Humanitarian crisis worsens in Gaza as Israel-Hamas war rages

Our live coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas has moved here.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a General Assembly meeting at UN headquarters in New York on December 12.

The United States is ready to vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution on Gaza after several delays, the US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Thursday night.

Thomas-Greenfield spoke after a closed-door meeting in which the UNSC again delayed a vote on the resolution, which calls for a suspension of fighting between Israel and Hamas and an increase in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. 

The vote is now expected to take place on Friday.

Thomas-Greenfield didn’t share how she will vote on the measure, but said “it will be a resolution – if the resolution is put forward as is – that we can support.”

The resolution will bring humanitarian assistance and support “the priority that Egypt has in ensuring that we put a mechanism on the ground that will support humanitarian assistance,” Thomas-Greenfield added.

Some context: The US has previously voted against a call for a ceasefire in the larger UN General Assembly and earlier this month, vetoed a resolution in the 15-member UNSC that included the word “ceasefire” in the text. Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told the Security Council at the time it was because there was no mention of the October 7 Hamas attacks in the draft.

As one of the five permanent members of the UNSC, a resolution vetoed by the US will not pass.

The UN Security Council again delayed a vote on a resolution calling for a suspension of fighting between Israel and Hamas and an increase in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, a diplomatic source said Thursday.

This marks the fourth time the UNSC has delayed a vote as negotiations are still ongoing.

Sources previously indicated one of the key sticking points remains a proposal for the UN to create a monitoring mechanism for aid going into the Gaza Strip. 

The vote is expected to happen tomorrow, though the timing could once again slide. 

Israel’s most recent proposal to Hamas is a one-week pause in the war for the return of around 35 hostages, including the remaining women, elderly, wounded and sick men held in Gaza, a senior US official told CNN. 

This group would include the three elderly men abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz near the Gaza border who were recently featured in a video released by the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, in which they are pleading to be released.

CNN was unable to independently verify when or where the footage was shot or the condition of the captives. 

And despite Hamas stating on its Telegram channel on Thursday that it would not agree to any discussions about prisoner swaps until after Israel ends its military operation, US officials continue to believe that there is a pathway to secure the release of more hostages, that official said. 

The senior US official declined to say whether Hamas’ most senior leader in Gaza, Yayha Sinwar, had responded to Israel’s latest proposal on the hostages.

Sinwar is Israel’s primary target in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces has called him a “dead man walking.”

Both Israeli and American officials have indicated they believe Sinwar could be in the network of tunnels below Khan Younis — where he’s from.

While Israel has returned to the negotiating table to get more of the hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 attack, both Israeli and US officials have made clear that a deal does not appear imminent, CNN previously reported.

Eight Americans remain unaccounted for since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Four Americans — three women and a toddler — have been successfully released since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. 

The US and Qatar have continued to push Israel to get back to the negotiating table, ever since a seven-day truce ended three weeks ago and efforts to get hostages released stalled.

The talks to resurrect the negotiations appeared to be at a standstill but then picked up after Israeli forces accidentally killed three Israeli hostages who had escaped from their captors.

While Sinwar’s response — and approval — is key to moving a deal forward, Hamas officials outside Gaza, who talk to Qatar and Egypt, have said they have increasingly little to gain by striking a new deal. Adding that they would, once again, likely see Israel’s fierce bombing campaign resume, a person familiar with the discussions said.

Hamas also believes Israel reneged on key parts of the first hostage deal and doesn’t trust what Israel may agree to.

Hamas was also surprised by the aggressive bombardment that started up again after the seven-day pause, the person said — a bombing that Hamas said has killed Israeli hostages and would be expected to continue after a potential second deal and pause come to an end.

The Israel Defense Forces destroyed a “strategic terror tunnel network” in central Gaza City on Thursday, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a media briefing. 

“Today’s destruction of significant infrastructure deprives the Hamas terrorist organization of strategic capabilities,” Hagari said. 

On Wednesday, the IDF released several videos they said show a network of tunnels that it said connect to residences and offices of senior Hamas leadership.

CNN cannot independently verify the IDF’s claims. 

Palestinian children carry pots as they wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, in Rafah, Gaza, on December 14.

 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has expressed “deep concerns” over the rapidly worsening food security situation in the Gaza Strip.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents are now facing acute hunger, according to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released on Thursday.  

According to the report, the entire population of the Gaza Strip is classified in a state of crisis (IPC Phase 3). 

At least 79% of Gaza’s population is classified as being in a state of emergency (IPC Phase 4) or catastrophe (IPC Phase 5), according to the report.

