April 5, 2024 Israel-Gaza updates

Our live coverage of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza has moved here.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concerns over reports of Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

His words come amid intensifying international scrutiny of Israel’s military campaign, after targeted airstrikes killed several foreign aid workers delivering food in the Palestinian enclave.

A recent investigation by online news publication +972 Magazine also revealed that Israel’s military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, and cited Israeli intelligence officials who had been involved in the alleged program.

When asked about the allegations, a spokesperson for the Israeli military did not dispute the existence of the tool but denied AI was being used to identify suspected terrorists.

Salah al-Deen road south of the Erez border crossing on April 5.

Israel has authorized the Erez crossing to be temporarily reopened, but aid shipments are likely to face significant logistical challenges because of just how much destruction there is in northern Gaza, especially to the road infrastructure, according to a CNN analysis of recent satellite imagery.

For the border crossing to be truly functional, authorities or aid agencies will likely need to clear and repair northern Gaza’s roads or pave new ones, beyond the immediate crossing complex. 

Several roadways in the crossing complex were bombed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the weeks after the attack. The new satellite images from Maxar Technologies show that further destruction by bombing and bulldozing occurred after the IDF ground invasion began in late October.

Some major roadways in the four towns closest to the crossing — Beit Lahia, Jabalya, Izbat Beit Hanoun and Beit Hanoun — have large craters that span the entirety of their surface. Others, including many side streets, are covered in debris and the remains of large residential buildings. 

The Erez border crossing has been closed since Hamas militants stormed it – and took a number of prisoners from it – during the October 7 attack.

 Israel has yet to say when and what kind of aid it will allow through the crossing. It’s also unclear whether the DF will allow for aid distribution in northern Gaza, where they have been ordering all Palestinians to leave for months. 

Oxfam and the United Nations estimate that well over a million Palestinians fled the north to the South, and only about 300,000 Palestinians remain in northern Gaza despite those IDF orders.  

The American founder of a humanitarian aid organization assisting displaced people in Gaza said the situation for humanitarian workers in the enclave is “very unnerving” following the Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staffers.

Damon, a former CNN correspondent, described the humanitarian situation as “inexplicably desperate” for the people of Gaza as organizations struggle to safely distribute aid. 

“The minute you are out of your vehicle and they see that you’re an aid organization, people swarm you because they have so little and they have zero faith as to whether or not aid is actually going to reach them. So it’s complete chaos,” said Damon, speaking from Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a report Friday saying the deadly strike on the WCK aid convoy on Monday was carried out in “serious violation of the commands” and procedures, and “should not have happened.”

WCK responded saying the IDF “cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza” and urged for systemic change. WCK also said the IDF acknowledged that the team ” followed all proper communications procedures,” but were attacked regardless. 

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy and Vasco Cotovio contributed reporting to this post.

The United States has warned Iran not to use the Israeli strike in Damascus earlier this week as “a pretext to attack US personnel and facilities,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN on Friday.

The warning was sent in response to a message from Iran, the spokesperson said, without providing details about the contents of the Iranian message.

The spokesperson did not provide further information about the US response or how it was conveyed to Iran.

A senior administration official described the US’ warning to Iran as: “Don’t think about coming after us.”

That official told CNN that the US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack by Iran that could come as soon as within the next week, targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s strike that killed top Iranian commanders.

People inspect the site where World Central Kitchen workers were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. The photo was taken on Tuesday, April 2, a day after the strike.

The US received Israel’s report on the deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy in Gaza and is “reviewing it very carefully,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

There are “no plans” for the US to conduct an independent or separate investigation, according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

The Israel Defense Forces fired two of its officers and reprimanded others for their involvement in the strikes, but the WCK charity said Israel could not be trusted to investigate its own errors in Gaza.

Here are other headlines you should know:

US President Biden waves to the press before departing from the White House on April 5.

US President Joe Biden wrote letters to the President of Egypt and the Emir of Qatar on Friday on the state of hostage talks between Israel and Hamas. He asked the leaders to “secure commitments from Hamas to agree to and abide by a deal,” a senior administration official says. 

The letters come as hostage negotiations are set to resume in Egypt this weekend and will include US and Israeli officials. 

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with the families of the hostages at the White House on Monday, the senior official added.

The status of hostage negotiations came up during Biden’s call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. On the call, Biden “made clear that everything must be done to secure the release of hostages, including American citizens, now held by Hamas terrorists for nearly six months.” 

Biden and Netanyahu also discussed the importance of “fully empowering Israeli negotiators to reach a deal.” 

CIA Director William Burns, Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar will meet in Cairo this weekend, a source familiar with the talks and an Israeli government official source previously told CNN.

Rescue workers search in the rubble of a building a day after an air strike in Damascus on April 2, 2024.

The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.

Senior US officials currently believe that an attack by Iran is “inevitable” – a view shared by their Israeli counterparts, that official said.

