December 12, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday will meet with families of American hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel, a White House official told CNN.

The meeting will take place at the White House. A number of families of hostages are in Washington, DC this week to make a personal case for the Biden administration and Israeli government to work harder and more creatively for their loved ones’ release.

There are still seven American men and one woman missing since the war began, according to the White House. Four Americans – a 4-year-old girl and three women – have been released so far. Biden previously met over Zoom with several relatives.

Several family members had asked to attend a Hanukkah reception held at the White House on Monday, but did not receive an invite. But Biden referenced the hostages while speaking at the reception, vowing his administration was “not going to stop ‘till we get every one of them home.”

The Israeli Navy said that its missile ships are operating in the Red Sea, amid threats to merchant shipping there from Iranian-backed Houthi forces.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that the operational processing of four new Sa'ar 6-class corvettes had been completed, and that “for the first time, a Sa'ar 6 missile ship sailed to the Red Sea.”

It said that “the missile ships of the Israeli Navy are continuing to operate in the Red Sea, according to the situational assessment and as part of enhanced defensive efforts. This week, the INS Magen, a Sa'ar 6-class corvette, anchored in the port of Eilat for the first time, joining the Israeli Navy's operational activities.”

Earlier Tuesday, the Houthis warned that they would “continue to prevent all ships of all nationalities heading to Israeli ports from navigating in the Arab and Red Seas” until food and medicine is provided to the Gaza Strip. They also claimed responsibility for an attack on the Norwegian-registered oil and chemical tanker STRINDA.

Israel has said it is prepared to act against efforts by Houthi rebels in Yemen to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea if the international community fails to do so, Israeli National Security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said Saturday.

“Israel is giving the world some time to organize in order to prevent this but if there isn’t to be a global arrangement, because it is a global issue, we will act in order to remove this naval siege,” Hanegbi said.

Some background: The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are a Shia political and military organization that have been fighting a civil war against a Saudi Arabia-backed coalition since 2014.

There has been an uptick in their maritime activities since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 and the group has said any ship heading to Israel was a “legitimate target.”

US warships have already been protecting shipping in the region. Last week, a US warship shot down multiple unmanned aerial vehicles that came from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen in the southern Red Sea, according to US military officials. One of the incidents came during a series of attacks on three commercial vessels.

CNN's Heather Chen contributed reporting to this post.

The Israeli military is now inside Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, according to the spokesperson for the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the enclave, Ashraf Al-Qidra.

Al-Qidra alleged that the hospital director, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlot, and all medical staff, including female staff, were being held in the emergency department and being subjected to interrogation.

Asked whether its troops were inside the hospital and interrogating medical staff, the Israel Defense Forces told CNN:

Dr. Al-Kahlot told CNN on Monday that Kamal Adwan was surrounded by Israeli forces.

In one recent tank shelling, Dr. Al-Kahlot said the maternity ward was hit, killing two women and leaving two more so badly wounded their legs required amputation.

"The hospital has no water, no food, no fuel. I make an appeal to lift this siege and bring in water and fuel," he said.

On Friday, the IDF said clashes near Kamal Adwan hospital were "in response to Hamas' barbaric attacks.”

The Israeli military says it only carries out operations in and around hospitals where they are being used by Hamas and other armed groups.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that 13 soldiers have been killed by friendly fire in Gaza since the beginning of the ground operation in the enclave last month. 

According to the IDF tally, of the 104 IDF troops killed in Gaza since October 27, 20 were killed in what the IDF said were accidents: 13 in friendly fire, six in incidents related to weaponry, machinery or trampling, and one because of “firing irregularities.” 

This means that one in eight soldiers killed in Gaza since October 27 have been killed by friendly fire.

There is currently no plan to allow aid to enter Gaza directly from Israel, an official at Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) told CNN Monday. 

Israel opened the Kerem Shalom Crossing for inspections of aid on Tuesday, but not for goods to enter Gaza. Any aid screened at Kerem Shalom is sent to the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt to be handed over to international organizations and transported into Gaza.

Asked about plans to use Kerem Shalom to get aid into Gaza, COGAT’s Col. Moshe Tetro told CNN on Monday that “it is not on the table at the current time,” adding that the decision is a political one, not a military one.

Diseases including chicken pox, meningitis and upper respiratory tract infections are spreading in Gaza, Palestinian and international medical authorities said, as living conditions deteriorate due to the ongoing Israeli siege and offensive.

Roughly 160,000 to 165,000 cases of diarrhea have been recorded amongst children under the age of five, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official told a briefing Tuesday, describing the figure as “much more” than normal. 

Cases of impetigo, meningitis, and jaundice have also been recorded in the enclave, according to Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories. WHO is trying to set up mobile labs in Gaza to analyze samples for jaundice, Peeperkorn added. 

He warned that cramped living conditions are contributing to disease spread. 

