have been killed in the enclave since the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7. 

“We have lost as of now 72 staff,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), told CNN.

He continued by saying that UNRWA staff in Gaza are “sharing the same living condition(s) … (as) anyone else.”

“They’re struggling on a daily basis to find the bread, to find the water, to protect their children. And despite that, and despite the heavy loss within this organization, they remain committed to do whatever is possible to provide support to the people in Gaza. But it’s a constant daily struggle,” Lazzarini said.

On Wednesday, UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma echoed that sentiment, saying “no place is safe” in Gaza. Some staff workers were killed “in the line of duty and some were killed at home,” she said.

Turkey is ready to provide full support for the transfer of patients from the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza to Turkey, the country’s health minister said on Thursday.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the hospital had to completely cease its operations on Wednesday as a result of the fuel shortage and Israel’s ongoing attacks.

The Israeli attacks continue “despite all our warnings and calls to the relevant institutions and the international community,” Koca added. “The international community has to make a choice between knowingly abandoning patients to death and saving lives.”
“Now, saving the lives of patients is an inevitable duty. The only alternative to saving patients’ lives is knowingly abandoning them to death,” he said.

On Monday, the director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital told CNN an Israeli strike directly hit the third floor of its central building, causing damage to oxygen and water supplies.

The Israeli military said it did not strike the hospital, without offering any further information.

Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila, based in Ramallah, said on Wednesday that the lives of 70 cancer patients at the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital are seriously threatened, adding that the lives of about 2,000 other cancer patients are also under serious threat amid “catastrophic health conditions” due to the conflict.  

The breakthrough that allowed an initial group of foreign nationals, including US citizens, to depart Gaza on Wednesday came together after weeks of intensive, multi-party diplomatic efforts, sources familiar with the negotiations told CNN.

The agreement to allow foreign passport holders and a group of critically injured civilians to depart through the Rafah border crossing was reached on Tuesday, prior to the Israeli forces’ airstrike that hit Gaza’s largest refugee camp.

Qatar, which coordinated with the United States, was the key broker of the deal between Israel, Egypt, and Hamas, according to sources familiar with the talks.

The development was hailed as a critical first step in getting foreign nationals out of the war-torn strip as Israel intensifies its military operations there.

Though US officials have stressed that the situation remains fluid, they have expressed optimism that hundreds more will be able to depart in the coming days.

Complex deal: The negotiations were consistently described as immensely complicated, and the breakthrough came after “intense and urgent American diplomacy with our partners in the region,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

The initial hold up to allow foreign nationals to depart Gaza involved Egypt — which wanted an international organization to serve as administrator and vet people before their departure from Gaza, a source familiar told CNN.

The negotiators worked with the United Nations and eventually got them to agree to serve in that role.

However, they could not get guarantees from Hamas that they would not harass or interfere with the UN officials, nor would they agree to allow them to operate on the Gaza side of the border, which is what Egypt wanted.

Instead, Hamas wanted the UN officials to be on the Egyptian side of the border, which Cairo would not accept because of security concerns. 

Despite days of negotiations, the negotiators could not get Hamas to agree to what Egypt wanted, so then the focus turned to potential other routes out.

Negotiators were cognizant that time was not on their side. The Israelis agreed that they would allow foreign nationals to depart through Kerem Shalom, but Hamas continued to be the issue.

There had been attempts by some countries to get small groups of civilians out through that route, but the people had been blocked by Hamas.

In recent days, Egypt dropped its demand to have a third-party administrator over the Rafah gate, and Hamas — which had been engaging with Qatar — agreed to allow its border authority to operate the gate.

Allowing wounded Palestinian civilians to leave was always part of the discussion.

A list was sent to Qatar, Egypt and Israel — each country was able to vet the list and make deletions.

Originally, Israel only wanted wounded women and children to be allowed to depart and the US had to push them to drop those preconditions. The Israelis initially pushed back hard on this but after many senior level discussions between the US and Israel they relented.

There are at least 6,000 people believed to be on the list of those who are able to leave through the Rafah border crossing — that list was vetted by Israel and Egypt.

Those people have nationalities from more than 40 countries, as well as locally employed staff, those tied to aid organizations and NGOs and the press.

Three Palestinians – among them a 14-year-old boy – were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.  

Two Palestinians – Ayham Al-Shafie, 14, and Yazan Sheeha, 24 – were shot and killed in al-Bireh near Ramallah on Thursday morning, after Israeli forces entered the town, the health ministry said.

In a second incident, a 19-year-old man, Qusai Quran, was shot dead in the town of Qalqilya. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa released a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, showing at least a dozen Israeli soldiers raiding the city and pointing their guns at several houses.

Separately, another 14-year-old boy, Hamdan Hamdan, succumbed to gunshot wounds Thursday, three days after he was shot by Israeli forces in the village of Zawata near Nablus, according to the health ministry.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on the incidents, which bring the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank by soldiers or settlers since the start of the year to 344. Over a third of the fatalities have happened since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel.

Some background: Tensions were already high in the West Bank prior to Hamas’ attack on Israel. But they have since boiled over, and residents there have told CNN they are fearful of a wave of violence from the Israeli military and security forces, as well as revenge attacks by the estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers living in the area.

Three Israeli soldiers have been killed Thursday as part of the country’s ground operation into Gaza, the IDF said on its website.

