January 24, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

A building sheltering hundreds of displaced people in southern Gaza was hit Wednesday amid intensified Israeli military attacks on Khan Younis, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, killing at least nine and injuring 75 others.

“Buildings ablaze and mass casualties. Safe access to and from the center has been denied for two days. People are trapped,” Thomas White, director of affairs for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter. 

White also said that a team from his agency and the World Health Organization were trying to reach the site, but that an agreed-upon route with the Israeli military is "blocked with (an) earth bank."

White said the building shelters 800 people. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on X that the entire Khan Younis Training Center, one of the largest UNRWA facilities in Gaza, was sheltering 30,000 people, and is clearly marked as a UN site.

Wajih Ajour, who is sheltering in the UNRWA facility, told CNN he could see tanks near the building.

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that it continues to operate in Khan Younis, where it is pursuing "military targets, outposts, infrastructure and command and control centers" and said the operation there will continue for "several days."

CNN has sought comment from the IDF on the fire at the UNRWA shelter.

This post has been updated with more details about the UNWRA facility in Khan Younis.

No proposed deal between Israel and Hamas has reached the negotiating table, an Israeli official told CNN Wednesday, adding that any recent reports saying that an agreement is close are incorrect and that there is a long way to go before a deal is reached. 

Hamas did not reject a proposal to release Israeli hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting, because it was never offered to them, the official said.

But indirect talks are ongoing, the official added. 

There have been various proposals from parties involved in the negotiations, including several from within Israel, and they are expected to be discussed in an Israeli security cabinet meeting on Thursday, the official said.

Israel is offering different terms in exchange for the return of the hostages, including a pause in fighting, but will not offer a permanent ceasefire until Hamas is destroyed, the official said.

The official asked not to be named discussing internal government deliberations.

A Haaretz report earlier this week cited a senior Egyptian official as saying Hamas had rejected a two-month pause in fighting in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. Additionally reports from Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post outlined details of deals they said had reached advanced stages of negotiation.

The war between Israel and Hamas has already spilled over to the wider Middle East, with prospects of a confrontation between regional and world powers becoming ever more likely.

Across the region, the fighting has largely been confined to tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed militias on one side and the US, Israel and its allies on the other. But the direct intervention of both Iran and the US in recent weeks has heightened fears that the proxy conflict between the two could turn into a direct one.

So far, the US and Iran have avoided directly confronting each other. The US has attacked Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, while Iran-linked groups have targeted American personnel in Iraq and Syria. Tehran has also struck what it said were anti-Iran groups in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. Pakistan responded with retaliatory strikes.

The Islamic Republic, which has long opposed the presence of US forces in what it considers to be its backyard, has spent the past few decades building a network of Islamist, anti-Western and anti-Israel militias that it trains, funds and arms. Recently, certain groups, particularly Yemen’s Houthi rebels, have disrupted a vital international waterway, wreaking havoc on global trade and prompting Western states to intervene. And it has built ties with and helped fund Hamas, which launched its war on Israel on October 7.

As tensions escalate in the region, here's where Iran or its allies are present, where US forces are stationed, and where both sides have conducted military operations since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Read more in-depth about Iran's presence in the region.

A group of Western countries has once again called for the end of attacks being carried out by Houthi militants on vessels in the Red Sea. 

The collective — which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia — condemned the attacks in a joint statement issued Wednesday. 

In recent weeks, the Houthis have launched near-daily attacks on commercial and merchant vessels in the Red Sea as part of their revenge campaign against Israel's war in Gaza.  

In response to the "continued illegal and reckless Houthi attacks," the Wednesday statement said that the US and UK armed forces, with support from their counterparts, decided to carry out further strikes against eight targets in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen.  

The Houthis have so far proven undeterred by this Western campaign of strikes, vowing last week that any future strikes on Yemen would "not go unanswered." 

Nowara Diab was trying to drown out the sounds of airstrikes by listening to music, but it was not enough to shake the unsettled feeling in her gut.

Then her phone rang. It was a friend, who said they had heard that Maimana Jarada — Diab’s best friend — and her family had been killed by Israeli bombardment.

Her stomach was in knots as she felt herself panicking. Diab called Jarada’s number repeatedly but when there was no answer, it dawned on her that it was true: Jarada had been killed. The 20-year-old says she broke down in tears as she felt the walls close in around her. The pain was even more intense for Diab because she had learned only 10 days earlier that another friend, Abraham Saidam, had also been killed by Israeli airstrikes.

Diab says she longs for the kind of problems she had before the war, like missing the bus for college or being bored in lectures. “I’m not able to do this anymore because my college was bombed, my house was bombed and I lost my best friend,” she said.

Read more about how her life has changed.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is calling on Muslim countries to sever their political and economic ties with Israel, according to Iran's state-run Press TV.

On Tuesday, Khamenei told a group of his supporters that a ceasefire is something Israel has to decide on, so instead of calling for one, leaders can take action by cutting ties with Israel.

“The issue that is in the hands of the officials of the Muslim countries is to cut off the vital lifelines of the Zionist regime,” Khamenei said according to Press TV, adding, “The Muslim countries should severe their political and economic contact with the Zionist regime and not help this regime.”

Meanwhile, ongoing talks to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza have not yet reached the level of "negotiations," the White House said Tuesday, describing them instead as "sober and serious" discussions about what might be acceptable to all sides.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians are fleeing Khan Younis in southern Gaza as the Israeli military said it has surrounded the city amid further operations west of the area.

CNN video shows displaced people sitting on the side of streets and in the vicinity of the seashore. The video shows cars, trucks, and tractors transporting families and their essential belongings, and crowds of people walking.

Many of those fleeing described terrifying scenes.

"There are dead people on the ground. We left them behind. There are people killed inside the houses," said displaced Gazan Hisham Sayegh. "We were expecting to die at any minute."

Meanwhile, Israel is reeling from the deaths of at least 24 of its soldiers in Gaza, in what is the biggest single loss of life for Israeli troops in the enclave since the war with Hamas began. More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.

Here's what you need to know:

Palestine's soccer team reached the knockout stages of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time after beating Hong Kong 3-0 on Tuesday in a Group C match filled with emotion from the players and the roars of a sympathetic crowd.

The victory, the team’s first ever at the Asian Cup, confirmed their spot in the round of 16 as one of the four best third-placed teams at the tournament in Qatar.

Forward Oday Dabbagh was the hero at the Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in Doha, grabbing two goals either side of a header from fellow attacker Zeid Qunbar.

The historic sporting moment for Palestinians comes as Israel’s war against Hamas rages in Gaza, causing widespread destruction and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Deaths of Palestinians in the West Bank have also surged at the same time.

Throughout the game, the 6,500-strong crowd roared for the Palestinian side and at the final whistle players broke down in tears of joy. Defender Mohammed Saleh, who was born in Gaza, could be seen sobbing and kneeling on the ground, his face buried in the grass.

Read more about Palestine's historic victory.

The US military conducted strikes in Yemen against two Houthi anti-ship missiles aimed to launch at the southern Red Sea, US Central Command said Tuesday evening.

The Houthi missiles posed an "imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US Navy ships in the region," CENTCOM said.

It comes after the US and the UK carried out additional strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Monday.

The Iran-backed Houthis have said they won’t stop their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea until the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza ends.