January 19, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas has moved here.

The State Department officially confirmed the death of a US citizen in the West Bank on Friday and has asked the Israeli government for more information, a spokesperson told CNN.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the family,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson did not provide the individual’s name due to privacy considerations.

“Out of respect to the family during this difficult time, we have no further comment,” the spokesperson said.

CNN reported earlier Friday, citing Palestinian news agency WAFA, that Tawfiq Hafiz Ajjaq, 17, was fatally shot.

The Israel Defense Forces(IDF) and Israeli police told CNN it received a report that an off-duty police officer and an Israeli civilian fired toward a “Palestinian individual suspected of hurling rocks in the area of Al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya.”   

IDF says it is reviewing claims that a soldier has fired at him, while the Israeli police have also launched an investigation.

A bulldozer unloads the bodies of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel and turned over by the Israeli military during a mass funeral in Rafah, Gaza, on December 26.

The current Israel-Hamas conflict has left nearly three times more people dead in Gaza than in the last 15 years combined, according to a report from United Nations Women, the organization’s gender equality entity.

The statistics released Friday say more than 24,620 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the latest war began with Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The UN’s death toll also reflects the number released by the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza. CNN cannot independently verify these numbers due to the challenges of reporting from the war zone.

The report specifically analyzed the war’s impact on women. According to the data:

Earlier Friday, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund said there had been nearly 20,000 births in Gaza during the current war — with many of the mothers suffering or dying in childbirth due to a lack of resources, and newborns facing dismal conditions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden in a phone call Friday that public comments he made on Thursday, in which he appeared to reject the idea of creating a Palestinian state, were not meant to foreclose the possibility of a Palestinian state in any form, a person familiar with the conversation tells CNN.

Biden and Netanyahu discussed the possible attributes of a future Palestinian state in a “detailed” and “serious” conversation, the person said.

Biden administration officials have recently discussed the possibility of a future demilitarized Palestinian state, an idea Biden finds “intriguing,” the person added.

What Netanyahu said Thursday: Netanyahu said in a news conference that “Israel needs security control over all territory west of Jordan” in any future arrangement reached after the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

“This clashes with the idea of (Palestinian) sovereignty. What can you do?” he asked.

Those comments were widely understood as a rejection of the idea of creating a Palestinian state — the central component of a two-state solution to the conflict, which Biden has long supported and advocated for.

Smoke rises over Khan Younis in Southern Gaza on January 19.

Intense Israeli bombardment and heavy fighting in the area around a large hospital in southern Gaza killed at least 29 people Friday, according to Palestinian state news agency WAFA.

Nasser Hospital, the largest remaining health facility in the city of Khan Younis, and several residential buildings came under “violent bombardment” by Israeli artillery and military vehicles, according to WAFA.

Khan Younis has been the epicenter of Israel’s ground operation in recent weeks. The fighting has forced thousands of Gazans to flee the area, many of them already displaced from northern neighborhoods where Israel first launched its offensive.

Displaced Palestinians continue to arrive in overcrowded Rafah, near the border with Egypt, by “the thousands,” a United Nations human rights official said Friday. There, they shelter in makeshift tents with little food or clean water.

A 17-year-old Palestinian American was fatally shot Friday in the town of Al-Mazra’a Al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing local sources.   

Tawfiq Hafiz Ajjaq was shot in the head and was taken to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah, where he was in critical condition but later died, WAFA said, citing medical sources at the hospital.   

The Israel Defense Forces and Israeli police told CNN it received a report that an off-duty police officer and an Israeli civilian fired toward a “Palestinian individual suspected of hurling rocks in the area of Al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya.”   

An IDF soldier was also present in the area, the IDF said in a statement to CNN.

“The claim that the soldier fired at the Palestinian is under review,” the statement said.  

Israel’s police have opened an investigation into the incident, the IDF and Israeli police told CNN.  

Tawfiq had been living abroad for almost a year and a half before returning to the West Bank, according to WAFA.  

Al-Mazra’a Al-Sharqiya is a town where many Palestinian-Americans live.

The US is “seriously concerned” about reports of the shooting, though information is “scant at this time,” John Kirby, US National Security Council spokesperson, said in a Friday briefing.

CNN has reached out to the US Embassy in Jerusalem and the US Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem for comment.

This post has been updated with comments from a US national security official.

Motaz Azaiza, a 24-year-old photojournalist who has been documenting the war on social media, now has millions of Instagram followers.

“I’m so scared for Motaz.”

“I hope Motaz is okay.”

“Pray for Motaz.”

These are some of the comments from one of Motaz Azaiza’s dispatches from Gaza, broadcast to his millions of followers: images of his once-vibrant neighborhood transformed into a gray wasteland, raw glimpses of carnage in the ashes, and reflections on his own feelings of rage and exhaustion.

Noor, a medical student in California who asked to go by her first name for safety reasons, is one of the many followers who refer to Azaiza with the familiarity of his first name. She gets notifications on her phone each time he posts and worries when too much time passes.