That brings to the total number of Israeli soldiers killed as part of the Gaza operation to 20.

Not included in that number is an off-duty reservist, Ariel Klein, who was killed Thursday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, returning home from duty.

The total number includes a soldier who was killed on October 22 near Kibbutz Kissufim during operations leading up to Israel’s full ground operation into Gaza. The IDF lists a further two soldiers who died on October 20 and 25, respectively – the circumstances of those deaths are unclear.

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday evening said it was responding to multiple launches from Lebanon toward Israeli territory.

“Over the last hour, a number of launches from Lebanon toward Israeli territory were identified. In response, the IDF is currently striking a series of Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon,” the IDF said.

A CNN team in northern Israel saw an increase in the pace of rocket fire from Lebanon over the last hour, with Israel’s Iron Dome engaging with two of them.

Several areas are also under alert in northern Israel, including Manara, Kiryat Shmona, and Safed.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, released a statement saying it hit an Israeli military barracks in the Shebaa Farms area with two attack drones, claiming they made “very direct hits inside the barracks.” Shebaa Farms is disputed territory along the Israel-Lebanon border. 

Sources in southern Lebanon speaking to CNN — as well as local media in Lebanon — also reported a pickup in crossfire along the border area in recent hours.

In addition to Hezbollah, the Lebanon branch of Hamas’ military wing said Thursday their forces had launched 12 rockets targeting the Kiryat Shmona and its surrounding areas in northern Israel.

The group said the actions were a response to what it described as the “occupation’s massacres against our people in Gaza.”

Some context: Israel and Hezbollah — an Iran-backed armed group that dominates southern Lebanon — have been engaged in daily cross-border exchanges of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, raising fears that the fighting could escalate into a regional war.

Israeli airstrikes on Thursday killed more than 20 people sheltering at United Nations schools in Gaza, the head of the main UN relief agency working in the enclave told CNN.

The agency has received “extraordinary, difficult news” about schools in the refugee camps of Jabalya and Al Shati, which is sometimes referred to as Beach camp, said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“Over the last few hours, I received reports that three of our schools sheltering about 20,000 people have been hit,” Lazzarini told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “This reportedly has led to the deaths of more than 20 people in Jabalya, and also one person at the Beach camp.”

The UNRWA later said in a statement that four of its shelters were damaged by Thursday’s bombardment: the two mentioned by Lazzarini, and two other schools-turned-shelters further south in the Al-Bureij refugee camp. Two people were reportedly killed and 31 wounded at those sites, the agency said.

The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on UNRWA’s statements.

On the ground: Reuters video Thursday showed damage at the Jabalya camp near Gaza City. A separate, five-minute video posted to Telegram shows the chaotic aftermath at the UNRWA-sponsored Jabalya Elementary school. Bloodied bodies lie strewn across the floor as people scream around them.

“These are official UNWRA schools, where we shelter a number of displaced persons in the north of Gaza,” Lazzarini said. “These are shelters which are clearly notified,” he added, meaning the Israeli military knows their location.

Those sheltering in a school in the Al Shati camp, northwest of Jabalya, recounted the ordeal to a CNN stringer.

“The school was shelled and we started screaming,” a woman who fled the school after the attack told CNN. “It was an absolute horror.”

This post has been updated with information from the UNRWA about strikes on two additional school shelters.

More foreign nationals have made their way out of Gaza and into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, with 341 having crossed on Thursday, an Egyptian border official told CNN — a figure that includes American citizens.

It’s unclear what nationalities are held by the others who have crossed, but some countries have confirmed their own citizens transited the Rafah crossing on Thursday.

The Egyptian official said the border is closed and will not accept any more people evacuating from Gaza on Thursday.

United States: Between 20 and 25 American citizens arrived Thursday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing from Gaza, an Egyptian border official told CNN.

Hungary: Eight Hungarian citizens, along with two of their Palestinian family members, have evacuated from Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in a live video statement on Thursday. 

Szijjártó added that they were two families and they crossed the border a “few hours ago.”

Italy: A 5-year-old Italian girl and her Palestinian mother left Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Thursday, Italy’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he was “particularly happy for the positive outcome,” noting the girl’s 6th birthday is on Friday. 

Netherlands: The first Dutch nationals and their immediate family have left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a post on social media on Thursday. 

Rutte added that a team from the foreign ministry met the Dutch nationals at the border crossing. 

“I am grateful to Egypt for the crucial role they played in this, and for receiving and treating the injured,” said Rutte, adding that he also wanted to thank Qatar “for their mediation in facilitating the departure of foreign nationals who were stuck in Gaza.”

Spain: Between 140 and 170 Spanish citizens and their families are expected to be evacuated from Gaza on Thursday or Friday, acting Defense Minister Margarita Robles said on Thursday morning.

“The latest report I got is that Israeli and Egyptian authorities are calling the different countries in alphabetical order, and everything is prepared in Cairo to travel and get them. We don’t know exactly when, but it could be today or tomorrow,” Robles told journalists at Torrejon Air Base. 

The minister also said one Spanish citizen evacuated on Wednesday.

Some background: The exodus of the foreign nationals is the result of a deal announced Wednesday brokered by Qatar between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the US, that allows for the departure of those individuals, alongside critically injured civilians from Gaza, according to sources familiar with the talks. The agreement is separate from any hostage negotiations, the source added.

