February 28, 2024 - Israel-Hamas war

Israel still has not provided evidence to support its allegations that members of the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks, according to the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“We haven’t received anything more than what we see on the media,” he said.

Lazzarini called footage that purports to show a UNRWA staff member participating in the kidnapping of Yonatan Samerano — who was killed in kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 — “shocking images.”

Background on the footage: A video screened last week during a press conference with the Hostage and Missing Families Forum showed a white SUV approaching the entrance of what appears to be the kibbutz. Two men exit the vehicle and are seen carrying a body from the road into the vehicle. One of the men is identified in the footage as an UNWRA worker. CNN could not independently verify the identity of the men or Israel’s allegations about his involvement with Hamas.

Lazzarini said Wednesday that he “personally cannot recognize the person on the video.” He called for “more forensic evidence to be provided,” while acknowledging the name of the accused man in the video “matched our staff list” and that his UNRWA contract was terminated.

Remember: UNRWA fired 10 of the 12 staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 attacks and launched an investigation into the allegations, in hopes of keeping international funding to the agency flowing at a critical time. At least 16 countries have paused or suspended funding to UNRWA since the allegations emerged, Lazzarini said, warning that operations beyond March will be impacted unless more money is donated.

The Dome of the Rock, in the al-Aqsa mosque compound, is seen in the distance as an Israeli soldier stands guard during Friday noon prayer along a street in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud, on January 26.

The US called on Israel to allow worshippers to go to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem for Ramadan, as Hamas calls for Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march on the mosque on the first day of the holy month.

Far-right Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben Gvir has proposed increased restrictions to the holy site for Palestinians during Ramadan. Such restrictions, if instituted, threaten to ignite already increased tensions.

About the site: The al-Aqsa compound is one of the most revered places in Islam and Judaism. The sacred grounds — known to Muslims as Al Haram Al Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as Temple Mount — have been a flashpoint of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians for decades. 

Miller said allowing access to al-Aqsa is “a matter that directly is important to Israel’s security,” adding that “it is not in Israel’s security interest to inflame tensions in the West Bank or in the broader region.”

CNN’s Salam Abdelaziz and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

After US President Joe Biden projected optimism that a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza could be reached by the end of this week, officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have distanced themselves from his comments.

Meetings are currently taking place, but there are disagreements over “numbers, ratios and troop movements,” Majed Al-Ansari, a Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh said the militant group has displayed flexibility in negotiations but remains ready to continue fighting.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza is approaching 30,000 people, according to the health ministry in the enclave. The total number of people killed in Gaza is around 29,878, with the number of injured reaching 70,215, since October 7, according to the ministry.

Here’s what else to know:

The right side of Roba Abu Jibba’s face is almost completely gone – a deep, bloody wound is where her eye should be.

The 18-year-old, confused and in pain, lies on a gurney in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. She tries to explain how she got there. She had been sheltering with her family for two months in an industrial warehouse on Salaheddin Street, the strip’s main north-south highway, she explains, when they came under heavy fire from the Israeli military.

In a whisper, she recalls being shot at, explosions and bulldozing. She says she watched her brothers and sisters die around her. Her mother and three of her siblings were able to flee, but she’s not sure where they went.

After a chance encounter and the discovery of Roba’s identification card under rubble, a weeks-long CNN investigation has been able to piece together what happened during one terrifying night in early January, which left five of her siblings dead. Their story offers a window into the Israeli military’s overwhelming and often indiscriminate use of force in areas where civilians were told they would be safe, helping to uncover an atrocity that would otherwise have remained hidden.

CNN interviewed seven eyewitnesses to the attack, tracking down relatives now scattered across the enclave, including Roba’s mother. Their testimonies were cross-referenced with hospital records, satellite imagery and dozens of videos and photos from the scene, reviewed by forensics and ballistic experts, who analyzed the damage to the building and injuries of the people found inside of it.

Read more about the CNN special report here.

Watch the full report here:

Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, is pictured speaking to media in Istanbul, Turkey, in September 2023.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday the militant group has displayed flexibility in negotiations but remains ready to continue fighting.

“Any flexibility we show in negotiations out of concern for the blood of our people and to put an end to their great pain and enormous sacrifices…is paralleled by a willingness to defend our people,” Haniyeh said in a televised statement.

“We are reaffirming to the Zionists and Americans…that what they have failed to impose on the battlefield they will not take through political machinations,” he said.

Haniyeh called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al Aqsa Mosque on the first day of Ramadan.

A photo taken from northern Israel shows a launch by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system to intercept rockets being fired from Lebanon, on February 28.