Like millions of others around the world, Noor is witnessing the war in Gaza through the eyes of Palestinians who are sharing their daily realities on social media. Through their posts on Instagram, X and other platforms, these citizen journalists are putting a face to the conflict, giving outsiders an intimate look at the human costs of war from the perspective of people who live there. In return, their followers are developing strong emotional connections with them.

Kanwal Ahmed, a filmmaker and storyteller in Toronto, has a similar opinion.

Read the full story about the Palestinians documenting the daily realities of war.

Israeli, Palestinian and Middle Eastern foreign ministers will travel to Brussels on Monday to meet with their European Union counterparts.

Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the secretary general of the Arab League are also scheduled to attend what a high-ranking EU official called a “complex ballet” of meetings.

The EU official told journalists in Brussels during a background briefing on Friday that the aim of the invitation was to have “a full discussion with all the participants — the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs,” adding that it could more precisely define “a policy position for the European Union.”

The official detailed that Josep Borell, the EU’s chief diplomat, has tabled a series of objectives for Monday’s discussions, which include an independent Palestinian state, ironclad guarantees for Israel, and a full normalization of relations between Israel with the Arab countries.

The official also pointed to a two-state solution as “a reasonable, legitimate and achievable objective.”

A senior EU diplomat, in a separate briefing to journalists, acknowledged there would be no concrete outcomes from the meetings but said that “going forward and in any solution, either for Gaza specifically or for the broader peace process that should lead to a two-state solution, the role of our Arab friends is crucial.”

Thousands of babies have been born “into hell” in Gaza, while mothers are forced to undergo caesarean sections without anesthetics — and in some cases have to be discharged from the hospital just a few hours after the operation, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund said Friday. 

There have been nearly 20,000 births in Gaza since the conflict began on October 7 of last year, UNICEF said. The mothers and their newborns face desperate aid shortages and the widespread Israeli bombardment in Gaza.

Some mothers have bled to death, and other women have been unable to deliver their stillborn babies because medical workers are overwhelmed, UNICEF said.

Ingram said staff at the overwhelmed Emirati Hospital in southern Gaza were forced to discharge mothers “within three hours of a caesarean,” a situation that she said was “beyond belief and requires immediate action.”

CNN is not able to independently verify the claims made by UNICEF because of difficulties in gaining access to hospitals and other impacted areas of Gaza. 

From left, U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

US President Joe Biden spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, one day after the Israeli leader appeared to reject the idea of creating a Palestinian state, a comment that would put him at odds with Biden’s position. 

Biden relayed “his vision for a more durable peace and security for Israel, fully integrated within the region, and a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed” during their first phone call of the year, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday.

CNN reported Thursday that US officials would not allow Netanyahu’s apparent rejection to stop them from pressing the matter with their Israeli counterparts.

Communications services in Gaza are gradually being restored following the longest near-total blackout since the start of the war, the Palestinian Telecommunications Company said in a statement Friday. 

The latest outage, which reached a one-week mark on Thursday, was the ninth such outage since Israel’s war against Hamas began on October 7, 2023, according to the internet monitoring site NetBlocks. 

The communications company did not indicate how long it would take for full services to return in Gaza, or if that is even possible.

The company also said that two members of its technical team died during a recent repair operation, bringing the total number of company employees killed since the start of the war to 14.

A United Nations Human Rights official says he has met Palestinian men in Gaza who described being beaten, blindfolded and held for weeks in Israeli detention.

Ajith Sunghay, who runs the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, urged Israel on Friday to observe international human rights and humanitarian law norms.

Sunghay said in a news briefing that released Palestinian detainees told him they were held in “unknown locations” for 30 to 55 days, where they “described being beaten, humiliated, subjected to ill-treatment — and to what may amount to torture.”

Sunghay said it’s not clear exactly how many men Israel has detained since it began its military operation against Hamas in Gaza, but he said the number is believed to run into the thousands.

What Israel says: The Israel Defense Forces told CNN in a statement on Friday that individuals detained in Gaza by Israel are treated in accordance with international law.

The IDF said it detained and questioned people suspected of involvement in terrorist activity while operating in “Hamas strongholds,” but did not disclose a number.

The military said it takes suspects’ clothes to ensure they are not concealing explosives or weaponry, and that the clothes are not immediately returned to the detainees on suspicion they could still be used to conceal items like knives. “Detainees are given back their clothes when it’s possible to do so,” the IDF said.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin poses for a portrait on day 98 since her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was kidnapped by Hamas, in Jerusalem, Friday, Jan. 12, 2024. Every morning, before she's even out of her pajamas, she tears a piece of masking tape off the roll, grabs a marker, and in thick black strokes writes down the number of days her son has been held hostage by Hamas militants. Then she sticks it to her chest.

When Rachel Goldberg-Polin walked into a Swiss grocery store this week, the cashier was confused by her dress.

In an interview with CNN in Davos, Switzerland — where she has met with world leaders to push for hostages’ release — Goldberg-Polin explained how she wears a piece of tape marking each day that has passed since her son Hersh was snatched by Hamas from the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023. Hersh’s left hand was blown off by a grenade, and a video obtained by CNN showed bone protruding from his wrist as he was taken to Gaza.

