December 22, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war has moved here.

The resolution approved by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) “falls painfully short” of addressing the crisis in Gaza, the head of Doctors Without Borders US said in a statement Friday. 

The way Israel is conducting war is “causing massive death and suffering among Palestinian civilians and is inconsistent with international norms and laws,” she said.

“Ensuring the rapid flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and safe, unhindered delivery of assistance within Gaza” is something that should have been established from the start of the crisis and shouldn’t have taken such a long time, she said. 

Benoit called on the Security Council and the US government to “focus their attention on establishing a ceasefire and ensure that international humanitarian law does not become a mere afterthought in this conflict.” 

Context: The UN Security Council passed a resolution Friday that calls for pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas to allow more aid into Gaza. The resolution called for the “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access,” although it stopped short of pleading for a ceasefire like a previous proposed resolution vetoed earlier this month. The United States, which has vetoed previous draft resolutions, abstained from voting this time. Russia also abstained.

The Israel Defense Forces has demolished a tunnel network in the Issa area of southern Gaza City, it claimed in a statement Friday.

The network served as an “underground post,” the IDF said, and “numerous buildings used as Hamas headquarters were destroyed” as part of its operations in recent days.

The statement claimed that “many Hamas terrorists were eliminated, along with many buildings used for terrorist activities and weapons that were destroyed.”  

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the tunnel network was targeted using “13 tons of explosives, which simultaneously detonated 30 tunnel shafts in a secured manner.”

The network, according to the IDF, was also “used for storage, hideouts, command and control, and movement of operatives between different areas.”  

The IDF said video footage captured by a canine unit revealed that the tunnel network was “hundreds of meters long.”

Some background: Colloquially referred to as the “Gaza metro,” a vast labyrinth of tunnels beneath Gaza is used to transport people and goods, to store rockets and ammunition caches, and house Hamas command and control centers — all away from the prying eyes of the IDF’s aircraft and surveillance drones.

During its offensive in the territory, the IDF claims it has exposed “hundreds of terror tunnel shafts throughout the Gaza Strip,” and says it is operating “to locate and destroy dozens of attack tunnel routes.”

Recently, it has tested methods for flooding the Hamas tunnels.

CNN’s Joshua Berlinger contributed reporting to this post.

The United Nations Security Council on Friday approved a resolution that calls for humanitarian pauses between Israel and Hamas, increased humanitarian aid to Gaza and the creation of conditions that will allow for a sustainable end to the fighting.

The vote ended days of closed-door negotiations.

The United States and Russia abstained, deciding against using their vetoes as permanent members of the body that would have shot down the resolution.

Throughout what a senior US diplomat called “marathon negotiations,” the US was eager to not vote against the resolution after it suffered global blowback for vetoing the last Security Council motion, which called for an immediate ceasefire.

Instead, Friday’s resolution called for “urgent steps” to lay the groundwork “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

Its passage comes as the Biden administration has grown more vocal in expressing concerns over the brutality of the war in Gaza.

Here’s what else you should know about the resolution:

And here are some of the other key developments in the war today:

This post was updated with the comments from the Palestinian representative to the United Nations.

US President Joe Biden says he is heartbroken by reports of the death of Israeli-American Gadi Haggai, who is said to have been killed by Hamas on October 7. The 73-year-old’s death was confirmed in a statement from the Missing Persons Families Forum on Friday. 

Biden added that he is also praying for the Haggai family and reaffirmed that his administration will keep working to release other hostages in Gaza. 

The Haggai family told CNN today that they are “filled with great sorrow” after learning of the death of Gadi Haggai. The family added that they hope his body will be returned.

“We mourn the loss of our father and grandfather, and we continue to hope and pray that his body will be returned to us and that Judi is still alive and we will be reunited soon,” the family said in a statement. Judi is Gadi Haggai’s wife.

