February 2, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and the US strikes in Iraq and Syria has moved here.

US President Joe Biden, right, and US First Lady Jill Biden, second from right, participate in a dignified transfer of the three soldiers killed in a drone attack in Jordan, at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware on February 2.

It was meant to sound devastating, and likely felt so to the pro-Iranian militias on the receiving end. But Friday night’s airstrikes against over 80 targets inside Iraq and Syria were — so far — a comparatively limited response to the worst loss of US military life in the region in nearly three years.

Friday night tried to sound loud, but will likely not echo for long. US Central Command said the US deployed heavy bombers — the B-1B Lancer — to hit 85 targets in seven locations. The strikes may be determined to have caused more damage when the sun rises. But it was far from the most pain the Pentagon was capable of delivering.

There might be more. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin suggested this was the beginning. But on Friday, the US response lasted just 30 minutes, the White House said. It was short, perhaps sharp, but not a shock.

That was a clear and calculated choice. The Biden administration faced a near-impossible task: Hit hard enough to show you mean it, but also ensure your opponent can absorb the blow without lashing out in return. The US had telegraphed its response for over five days, with senior US officials briefing about its nature, its severity, and even hinting at its targets.

Read more on the analysis here

Lawmakers are reacting to strikes the US conducted in Iraq and Syria on Friday that were in response to a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.

The Biden administration notified Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top leaders ahead of the airstrikes, Hill sources told CNN.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson, a Republican, criticized the military response, writing in part, “The administration waited for a week and telegraphed to the world, including to Iran, the nature of our response. The public handwringing and excessive signaling undercuts our ability to put a decisive end to the barrage of attacks endured over the past few months.”

Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, a Democrat, praised the response of US President Biden, saying in a statement that “this was a strong, proportional response. In fact, the 85 targets struck tonight mark a greater number than the prior administration.”

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a Republican, said, “Finally” and added on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Iran needs to know the price for American lives,”

The White House has set its sights on Israel’s settlers, a controversial movement that has grown in power over the years and is seen by the outside world as a major impediment to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

On Thursday, the State Department announced the first round of sanctions targeting Israeli settlers accused of perpetrating violence in the West Bank. The sanctions block their financial assets and bar them from entering the US.

Settler violence in the West Bank has jumped sharply since Israel’s war against Hamas began, with settlers burning cars, destroying infrastructure and assaulting and killing Palestinians.

The West Bank is home to 3.3 million Palestinians, and it is where the bulk of Jewish settlements are located.

Israel has continued to expand settlements over decades, despite signing a series of peace agreements with the Palestinians in 1990s called the Oslo Accords that envisaged the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as part of a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Since the war started on October 7, the White House has doubled down on a longstanding US position supporting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects.

Only four settlers were targeted in the US move this week. But there are 700,000 of them living in the West Bank and, according to the international community, the presence of every one of them there is illegal. The Palestinians want the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza for a future state, a position that is supported by much of the rest of the world.

Here’s all you need to know about Jewish settlers.

A screengrab from a video, geolocated by CNN to the town of Qaim, Iraq, shows the aftermath of US military strikes in the area according to the Iraqi Military. An apparent weapons depot has been hit, and a number of flares from projectiles are seeing rocketing into the sky.

The retaliation for a drone strike that killed three American soldiers in Jordan last weekend has begun: The US military launched major airstrikes on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday.

The White House declared the operation — which lasted about 30 minutes — a success, but few details were immediately available about the damage and any deaths or injuries on the ground. Casualties were expected, a Pentagon official said.

US officials say the strikes hit four facilities in Syria and three in Iraq, where security officials reported damage in the city of Al-Qaim. The sites allegedly belonged to various Iran-backed militias, which the US blames for the strike in Jordan.

Here’s what you need to know:

The strikes were retaliatory — and came with a warning: The deadly drone strike in Jordan was just the latest in a series of more than 165 attacks on American forces in the Middle East by various Iranian proxy groups since the outbreak of the current Israel-Hamas war.

US President Joe Biden said the strikes demonstrate that his administration will not tolerate the harm of Americans. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed the attack was just “the start of our response.” Both men said the US retaliation will continue “at times and places of our choosing.”

Biden is seeking a delicate balance: The US government is threading a needle — it wants to deter further attacks on its troops while avoiding a full-scale conflict with Iran.

The Jordan attack followed weeks of efforts by the US and regional leaders to prevent a wider Mideast war, even as conflicts spread involving Tehran’s proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

B-1 bombers played a key role in the attack: Air Force B-1 bombers were among the US aircraft that carried out the strikes, a defense official told CNN. The B-1 is a long-range heavy bomber that can deploy precision and non-precision weapons.

The bomber crews flew to the region from the US in a single non-stop flight, according to Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims. The military is confident it “hit exactly what we meant to hit,” Sims said, crediting the precision of the B-1 crews.

