January 29 2024 Israel-Hamas war

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

Dozens of civilians were killed and wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City on Monday, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Witnesses said at least “25 civilians were killed” and others were injured in Israeli shelling of a family home in the al-Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City, the agency said.

CNN is unable to independently verify the WAFA report. 

Several injured people were brought to Al-Shifa Hospital, according to WAFA journalist Khader Zaanoun, who witnessed the casualties arriving and was in touch with CNN from the hospital via text message.

Earlier Monday, Zaanoun told CNN that Israeli forces had “invaded” Gaza City’s Al-Rimal neighborhood “from multiple directions,” and were surrounding it, including Al-Shifa Hospital. “Ambulances are facing major difficulties in moving and operating due to artillery shelling and besiegement by Israeli forces,” Zaanoun said.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment.

An undated photo of US Army Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia, released by the City of Waycross, Georgia.

The father of Army Specialist Kennedy Sanders described the moment that soldiers arrived at his home to notify him of his daughter’s death as “the longest 20 minutes I faced in my life.”

Sanders was one of three US soldiers killed in an attack allegedly by Iran-backed militias against a US base in Jordan.

 Shawn Sanders and Oneida Oliver-Sanders hold a photo of their daughter, Army Specialist Kennedy Sanders.

“When I opened the door, I initially knew what was going on,” said Shawn Sanders, a former Marine. He asked them to wait for his wife to come home so they could be notified together. 

Having just spoken with Kennedy hours before the attack regarding the purchase of a motorcycle, Oneida Oliver-Sanders remembers her daughter as a “sweet spirit.”

As the humanitarian situation in Gaza becomes more dire, pregnant mothers are worried about what life will be like for their babies delivered during a war.

Watch the report:

During a visit to an Israeli military outpost on the Gaza border Monday, Israel’s defense minister told Israeli troops that they are making progress against Hamas, but it will be months before the war is over.

Gallant described the conflict to the soldiers as an “hourglass” that has “flipped against” Hamas and is now in Israel’s favor.

The Israeli defense minister has on several occasions outlined Israel’s commitment to pursuing Hamas fighters in Gaza for as “long as necessary.”

The minister stressed that it will “take months, not a single day” to achieve Israel’s objectives despite his claim that Hamas’ capabilities have been significantly weakened: “They don’t have ammunition, they don’t have reinforcements.” 

Israel claims a tunnel ran through this Gaza cemetery it destroyed.

A large void is all that is left after the Israeli military excavated the western side of the Bani Suheila cemetery, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, claiming a Hamas tunnel ran directly through the site and that Hamas militants attacked Israeli troops from there.

A week after a CNN investigation found that the Israeli military damaged or destroyed at least 16 cemeteries in Gaza since the beginning of the war, the Israeli military invited CNN into Gaza to explain why it partially destroyed one of those cemeteries.

But Israeli commanders failed to prove their claim during a three-hour visit to the Bani Suheila cemetery and the surrounding area.

On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took CNN into a tunnel near the Bani Suheila cemetery and into an underground command center that the military said was below the cemetery.

However, IDF commanders declined to show reporters the tunnel shaft they said emerged inside the cemetery, claiming there was sensitive machinery underground and that the structure was unstable.

Read more about the destruction of a Gaza graveyard

The US response to the drone attack in Jordan that killed and wounded US service members on Sunday is likely to be more powerful than previous American retaliatory strikes in Iraq and Syria, officials told CNN, though the Pentagon and White House are being careful not to telegraph the administration’s plans.

President Joe Biden is under increasing pressure to respond in a way that stops these attacks for good. Iran-backed militants have targeted US military facilities in Iraq and Syria over 160 times since October, and several Republican lawmakers have called for the US to hit inside Iran directly to send a clear message.

But the biggest challenge now for the Biden administration is how to respond to the drone strike – the deadliest attack on US forces in the region since the bombing at Abbey Gate killed 13 US service members in the closing days of the Afghanistan withdrawal – without sparking a regional war.

The US has in recent months carried out several strikes targeting Iranian proxies’ weapons depots in Iraq and Syria. To date, none of those strikes have deterred the militants, whose 165 attacks have injured over 120 US service members across the region since October.

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said the deaths of US service members “certainly crossed the president’s red line,” and both officials and analysts are expecting a more robust response that is not necessarily confined to one country or one day. But officials have suggested it is unlikely the US will strike within Iran.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the environment in the Middle East is as dangerous as it’s been in the region “since at least 1973, and arguably even before that.”

Read more details of the possible US response

The UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, has called on victims of sexual violence during Hamas’ October 7 attacks to come forward in a bid to bring about justice. 

Patten made the call to survivors during a meeting with Israeli first lady Michal Herzog in Jerusalem on Monday. 

Addressing survivors directly, Patten said: “I want to say that survivors and victims, we owe you all more than solidarity. We want to ensure that you have justice.”

The visit comes after Israel criticized the UN for its delay in condemning the acts of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters against women on October 7. The UN has previously said its commission collecting war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas has been investigating accounts of sexual violence. 

