June 6, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller speaks during a briefing in Washington, DC in 2023.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States has not yet received an official response from Hamas about a proposal for a ceasefire and the release of Israel hostages. 

President Joe Biden last week laid out a three-phase proposal that would pair a release of hostages with a “full and complete ceasefire,” a plan he said presented the best hope to bring peace to Gaza. The president characterized it as an Israeli proposal.

The United States has been in contact with Israel over a strike on a school in central Gaza that killed at least 40 people including 14 children, according to local authorities.

The school, run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, was housing displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp at the time of the incident, the Gaza government media office said.

Israel has only told the US “essentially what they have said publicly,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

The Israeli military said Thursday that “twenty to thirty Hamas and Islamic Jihad” militants had been sheltering in the school targeted in the overnight strike.

Miller said the Israeli government would release more information about the strike, and that “we expect them to be fully transparent in making that information public.”

Asked if US weapons were used in the strike, Miller said that was a question for the Israeli government. According to a CNN analysis of video from the scene and a review by an explosive weapons expert, US-made munitions were used in the strike.

Miller said the strike on the school did not constitute crossing President Joe Biden’s so-called “red line” for Israel, because the line referred to a “large-scale operation in Rafah,” which the US has not yet seen.

Palestinian children gather near a refugee camp in northern Gaza, on June 4, to protest Israel’s restrictions on aid entering the strip.

A young Palestinian boy with blond curly hair stood near a shelter west of Gaza City on Tuesday, his black trousers and sandals flecked with dust.  

Video obtained by CNN shows the child alongside more than a dozen peers at the displacement shelter, carrying Arabic and English slogans to protest Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip. Israeli authorities insist there is no limit on aid that can enter Gaza, but the UN has warned that persistent bombardment and reduced land routes have caused “full-blown famine” in the north. 

Nadia Al-Sayed, a local aid worker at the demonstration, said Palestinian children deserve “the right to eat, and to demand healthy food and clean drink.” “Children have become malnourished,” she added. More than 3,500 children are at risk of starving to death due to food shortages in Gaza, the Government Media Office there reported on Monday.  

“We want our rights,” said Iman, another young child. “We hope that the crossings will be opened, the war will end, and life will return as before.” 

The kids held Arabic and English slogans at the demonstration on Tuesday, calling for an end to widespread hunger in northern Gaza.

Newly recruited Houthi fighters watch a recorded message from Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi in Sanaa, Yemen, on January 11.

Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, has vowed to continue attacking Israel and its allies, saying the Yemeni militant group will constantly be developing its military capabilities and will “meet escalation with escalation.”

Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Iran-backed militias in Iraq, known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, announced joint military operations in statements Thursday. 

Al-Houthi also said in a televised speech that the joint operations will lead to a new path of “escalation.”

The Houthi-controlled Yemeni Armed Forces claimed Thursday it carried out two joint military operations using drones with the Iraqi militias against ships in the Israeli port of Haifa

The Israel Defense Forces told CNN on Thursday that they are not aware of such an incident. 

The Houthis have been attacking US targets and commercial shipping in the Red Sea since Israel launched its invasion of Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack. There are fears that the attacks could escalate Israel’s war against Hamas into a wider regional conflict.

The Houthi attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the most important maritime trade routes, which could potentially cause a shock to the global economy.

Egypt has received encouraging signs from Hamas on the latest ceasefire and hostages draft from Israel – one that US President Joe Biden took the unusual step of publicly detailing last week – a source familiar with the negotiations told CNN. 

Hamas is expected to respond to that proposal in the coming days, that source said.

Final push: It came as senior officials from Washington returned to the Middle East this week to bolster discussions on the ceasefire deal. CIA director Bill Burns and White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk traveled to Qatar and Egypt respectively – two key mediators in the discussions.

US officials have remained largely tight-lipped on those trips so far, citing the sensitivity of the ongoing diplomatic work. Western leaders have escalated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages taken by Hamas.

“Positive signals”: The source did not detail Hamas’ reaction to Egyptian officials. Egyptian state-affiliated Al-Qahera News said the country “received positive signals from the Hamas movement indicating its aspiration for a ceasefire,” citing a senior official source.