The US alerted Iraq, but not Iran: National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the US informed the Iraqi government of its plans before carrying out the strikes. However, he said there had been no communications — backchannel or otherwise — with Iran since the Jordan attack.

The US does not plan to strike inside Iran: A senior official with the Biden administration told CNN the US will not strike inside Iran – only focusing on targets outside of the country. Striking inside Iran would have been a huge escalation, and officials have telegraphed that is unlikely to happen.

Tents erected by the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent for Palestinians displaced by the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza on December 31, 2023 in Al-Mawasi, Gaza. 

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) called for a humanitarian corridor Friday to help evacuate wounded people and others wishing to leave Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

The hospital in southern Gaza has been besieged for 12 consecutive days, enduring “relentless bombing and direct gunfire” in the surrounding area, PRCS said in a news release.

PRCS said four people were killed Friday, including the director of the Youth and Volunteers Department, Hadiya Hamad. It claimed six others were injured when Israeli forces fired at the organization’s headquarters, which is sheltering thousands of displaced people.

The Israel Defense Forces did not provide a direct response to PRCS’ allegations Friday, but said in a statement to CNN that its activity in Khan Younis will continue for several days until it dismantles “Hamas’ military framework and Hamas strongholds.”

The IDF claims the area surrounding the hospital is home to a “significant component” of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade.

Aid workers have been raising alarm for days about the situation at hospitals in the southern city, with PRCS and the Israeli military providing at-times contradictory accounts from the ground. CNN cannot independently verify either side’s claims, due to the difficulties of reporting from the war zone.

US strikes hit facilities used by al Hashed al Shabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), in the Iraqi city of Al-Qaim, located in the western part of Anbar province along the Iraq-Syria border, according to Iraqi security officials and the mayor of Al-Qaim.

The US views the PMU as Iran-backed militias and considers some of them responsible for carrying out attacks on US targets in Iraq and Syria.

 In a statement, Yahya Rasool, the spokesperson of Iraq’s Armed Forces, decried the strikes as a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty.”

The mayor of Al-Qaim, Turki Al-Mahalawi, said the strikes hit three houses used as weapon warehouses by the PMU. 

In this June 2023 photo from the US Air Force, a B-1B Lancer aircraft conducts a demonstration on in TanTan, Morocco.

Air Force B-1 bombers were among the US aircraft that carried out strikes Friday in Iraq and Syria, a defense official told CNN.

The B-1 is a long-range heavy bomber that can deploy precision and non-precision weapons.

The bomber crews that flew from the US made it in one non-stop flight, Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Friday.

The US is “really confident” in the precision of its strikes on the militia targets, Sims said, crediting the B-1 bombers for that assessment.

“Initial indications are we hit exactly what we meant to hit, with a number of secondary explosions associated with the ammunition and logistics locations” the US targeted, he said.

Sims said the US expected there to be casualties when it selected its targets.

The post was updated with additional details from a briefing by Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the B-1 bomber mission.

The timing of Friday’s strikes on targets in Iraq and Syria was designed around the weather in the region, according to Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims, who said the US was looking to avoid “unnecessary casualties.”

Friday was the “best opportunity” weather-wise to launch the strikes, Sims said.

While American munitions can operate in cloud cover, the US waited until good weather in “an interest of ensuring that we’re hitting all the right targets.”

The US bombers that carried out the strikes flew from the United States, Sims said.

The National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the United States informed the Iraqi government of its plans. However, he said there had been no communications — backchannel or otherwise — with Iran following the attack that killed three Americans in Jordan last weekend.

The United States said it launched attacks on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in response to a drone strike Sunday by Iran-backed militants on a US military outpost in Jordan.

The US military struck three facilities in Iraq and four in Syria during its attack tonight, which lasted around 30 minutes, according to a White House official.

The US does not know now how many militants were killed or wounded, he said.

The US Central Command said it launched attacks on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in response to a drone strike by Iran-backed militants on a US military outpost in Jordan on Sunday that killed three US service members.

Lloyd Austin attends the transfer for fallen service members US Army Sgt. William Rivers, Sgt. Breonna Moffett and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware on February 2.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US strikes in Iraq and Syria on Friday are “the start of our response.”  

President Joe Biden salutes as he boards Air Force One after attending the dignified transfer of the remains of three US service members killed in the drone attack on the US military outpost in Jordan, at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, on February 2. 

US President Joe Biden released a statement following US strikes in Iraq and Syria on Friday.

Here’s what he said:

A senior administration official told CNN the United States will not strike inside Iran – only focusing on targets outside of the country.

Striking inside Iran would have been a huge escalation, and officials have telegraphed that that was unlikely to happen.

US officials have known for a few days now that the first strikes would happen tonight, the official added.