Their daughter Iris Haggai Liniado, told CNN previously that her parents were on their morning walk about a mile and a half from their home in the Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7 when they heard rockets flying overhead. She said her parents “hit the dirt” and tried to call for help and that was the last Iris heard from them.

The Missing Persons Families Forum said Gadi Haggai was shot and critically injured that morning.

Members of the United Nations Security Council meet at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday.

The Biden administration s praising the passage of the United Nations Security Council resolution on Gaza, saying it was the result of a “marathon negotiation,” a senior US diplomat said Friday.

The resolution included compromise language “deploring” acts of terrorism. It also stopped short of calling for a ceasefire which was included in a resolution earlier this month in the Security Council that the United States vetoed. Israel has repeatedly rejected international pleas for a ceasefire, saying it needs to remove Hamas from power and recover the hostages, and the US has supported its position at the UN.

Instead, Friday’s resolution “calls for urgent steps” that would “create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” 

Another significant sticking point was Egypt and the United Arab Emirates pushing for a new UN mechanism to monitor the aid going into Gaza. The US believed it would be too cumbersome and slow down an already strained process. Instead, the resolution creates a position for a senior UN coordinator for aid.

The resolution also called for all the hostages held in Gaza to be released immediately. That, in addition to the softer language on the cessation of the fighting and the compromise on the aid monitoring mechanism, got the US to a place where it could support the resolution and see it passed, while still not voting “yes.”

“We’re never looking to use our veto and, in fact, we have very strict principles on use of the veto. that should be very rare, very unusual circumstances,” the senior US diplomat said.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it received 70 humanitarian aid trucks on Friday from the Egyptian Red Crescent through the Rafah border crossing.

It followed 78 trucks on Thursday, it said.

Before the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, an average of around 500 trucks entered the Gaza Strip every working day.

That figure included commercial trucks along with aid trucks, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

CNN’s Sugam Pokharel contributed reporting to this post.

Newly declassified United States intelligence suggests that Iran has been “deeply involved in planning the operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson told CNN.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched over 100 attacks against about a dozen commercial and merchant ships transiting the Red Sea over the past four weeks, CNN previously reported.

The newly declassified intelligence suggests that “Iranian support throughout the Gaza crisis has enabled the Houthis to launch attacks against Israel and maritime targets, though Iran has often deferred operational decision-making authority to the Houthis,” Watson said. 

On Tuesday, a senior US military official said that the Iranians are operating in the Red Sea when asked whether Iran is helping the Houthis select targets, CNN reported. But that official said the Houthi attacks have been broadly indiscriminate. 

“Iran has the choice to provide or withhold this support, without which the Houthis would struggle to effectively track and strike commercial vessels navigating shipping lanes through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” Watson said. 

The Houthis have said they will only relent when Israel allows the entry of food and medicine into Gaza. Its strikes could be intended to inflict economic pain on Israel’s allies in the hope they will pressure it to cease its bombardment of the enclave.

The intelligence also suggests that the Iranians have provided monitoring systems to the Houthis that allow them to operate in the maritime space, Watson said.

The US this week launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, a maritime coalition aimed at beefing up security in the southern Red Sea. More than 20 nations have signed on to the initiative so far, the Pentagon said Thursday. 

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

Children in the Gaza Strip under the age of 5 — about 335,000 kids — are at high risk of severe malnutrition and preventable death, as the risk of famine conditions continues to increase, according to a UNICEF statement on Friday.

The UNICEF statement comes after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported Thursday that approximately all of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents are now facing acute hunger. The entire population of the Gaza Strip is classified in a state of crisis, according to IPC.

That’s the highest share of people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country, the report stated. 

“Many adults go hungry so children can eat,” according to IPC, calling for humanitarian access to be restored throughout the region to enable the rapid delivery of life-saving aid. 

UNICEF also said it is particularly concerned about the nutrition of more than 155,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, as well as more than 135,000 children under the age of 2, given their specific nutrition needs.

