May 16, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Israel-Hamas war news or read through the updates below.

The bodies of two Thai nationals killed during the October 7 attacks on Israel are being held by Hamas in Gaza, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday. 

The two men killed were identified as Sonthaya Oakkharasri and Sudthisak Rinthalak. Six other Thai nationals are still being held by Hamas, the ministry said. 

The pair worked in farms in areas close to Kibbutz Be’eri and “were murdered during the terror attack on the 7th of October, their bodies were taken hostage and are being held currently by Hamas in Gaza,” Hagari said during a briefing. 

The families of the hostages have been notified, Hagari said. 

Thailand expressed its condolences to the families of those killed in October and whose bodies are being held in Gaza. 

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum (HMFF) also expressed "deep sorrow" for the deaths in a statement on Thursday.

The forum emphasized that protecting citizens within its borders remains Israel's paramount duty.

This post has been updated with comments from the hostages' family group and Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a drone attack from south Lebanon hit an area in the Israeli border town of Metula on Thursday and injured three Israeli soldiers.

"The soldiers were evacuated to the hospital for medical treatment. Their families have been notified," IDF said in a statement.

Lebanon's Hezbollah claimed Thursday that it targeted several areas inside Israeli territory, including the one in Metula. The group also released a video of the attack on Metula.

Hezbollah on Thursday announced the death of two fighters without providing further details. 

Israel, in an overnight airstrike, hit "a complex of production and storage sites for weapons, which belongs to Hezbollah's missile precision project in Jebel Shams in the Bekaa," according to Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari.

Some background: According to figures released by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday, at least 355 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8 as a result of the "Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon."

Another 1,426 people were injured, the ministry added. 

At least 93,040 people have been displaced from areas and towns close to the border with Israel since the conflict started, the country's health ministry added in its report. 

A Portland nurse who traveled from Oregon to the Gaza Strip for what was supposed to be a two-week mission treating burn victims, told CNN of the guilt she feels at the prospect of being able to leave Gaza when Palestinian patients and medical colleagues must stay.

Since the Israeli military seized the Rafah crossing last week, the city’s critical border crossing to Egypt has shut, trapping a team of American healthcare professionals. But now, Monica Johnston, a burns specialist nurse volunteering with the Palestine American Medical Association in southern Gaza, said “it is possible” that “half of her team,” including her, can leave.

Johnston did not say how they would be able to leave but said the “guilt is immense.” 

“My female colleagues, my roommates [are] my best friends now,” Johnston told CNN’s Isa Soares on Thursday. “I'm going to have to leave them behind and with the intensified bombings that happened today, I’m so fearful [for] them.”

Describing the conditions she and her staff must operate in, the American nurse said when it comes to treating burns or wounds, she uses six different types of dressings that come from her bag.

“We’re scraping the bottom of our bags that we brought in, we brought in 300 bags of supplies,” Johnston said. 

“We just had two kids this morning, a one and a 3-year-old with the large burns and I used almost all the Silvadene [a burn cream to prevent infection] that I had in my bag, it's devastating," she said.

A CNN report highlighted the plight of dozens of foreign doctors being stuck in Gaza who are calling on the US government to help coordinate the team’s safe exit from Gaza, as humanitarian conditions worsen inside the besieged enclave.

Israeli forces are razing the earth from eastern to central Rafah, according to satellite imagery, ahead of a planned full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said additional forces will participate in the ground operation in Rafah. And the IDF said the operation there remains limited in scope, while it continues operating in two other parts of Gaza.

Here are other headlines you should know:

Developments on the ground

South Africa's accusations against Israel

Humanitarian aid

The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to pass a GOP-led bill to compel the delivery of defensive weapons to Israel as Republicans ramp up pressure on President Joe Biden over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

It is unlikely to be taken up in the Democratic-led Senate and the White House has said that Biden would veto the bill if Congress passed it.

The bill would prevent the president from withholding, halting, reversing or canceling weapons transfers that have been approved by Congress from the United States to Israel, and requires any that have been withheld to be delivered to Israel within 15 days of the bill’s enactment.

The legislation would cut off funds from several key executive-branch entities, including the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council until any withheld weapons are sent to Israel.

The vote was 224-187. Three Republicans crossed over and voted against the measure, and 16 Democrats voted for it. 

The vote comes as Biden has faced pushback from lawmakers in both parties after he said during an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett last week that he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah, where more than a million civilians have been sheltering.

Biden said while the US would continue to provide defensive weapons to Israel, including for its Iron Dome air defense system, other shipments would end should a major ground invasion of Rafah begin.

The families of five Israeli soldiers who were killed as a result of friendly fire during operations in Jabalya in northern Gaza on Wednesday have been notified, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a statement Thursday.

The five included four sergeants and one captain, ages 20 to 22, who all belonged to the Paratroopers Brigade.

Hagari said the incident is still under investigation and that IDF "will draw the lessons and learn from them."

"The IDF is engaged in intense fighting in three focal points in the Gaza Strip, where three divisions fighting Hamas are maneuvering," Hagari said.

Israel has responded to South Africa's remarks at the International Court of Justice about the Israeli military escalating attacks in Gaza.

South Africa accused Israel of using forced evacuation orders in Rafah to "endanger rather than protect civilian life." South Africa's delegation also sought an emergency halt to Israel's offensive in Rafah, saying "Israel's genocide has reached a new and horrific stage."

The Israeli foreign ministry accused South Africa of acting as "the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organization," in efforts to undermine Israel's obligations to protect its citizens, according to an X post from Oren Marmorstein, the spokesperson for the ministry.

Israel accused South Africa's allegations of being "morally and factually distorted" and said they are an "abuse of the Genocide Convention and the International Court of Justice (ICJ)." 

Israel also called on the ICJ "to reject South Africa's appeal and to bring the abuse of the Court to an end."

Arab leaders are collectively calling for the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces on occupied Palestinian territories until a two-state solution is reached.

At the Arab League summit in Bahrain the leaders issued the ‘Manama Declaration,’ which includes a call to set a timeframe to reach a two-state solution, and for the UN Security Council to issue a resolution to establish a Palestinian state.

The UN does not have peacekeeping troops in Israel or the Palestinian territories but has more than 10,000 peacekeepers along Israel’s border regions, like the UNIFIL in Lebanon and the UNDOF in Syria.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah were among the conference attendees who delivered speeches mainly focused on the war in Gaza. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres were also in attendance, and both delivered speeches. 

Guterres echoed a vision for the two-state solution, saying:

The US has also called for a two-state solution, with President Joe Biden saying in January that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could ultimately be convinced. “There are a number of types of two-state solutions,” Biden said at the time.

As the war in Gaza rages on, the ‘day after’ question is causing rifts inside Israel and among Arab countries. 

Netanyahu told Phil McGraw, known as Dr. Phil, in an interview last week that he envisions help from wealthy Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to run Gaza. But the statement triggered a rare condemnation from the UAE’s foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, adding strain onto the relatively new relationship between Israel and the Gulf state. 

In the ‘Manama Declaration’, the 22-Arab bloc called for the release of hostages and accused Israel of obstructing ceasefire efforts. 

At the conference, President Sisi of Egypt, a mediating country in the now-stalled negotiations between Hamas and Israel, accused Israel of “evading its responsibility” and “maneuvering around the efforts” for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Those who think that security and military solutions are able to secure interests or achieve security are delusional,” Al-Sisi said.