Al-Qahera News, which is owned by a state-affiliated Egyptian media conglomerate, has been used to relay Egypt’s position on the negotiations. 

The Israeli government is seeking to extend its controversial ban on the the Al Jazeera news network in the country, after a court upheld the restriction but shortened it by 10 days.

In May, Israel banned the Qatari-based news network from operating in the country for 45 days under a sweeping new wartime law that allows the government to ban foreign media organizations it deems “harmful” to the nation’s security. Al Jazeera condemned the move as a “dark day for democracy” that sets a concerning precedent.

While the ban is not permanent and only valid during the declared period of war, the Israeli government can continue to extend the closure for additional 45-day periods.

On Tuesday, a Tel Aviv District Court ruled that the ban could stand but was to be shortened to 35 days, meaning it will expire on Sunday. Al Jazeera said it was notified by the Israeli Ministry of Communications on Wednesday that it intends to request that the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approve another 45-day ban.

Israel has claimed that Al Jazeera “harms Israeli security” and has a “close connection” with the militant group Hamas. Al Jazeera, one of the only networks to have a live, consistent presence from within the blockaded Gaza strip, has denied Israel’s claims, calling the allegations “dangerous and ridiculous.” At least six of its staff members have been killed in Gaza since the war began.

Palestinians inspect damage after an Israeli airstrike on a United Nations-run school in Deir El-Balah, Gaza, on June 6.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza said Thursday was “another horrific day” after dozens of people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in central Gaza.

The school, in the Nuseirat refugee camp, was run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) before it closed at the start of the war.

UNRWA’S chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said the school was sheltering 6,000 displaced people when it was hit without prior warning to UNRWA or the people living there.

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the airstrike on Nuseirat, which it said targeted a Hamas compound operating inside the school. Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner later told journalists the military was not “aware of any civilian casualties.”

Supporters and families of hostages held by Hamas attend a demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel, on June 3.

A campaign group for relatives of the hostages held in Gaza has expressed “strong support” for the call from the United States and 16 other nations urging Israel and Hamas to “close” the hostage deal. 

The signatories have called the ceasefire and hostage proposal “the necessary starting point” for ending the war in Gaza, urging Hamas to “close this agreement” spearheaded by Israel.  

Israel has yet to officially respond to the joint statement, with the prime minister’s spokesperson David Mencer telling journalists Thursday that Israel does not comment “on the everyday movements and the everyday discussions during these negotiations.” 

US President Joe Biden last week outlined what he said was a three-phase proposal to end the conflict in Gaza. But both Hamas and Israel are yet to back it.

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border with Israel on May 29. 

Israel and the Lebanese Iran-backed Islamist group Hezbollah are ramping up cross-border attacks after months of low-intensity fighting, prompting the Israeli military to warn this week that it is prepared to launch a large-scale attack on its northern border.

With both sides trading fire for more than eight months, experts say Israel feels it can no longer ignore its northern front or delay taking action there.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has been gradually intensifying since October 8, said Heiko Wimmen, project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. It’s a “slow-motion escalation” that “inches upwards,” he said.

Israel and Hezbollah have also been striking much deeper into each other’s territory than they were at the beginning of the war, when fighting was confined to a roughly 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) radius of the border on either side.

A full-blown war appears to have become more likely – even if both sides have no desire for one, analysts believe.

Read more of what we know here.

Palestinians inspect damage after an Israeli airstrike on a United Nations-run school in Deir El-Balah, Gaza, on June 6.

​At least 40 people died in the strike on the UNRWA school in Nuseirat, medical workers at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital said.

The figure revises down the earlier total of 45 after the hospital clarified there were two incidents in Nuseirat – the strike on a hospital, and another on a residential house in which five people were killed.

The hospital, the main one still operating in the area, said 52 people killed in Israeli strikes were brought to its facility on Thursday.

Israel has admitted carrying out the strike, saying it was targeting “20 to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad” militants at the site.

In an update on Thursday, the IDF said its troops “troops are continuing operational activities in the areas of eastern Bureij and eastern Deir al Balah” where “troops located underground terror tunnel shafts and additional weapons”.