CNN’s Sharon Braithwaite, Claudia Rebaza, Eve Brennan and Boglarka Kosztolanyi contributed reporting to this post.

The Israeli military is surrounding Gaza City and “deepening” its operations there, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff said in a TV interview Thursday.

“Our soldiers have been operating in Gaza City for the past few days, surrounding it from several directions, deepening the operation,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said. “Our forces are in very significant areas of Gaza City.”

Halevi said Israel has not delivered any fuel into Gaza. “We check the situation every day,” he said. “When fuel runs out, fuel will be delivered under supervision to the hospitals.”

Nearly half of all hospitals in Gaza are out of service due to bombardments and fuel shortages, including the leading cancer hospital in the strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It warned on Wednesday that Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, could be forced to stop operating soon.

More background: The Israeli army began its full ground operation in Gaza on Friday, moving tanks, bulldozers, infantry and combat engineer units into the strip.

This map shows some of the areas where IDF troops have been operating in the days since:

A Palestinian American family from Medway, Massachusetts, have safely arrived in Egypt after leaving Gaza via the Rafah crossing early Thursday morning, their attorney told CNN in a statement.

Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda and their 1-year-old son Yousef arrived in Egypt just after 11:30 a.m. local time, the lawyer, Sammy Nabulsi, said.

“The Okal Family is overwhelmed with the love and support they have received from home and abroad, but they are also exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, and have a long journey ahead of them back to the United States,” Nabulsi said in the statement.

“The Okal Family expresses its deepest gratitude to their family and friends around the world, the Medway community, the media for sharing their plight and the plight of the hundreds of other Americans trapped in Gaza, their elected officials who fought hard for their return, and the State Department for providing them with safe departure,” he added.

Okal — a cancer researcher for a pharmaceutical company — and his family had traveled to the region in late September to visit family. The first week of their trip was spent in the West Bank, but they became stranded in Gaza after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, fearing for their lives.

At this time, the family is asking for privacy until their safe return to Medway, Nabulsi said.

They’re also asking for “the immediate and safe departure of the remaining American citizens and their families in Gaza, and compassion and prayers for the innocent civilians in Gaza, who gave them shelter, who helped them find food and water, but who continue to be without their own supply of food, water, fuel, or medicine to live,” Nabulsi added.

Israel’s Air Force said that “in recent days” it intercepted a cruise missile fired at the country “launched from the southeast.” 

The military also released footage it said showed the cruise missile being destroyed.

The Israeli Air Force did not indicate where the cruise missile was launched. But last month, the US Navy said that it intercepted multiple projectiles near the coast of Yemen. And on Wednesday, Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed to have successfully launched a barrage of drones against Israel.

“In recent days, a cruise missile was detected by the control and detection systems of the Air Force, which was launched from the southeast towards the airspace of the State of Israel,” the Israeli Air Force said. “The systems followed the trajectory of the cruise missile and launched fighter jets from the ‘Adir’ [F-35] formation, which successfully intercepted it.”

It said that later the same day, the Air Force “intercepted a surface-to-surface missile in the Red Sea using the long-range defense system ‘Arrow.’”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Thursday responded to accusations about Israel’s use of white phosphorus in Lebanon with a carefully worded statement, dismissing reports that the incendiary substance has been used for setting fires but conceding that it does use it in some circumstances. 

On Tuesday, Amnesty International accused the Israeli army of firing white phosphorus at the southern Lebanese town of Dhayra, injuring civilians.

On the same day, Lebanese interim Agricultural Minister Abbas Al-Hajj Hassan accused Israel of burning more than 40,000 olive trees in southern Lebanon using “white phosphorous bombs.”

The IDF denied that.

The “smoke-screen shells containing the white phosphorus in the IDF are not intended or used for setting fire, and any claim that these shells are used for that cause is baseless,” the IDF said in a statement to CNN. 

The IDF also said it does not use the incendiary weapon in densely populated areas, but added that “certain exceptions” applied.  

What is white phosphorus? It’s an incendiary weapon, which is used to set fire to military targets, but its use is restricted under international humanitarian law. It is considered lawful in some cases but cannot be fired at or near civilian areas or civilian infrastructure. 

White phosphorus can provide illumination or create a smokescreen in battle, but it is known to burn flesh down to the bone, according to previous CNN reporting.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, “The use of … white phosphorous weapons against any military objective within concentrations of civilians is prohibited unless the military objective is clearly separated from the civilians.”

Human Rights Watch has also accused Israel of repeatedly firing white phosphorus at Lebanon since the escalation between the two countries began on October 8, sparked by the Hamas-Israel war. 

Last month, the IDF strongly denied the claims. In an interview, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN “categorically, no,” it had not used white phosphorus.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the use by Israel of white phosphorous in civilian areas in Gaza during previous rounds of fighting there. CNN also documented its use.

A CNN team on the ground in southern Lebanon has seen fires, burning trees and billowing smoke in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon over the past two weeks. The CNN team filmed abandoned olive fields during the ongoing harvest season.

Newly confirmed United States Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew will travel with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel Thursday.

Lew will take up his post in Jerusalem at a time when the stakes could not be higher: Israel’s expanding ground operations and the resulting toll on civilians has seen increasing condemnation by the Arab world, evidenced in part by Jordan’s decision to recall its own ambassador to Israel.