More context: About 80% of the population has been displaced as the Israeli military instructs hundreds of thousands of people to move into ever smaller areas of Gaza amid the Israel Defense Forces ground offensive against Hamas. Medicines and other vital medical supplies have been choked off by the closure of Gaza’s border to all but a trickle of aid.

More than 130,000 cases of respiratory tract infections and 35,000 cases of skin rashes have been recorded, the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said in a report published Monday.  

At least 4,395 cases of chickenpox, 17,511 cases of lice and 19,325 cases of scabies have been recorded, according to the report. 

The spread of diseases has created additional pressures for the health system in Gaza which WHO’s Peeperkorn described as being “on its knees.” 

Only 11 out of the enclave’s 36 hospitals are even partially functional, Peeperkorn said in the briefing, emphasizing the challenges posed by short staffing and surging patient numbers. 

“The doctors are really forced to prioritize who receives care and who doesn't. And they are treating many of the serious cases actually straight away in the corridors or on the floor or even in the chapel,” he said. 

Israeli authorities started carrying out security checks on aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday, after humanitarian bodies ramped up urgent calls for the facilitation of more vital aid into the Palestinian strip.

Meanwhile, there are growing concerns about the spread of diseases and infections in Gaza amid a deterioration in living conditions and medical access.

Here are the latest developments:

This post has been updated with additional reporting.

Israel started conducting security checks on aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday, Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said, as relief workers warn Israeli bombardment and severe restrictions on essential supplies entering the strip have deepened a humanitarian crisis.

Once screened, the aid will be shipped to the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, where it will be handed over to international organizations, COGAT added. Only then will the aid be allowed into Gaza. No supplies will enter Gaza directly from Israel.

COGAT had said Monday it would open two crossings for inspections on Tuesday: Nitzana Crossing and the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Nitzana is a crossing between Israel and Egypt; Kerem Shalom is between Israel and Gaza. It is unclear whether the Nitzana station opened on Tuesday.

“Trucks containing water, food, medical supplies and shelter equipment will be screened at the Nitzana Crossing and the Kerem Shalom Crossing -- and will be forwarded from there to international aid organizations in the Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing in Egypt,” COGAT said in the statement on Monday. 

The opening of the two crossings will double the volume of aid delivered through the Rafah crossing and admitted into the Gaza Strip, COGAT added.

Some background: The United Nations and other human rights bodies have escalated calls for several weeks on additional crossings into Gaza to be opened, saying it would facilitate deliveries of more vital humanitarian aid. Kerem Shalom was the main cargo crossing point into Gaza before the war.

Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, water and fuel entering the strip after the October 7 Hamas attack. Some deliveries of aid resumed after two weeks, but the UN and others warned the amount of food, water, fuel and medicine reaching the Gaza Strip were nowhere near sufficient.  

Human rights groups say Israel’s mass bombardment of civilian areas, evacuation orders and complete blockade of the territory amount to war crimes. 

Four Palestinians were killed in an apparent Israeli drone strike on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian state news agency WAFA said Tuesday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday it is carrying out "counterterrorism activities" in Jenin and has detained dozens of suspects.

It said that during the operations, carried out with the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), “IDF drones identified a terrorist cell hurling explosive devices and firing at the forces. The IAF targeted the threat and killed a number of the terrorists.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said the strike hit the Al-Sabat area in the old town of Jenin, and those killed were transferred to the Jenin Hospital, WAFA added. 

Israeli forces “surrounded” three hospitals in the area, WAFA said. The PRCS director in Jenin, Mahmoud Al-Saadi, said Israeli forces delayed the entry of ambulances to the area of the strike.

Videos circulating on social media showed Israeli armored vehicles and bulldozers in different areas of Jenin.

Al-Saadi said the Israeli military are still inside the refugee camp in Jenin.

The IDF said that "engineering vehicles operated to expose explosive devices planted under roads to attack the security forces. The forces located weapons, ammunition, and explosive devices."

"In addition, forces identified and dismantled a ready-to-use explosives manufacturing facility and located underground tunnel shafts and an observation control room," the IDF said. 

It said that dozens of arrests had been made and troops were “continuing to carry out counterterrorism activity in the area.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said a fifth person has been killed in Jenin during the IDF operation.

More background: The Israeli-Gaza war has increasingly spilled over into the West Bank with settler attacks and clashes leaving hundreds of Palestinians dead.

The number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank between October 7 and December 9 has risen to 275, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said on Sunday. 

The Ministry also reported that 3,300 Palestinians were wounded, and noted that attacks by Israeli forces on hospitals, health centers, and ambulances have "restricted" the availability of essential health care services. 

Meanwhile, the European Union said on Monday it will work on introducing sanctions against Jewish settlers who commit acts of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, following the announcement of a new visa policy by the United States targeting the same violent individuals.

CNN's Eyad Kourdi, Catherine Nicholls, Sugam Pokharel, Andrew Carey and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.