The official said strikes were not coordinated with the dignified transfer of the three US service members earlier today. The timing of the strikes involved many factors, including weather conditions. 

US President Joe Biden is being updated on the ongoing strikes.

US Central Command said on Friday that the US conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria “against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.”

The targets were spread across seven locations, according to two US defense officials. 

The statement said: 

The post was updated with details on the locations.

The Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday, April 21, 2023.

The US has begun conducting strikes on targets in Iraq and Syria, the start of what will likely be a series of larger-scale US strikes on Iranian-backed militias who have carried out attacks on US troops in the Middle East, according to two US officials. 

The retaliatory strikes came in response to a drone strike by Iran-backed militants on a US military outpost in Jordan on Sunday, which killed three US service members and wounded more than 40 others. 

The strikes come just hours after US President Joe Biden attended a dignified transfer ceremony and met family members of the three soldiers killed in Jordan.

Officials have signaled the strikes were likely to be more significant than previous attacks on Iranian-backed militias over the last several weeks, which have primarily focused on weapons storage or training facilities. But the administration is threading a needle; they want to deter and stop further attacks but avoid a full-scale conflict with Iran breaking out in a region already roiled by the continuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 

The Biden administration has signaled there could be additional action in the coming days. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday the US response would be “multi-tiered.”

US representative to the United Nations and president of the UN Security Council for the month of August Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a press conference after a meeting of the UN Security Council on maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine at the United Nations Security headquarters on August 24, 2023 in New York City. 

US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters Friday that Algeria’s draft resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire does not put proper pressure on Hamas, saying instead to focus on the negotiations occurring between the US and their regional partners in the Middle East such as Egypt and Qatar.

Thomas-Greenfield pointed to the two resolutions the US is working to implement in the region that she said both deal with the humanitarian situation and call for a cessation of hostilities, calling the Algerian resolution “not timely.”  

However, she could not say when the alternative resolutions may be implemented, adding that “negotiations take time.” 

Thomas-Greenfield also addressed Israel’s part in supporting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 

“I think the Israelis understand that they do have a role to play in assisting humanitarian aid to get through to the people of Gaza,” she said.  

While the ambassador rebuffed a question that said aid to Gaza has been arriving in a trickle, she agreed that the amount of aid let into Gaza has not been enough.   

Thomas-Greenfield used the issue of aid to Gaza to highlight the importance of a swift investigation into the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA,) which is accused by Israel of having Hamas operatives embedded on October 7.  

She said a non-UN body must investigate the agency in addition to the investigation conducted by the UN. 

Negotiators are making progress on talks to bring more aid into Gaza, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the UN Security Council Friday.

Thomas-Greenfield rebuffed the characterization that aid to Gaza has been arriving only in a trickle, but agreed the enclave has not received enough.

The ambassador also used the issue to highlight the importance of a swift investigation into the UN relief agency accused by Israel of having Hamas operatives embedded during the group’s October 7 attacks.

President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III attend the dignified transfer of the remains of Army Reserve Sergeants William Rivers, Kennedy Sanders and Breonna Moffett at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, on Friday.

For an American president, it is the gravest of responsibilities: witnessing the country’s war dead return home for what the military calls a “dignified transfer.”

President Joe Biden attended his second as commander in chief on Friday, honoring the three American soldiers killed in a drone attack in Jordan last weekend as their remains arrive back on US soil.

Biden witnessed the transfer Friday of Sgt. William Rivers, 46; and two Army specialists who were posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant: Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Breonna Moffett, 23. All are from Georgia.

The US has yet to retaliate for the drone attack in Jordan that left the three Americans dead and more than 40 injured, though it has pinned blame on an umbrella group of Iran-backed militants in Iraq. A multiphase counterstrike is expected soon, officials have said.

On Friday, however, Biden’s attention was on the Americans lost and the families they left behind.

Read more about the dignified transfer.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will depart Sunday on his fifth trip to the Middle East since the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, the State Department announced Friday.

Blinken will travel to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank from February 4 to February 8. It will be his sixth stop in Israel since October 7.

Soldiers exit a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used on October 7th to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on January 7 in Northern Gaza. 

Leaders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a call on Friday to discuss a proposal for a potential hostage deal and ceasefire, according to a statement.

The statement noted that the leaders agreed that any deal should incorporate the following:

This comes after a broad framework for a hostage release and potential ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel was said to have been agreed to among negotiators in Paris last weekend, according to an official familiar with the talks.

Hamas has called for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not agree to. On Tuesday, Netanyahu also vowed to press on until Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas in Gaza is complete.

On Friday, Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, also said that Israel is insisting on keeping some areas in Gaza as a security zone, which he says is not acceptable. “What we want firstly is a full inclusive ceasefire, and also we want commitments for the rebuilding Gaza,” Hamdan told Lebanon’s LBC TV on Friday.