Blinken’s visit: President Joe Biden’s administration has ramped up its public rhetoric about the need for Israel to abide by international humanitarian law, but it has not condemned the country’s actions in Gaza. That is expected to be a key aspect of Blinken’s conversations with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as will the need for Israel not to become an occupying force in Gaza.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday that Blinken “wants to get an update from Israel on their military objectives and their plans for meeting those objectives” and “to talk about ways that we can increase the flow of humanitarian assistance and get to the point where it’s a sustained, continuous flow getting in every day that meets the needs of innocent civilians in Gaza.”

“He wants to talk about preventing the conflict from spreading. He wants to talk about the ability to get hostages back,” Miller said. “And as I said, he will talk directly with the Israeli government, as he has previously, as the president has previously, about our expectation that … in conducting this military campaign, that they do it – do so in full compliance with international humanitarian law and the laws of war, and we will be very direct about that.”

The growing Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is also expected to be a major topic of conversation.

“We have made quite clear to the government of Israel that we are very concerned about settler violence in the West Bank,” Miller said Wednesday. “We find it incredibly destabilizing. We find it counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security in addition to, of course, being extremely harmful to the Palestinians living in the West Bank.”
“And we have sent a very clear message to them that it’s unacceptable, it needs to stop, and those responsible for it need to be held accountable,” he said.

More foreign nationals and injured Palestinians have arrived in Egypt from Gaza, a day after the Rafah crossing opened to allow the first evacuations since Israel’s siege of the enclave began nearly four weeks ago. At least 400 foreign nationals and 60 injured people are expected to leave the strip over the course of the day.

Meanwhile, Israel bombed the densely-populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza for the second time in two days Wednesday, prompting the United Nations’ Human Rights Office to express concerns that the strikes “could amount to war crimes.” The Israeli military said the actions targeted Hamas commanders and the militant group’s infrastructure.

And, as the global outcry against the suffering of Gazans grows, US President Joe Biden – who has offered full-throated support for Israel but increasingly raised concerns about the situation in Gaza – also called for a humanitarian “pause” in the Israel-Hamas war, to allow aid to reach civilians and help facilitate the release of hostages.

Here are the latest developments:

At least 33 journalists have been killed since the latest Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7, according to a Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) statement released Thursday. 

The death toll among journalists includes 28 Palestinians, four Israelis and one Lebanese, the CPJ said.

Eight journalists have been reported injured, and nine others have been reported missing or detained, CPJ said.

An American pediatrician who crossed into Egypt Wednesday after being stuck in Gaza told CNN she is “doing pretty well,” but her thoughts remain with Gazans who remain in the enclave.

“I think I’m in a halo of just relieved to be here,” Dr. Barbara Zind said Thursday, speaking to CNN’s Poppy Harlow from Cairo. “But I’m just feeling awful for the devastation that the Gazan people are going through right now.”
“There is really no safe place for the Gazan people,” she said.

Zind, a pediatrician from Grand Junction, Colorado, and Ramona Okumura, another aid worker, were among the Americans who left Gaza via the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday.

Zind said she and others from her group were staying in United Nations facilities that were filled with Gazans seeking refuge, adding the amount of toilets and water “inadequate for the tens of thousands of people who showed up.” 

“We kept running out of water, and that was water to flush the toilet,” Zind said. “We were always fortunate to have drinking water which was not true of the Gazans that were just outside the fence from us. They were running out of drinking water.”

The experience of the last several weeks has yet to fully sink in, Zind indicated. But after the “long process” of leaving Gaza and arriving in Cairo, she said, “I really enjoyed the shower last night.”

US President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening he was supportive of a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas conflict to allow for the release of more hostages held in Gaza, responding to a protester who called for a ceasefire.

As Biden was speaking at a fundraiser in Minneapolis, he was heckled by a person in the audience who shouted, “As a rabbi I need you to call for a ceasefire right now,” according to a CNN reporter inside the room.

The president responded by saying he supported a break in fighting to allow for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Biden and other administration officials have not endorsed a ceasefire.

Biden administration officials have previously called for a pause, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the United Nations. Biden himself addressed the idea of humanitarian pauses during his news conference last week and suggested he raised the idea directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So far, Israel has appeared to reject the idea. 

Many Western leaders, stressing Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas following its attack on October 7, have stopped short of calling for an outright ceasefire in Gaza, and instead have appealed for a humanitarian “pause” to the fighting.

Reporters accompanying the president said the heckler was escorted out by security as she was singing “ceasefire now.” The fundraiser audience responded by chanting “four more years.” The demonstrator told reporters her name was Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg.

“I understand the emotion,” Biden said as he continued his remarks. “This is incredibly complicated for the Israelis. It’s incredibly complicated for the Muslim world as well,” he said. “I supported a two state solution, I have from the very beginning.” 

“The fact of the matter is that Hamas is a terrorist organization. A flat-out terrorist organization,” Biden said.

“Ceasefire” or “pause:” The deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has sparked huge international concern but, more than three weeks since the outbreak of violence, the world has so far failed to unite around a common position.

Those advocating a “pause” say it would allow aid to reach the more than 2 million civilians living in the besieged enclave, and might help facilitate the release of more than 200 hostages captured by Hamas. The term also implies that fighting could resume once more aid has reached civilians.