The classification indicates that more than half a million people are experiencing catastrophic acute food insecurity conditions, marked by extreme food shortages, alarming rates of acute malnutrition in children under five, and a significant rise in mortality rates.  

In November, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to addressing the humanitarian needs and safeguarding agriculture-based livelihoods in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

“An immediate ceasefire and peace are prerequisites for food security, and the Right to Food is a basic human right,” Dongyu said in a statement. 

Israeli forces have established “operational control” over the neighborhood of Shejaiya after days of intense fighting in the Gaza City neighborhood, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed in a statement on Thursday.  

Israeli troops “completed the dismantling of Hamas’ core capabilities in Shejaiya, gained operational control over the neighborhood. IDF troops will maintain that control and continue operating in the neighborhood based on operational needs,” the military said.  

More: Shejaiya has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days, with Israeli forces confronting ambush attempts and attacks that involved suicide bombers or assailants dressed in civilian clothes, according to the IDF. 

Shejaiya is the same Gaza City suburb where the IDF said its troops shot and killed three Israeli hostages last week after misidentifying them as threats.  

The IDF said Thursday that it conducted “extensive strikes” in the neighborhood and “hundreds of targets” were struck.  

Israeli troops also raided houses of senior Hamas officials and destructed more than 100 buildings allegedly used by the group for its operations, the IDF claimed.  

A Hamas commander as well as alleged suspects who “participated” in the deadly October 7 attacks on Israel were detained and taken to Israel for interrogation, the IDF said.

The military did not name the Hamas commander and alleged terror suspects it says it has detained.  

Ground operations conducted by Israeli forces have killed “over 2,000 terrorists” since fighting on the ground resumed on December 1, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed Thursday. 

Hagari said during a news conference that the IDF also “demolished a strategic terror tunnel network in the elite quarter in the heart of Gaza City” on Monday that was important in “dismantling of a strategic capability” of Hamas. 

CNN cannot independently verify the IDF claims. 

Remember: Israel renewed its offensive in Gaza after the collapse of a seven-day truce that saw several exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Israel is facing pressure to more clearly define its goals in Gaza and reduce the mounting civilian death toll in the territory.

About 20,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attacks and the ensuing Israeli offensive, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. CNN cannot independently verify that figure.

Smoke rising from Israeli air strikes on the city of Khan Yunis on December 20, in Khan Yunis, Gaza.

Israel has assured the United States of its plans “to transition from a higher intensity level of operations … to something a bit lower-intensity,” as its objectives shift in Gaza, the White House said Thursday.

“The Israelis say they recognize the need to transition to a different phase of fighting — I mean, in any military campaign, wherever you’re going to transition to a different set of objectives, you’re going to achieve those different set of objectives through different tactics and operations, and that’s just standard for the conduct of military operations,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

Kirby declined to offer a timeline on when exactly Israel would transition to that new phase, adding the Israelis “will decide when (and) they will decide what lower intensity looks like and what that means.” 

Kirby pointed to a series of high-level trips to the region, noting Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan have all traveled to Israel recently, where officials “talked to them about our lessons learned in doing those kinds of transitions … as well as asking them some tough questions.”

US President Joe Biden has been in contact with members of his national security team about the proposed resolution calling for a suspension of fighting and an increase in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, the White House said Thursday.

Kirby declined to weigh in on how a possible veto from the US over disputes on who is tasked with inspecting humanitarian aid delivered into Gaza would reflect on the Biden administration on the international stage. 

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves — there isn’t a resolution to vote on right now, we’re still working with our partners up there about what that language ought to be,” he said. “It is important to us, of course, that the humanitarian situation in Gaza gets addressed.”

Still, he acknowledged, that proposed language tasking the UN with exclusive responsibility for inspecting the delivery of aid could be a sticking point. 

“I’m not going to negotiate this language here from this podium — we’re still actively working with our UN partners about the resolution and the language itself,” he said. “Israel has had — and understandably so — has had a role in the inspection regime, a key role, a pivotal role, and we understand and respect that, and I think I’ll leave it at that.”

Videos captured by the World Health Organization (WHO) inside of Al Shifa Hospital and Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in northern Gaza show the “dire situation” facing hospitals in the enclave amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the West Bank and Gaza, was inside Gaza for two weeks and told CNN that the hospital system is “on its knees” and that the emergency department inside one hospital is facing a “bloodbath.” 

WHO videos show the windows of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital completely shattered, while WHO staff were given a tour of the destruction both inside and outside of the hospitals. Patients are seen being treated for intense wounds inside makeshift rooms outside of the hospital complex.

Patients are also seen in corridors after having been moved to various overflow areas of the hospital. Peeperkorn said that hospitals are at up to 200% of their bed occupancy rate.