Patten, who was invited by the Israeli government, said Monday she wanted to convey the “important message” that sexual violence is one of “the most heinous crimes with devastating consequences.” 

The UN representative said her and her team were prepared to listen to survivors “in all safety and confidentiality” during her weeklong visit to Israel. 

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with American hostage families at the White House on Tuesday, an administration official said. 

Several families of hostages being held in Gaza are in Washington, DC, this week, including Ronen and Orna Neutra, parents of Omer Neutra; Ruby Chen, father of Itay Chen; Adi and Yael Alexander, parents of Edan Alexander; and Liz Naftali, great-aunt of Abigail Edan, who was freed as part of the November hostage deal. 

Other families not in town might dial in to the meeting, a source familiar with the meeting said. 

The meeting, which the administration official described as routine, comes as negotiators have been working toward securing another hostage release deal. CNN reported earlier today that a broad framework for a hostage release and potential ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was agreed to among negotiators in Paris this weekend, according to an official familiar with the talks. 

The European Union will continue funding the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), despite what it called very “serious” allegations against several of the agency’s staff members. 

In a news release Monday, the bloc said its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, held a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including very serious allegations against a number of UNRWA staff members.”

Several EU states, including France, Italy, Germany, Romania and the Netherlands, have all opted to temporarily suspend their individual funding to UNRWA in the wake of claims from Israel last week that several of the agency’s staff were allegedly involved in Hamas’ October 7 attacks. 

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Saturday that the highest investigative authority of the UN had already taken action and that an independent review by external experts is forthcoming. He added that UNRWA had taken “immediate action” by terminating contracts of employees suspected of being involved in the October 7 attack.

In the EU news release, Borrell commended the “swift and decisive measures” taken by UNRWA when the agency received the allegations regarding its staff members. If the agency’s investigation finds Israel’s claims to be true, Borrell said those responsible should be “held to account.” 

Borrell told Guterres during his Monday call that the EU will “continue its essential aid to Palestinians in Gaza unabated” as one of the “largest donors” to the enclave. 

Although the EU’s funding commitments to UNRWA have already been finalized, future funding decisions will be determined by the outcome of the investigation, the news release added.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was founded by the United Nations a year after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which marked the creation of Israel and the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in an event known by Palestinians as the Nakba (catastrophe).

UNRWA is the primary humanitarian aid group in Gaza.

Here’s the aid and services it provides to Palestinian refugees and their descendants:

UNRWA is unique in that it is the only UN agency dedicated to a specific group of refugees in specific areas. While its purpose is to support Palestinian refugees, UNRWA does not have a mandate to resettle them — a mandate that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) does have. The UNHCR does not, however, have a mandate over Palestine refugees within UNRWA’s areas of operation.

Pausing aid to this agency would further deteriorate the situation, warned Leo Cans, head of mission Palestine for Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders. “(If) you stop these trucks, people will die of hunger and very quickly,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference at the State Department in Washington, DC, on Monday, January 29.

The environment in the Middle East is as dangerous as it’s been in the region “since at least 1973, and arguably even before that,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said while emphasizing the US effort to prevent escalation.

Blinken, who was speaking at a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, said that the US response to Iran-backed militias allegedly killing three US Army reservists in Jordan “could be multileveled, come in stages and be sustained over time.”

On the war in Gaza, the US top diplomat also said that he discussed the “ongoing efforts” to free Israeli hostages and create an “extended pause” in fighting in the enclave during his meeting with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Monday.

A broad framework for a hostage release and potential ceasefire was agreed to among negotiators in Paris this weekend, according to an official familiar with the talks. 

While there is a basic framework that negotiators feel they can move forward with, the “details are going to be very difficult” to work out, the official said.

Even though negotiators came to terms on the broad strokes, the office of Israel’s prime minister indicated Monday that there are concerns about “conditions that are not acceptable.” It denied reports that Israel had agreed to a new hostage deal.

Egyptian intelligence today delivered the framework to Hamas in Rafah, the official said.

The framework would call for the first phase of civilian hostage releases to take place over a 6-week pause with three Palestinian prisoners held by Israel released for each civilian hostage returned from Gaza. That ratio would be expected to go up for IDF soldiers and a longer pause is possible beyond the six weeks for the later phases. 

The framework is a melding of different proposals from Israel, Hamas, Qatar and Egypt, along with additional ideas from the United States. The proposals differed on the length of the pause and ratios for swapping prisoners and hostages. 

CNN’s Lauren Izso contributed reporting to this post.

More than 40 US service members were injured in the attack on US forces in Jordan, according to the Defense Department, a number that could possibly continue to increase.

US Central Command previously said in a statement Sunday that 34 service members had been injured.

Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23.

The Defense Department released the names of the US soldiers killed in an attack allegedly by Iran-backed militias against a US force in Jordan:

They were all assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, a US Army Reserve unit based out of Fort Moore, Georgia, according to Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.