Nearly 200 Jordanian citizens were evacuated from Gaza through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt on Wednesday, according to a statement Thursday from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

Of the 196 evacuated, 53 are already en route to Jordan on a Royal Jordanian Air Force plane that had earlier dropped off humanitarian and medical aid for Gaza at El Arish International Airport, the statement said. 

The Foreign Ministry said Wednesday there were 284 Jordanian citizens present in Gaza, noting the evacuation process will “continue as long as necessary, and in different ways and means.”

More context: The release of the foreign nationals from Gaza began Wednesday, the result of a deal brokered by Qatar between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the US, that would allow for the release of those individuals, alongside critically injured civilians from Gaza, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Two shepherds were found dead near Lebanon’s southern border on Thursday, a day after coming under Israeli fire, according to Lebanese state media agency NNA. 

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said in a statement Wednesday night it had attempted to evacuate two individuals who had come under Israeli fire. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had suspended attacks in the area to allow UNIFIL and the Lebanese army to search for the men, the statement said.

The two shepherds were found by the Lebanese Red Cross, the army and UNIFIL, after an hours-long search. 

Some context: Israel and Hezbollah – an Iran-backed armed group that dominates southern Lebanon – have been engaged in daily cross-border exchanges of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7, raising fears that the fighting could escalate into a regional war.

Six American citizens arrived on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing from Gaza on Thursday, according to a CNN journalist who spoke to them there. 

Since the crossing opened on Wednesday, hundreds of foreign nationals and dozens of injured Palestinians have been evacuated. More are expected to make the journey out of the besieged enclave in the coming days, according to officials.

An internal US government correspondence obtained earlier by CNN said US citizens are expected to begin departing Gaza on Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says that it has again responded to fire from southern Lebanon.

“A short while ago, a terrorist cell attempted to launch anti-tank missiles from Lebanon toward the area of Livne, northern Israel,” the IDF said in a statement. “IDF soldiers struck the cell and a hit was identified. In addition, the soldiers struck two anti-tank missile launching posts in Lebanon.”

“Furthermore, terrorists launched anti-tank missiles toward an IDF post in the area of Manara, northern Israel. No injuries were reported.”

Some context: This fighting is centered on northern Israel and southern Lebanon — separate from Israel’s fighting with Hamas further south, which is centered around Gaza. However, an uptick in clashes with Hezbollah has raised fears that the powerful Lebanese paramilitary group could actively participate in the conflict, heightening the risk of a regional war.

Hezbollah – an Iran-backed armed group that is also a regional force in its own right – dominates south Lebanon. It also operates alongside Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, where the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights separates Israel from Tehran-aligned fighters.

CNN’s Tamara Qiblawi contributed reporting to this post.

Egypt is preparing to facilitate the evacuation of nearly 7,000 foreign citizens in Gaza from more than 60 countries via the Rafah crossing, according to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The announcement follows a meeting between foreign ministry officials and ambassadors and other foreign representatives in Cairo, the statement said.

Egyptian officials say the evacuation plan will be carried out “in accordance with Egypt’s regulations and governing laws, and the role incumbent upon each foreign mission in receiving its nationals from the Rafah crossing.”

The first foreign nationals were able to cross from Gaza to Egypt Wednesday. Evacuations resumed Thursday and are expected to continue over the coming days.

Ambulances waiting: Twenty ambulances have arrived at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian side, waiting to pick up injured Palestinians, an Egyptian border official told CNN at the crossing on Thursday.

An Egyptian government official confirmed to CNN that 45 injured Palestinians crossed into Egypt from Gaza on Wednesday and are currently undergoing treatment in various hospitals. More are expected to arrive Thursday.

According to Egyptian state-affiliated Al-Qahera News, 70 humanitarian trucks carrying aid are also parked outside the border crossing, waiting to enter Gaza.

At least 400 foreign nationals are expected to leave Gaza and enter Egypt through the Rafah crossing on Thursday, a Palestinian official at the crossing, Wael Abu Umar, told CNN. He did not specify nationalities.

The official said 60 other injured people are also set to leave Gaza.

The on-the-ground assessment follows the overnight publication of a list comprising some 595 names of people apparently cleared for passage out of Gaza.

Those on the list were asked to arrive at the Rafah crossing at 7 a.m. local time on Thursday. No timeframe was given for any eventual transfer to Egypt.

The list of names includes some 400 Americans; the remaining names are citizens from 14 other countries.

The Rafah crossing partially opened Wednesday to allow the evacuation of a limited number of foreign nationals and injured Palestinians – the first such opening since hostilities began on October 7. 

An Egyptian government official confirmed Wednesday that 45 people had made it into the country and were currently undergoing treatment.

These developments are separate from any negotiations aimed at freeing Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Hamas defensive lines in northern Gaza continue to “collapse” as they retreat southwards to the center of the enclave, according to a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

“The IDF continues to advance in the Gaza City area, conducting face-to-face battles with Hamas terrorists and deepening the fighting,” Daniel Hagari said in a press statement Thursday.

“Our fighters continue to collapse the defensive lines of Hamas in the north of the Gaza Strip and take control of central areas,” he added.

Hagari claimed Israeli forces had “the upper hand” in every confrontation.

“We continue to intensify the activity and move forward according to the plan and the goals we have set for ourselves. The battle is progressing as we planned,” Hagari said.

