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White House is asking Israel for more information about the airstrike on the UN school in Gaza
From CNN's Samantha Waldenberg
The White House is asking Israel for more information on the airstrike on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza that reportedly killed at least 40 people.
The Biden administration does not have “independent verification of what exactly occurred” but it is talking to the Israelis to “try to get a better understanding," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN.
He added that Israel has a “right to go after Hamas” but that “how they do that matters.”
“They absolutely have a right to go after Hamas and we know Hamas shelters in civilian facilities and digs tunnels under houses and that kind of thing. But how they do that matters,” Kirby said. “We obviously don't want to see any civilian casualties whatsoever. So all of this is fresh and new and we're trying to get as much information from the Israelis as we can.”
ACNN analysisfound that the airstrike at the UN school was conducted with a US-made weapon.
The Israeli military defended the strike. Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israeli intelligence believed that Hamas fighters who took part in the October 7 attack were operating from inside three classrooms. Earlier, another Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, told journalists the military was not “aware of any civilian casualties.”
CNN cannot independently verify any of those claims from the Israeli military.
Qatar says it has not received Hamas’ response to latest ceasefire proposal
From CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali and Abeer Salman
Mediators have yet to receive a response from Hamas regarding the latest ceasefire proposal, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari said in a statement on Thursday.
The proposal, detailed by US President Joe Biden in a speech last week in the hopes of fueling progress in the negotiations,includes terms for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, and is still under consideration by the group.
“The movement reported that it is still studying the proposal,” Al-Ansari said.
Thejoint mediation efforts by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States are ongoing, Al-Ansari added. He urged the public to disregard inaccurate media reports and to rely on reliable official sources, highlighting the sensitivity of the current negotiations.
UN chief condemns deadly Israeli airstrike on UN-run school in Gaza
From CNN's Richard Roth
The United Nations Secretary-General AntónioGuterres on Thursday condemned a deadly Israeli airstrike on a UN-run school in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza.
Among the dozens who died in the pre-dawn strike, reportedly 14 were children, according to StéphaneDujarric, a spokesperson for the secretary-general.
Guterres "underscores that UN premises are inviolable, including during armed conflict and must be protected by all parties at all times," Dujarric said.
"The Secretary-General calls on all parties to respect and protect civilians, and ensure their essential needs are met, in accordance with international humanitarian law," Dujarric said. "He reiterates his calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held in Gaza."
Biden administration presses Middle East allies to threaten Hamas in push for a Gaza ceasefire deal
From CNN's Kylie Atwood and MJ Lee
The Biden administration has spent the last week pushingallies in theMiddle Eastto make specific threats to Hamas, as part of an urgent campaign to prod the group toward accepting the latestIsraeli ceasefire and hostage proposalthat would pause the fighting in Gaza.
US officials have publicly called onthe groupto accept previous ceasefire proposals on the table as Israel and Hamashave engagedin months of back-and-forth negotiations, butthere has never been an all-outpressure campaign marked by specific asks to individual countriesas part ofthe Biden administration’s push.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hasheld almost a dozen callswith key players inthe region since Fridayandother top State Department officials have been intimately involved in the all-hands on deck effort.
White House Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk traveled to Egypt this week andCIA Director Bill Burns went toQatarin the hopes ofadding traction to the negotiations.
An initial response from Hamas on Wednesdayto the most recent Israeli proposal, as publicly described by President Joe Biden last week,appeared tosignal that thegaps may still be significant.
Still,the Biden administration believes there isan opportunity to close the deal, one US officialsaid. Another source told CNN Thursday thatEgypt has received encouraging signs from Hamas on the latest proposal, though they declined to detail exactly what those positive indications were.
Hamas is expected to respond to Israel’s proposal in the coming days, sources said.
Read more about the details of the negotiations.
Israeli military defends strike on UN school in Gaza that killed dozens: "We stopped a ticking time bomb"
From CNN's Jonny Hallam and EugeniaYosef
The Israeli military defended its strike of a United Nations school in central Gaza on Thursday, calling it a "precise intelligence-based strike targeting dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists." Medical workers said at least 40 people were killed in the strike.
Late Thursday, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israeli intelligence believed that Hamas fighters who took part in the October 7 attack were operating from inside three classrooms of the United Nations Relief and Works Agencyfor Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) school in Gaza's Nuseirat camp.
Hagari said the Israeli military has identified nine alleged Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters targeted in the strike. He said the IDF believes there were "about 30" Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters hiding inside the UN school but did not provide any further evidence or information as to how the IDF has come to this conclusion.
CNN is unable to independently verify the claim or the identities of those killed.
"The terrorists inside the school were planning more attacks against Israelis, some of them imminent. We stopped a ticking time bomb," Hagari said.
Hagari said Israeli forces, using aerial surveillance over several days, had delayed the strike on the school twice because they had identified civilians in the area.
"We conducted the strike once our intelligence and surveillance indicated there were no women or children inside the Hamas compound inside those classrooms," Hagari said, accusing Hamas of violating international law.
In addition to the at least 40 peoplewho died in the strike on the UNRWA school,five people were killed in a strike on a residential house also in Nuseirat. Three people were killed in artillery shelling in Deir Al-Balah and four others were killed in artillery shelling in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp.
The US has not received a response from Hamas on latest ceasefire proposal, State Department says
From CNN's Jennifer Hansler
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.
“We have been in conversation with our partners in the region, especially with the government of Egypt and with the government of Qatar, and those partners have been in conversations with the political wing of Hamas, but we have not yet received an official response to the proposal that's on the table,” Miller said Thursday. “I don't have an update on that. We have wanted to see a response as soon as possible.”
US is in contact with Israel over strike on Gaza school where local officials said 14 children were killed
From CNN's MichaelConte and Jennifer Hansler
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.
“At the same time, we've seen the reports on the ground, we've seen the videos from the ground, we've seen the claims that 14 children were killed in the strike and certainly when you see, if that is accurate that 14 children were killed, those aren’t terrorists,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing.
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.
“That said, we have seen strikes that put civilians in danger well before the president said that, and we have made clear to the government of Israel that we expect them to do everything that they can to minimize civilian harm,” Miller said.
"We want our rights." Palestinian children protest Israeli aid restrictions as risk of famine grows in Gaza
From CNN’s Kareem Khadder and Sana Noor Haq
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.
“Why is it that every time I ask my mother for an apple, she tells me we don’t have it?” one Palestinian child said. “I want marshmallows. I want chips. I want biscuits. I want lollipops. Why do we not have these things?”
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.
“The health situation in the entire Gaza Strip, and in the north, is tragic and requires urgent intervention,”Dr. Saeed Al-Salah, a consultant pediatrician and neonatologist, told CNN on Tuesday. “We demand that efforts be combined to stop this war on children, women and the elderly.”
“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.”
Yemen'sHouthileader vows to "meet escalation with escalation"
From CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq in Atlanta
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 Houthirebels 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 Iraqimilitiasagainst ships in theIsraeliport 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 7attack. There are fears that theattackscould escalate Israel’s war against Hamas into awider regional conflict.
The Houthi attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of themost important maritime trade routes, which could potentially cause a shock to the global economy.