CNN’s Eyad Kourdi and CNN’s Michael Rios contributed reporting to this post.

Hamas said the United Nations Security Council resolution on Gaza is “an insufficient step,” given that it did not include an international resolution to stop the war.  

In a statement released on its official website, Hamas said the UN resolution “does not meet the requirements of the catastrophic situation” created by Israel, “especially since it did not include an international resolution to stop the genocidal war waged by the terrorist occupation entity against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas has repeatedly called for Israel to end its military operation in Gaza. 

Hamas also slammed the position of the United States, which abstained from the UNSC vote. 

“During the past five days, the American administration has worked hard to empty this resolution of its essence, and to issue it in this weak formula,” the statement said.

Friday’s adopted UNSC resolution comes after reports from the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, indicating that over 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military since October 7.

Simultaneously, a new report from the World Food Programme and other UN agencies reveals that more than one in four households in Gaza currently face extreme hunger. The report warns of an impending famine if the conflict persists. 

CNN’s Maija Ehlinger, Michael Bodenhurst and journalist Tamar Michaelis contributed reporting to this post.

Israeli soldiers operate at the Shajaiya district of Gaza city on December 8.

The Israel Defense Forces is preparing “to expand the operation into new areas” in the Gaza Strip, with an emphasis on southern Gaza, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Friday in a media briefing.

Other signs of expansion Friday: Earlier today, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pointed toward Israeli military operations in Khan Younis and other parts of southern Gaza, outlining the military’s plans to operate in other places in Gaza “in the future.”

The IDF also ordered the residents of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in Deir al-Balah and several other areas in central Gaza to move to shelters for safety, signaling a new focus of the ground offensive and a potentially widening military operation in the enclave.

On targeting top Hamas officials: The Israeli defense minister also reiterated Israel’s promise to eliminate Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in his remarks Friday.

In response to a question about targeted killings of Hamas senior officials, the spokesperson Hagari said, “Our job is to kill all of them. This takes intelligence.”

Hagari said the IDF is working with Israel’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, adding that “they have teams working on this all the time. Once there’s an opportunity, we perform.” 

The United Nations Security Council resolution on Gaza adopted Friday is a “step in the right direction” for Palestinians, according to the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour.

“We welcome the decision to establish a UN mechanism to accelerate the provisions of humanitarian relief,” he said.

The ambassador, however, said Friday’s resolution and another one previously passed by the council were not as ambitious as “more advanced” resolutions that have been adopted by the larger UN General Assembly.

Mansour told reporters this is “simply because there are those who have a veto power and they can do with it whatever they want,” referring to the United States, which has previously blocked ceasefire calls in the Security Council, while the larger General Assembly has adopted such calls. 

The Security Council resolution passed Friday did not demand an immediate ceasefire. Instead, it called for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”

Mansour said the Palestinian mission to the UN would continue to pursue a ceasefire in the ravaged enclave. 

This post has been updated with further comments from the Palestinian ambassador to the UN.

The head of the United Nations says Israel’s military activity in Gaza is creating “massive obstacles” for aid distribution in the enclave.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that measuring the success of the aid operation to Gaza through the number of trucks entering the enclave is a mistake.

The UN chief said these actions show there has been “no significant change” in how Israel is operating in the enclave and that there is also “no effective protection of civilians.”

According to Guterres, who was speaking at his end-of-year address to journalists in New York on Friday, an effective aid operation in Gaza would require adequate security, staffing, logistical capacity and the resumption of commercial activity. 

Honing in on the logistical challenges facing the aid operation, Guterres said the UN has an insufficient number of trucks in Gaza. He said Israel’s refusal to allow any additional trucks to operate there is “massively hampering the aid operation.” 

He also called the resumption of commercial activity in Gaza an “essential” priority.

“Wallets are empty, stomachs are empty,” he said.