The IDF announced it was “expanding ground operations” in Gaza on Friday. Drawing on videos and photos from open and official sources, as well as reporting from CNN teams on the ground, CNN has been able to map what we know about Israel’s ground offensive so far.

Read the full story here:

Doctors are struggling to treat patients with severe injuries under dire conditions in Gaza as Israel maintains its bombardment of the enclave, a medic with aid group Doctors Without Borders said.

Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan said the lack of medical supplies in Gaza meant doctors have been “completely stripped of all the tools of modern medicine” to treat patients — mostly women and children — with severe injuries and burns.

Doctors at the strip’s largest Al Shifa Hospital are seeing children with the majority of their body and faces burned, missing limbs and other “catastrophic injuries,” said Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care and humanitarian doctor with the aid group, which is also known as Médecins Sans Frontières.

“And the doctors are left to treat them with limited pain control, running out of anesthetic drugs.” she said. “We do not have enough antibiotics to treat wound infections, we don’t have enough dressings.”

Ceasefire call: Haj-Hassan called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, saying “a stop rather than a pause” is needed in what she described as the “indiscriminate bombardment and massacre.”

“We have lost over 130 health care providers, many of whom I have known personally. They have lost their families,” she said.

Medical workers in Gaza are working around the clock while they and their families also fear being bombarded, she said. But “they have refused to leave, because they have decided to stay with their patients,” she said.

Israeli airstrikes struck near the Al Quds hospital in Gaza City, where doctors say thousands of displaced people are sheltering, the key medical facility’s director told CNN Thursday.

The strikes that began Wednesday evening continued into Thursday morning and were “getting closer to the hospital,” Dr. Bashar Mourad said in a phone call.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement around 10 p.m. local time Wednesday that heavy airstrikes were targeting near the hospital “for two hours”.

The hospital, the second-largest in the main urban center of Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave, has previously been targeted in Israeli airstrikes.

In a statement to CNN, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said due to “intensifying hostilities” against Hamas in Gaza City and northern Gaza, the IDF continues to urge civilians to evacuate south.

Evacuation zones and warning alerts from the Israeli military have not guaranteed safety for civilians in densely populated Gaza, where Palestinians have no safe place to escape Israeli bombs.

Iran-backed Islamist militant group Hezbollah on Thursday claimed it shot down an Israeli drone over southern Lebanon amid nearly daily cross-border exchanges of fire that have spurred fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Hezbollah claimed it hit the drone “directly” with a surface-to-air missile as it flew between the border villages of Al-Malikiyah and Hunin.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged the Hezbollah missile launch but denied any damage was inflicted on its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). In a statement, the IDF said it “struck the terrorist cell that fired the missile and the launch site” in response.

A “number of launches” from Lebanon toward northern Israel also fell in open areas, the IDF added. IDF artillery “struck the source of the launches in response,” the statement said.

CNN has not been able to verify the claims by either side. 

Here’s what to know about Hezbollah.

A Palestinian-American man stuck inside Gaza has urged the United States to intervene in the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to a social media post by a US congresswoman.

Zakaria Alarayshi sent a voice memo and text message from the besieged enclave to Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, describing his condition as dire and saying there is no medicine, food or water, according to an Instagram post by the congresswoman.

“We are sick. We cannot handle anymore… We need to push [President Joe] Biden to stop this war,” Alarayshi said in a voice memo on Tlaib’s post. “This war kills people. Does not kill Hamas — it kills kids and old people and women and they kill everybody. That’s not fair… We need to get us out.”

Alarayshi, who lives in Dearborn, Michigan, was visiting family in Gaza with his wife, Laila Alarayshi, when hostilities broke out, CNN previously reported.

The couple remains stuck and “terrified” in Gaza despite being instructed to go to the Rafah border for evacuation six times only to be denied, according to an attorney for the family. 

Attorneys for the family filed a lawsuit on October 13 against the US Department of State and the US Department of Defense for allegedly failing to “safely evacuate US citizens that are currently in the besieged Gaza Strip,” CNN previously reported.

First evacuees: On Wednesday, injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign nationals started crossing from Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah crossing. They included more than 360 foreign passport holders, many of them Palestinian dual nationals, an Egyptian government official told CNN. US citizens are were among the initial group of foreign nationals to leave, the US State Department said, without giving details on the numbers.

A 25-year-old Israeli soldier was killed Wednesday during the Israel Defense Forces’ ongoing ground operation in northern Gaza, the IDF said Thursday.

The soldier was named as Capt. Yuval Zilber.

It brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the ground incursion to 17 — 16 of whom were killed inside Gaza.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misidentified the Israeli soldier killed Wednesday. This has been amended.

The House’s struggle to send $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel is exposing political rifts that leave America looking like a divided super power unable even to rush help to a friend that believes it’s fighting an existential war.

A vote on the package had been expected on Thursday, though that timeline now appears at risk of slipping, as the country’s political schisms and a fractured foreign policy consensus once again threaten to paralyze governing.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

For years, a vote on aid to Israel might have been one of the least controversial measures to come up in the House all year. But delays in moving the measure, the fragile balance of power in Washington and feuds between and inside both parties over the new Middle East war show that there’s no longer any easy vote.

The commotion around the issue largely centers on newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to pay for the $14.3 billion in aid to Israel with an equal amount of cuts from the budget of the Internal Revenue Service. This is popular with conservatives but means that many Democrats will vote against what they see as a political stunt.