The two governments are furiously working to get in position ahead of what is to come, as they anticipate that Iran’s attack could unfold in a number of different ways – and that both US and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted.

A forthcoming Iranian attack was a major topic of discussion on President Joe Biden’s phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

As of Friday, the two governments did not know when or how Iran planned to strike back, the official said.

A direct strike on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration is bracing for, as it would guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East.

Such a strike could lead to the Israel-Hamas war broadening into a wider, regional conflict – something Biden has long sought to avoid.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide speaks to the press after his arrival at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on April 4.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told CNN of the “frustration” felt within NATO that Israel is “going too far” in Gaza after this week’s attack on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy that killed seven aid workers.

Israel’s internal report into the aid convoy strikes that was published Friday, “brought home to us how easy it is for the Israeli forces to fire at people they believe to be or think are terrorists on what seems to be not very convincing evidence, to put it mildly,” the foreign minister said.

“The only good thing about this tragic situation [is that] it seems that the level of critique and messaging from the entire world, including some of Israel’s closest allies, is now being stepped up, that you cannot continue to behave like this,” Barth Eide said. 

He went on to call for a ceasefire. “And from there on humanitarian aid and eventually a political solution,” the minister said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) completed a “highly complex mission” delivering medical aid to hospitals in northern Gaza on Thursday.

Despite “ongoing hostilities” in Gaza City, the supplies were delivered to around 1,000 patients at both Al Sahaba and Al Ahli hospitals, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X Friday. 

Al Sahaba hospital also received one pallet of canned food, and a patient with complex lower limb injuries was successfully moved from Al Ahli to a field hospital in Rafah, Tedros said.

Tedros concluded by repeating calls for a “sustained and safe passage for humanitarian aid” and appealed for an immediate ceasefire.

Some context: The successful delivery of much-needed medical supplies follows several months of difficulty getting aid where it is needed most in Gaza. The UN agency reported that heavy bombardment, movement restrictions and interrupted communications were making it nearly impossible to deliver medical supplies regularly and safely.  

Medical aid relief teams were forced to call off repeated delivery missions in January after failing to receive security guarantees, WHO said at the time.

Israeli authorities denied 30% of humanitarian aid missions to northern Gaza in March, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

The vehicle where employees from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrike is seen in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on April 2.

The Israel Defense Forces findings on the deadly strike on World Central Kitchen aid workers were shared Thursday after the call between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a US official told CNN. 

Officials were also briefed from a number of other countries, including those that had nationals killed in the strike, the official said. They were shown IDF video of the strike during the briefing.

The US official echoed National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby’s comments, saying Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks Friday were not calling for a separate investigation, but rather a reiteration of past comments about the probe that was already being worked on. The official, like Kirby, said the IDF report was not public, so Blinken could not speak to it yet.

World Central Kitchen has called for further independent investigations into the strike, saying Israel cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

From top left, World Central Kitchen aid workers Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, Laizawmi "Zomi" Frankcom, Damian Soból, Jacob Flinkinger, John Chapman, James "Jim" Henderson and James Kirby were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday that there are “no plans” for the United States to conduct an independent or separate investigation into the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza.

Kirby made the comments as the White House looked to clarify Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks earlier Friday calling for an “independent, thorough, and fully publicized investigation” into the strike. The White House said he was referring to the Israeli report on the strike that was later released.

“Secretary Blinken did refer to an independent investigation but that was before, he was referring to the one that they were working on. And he said that before Israel came out with a report that we are now examining,” Kirby told reporters on Friday. 

Before leaving Belgium and after the Israeli report on the strike had been released, Blinken added that the US is reviewing the report on the deadly strike “very carefully.”

“It’s very important that Israel is taking full responsibility for this incident. It’s also important that it appears to be taking steps to hold those responsible accountable,” Blinken said in remarks before departing Belgium.

World Central Kitchen has called for further independent investigations into the strike, saying Israel cannot be trusted to investigate its own errors in Gaza.

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour speaks with the media in New York City, on March 25.

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the World Central Kitchen staff killed by a strike in Gaza this week.

“The killing of the aid workers from the World Central Kitchen is not an isolated incident,” the ambassador, Riyad Mansour, said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.

“Israel knew very well who it was targeting, hitting three cars in three locations, despite the fact that they were identifiable and had gotten coordinated with Israel,” Mansour added.

The ambassador said “it took the deaths of foreigners” for the international community to acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 180 days. The strike killed one Palestinian, three Britons, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian and a Pole, according to the organization.

Israeli report: On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces published a report into the killings, which it said violated its own protocols and should not have happened.

The report found that IDF forces “mistakenly assumed” there were Hamas gunmen traveling in the aid convoy and opened fire on the vehicles.

The WCK has called for further independent investigations, saying the IDF cannot be trusted to “investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

Read more about the IDF report.