Bodies, covered in white cloths, are said to have been waiting for days in the courtyard outside.

Peeperkorn told CNN that there is “no safe space, even in the south” of Gaza as “hostilities making it incredibly difficult and very unsafe to move supply, staff, and patients.”

The symbol of the United Nations is displayed outside the Secretariat Building in February 2022 at the UN headquarters.

The US on Thursday raised concerns over a draft United Nations resolution calling for a suspension in fighting and an increase in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

The US is arguing that the proposal of a UN-created monitoring mechanism for aid going into the Gaza Strip could slow down the delivery of critical assistance. 

The language over the cessation of hostilities “is not the issue of contention. There are differences but it won’t block adoption. It’s the monitoring mechanism,” a US official familiar with the discussions added.

“We are negotiating in good faith,” the official said. “UAE is deferring to Egypt. Egypt wants to distract from logistical problems in delivering aid through Rafah and get the UN to effectively secure distribution routes in Gaza, which it cannot do. It’s a mess. Fortunately, Kerem Shalom is coming online,” the official said, referring to the key border crossing.

The proposed language on the fighting was “urgent cessation,” the US official said. “We have proposed a more passive formulation, taking steps to create conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities. Israel is aware and can live with it. But, again, that’s not the stumbling block.

The remarks come as the UN Security Council has delayed a vote on the resolution three times as negotiations have been ongoing. The timing for a possible vote on the resolution today has yet to be announced.

Abdelbasit Hamza denies involvement in Hamas financing.

A Hamas-linked financier, Abdelbasit Hamza, once sentenced for 10 years on corruption charges in Sudan, maintains a network of business interests in Europe despite being under US sanctions, leaked documents show.

His business dealings — linked by the US to Osama Bin Laden — span two decades and include a Cypriot firm, a Spanish real estate company, an Egyptian gold business, and a Sudan-based company sanctioned by the US less than a week after the October 7 attacks.

CNN, in conjunction with Israeli investigative platform Shomrim and the International Consortium for Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), has uncovered details of Hamza’s portfolio of businesses in Europe, part of a network of global assets previously estimated by Sudanese anti-corruption officials as worth over $2bn.

Hamza denies any involvement in Hamas financing. In a written response to CNN, he also denied any relationship to Osama Bin Laden.

Documents provided to CNN by the ICIJ from the “Cyprus Confidential” leak – a trove of more than 3.6 million documents analyzed by ICIJ and 68 media partners, including Shomrim – show Hamza is listed as owning a stake in Matz Holdings, a Cypriot firm incorporated in February 2005. Since its founding, Matz Holdings has held a lucrative concession to exploit two gold mines in Egypt.

Read more about the Hamas-linked financier who maintains a network of business interests in Europe despite being under US sanctions.

Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes on the outskirts of Khiam, a town near the Lebanese-Israeli border, as seen from Marjayoun, south Lebanon, on December 21.

There were fresh exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah across the Lebanon-Israel border on Thursday.

Several attacks were launched from Lebanon toward the areas of Dovev, Avivim, and Har Dov near the border in northern Israel injuring two civilians, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

In turn, Israel’s artillery and tanks had struck several locations in Lebanon in response to incoming fire, the IDF added.

Hezbollah said in a statement Thursday that it launched five attacks toward Israel that involved rockets, drones and artillery.

An elderly woman was killed in her home as a result of an Israeli strike on Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon early on Thursday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

A low-intensity conflict has been raging along the border following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, which elevated fears of a wider regional conflict.

Palestinians outside a morgue in Khan Younis, Gaza, pray near the wrapped bodies of relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment on December 20.

Northern Gaza no longer has a functioning hospital, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday.

Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza was Al-Ahli Hospital but fuel, power, medical supply and staffing shortages have rendered it “minimally functional.” 

His comments come as a grim milestone is reached in the war, with the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah announcing on Thursday that approximately 20,000 people have been killed as a result of Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7.

Meanwhile, Hamas has said it won’t agree to any talks about prisoner swaps until after Israel ends its military operation in Gaza.

Here are the latest developments:

It was one of the first, and most searing, viral videos to emerge as the October 7 attack unfolded. A cell phone video released by Hamas shows 19-year-old Naama Levy being dragged by her hair at gunpoint by a terrorist in Gaza. Her hands are bound, her ankles cut. Her pants are soaked in blood.

Her mother, Dr. Ayelet Levy Shachar, describes the video as “beyond upsetting” and says she “can’t watch it in continuity.” But she thinks it’s important for the world to see.

Despite the release of 110 hostages so far – most of whom have been women and children – Naama still remains in Hamas captivity.