The Israel package is also being dragged deeper into the political mire because President Joe Biden chose to include it in a much broader request that includes the next tranche of arms and ammunition for Ukraine. Johnson’s conference opposes some aspects of the ask for funding north of $100 billion. And while the speaker is moving an Israel bill on its own, the Senate may insert Ukraine aid and send it back to the House, further delaying the dispatch of US assistance to Israel amid its war with Hamas.

Read Collinson’s full analysis.

Beijing has clarified that Israel remains marked on official maps issued by Chinese authorities after questions emerged over why the country’s name was not visible on online maps provided by two major Chinese companies.

The country name “Israel” does not currently appear on maps on popular mobile applications from leading search platform Baidu or the Alibaba-backed Amap, even though its territory and the names of neighboring countries are clearly shown in a view of the region.

Countries of similar or smaller size to Israel such as Cyprus, Lebanon and Kuwait are visible in the same view, for example.

The maps also don’t include a country name marker for “Palestine,” which China recognized as a state in 1988 and is listed on its official maps alongside Israel.

Both names come up in word searches on the mobile versions of the platforms, which are not-state owned but operate in China’s heavily moderated online environment and are as ubiquitous as Google or Apple maps are outside the country.

“China and Israel have a normal diplomatic relationship … the relevant country is clearly marked on the standard maps issued by the Chinese competent authorities,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday in response to a question during a regular press briefing.

Editor’s Note: A version of this post originally appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Read more about the Chinese maps.

Ten Japanese citizens and eight of their Palestinian family members were evacuated from Gaza to Egypt on Wednesday, according to Japanese authorities.

Speaking at a regular news conference Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said one Japanese national who remained in Gaza has family in the enclave and had not requested evacuation.

In the first sanctioned exodus from Gaza in weeks, injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign nationals started crossing into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing Wednesday. They include more than 360 foreign passport holders, many of them Palestinian dual nationals, an Egyptian official told CNN.

Children are being killed or injured at a rate of more than 400 a day in Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza, the United Nations children’s agency said Wednesday, as it reiterated calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

Some 3,500 children have reportedly been killed and more than 6,800 children reportedly injured during 25 days of “ongoing bombardment” since October 7, UNICEF said in a statement that added: “This cannot become the new normal.”

“Children have endured too much already. The killing and captivity of children must stop. Children are not a target,” said the statement, which was released following the second consecutive day of deadly Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

The UN agency said it does not yet have estimates of the death toll of children from the camp. Medical officials on the ground told CNN hundreds were injured and killed, including many children, following the airstrikes.  

The Israeli military said it targeted and killed several Hamas militants in the camp and maintains it does everything it can to minimize civilian casualties.

Hamas on Tuesday strongly denied the presence of one of its commanders at the camp. 

Calls for ceasefire: UNICEF said refugee camps are protected under international law and “parties to conflict” have obligations to respect and protect civilians from attack. 

“UNICEF reiterates its urgent call to all parties to the conflict for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, to ensure the protection of all children, and for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to deliver lifesaving aid at scale across the Gaza Strip, according to International Humanitarian Law,” the statement said.  

Israel bombed the densely-populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza for the second time in two days Wednesday, prompting warnings of war crimes as more nations took diplomatic measures and condemned Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the besieged enclave.

Hours later, one of the few remaining hospitals serving the northern part of the coastal enclave announced its main generator had gone out of service, deepening fears for patients in intensive care.

The massive second strike on Jabalya created further catastrophic damage, destroying several buildings in the Falluja neighborhood of the camp, with video from the site showing a deep crater and people digging through the rubble searching for bodies.

Here’s what you need to know:

The main generator for the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza went out of service Wednesday night, Dr. Atef Al Kahlout, the head of the hospital, told CNN Thursday.

Al Kahlout said a secondary generator was running in some sections of the hospital. However, the electromechanical systems throughout the entire hospital had stopped working, he said, including the ventilation systems in the operating rooms, the facility’s only oxygen station and its morgue refrigerators.

Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital is considered a backbone in providing health services in the northern part of the coastal enclave as the nearest medical facility receiving scores of people injured from two days of Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalya refugee camp.

The Israeli military conducted airstrikes on the densely populated refugee camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, which it said targeted Hamas militants.

Medics said there were “hundreds” of dead and wounded. Videos seen by CNN on Tuesday showed long lines of bodies outside the hospital.

The second strike on Wednesday killed at least 80 people, Al Kahlout told CNN earlier.

A barrage of new explosions was seen over Gaza City in the early hours of Thursday, a live camera feed from the Agence France-Presse news agency showed. 

The explosions were seen at around 3:08 a.m. Israel time (9:08 p.m. ET), with sustained booms and bright flames captured on the AFP footage. However, it was too dark to determine whether there were any projectiles.

The Israel Defense Forces have not yet commented on the blasts. 

The Israeli airstrike that rocked the Gaza refugee camp of Jabalya on Wednesday killed at least 80 people, according to a local hospital official.

Dr. Atef Al Kahlout, the director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital, told CNN Wednesday that at least 80 bodies have arrived at the hospital following the strike and that more were being dug out of the rubble.

He said the majority of the casualties were women and children and that hundreds more people were injured.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed earlier Wednesday that the blast in the Falluja neighborhood of the Jabalya refugee camp was due to an airstrike. It said “Hamas terrorists were eliminated in the strike.”