John Kelly, the appointed US representative to the UN, highlighted the urgent need for the protection of humanitarian personnel in conflict zones in the wake of the Israeli drone strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza.

“We are deeply concerned Israel has not done enough to protect humanitarian aid workers or civilians,” Kelly told a UN Security Council meeting Friday.

“An incident such as this should never have happened and must never happen again. We all know moreover, this was not a stand-alone incident,” Kelly added.

His comments come as Israel’s military fired two senior officers after a report released Friday concluded that the attack that killed seven food aid workers in Gaza was a result of “mistaken identification” and “serious violations” of standard procedure.

People look at memorabilia and pictures of hostages kidnapped by Hamas, displayed at a public square in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 31.

Hamas has turned down Israel’s latest counterproposal from earlier this week, a diplomat familiar with the discussions said.

Earlier this week an Israeli proposal had been sent to Hamas which the diplomat said did not accept two key Hamas demands: that there be unrestricted return of Gazans to the north and the pullback of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on Thursday said their position has not changed since delivering these two key demands to mediators on March 14. Hamdan said the last round of talks held in Egypt this week have not yielded “any progress.”

The diplomat says Israel continued to insist that inspections of those moving north be allowed and that the IDF not redeploy away from central Gaza.

CIA Director William Burns, Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar will meet in Egypt this weekend to continue ceasefire talks, according to a source familiar with the talks and an Israeli government official source. Barnea, Bar and Burns met last month in Doha for talks with mediators, but no clear breakthrough was reached.

Hamas and Israel have for months failed to agree over a three-phased framework seeking the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a six-week ceasefire, the release of Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Mostafa Salem contributed reporting to this post.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock speaks to the media at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, Germany, on January 30.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged Israel’s government on Friday to “quickly implement” its plans to reopen the Erez land crossing and port of Ashdod to allow more aid into Gaza, saying there are “no more excuses.”

Both crossings are expected to reopen this weekend, CNN earlier reported. US President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu to allow more aid into Gaza in a phone call on Thursday.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that while the Israeli government has admitted mistakes in the killing of seven aid workers earlier this week, there must be independent investigations and “meaningful” change on the ground.

In remarks delivered Friday in New York, Guterres said that “the essential problem is not who made the mistakes” in the killing of the World Central Kitchen staff, but the “military procedures in place that allow for those mistakes to multiply time and time again.”

Guterres also said that he was “deeply troubled” by reports that the Israeli military’s bombing campaign involved Artificial Intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, on February 18.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s week began with the chants of thousands of protesters demanding a hostage deal and early elections outside the Knesset and his official residence. It ended with a scolding from US President Joe Biden over the Israeli military’s killing of seven humanitarian aid workers and the rapidly spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In between, the Israeli prime minister’s chief political rival and war cabinet member raised his voice in support of early elections for the first time, ratcheting up the political pressure. And yet, Netanyahu’s grip on power doesn’t appear to be in any imminent danger of slipping away.

Even as the walls appear to be closing in and a majority of Israelis continue to disapprove of Netanyahu’s performance, the mounting international and domestic political pressure has yet to fundamentally change the dynamics of his governing coalition – whose collapse would trigger new elections – nor his willingness to remain in office.

Read more about Netanyahu’s grip on power despite obstacles.

People inspect the damage caused by an artillery shell that hit the maternity hospital inside the Nasser Medical Complex, on December 17, in Khan Younis, Gaza.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has issued a warning about the grim situation pregnant women and mothers face in Gaza, amid the collapse of health care in the territory.

With nearly six months of ongoing conflict, these vulnerable groups are struggling to survive, confronting acute shortages of food, water, and medical care, along with the looming threat of famine.

According to the IRC since October 7:

Arvind Das, IRC’s team lead for the Gaza crisis, said women are now forced to give birth in makeshift conditions, among ruins or in overcrowded shelters, due to the unavailability of medical care. The shortage of electricity, medication, medical equipment, and personnel, compounded by Israeli restrictions on aid, has critically undermined healthcare delivery in Gaza, Das said.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken addresses a media conference after a joint EU-US-Armenia high-level meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on April 4.

The US received Israel’s report on the deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza and is “reviewing it very carefully,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

“We’ll be discussing its conclusions with Israeli officials and with humanitarian organizations in the days to come,” Blinken added. The top US diplomat noted that “even more important is making sure that steps are taken going forward to ensure that something like this can never happen again.”

Blinken earlier Friday called for an “independent, thorough, and fully publicized investigation” into the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers. Blinken reiterated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated to President Joe Biden that Israel would be “making further changes to its procedures to make sure that those who are providing assistance to people who so desperately need it in Gaza are protected.” 

“So we’re going to be looking very carefully at what those steps are, how it achieves better deconfliction, better coordination, so that aid workers are protected,” he added.