Levy Shachar, a doctor for the Israeli women’s national soccer team, is desperately worried about her daughter going without the medical attention she needs. “She’s injured on her legs… The days are passing and every day that passes, it’s even harder.”

“For her, time is running out,” Levy Shachar tells CNN.

Read the full story here.

A picture taken from southern Israel, on the border with Gaza, shows Israeli tanks returning from northern Gaza on December 16.

Hamas won’t agree to any talks about prisoner swaps until after Israel ends its military operation in Gaza, the group said Thursday.

“There is a Palestinian national decision that there should be no talks about prisoners or exchange deals except after a full cessation of aggression,” Hamas said in a statement, claiming to speak on behalf of all Palestinians. 

This comes as the head of Hamas’ political bureau Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for talks with Egyptian officials.

His visit came after Israel said it had proposed a weeklong pause in fighting in exchange for the release of 40 hostages, a similar deal to the one last month that brought a temporary truce.  

While Israel and Hamas are negotiating another release of hostages, they are not “near a final deal at the moment,” an Israeli official told CNN on Wednesday.

Israel is currently asking for all remaining hostages to be released as part of any deal, while a temporary ceasefire as part of the deal could last for a week or two weeks, the official said.

Displaced Palestinians gather in the yard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on December 10.

Northern Gaza no longer has a functioning hospital, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday, detailing “unbearable” scenes teams observed during a recent mission. 

“There are actually no functional hospitals left in the north,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, told a press briefing. 

According to Peeperkorn, the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza was Al-Ahli Hospital but fuel, power, medical supply and staffing shortages have rendered it “minimally functional.” 

Only nine of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are now functioning, Peeperkorn said, adding that all nine are located in southern Gaza.

The WHO representative spoke to journalists in the wake of WHO missions carried out in recent days to Al-Ahli and Al-Shifa Hospital, a hospital located in Gaza City. 

Sean Casey, who led the missions to the two hospitals, recounted the “unbearable” scenes WHO workers witnessed at a church in the Al-Ahli compound which had been converted into a makeshift ward.

“A church with 30 or so patients, almost none of them ambulatory. So bedridden patients, some of them with serious trauma wounds… We saw many patients who had said they hadn’t bathed or changed their clothes in weeks,” Casey recounted.

Casey said describing Al-Ahli as a hospice implied a “level of care” that the five doctors and five nurses working there are “simply unable to provide” in light of the virtually non-existent resources.

He said Al-Ahli is rather now a “place where people are waiting to die” unless they can be moved to a “safer location” capable of providing care. 

The remaining medical staff at Al-Ahli are junior doctors who are unable to perform surgery, Casey said, adding that the WHO is now working to try and transfer these patients to a facility in southern Gaza.

He also provided an update on the Al-Shifa Hospital, describing its emergency department as a “bloodbath.”

“It’s got so few staff, almost the same number as Al-Ahli Hospital caring for hundreds of patients. And the hospital grounds are sheltering thousands of internally displaced persons.”

Casey highlighted the need to get more fuel supplies into Al-Shifa, saying that it requires 10,000 liters of fuel a day - a figure he called a “huge uplift of fuel.”

“We need urgent action. We need to stop these children and women and elderly people from dying in a place where they should be safe and where they should be cared for,” Casey stressed in his concluding remarks. 

A woman who survived the October 7th Hamas attack on the Nova Music Festival returned to the site of that massacre and reunited with the man who saved her life.

Watch Will Ripley’s report below.

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Rockets are fired toward Israel from the enclave of Gaza on October 7.

A flurry of new analysis by US intelligence agencies has warned that Hamas’ credibility and influence has grown dramatically in the two months since the October 7 terror attack and the onset of Israel’s military response in the Middle East and beyond.

As Israel’s relentless air campaign has killed thousands of civilians inside Gaza, Hamas – which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and Europe – has been able to cast itself as the lone armed group fighting back against a brutal oppressor killing women and children. 

Officials familiar with the different assessments say the group has successfully positioned itself across some parts of the Arab and Muslim world as a defender of the Palestinian cause and an effective fighter against Israel.

Hamas’ growing influence comes in the wake of its ghastly October attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 men, women and children. The US has staunchly defended Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of the attack, including its campaign to eliminate Hamas entirely.

From Hamas’ perspective, the October 7 attack on southern Israel was a stunning operational success.

Meanwhile, Hamas propaganda videos casting the group as highly moral fighters who follow the teachings of Islam – despite the horrific details of the October 7 attack and the descriptions of sexual violence against Israeli women reported by eyewitnesses from that day – coupled with a flood of devastating images of civilian suffering inside Gaza, have gone viral on Arab social media.

Read the full story here.