Video from the blast site showed catastrophic damage surrounding a deep crater in the neighborhood. People are seen digging through the rubble searching for bodies. 

The Israeli military also conducted airstrikes in Jabalya on Tuesday in an area near Falluja. Medics said there were hundreds of casualties.

The “scale of the tragedy in Gaza is unprecedented,” according to Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA,) who has just returned from a visit to the area.

Lazzarini said in a statement that the trip marked the first time he had been allowed into Gaza since the war began nearly four weeks ago. He called it “one of the saddest days in my humanitarian work.”

“I met with displaced Palestinians sheltered in one of the UNRWA schools in Rafah,” he said of his visit. “They showed me where it was damaged during bombardments. One person was killed and more than 80 were injured. The place was overcrowded. The levels of distress and the unsanitary living conditions were beyond comprehension.”
“Everyone was just asking for water and food,” he said. “Instead of being at school, learning, children were asking for a sip of water and a piece of bread. It was heart wrenching. Above all, people were asking for a ceasefire. They want this tragedy to end.”

UNRWA “has become the last remaining lifeline for survival,” Lazzarini said, noting that basic necessities “are running out fast.” He also stressed the agency “will continue to stand” with Palestinian refugees and communities, and renewed calls for a humanitarian ceasefire.

US President Joe Biden hailed the opening of the Rafah gate to wounded Palestinians and foreign nationals on Wednesday. He said the United States will continue pressing Israel to adhere to international laws protecting civilians in conflict. 

Speaking on a visit to a farm in Minnesota, Biden said it was impossible not to be moved by images of suffering Palestinians.  

“Israel has the right to respond and a responsibility to defend its citizens from terror. And it needs to do so in a manner that is consistent with international humanitarian law, that prioritizes protection of civilians,” Biden said. “We’ve all seen the devastating images from Gaza, Palestinian children crying out for lost parents.
“The loss of innocent life is a tragedy. We grieve for those deaths and continue to grieve for the Israeli children and mothers who were brutally slaughtered by Hamas terrorists.” 

Biden said the Rafah crossing’s opening came after “intense and urgent American diplomacy with our partners in the region,” and that as many as 1,000 more foreign nationals could depart soon. 

He said the US would keep pushing to increase aid to Gaza, saying the number of trucks crossing into the enclave had increased significantly, “but we still have a long way to go.”

On the hostages being held in Gaza, Biden said his administration “continues to work around the clock to reunite those families.”

“We are not going to give up, period,” he said. “And I am optimistic. But I am an optimist, folks.”

The United Nations’ Human Rights Office expressed concern that Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza “could amount to war crimes.”

“Given the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalya refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes,” the office said in a social media post Wednesday.

The UN’s statement comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that a blast in the Falluja neighborhood of the Jabalya refugee camp Wednesday was due to an airstrike, following an initial airstrike on Tuesday. Both airstrikes targeted Hamas, according to the IDF.

The IDF said in a statement Wednesday that its jets “struck a Hamas command and control complex in Jabalya,” adding that “Hamas terrorists were eliminated in the strike.”

US President Joe Biden and his top national security officials are increasingly confronting questions about Israel’s commitment to minimizing civilian deaths and how scenes from Gaza could affect his domestic political standing.

Even some allies of the administration are worried that defending Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas terror attacks could become an untenable position for the White House. A massive blast that ripped through Jabalya refugee camp on Tuesday vividly captured the tightrope that the Biden administration is trying to walk: Maintaining in public that Israel is trying to contain Palestinian civilian casualties, even as bloody scenes of destruction pour out of Gaza, fueling public outrage and calls for a ceasefire.

The airstrike, which left catastrophic damage and killed a large number of people has raised  raised new questions about how effective Biden and his top officials have been in convincing their Israeli counterparts to protect the lives of Palestinian civilians. It is also intensifying concerns within the administration that the mounting civilian death toll could further erode international support for Israel, isolating the country at a moment of deep regional instability.

Read more on the tough questions facing Biden.

A small number of Palestinians and foreign nationals have finally been able to leave Gaza on Wednesday, after weeks of intense negotiations resulted in the partial opening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

On Wednesday, some exited Gaza through Rafah following a deal brokered by Qatar between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the United States.

It comes soon after aid trucks were able to start entering the enclave in greater numbers in the opposite direction — a development that also required lengthy talks.

Located in Egypt’s North Sinai, the Rafah crossing is the sole border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. It falls along an 8-mile (12.8-kilometer) fence that separates Gaza from the Sinai desert.

Rafah is the only Gazan border crossing that isn’t controlled by Israel, which shut its crossings with the territory following Hamas’ October 7 attack. It has emerged as a crucial location as the humanitarian situation in the territory worsens.

Before the war with Hamas that started in early October, Israel had two crossings with Gaza: Erez, which is for the movement of people, and Kerem Shalom, for goods. Both were heavily restricted and have been shut since the war began.

According to United Nations figures, an average of 27,000 people crossed the border each month as of July this year. The border was open for 138 days and closed for 74 this year until that month.

Closures often depend on the security and political situation on the ground. While Israel has no direct control over the crossing, Egypt’s closures often coincide with Israel’s own tightening of restrictions on Gaza.

Read more about the critical role of the Rafah crossing.