December 15, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

For the first time since October 7, humanitarian aid will be allowed to cross directly into Gaza from Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said.

The cabinet “temporarily approved the unloading of the trucks on the Gaza side of the ‘Kerem Shalom’ crossing instead of returning them to Rafah” on Egypt’s border with Gaza, the office said in a statement Friday.

Kerem Shalom is one of two Israeli crossings where humanitarian aid trucks have been inspected over the past few days, but not allowed to enter Gaza directly. Instead, they have been sent back to Rafah. 

“Until today, these trucks had to return to the Rafah border crossing, which created congestion and prevented the implementation of the agreement between Israel and the US,” it continued.

The statement said that only humanitarian aid from Egypt will be delivered to the strip in this manner.

“The US has pledged to finance the upgrading of the Rafah border crossing as quickly as possible so that humanitarian aid can only be transferred through it subject to an Israeli security inspection,” it added.  

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who’s traveling in Israel and the West Bank this week, welcomed the news. 

“President Biden raised this issue in recent phone calls with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and it was an important topic of discussion during my visit to Israel over the past two days,” Sullivan wrote Friday, and added that the hope is “this new opening will ease congestion and help facilitate the delivery of life-saving assistance to those who need it urgently in Gaza.”

At least 17 people were killed and dozens of others were injured early Friday morning after artillery fire struck a school and a residential home in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. 

Two artillery strikes hit Haifa School – where displaced residents were sheltering – and killed 12 people — “the majority of those children,” Nahedd Abu Etaimah, one of the directors of the Al-Nasser Hospital, who spoke with some of the injured, told CNN Friday.

Earlier, five people, including children, were killed after a house in western Khan Younis was hit, Abu Etaimah said.

Videos circulating on social media showed doctors treating two injured children at a hospital. In one particular video, a young boy who appears to be unconscious is brought in on the back of a mini truck. He is carried into the hospital by a paramedic and laid down on the floor as doctors treat him. 

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

Remember: Khan Younis is in southern Gaza. Civilians from northern Gaza fled to this area in thousands when Israel asked them to evacuate to escape strikes. Now, as Israel has expanded its ground operations to the south, it repeatedly asks civilians in several blocks — numerical units in a map designed by the IDF to designate areas inside Gaza — to evacuate. In the past week, it once asked civilians in some areas to go to a coastal area with few facilities, and another time it asked them to move to displacement shelters.

Since Israel launched its war on Hamas on October 7, the Israel Defense Forces said it had struck more than 22,000 targets in Gaza. As a result, almost 1.9 million people — more than 85% of the enclave’s total population — have been displaced, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Many live in makeshift shelters as temperatures drop and rain conditions are expected for the next few months. Others struggle to find drinking water and adequate food. And yet others are also battling spread of disease.

CNN spoke to some civilians and aid workers about their conditions:

Salwa Tibi: The 53-year-old aid worker recalls how she covered several miles on foot in southern Gaza, in a desperate search for blankets and sheets that might help keep her four children and other young relatives warm at night. She is staying in a rented house with at least 20 relatives including eight children and babies – the youngest of whom is three months old.

Rana Al-Najjar: As winds, heavy rains and cooler temperatures descend on Gaza from November to February, the 13-year-old girl — who was walking around barefoot — told CNN, “We are nine people living in this tent. Our tent is flooded with water, my siblings are freezing, and we don’t know what to do. We want to go back to our homes and not drown."

Shadya Arafat: The 51-year-old civilian in Deir Al-Balah told CNN she used to enjoy the rain. “Now we say ‘God have mercy on us,’” said the grandmother. “We have no beds, no blankets, the children are sleeping on the floor only lying on a sheet.” She is staying in a tent with 14 other people, most of whom are children. “I go around begging for a blanket (and) spend the night carrying a pot to collect the water so it doesn’t soak the children,” she added.

Hazem Saeed Al-Naizi: The director of an orphange in Gaza City decided to flee south to Rafah with 40 people under his care – most of whom are children and infants living with disabilities. He recalled being too fatigued to hold a bag — crammed with baby milk, biscuits, dates, diapers, water and clothing — at the same time as carrying one of the orphans, 8-year-old Ayas. He said he threw away the bag.

Shadi Bleha: The 20-year-old student, displaced from northern Gaza to Rafah, is sheltering in the courtyard of a school. “We are staying in a tent (made) from separate pieces of nylon,” he said, noting he is with at least 23 relatives, including five children ages 5 to 12. On some nights, he sleeps outside next to a fire because there is not enough room for them all, he said.

Islam Saeed Muhammad Barakat: The 48-year-old displaced civilian did not have time to gather the belongings his family needs for winter when they fled their home in Gaza City. He said he and many of his children got sick with several viruses that have spread recently, including flu and other "unknown but painful and contagious viruses." Barakat called on the international community to protect Palestinian lives, in the hope that peace will return to Gaza.

CNN’s Abeer Salman, Jomana Karadsheh, Vasco Cotovio, Ibrahim Dahman, Mostafa Salem, Kareem Khadder, Eyad Kourdi, Derek Van Dam and Niamh Kennedy contributed reporting.

Read the full story here.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday that there will be a transition to another phase of the war that is focused on “more precise ways” of targeting Hamas leadership.

Sullivan also said at a news conference in Tel Aviv that the US wants to see results on Israel’s intent to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.

He made his comments prior to a planned trip to the West Bank on Friday as part of his push to demonstrate continued US support for Israel in its fight.

Sullivan added that the Palestinian Authority needs to be “revamped and revitalized," signaling the US vision for post-war Gaza.