Hersh, 23, should be in India now, as part of an around-the-world trip he planned. On December 27, when he had been scheduled to leave, Goldberg-Polin went to the airport with friends and handed stickers of Hersh to passengers on his flight, asking them to send photos from places they visit.

She has since received pictures from Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, and elsewhere, with notes saying, “Come on, Hersh, we’re waiting for you!”

Watch the interview:

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The US says it struck additional Houthi anti-ship missiles in Yemen on Friday, marking the sixth time in the past 10 days that the US has targeted the Iran-backed rebel group.

The latest strikes targeted three missiles “that were aimed into the Southern Red Sea and were prepared to launch,” US Central Command said in a statement.

It comes a day after the US used fighter jets to strike two Houthi anti-ship missiles, part of a growing campaign to try to disrupt the militant group’s ability to fire missiles and drones against international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The increasing pace of the strikes, which US officials say are a defensive response to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, has raised questions about the overall US strategy aimed at deterring the militants and degrading their weapons capabilities.

This post has been updated with official US confirmation of the latest strikes.

Demonstrators gathered for a 24-hour protest at "Hostages Square", calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza and to mark 100 days since the October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on January 13.

Israeli war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot believes his country won’t be able to bring the hostages taken by Hamas back alive through military means, saying their release needs to be negotiated. 

Eisenkot also said a deal to secure the release of the hostages would likely include a longer ceasefire than the previous one in late November 2023. 

“There was a short ceasefire of a week and a half, so there will be a ceasefire three to four times longer, and after that the goals of the war are still valid; this is how I see it,” Eisenkot said.

Eisenkot also appeared to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, saying those who claim Hamas was fully defeated in northern Gaza “are not telling the truth.”

Intense Israeli bombardment and heavy fighting in the area around a large hospital in southern Gaza killed nearly 30 people on Friday, Palestinian state news agency WAFA said.

Nasser Hospital — the largest remaining health facility in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis — came under “violent bombardment” by Israeli artillery and military vehicles, according to WAFA. Several residential buildings near the hospital were reportedly shelled, including one where a family of eight was killed, WAFA said.

Ambulance and rescue crews recovered 29 bodies from under the rubble of destroyed homes and in surrounding streets, WAFA reported.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society also said Friday that several displaced people were injured in Israeli drone attacks targeting the organization’s headquarters and Al-Amal Hospital, which is close to Nasser Hospital. The United Nations estimated Wednesday that around 7,000 people have sought shelter in and around the Nasser Hospital grounds.

What the Israeli military says: The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Friday that Israeli forces “raided a Hamas military post which served as a training camp for the Khan Younis Brigade and was a meeting place for senior Hamas officials,” locating weapons, tunnel shafts, “and a device containing models of IDF armored vehicles.”

The IDF statement did not clarify where in Khan Younis that Israeli forces were operating.

South Africa’s genocide case against Israel that was presented in the International Court of Justice last week has put the spotlight on a deeper fault line in global geopolitics. Beyond the courtroom drama, experts say divisions over the war in Gaza symbolize a widening gap between Israel and its traditional Western allies — notably the United States and Europe — and a group of nations known as the Global South, countries located primarily in the southern hemisphere, often characterized by lower income levels and developing economies.

Mixed reactions to ICJ case: While some nations have maintained a cautious diplomatic stance, others — particularly Israel’s staunchest allies in the West — have criticized South Africa’s move. The US has stood by Israel through the war by continuing to ship arms to it, opposing a ceasefire, and vetoing many UN Security Council resolutions that aimed to bring a halt to the fighting.

For many in the developing world, the ICJ case has become a focal point for questioning the moral authority of the West and what is seen as the hypocrisy of the world’s most powerful nations and their unwillingness to hold Israel to account.

Read the full analysis on how the war has exposed a deepening global divide.

A former Israeli prime minister and an Israeli war cabinet minister are calling for fresh elections in the country, criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership.

Israeli war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot said the public no longer has trust in Netanyahu’s leadership, while former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned about the risks of Netanyahu’s strategy.

Meanwhile, a near-total communications blackout in Gaza, the longest of the war, has now surpassed the one-week mark with no signs of abating, preventing humanitarian and emergency services from operating effectively in the territory.

Here’s what you should know:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, chairs a cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 24.

Israel needs fresh elections because the public no longer has trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, Israeli war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot said.

“We need to go to the polls and have an election in the next few months, in order to renew the trust as currently there is no trust,” Eisenkot told Israeli television news on Thursday evening. “The state of Israel is a democracy and needs to ask itself, after such a serious event, how do we go forward with a leadership that is responsible for such an absolute failure?”

He also dismissed concerns over holding elections in the country while it’s at war. “Lack of trust among the public in its government is no less severe than lack of unity during a war,” he explained.

The near-total telecommunications blackout in the Gaza Strip has now lasted more than a full week, the internet monitoring site NetBlocks said on Friday afternoon.

“At 168 hours, the disruption is the longest on record since the start of the Israel-Hamas war and continues to severely limit visibility into events on the ground,” NetBlocks said in its latest update.