Lebanon and Israel exchanged fire near the border on Wednesday, a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

Approximately “10 launches” crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel, with sirens sounding near Kiryat Shmona, the IDF said.

The IDF said it successfully intercepted “a number of the launches” and “struck the sources of the fire” in Lebanon in response. 

Strikes against Hezbollah military targets were also carried out by the IDF in Ramyeh, southern Lebanon.

IDF fighter jets struck a “Hezbollah weapons storage facility” and “military structures” in Ramyeh, the statement said. 

A “Hezbollah weapons manufacturing site” was also hit by the IDF in the Khirbet Selm area overnight, the IDF added.

Palestinian political faction Fatah told CNN it would attend an intra-Palestinian meeting on Thursday in Moscow.

Earlier this month, Russia invited all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, to meet in Moscow.

The meeting will tackle ways to “unite the Palestinian factions under the Palestinian Liberation Organization,” Fatah spokesperson Hussein Hamayel told CNN. The aim is to form a new government capable of working in East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, he said.

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank, which held administrative control over Gaza until 2007. Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled the faction from the enclave. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and the PA governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Fatah’s delegation will be represented by officials Samir Al Rifai and Azzam Al Ahmad, the spokesperson said.

Hamayel said Hamas had not confirmed its attendance but that he is optimistic they would join and send a “high ranking official from their political office to represent them.”

Hamas has not responded to CNN’s request for confirmation of their attendance.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Tuesday that “all parties” agreed to participate in the Moscow meeting.

Supporters of the movement urging Michigan Democratic voters to check “uncommitted” in protest of the Biden administration’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza said their campaign had been a success.

“We know Joe Biden is going to be our nominee. So it’s a very, very significant outcome,” former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a supporter of the “uncommitted” effort, told CNN on Tuesday night.

Levin said that the message that Biden can’t win Michigan in November unless he “changes course” had been “effectively communicated” through Tuesday’s result.

The campaign kept its focus narrow, aiming to convince Biden’s White House to seek a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“Uncommitted” campaign exceeds expectations: Organizers of the movement had hoped at least 10,000 people would support the cause, a nod to the 10,700-vote margin that delivered the state to Donald Trump in 2016. 

More than 100,000 voters checked “uncommitted,” a raw total well over Trump’s margin of victory in 2016.

A Biden campaign email touting the president’s Michigan win made no mention of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Read more about the impact of the “Uncommitted” protest vote in the Michigan Democratic primary.

Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza hold signs depicting some of the hostages in Re'im, Israel, as they begin a four-day protest march to Jerusalem on February 28.

Families of hostages in Gaza have started a four-day march from the site of the Nova Festival in southern Israel’s Re’im to Jerusalem, repeating calls for the release of those kidnapped on October 7.

“March with us for the hostages,” the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters said on Wednesday.

An aerial view shows the march setting out on a road in Re'im on Wednesday.

Remember: Hamas militants stormed the Nova Festival on October 7 in an attack that killed over 360 people.

In the attacks on Israel that day, 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 were taken hostage.

There are believed to be 130 hostages still in Gaza, of which 99 are believed to be alive.

Pressure is mounting for a hostage-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza, with negotiations ongoing.

This post has been updated to reflect the latest information provided by authorities.

17-year-old US citizen Mohammad Ahmad Khdour was shot to death in the West Bank.

The last moments of Mohammad Khdour’s life could be those of any American teenager: taking the car out during a study break, snacking on chocolate waffles, posing for Instagram.

Those carefree moments with his cousin along the hillsides of Biddu, in the occupied West Bank, were captured in photos and videos reviewed by CNN.

They were snuffed out, his family says, when an Israeli gunman opened fire on their car, shooting the 17-year-old Khdour in the head.

The death of Khdour, a Florida-born US citizen, just weeks after another 17-year-old American citizen was shot under strikingly similar circumstances in the occupied West Bank, has underscored the frustrations among Palestinian-Americans who say the United States is doing little to respond to the deaths of their loved ones.

Videos from the aftermath of the February 10 shooting show several people rushing to the damaged car, pulling Khdour’s limp, bloodied body out from the shattered glass.

Khdour died hours later at a Ramallah hospital, his family said.

The Israel Defense Forces referred questions about the case to the Israeli Security Agency, which did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Some context: The killing or detention of American citizens in occupied Palestinian territories by Israelis and the concerns about a lack of accountability date back years.

In 2003, 23-year-old American activist Rachel Corrie was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to block it from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza. Nine years later, an Israeli civil court ruled Corrie’s death an accident.

Read more about Palestinian Americans who were killed in the region.