November 14, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

The 3-year-old United States citizen being held hostage by Hamas has been identified as Abigail Edan, a family member said.

Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, the child’s great aunt, says Abigail is the child President Joe Biden was referring to in a recent call with the Emir of Qatar. 

The White House did not disclose additional information about the toddler. However, a White House official said the toddler is the youngest American hostage and the only known US minor child currently being held.

Abigail’s father, Roy Edan, was holding her outside their home at Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas terrorists began their attack on October 7, Naftali told CNN.

“Abigail’s siblings saw their mother being killed by Hamas terrorists in their home. They ran out to their father, who was holding Abigail, and he was murdered,” she said, adding that her niece, Smadar Edan — the child's mother — had also been killed in the attack.

Naftali relayed accounts she heard from the siblings — ages 10 and 6 — as they recalled running back inside their home and locking themselves in a closet for over 12 hours. The children believed their younger sister was dead until the family heard from a witness of the attack, Naftali said.

Naftali said the husband was injured while defending the kibbutz and a witness told the family that they saw a terrorist taking the wife and their three children along with Abigail away from the home.

President Biden discussed the war in Gaza and efforts to free hostages with the Emir of Qatar on Sunday.

"The two leaders agreed that all hostages must be released without further delay," the White House said in a readout from the call.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers — including Democrats Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. Joni Ernst — joined hands on stage in a show of unity at the pro-Israel rally in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, where they all pledged support for Israel. 

The Republican-led House passed a bill to provide aid to Israel, but the Senate Democrats are objecting to the measure because it does not include further aid to Ukraine, putting the two chambers at odds. The House bill funds the aid to Israel through spending cuts targeting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In his own remarks, Johnson said calls for a ceasefire were "ridiculous," prompting the crowd to chant, "no ceasefire."

Jeffries, meanwhile, said Congress will continue to support Israel’s “unequivocable right to exist as a Jewish state. Always and forever." And Ernst declared unwavering support for “our Jewish brothers and sisters," encouraging Americans to “stand steadfastly in your solidarity.”

The White House and the Pentagon said Tuesday that Hamas is storing weapons and operating a command center from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

The remarks echo claims made by Israel that there's a Hamas command center underneath Al-Shifa, which is the largest hospital in the enclave. Palestinian hospital officials and Hamas have rejected the claims.

The Pentagon also said the US has newly declassified intelligence that claims to show that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were using hospitals — including Al-Shifa — as a “way to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages."

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh declined multiple times to expand on how the US came to have that assessment, but said there are "multiple agencies that collect and assess and analyze intelligence."

Kirby also cited a “variety” of intelligence sourcing to back up the assertion that Al-Shifa Hospital is being used by Hamas, though he wouldn’t provide further details.

Still, Kirby said the US has been clear that it does not support Israel bombing medical facilities from above.

“We do not support striking a hospital from the air,” Kirby said, adding the US also does not want “firefights” where innocent people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire.

“This just points out how challenging the military operation is because Hamas has deeply embedded itself within the civilian population,” Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One, saying it added an “extra burden” on Israel to protect civilians.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed on Tuesday that Hamas has lost control in northern Gaza, including in Gaza City. 

Ground operations will continue, the defense minister said, and the Israeli army will “keep advancing, both today and over the next days, in order to fulfill the tasks in accordance with the cabinet’s directives."

The leading United Nations human rights agency is warning that "hundreds of thousands of civilians" remain trapped in Gaza City and their calls for help "are going unanswered."

"Desperate calls and urgent appeals are being made by civilians who are unable to move from the buildings where they are sheltering because of the presence of Israeli troops, ongoing ground battles or who have been caught in collapsed buildings," the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a statement Tuesday.

It said it is hearing stories of people asking for help to get out of their basements, but then contact getting cut off. Some of them are also reporting that they are trapped with family members who are injured or dead, the statement said.

OHCHR called for "urgent humanitarian access" to be granted in the northern part of the enclave. The human rights organization also said there must be "sufficient time" and the right conditions for "very difficult evacuations to take place."

"Any evacuations of hospitals must consider the ability of patients, medical staff, and other civilians to evacuate safely and to places patients can be properly cared for," OHCHR said in the statement.

Israel’s policy “is victory in the south and deterrence in the north," Mark Regev, senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN on Tuesday.

His comments come as intense shelling was reported around Israel's northern border with Lebanon overnight and on Tuesday morning.

Regev also said: “If we are closer to a hostage release – and I am not sure we are – but if we are closer, it is because Hamas is under amazing pressure.” 

The United States would support an independent third party conducting the evacuations of patients from hospitals in Gaza, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Tuesday, adding the US is in conversation with a number of humanitarian organizations and third parties about just that.

Miller claimed that the government of Israel would support such a step as well, but questioned whether Hamas would allow patients to be evacuated.

The US has sent messages through the Qataris and other intermediaries to Hamas urging them to allow the evacuation of wounded civilians, Miller said.

Only a handful of hostages have been released so far since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.

The United States, Israel and Hamas — with Qatar playing a significant mediating role — have been engaged in talks for weeks to free the hostages from Gaza. 

The parties are working toward a deal that would entail a sustained, days-long pause in fighting in exchange for a large group of hostages being freed, a senior US official familiar with the talks told CNN on Friday.

But various factors are complicating negotiation efforts: One of the complications in the ongoing talks has been verifying the list of names of both hostages and Palestinian prisoners that Hamas and Israel would respectively release as part of the deal, two officials told CNN. Israel wants to make sure none of the prisoners released are connected to Hamas and the country has been scrutinizing names proposed as part of the process.

Another factor that had slowed talks was a lack of information about the hostages Hamas is holding. Because other groups in Gaza, like Islamic Jihad, are believed to have taken hostages, it wasn’t clear to negotiators who exactly Hamas would be able to release as part of a deal.

Throughout the process, the ongoing fighting and logistical problems have slowed down the negotiations, including communication blackouts in Gaza that prevented Hamas leaders on the strip from talking to their political leaders in Qatar.

The complicated indirect diplomacy, involving mediators from Qatar, has meant it could at times take hours and even days for messages to be exchanged among all the parties.

The indirect style of negotiating is cumbersome, one US official acknowledged, but necessary.

A doctor in Gaza City’s only operational hospital says health care workers are caring for more than 500 patients — including some who are critically wounded — with very little access to medication as fighting rages nearby.

Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital’s Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah told CNN that they are "just overwhelmed and under-resourced."

The doctor painted a grim picture of conditions at the hospital, which he said only has two operating rooms, three surgeons, and a desperately low supplies of anesthetics to take care of a growing number of wounded people.  

“We started getting the wounded, initially from airstrikes but today also from sniper injuries. We have over 500 wounded in the hospital,” Abu-Sittah said. 

The doctor said his hospital does have access to running water and food, which is brought in by ambulances. 

He also said that while the hospital isn’t “physically surrounded,” he can “hear the building shake continuously” from nearby fighting. 

Earlier today, the United Nations said the hospital is the only medical facility reported to be able to receive patients, out of roughly 30 hospitals and clinics in the north of the Gaza Strip.