The United States is “not looking for war” – but the White House on Monday would not rule out the prospect that President Joe Biden is considering strikes within Iran. It comes after three US Army soldiers were killed and more than 30 service members were injured in a drone attack overnight in Jordan. 

CNN reported Monday that the killing of three Americans at Tower 22 in Jordan marked a significant escalation of an already precarious situation in the Middle East. Officials said the drone was fired by Iran-backed militants and appeared to come from Syria. It is still being determined which militia group specifically is responsible.

For his part, Biden pledged the United States “shall respond,” in remarks from South Carolina over the weekend. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also reiterated that the US will respond on Monday.

“The president’s been crystal clear — we will respond decisively to any aggression,” he said. “And we will hold responsible the people who attacked our troops. We’ll do so at a time and a place of our choosing.”

This post has been updated with Blinken’s remarks.

Discussions aimed at unlocking a solution to free the remaining hostages and reach a sustained cessation in fighting in Gaza made progress this weekend, Qatar’s prime minister said Monday.

“We are in much better place than where we were a few weeks ago,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. He said the talks on Sunday have made “good progress to get things back in shape and at least to lay a foundation for the way forward.”

Al Thani described the framework emerging from the talks in France as a combination of “what’s been proposed by the Israelis and what’s been a counter-proposal from Hamas.” in addition to Al Thani, CIA Director Bill Burns and the Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs are also involved.

Still, the Qatari prime minister downplayed the prospect of immediate results. The framework must still be relayed to Hamas, he said, and “we don’t know and we cannot predict” how the militant group will respond.

Hamas must get “to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process,” Al Thani said.

Israel alleges that 13 employees of the United Nations’ main relief agency in Gaza were associated with Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and took part in varying capacities, ranging from involvement in kidnapping hostages to being told to set up an operations room, according to the summary of the intelligence shared with CNN by an Israeli official. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) employs more than 13,000 people in Gaza and provides humanitarian support to the enclave.

CNN has not seen the intelligence that underlies the summary of allegations and cannot corroborate Israel’s claims about individual staffers or the agency’s dynamic with Hamas and other groups operating in Gaza.

Of the 13 UNRWA employees alleged to have been associated with the attack, the Israeli document alleges 10 were Hamas operatives, two were Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives and one is unidentified. 

Israel believes that six UNRWA employees infiltrated Israel as part of the attack, four were involved in kidnapping Israelis, and three additional UNRWA employees were “invited via a SMS text to arrive at an assembly area in the night before the attack and were directed to equip with weapons,” but their presence on October 7 was not confirmed. It also alleges that at least one UNRWA employee supplied logistic support to the attack.

This summary is part of what was provided to US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues Ambassador David Satterfield in a Friday briefing with Israel’s head of military intelligence, according to the Israeli official. The New York Times first reported the details of Israel’s allegations.  

When asked about the allegations, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN secretary-general, said the UN had not received the dossier and that UNRWA operates in Gaza with the mandate of the UN General Assembly, a voting body of member states.

In this October 2023 photo, workers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees pack the medical aid and prepare it for distribution to hospitals at a warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza.

Israel has alleged that some of the staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack. The main aid agency in Gaza fired several employees in response. But beyond the allegations of recent days, Israel has longstanding issues with UNRWA, accusing it of aiding Hamas and calling for it to be entirely dismantled.

In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to dissolve UNRWA and merge it with the main UN refugee agency, the UNHCR. More recently, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has suggested that Israel will seek to stop the UN agency from operating in post-war Gaza, saying it “will not be a part of the day after.”

“We have been warning for years,” Katz said. “UNRWA perpetuates the refugee issue, obstructs peace, and serves as a civilian arm of Hamas in Gaza.”

UNRWA has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that its aid is being diverted to Hamas, and that it teaches hatred in its schools, and has questioned “the motivation of those who make such claims, through large advocacy campaigns.” It has condemned the October 7 attack as “abhorrent.” The threat to remove UNRWA from the besieged Gaza Strip has caused UN officials and those who rely on the agency to sound the alarm.

Israel instead views the agency as “a mechanism that perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he told CNN, “And specifically perpetuates the conflict with regards to the right to return, by designating refugees and their descendants from 1948… as refugees.”

The right of return refers to the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel, which was recognized by the 1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194. The fate of refugees is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Read more about Israel’s opposition to UNRWA.

Abeer Salman in Jerusalem and Mohammad Sawalhi in Gaza contributed to this report.

Qatar reasserted its commitment to humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip and called for other countries to continue funding UNRWA, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

During a phone with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on Monday, Qatari Minister of State for International Cooperation Lulwah bint Rashid Al-Khater underscored the extensive reach of UNRWA’s operations, supporting millions across the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Al-Khater also cautioned that any suspension of funding to the agency could critically impair its capacity to meet the pressing needs of Palestinians in these regions, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Several large donor countries suspended funding from UNRWA after the organization was given information from Israeli authorities alleging that several of its staff members were involved in the terror attacks on October 7 by Hamas. UNRWA said the accused staff members were immediately terminated from their positions.