Elsewhere, Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of two soldiers who were abducted to Gaza during Hamas' attack on October 7, the military said in a statement Friday. The total number of IDF soldiers killed in the Gaza ground offensive now sits at 118.

Here are the other key developments:

The Israeli soldier looks directly into the camera, then turns around and sets a pile of food supplies on fire.

“We turn on the light against this dark place and burn it until there is no trace of this whole place,” he says as another soldier fuels the flame.

The soldiers say they are in Shejaiya, a neighborhood in Gaza City, deep in the besieged enclave. They are filming themselves burning food in a place where the humanitarian situation is now so bad that international organizations are warning people are at risk of dying of starvation.

This video is only one of several circulating online and reviewed by CNN that show Israeli soldiers in Gaza behaving in offensive and disrespectful ways toward the civilian population. Others show:

A photo shared online shows a soldier standing next to a Hebrew sign spray painted on a wall in Gaza that says: “Instead of erasing graffiti, let us erase Gaza.”

Asked by CNN about the videos, the Israel Defense Forces did not dispute their veracity, location or that IDF soldiers were involved. It condemned the soldiers’ behavior, which it said does not align with its rules, adding that the perpetrators will be punished.

In its statement to CNN, the IDF said that “disciplinary measures will be taken regarding the soldiers involved.” Asked for details about the measures, the IDF did not respond to CNN’s questions.

The videos, many of them posted on social media apparently by the soldiers themselves, are adding to the international outcry over the IDF’s conduct as the military offensive against Hamas continues in Gaza. Since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, 18,412 have been killed in Israeli attacks in the enclave as the IDF has said it has struck more than 22,000 targets in Gaza in the first six weeks of the war.

CNN’s Gianluca Mezzofiore, Abeer Salman, Alex Marquardt and Michael Conte contributed reporting.

European Union leaders will ask Israel to show "maximum restraint" in Gaza in a bid to pare back its assault on the enclave, according to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo.

Although Israel has “the right to eliminate the terrorist threat that is originating from Gaza,” it must do so “with restraint and respecting international humanitarian law,” de Croo told reporters ahead of an EU leaders debate on the Israel-Hamas war Friday.

Since the last meeting of the European Council in late October, “the situation has worsened in a dramatic way," highlighting the "many civilian killings" that have occurred, De Croo said, adding the bloc's position will be to ask Israel “for maximum restraint” in Gaza.

Earlier this week Belgium alongside Ireland, Spain and Malta sent a letter to the European Council chief Charles Michel calling for a discussion on the necessity of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pointed out that “the majority of EU countries are now calling for a ceasefire" in Gaza, and those that haven't "believe that it would prevent Israel from pursuing Hamas terrorists.”

“I don't agree with that interpretation,” Varadkar said. “You can pursue terrorists without engaging in the kind of war and destruction that Israel is engaging in at the moment in Gaza.”

Varadkar advised the EU to “really pressurize Israel and say that their failure to allow the Palestinians to have their own state is going to affect the relationship between Israel and the EU into the future.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Friday announced the death of another soldier killed in a battle in southern Gaza on Friday.

Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Shay Uriel Pizem, 23, from Ein HaNetziv was a tank commander in the 401st Brigade's 9th Battalion, according to the IDF.

According to a CNN count, this brings the total number of IDF soldiers killed in the Gaza ground offensive to 118.

On Friday, the IDF announced the death of Sgt. Oz Shmuel Aradi, 19, from Kibbutz Hatzor. Arady was a member of the 603rd Engineering Battalion, according to the statement.

Lama Ali Hassan Alloush and her family followed orders to leave northern Gaza and seek shelter in the south. But then their shelter was struck. Now, she is in hospital, her right leg amputated.

She is being treated at a field hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, set up by the United Arab Emirates government. It was constructed rapidly in a soccer stadium, but its staff and state-of the-art equipment make its 150 beds highly sought after.

Dealing with trauma victims is central to the medics’ work, but at this mission dubbed “Operation Gallant Knight 3,” they are also seeing the consequences of the local health systems falling apart and the poor, crowded conditions that are leading to infectious diseases and other problems sweeping through communities.

Within 15 minutes of CNN arriving at the hospital, there is a loud crack of a nearby airstrike. The doctors don’t even flinch. “That’s real life,” said Al-Naqbi, adding that they hear at least 20 strikes a day. “I think we got used to it.”

Soon, a man and a 13-year-old boy, both with missing limbs due to the bombing, are wheeled in. The notes handed over from the paramedics were smeared with blood. The teams worked quickly to replace the bandages that were being used as improvised tourniquets.

Inside the hospital it is almost calm, with organized staff efficiently caring for their patients, in wards, intensive care units and operating rooms. But the war is ever present. The Israeli military says that since October 7, it has hit more than 22,000 targets in Gaza – an enclave just about 25 miles long and seven miles wide – far surpassing anything seen in modern warfare in terms of intensity and ferocity.

Read more about a CNN team's visit to a field hospital in southern Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority needs to be “revamped and revitalized," US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a press conference in Tel Aviv on Friday.

He also said that the control, administration and security of Gaza should transition to the Palestinians.

Some context: Netanyahu has been asked repeatedly for his vision for a post-war Gaza in interviews with international media since October 7, telling CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview last month that he did see a role for “some kind of civilian Palestinian authority,” albeit one that had been “reconstructed.”

Last month, Netanyahu made it clear that he rejected American plans for post-war Gaza, saying Israel will have the “overall security responsibility” in Gaza for an “indefinite period” after the war ends.

The White House maintains that it doesn’t believe Israeli forces should reoccupy Gaza. “The president still believes that a reoccupation of Gaza by Israeli forces is not good. It’s not good for Israel; not good for the Israeli people,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on “CNN This Morning” last month.