Guterres said he hoped the UN Security Council resolution passed Friday would help to alleviate the “ongoing nightmare” people in Gaza are experiencing but ultimately stressed that “much more is needed immediately,” calling once more for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Hezbollah killed an Israeli soldier in an attack launched from Lebanon on Friday, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Another IDF soldier was “severely injured” in the attack, which happened near the northern Israeli town of Shtula.

The soldier killed was 19-year-old Sgt. Amit Hod Ziv of the IDF’s 188th Armored Brigade, the military said.

The Lebanese militant group claimed responsibility in a Friday statement, saying it carried out the assault “with rocket weapons and artillery, causing direct hits.” Hezbollah said it launched the attack in support of the Palestinian people.

Hezbollah considers Shomera, Israel, which is near the town of Shtula, to be an “occupied Lebanese village” after the area was captured in 1948. 

Israel’s military fired back at Hezbollah later Friday, it said in a statement, launching artillery at areas in Lebanon that it said it had identified as “the sources of fire” on Israel.

An IDF fighter jet also struck Hezbollah infrastructure and a military site belonging to the group, Israeli officials said.

Remember: This fighting is centered on northern Israel and southern Lebanon — separate from Israel’s battle with Hamas in Gaza. But there has been an uptick in clashes between the powerful Lebanese paramilitary group and Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, raising fears of a broader regional conflict.

Aid trucks enter from Egypt en route to Gaza, seen from the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel on Friday.

The International Rescue Committee welcomed calls for immediate humanitarian access throughout Gaza but criticized the newly-passed United Nations Security Council resolution for not including a call for a ceasefire.

The IRC said that “from a humanitarian point of view, the failure of the UNSC to demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire is unjustifiable.”

The resolution calls for pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas to allow more aid into Gaza. The vote had been delayed over the last several days as the council reworked the language of the text. 

The IRC said “immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access through all available routes to Palestinians throughout Gaza” and the upholding of humanitarian law, among other things, are “prerequisites for relief of the humanitarian suffering.”

The organization reiterated its position that a ceasefire is the only way to “protect Palestinian lives, enable a sufficient humanitarian response, and offer the best chance of hostage release.”

Israel is “grateful” to the United States for its efforts to “address the most problematic elements” in the United Nations Security Council resolution that was adopted Friday, an Israeli official told CNN.

“They really worked hard, and we really appreciate their efforts,” the official added.

The resolution that was passed calls for the “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”

The US abstained from voting, allowing it to pass. Russia also abstained.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said the organization was too focused on aid to Gaza, instead of giving their attention to the crisis of hostages captured by Hamas.

“The UN’s focus only on the aid mechanisms for Gaza is unnecessary and disconnected from reality — Israel, in any case, allows the entry of aid on any necessary scale. The UN should have focused on the humanitarian crisis of the hostages held in Gaza,” Erdan said in a social media post following the adoption of the resolution.

The ambassador also called it “a disgrace” that “the Security Council as a body has not yet condemned the October 7 massacre” and blamed the UN policies for “allowing Hamas to dig terror tunnels and manufacture missiles and rockets.” 

“It is clear that the UN cannot be trusted to monitor the incoming aid to the Gaza Strip,” he claimed.

Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Eli Cohen also reiterated that Israel will “continue the war until the release of all the hostages and the eradication of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

“Israel will continue operating according to international law and will inspect — due to security concerns — all the humanitarian aid entering Gaza. The UNSC resolution is right calling to ensure that the UN becomes more efficient in transferring humanitarian aid, and make sure it’s reaching its destination and not Hamas,” the foreign affairs minister said.

More context: It comes as Israel’s relations with the UN have sunk to a historic low. Israel has long felt the UN is biased against it. Multiple Israeli officials have publicly called for the resignation of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has repeatedly condemned Hamas’ October 7 attack, including in the letter in which he invoked Article 99 to raise the Security Council’s attention to the situation in Gaza.

This post has been updated with comments from Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations.

Tamar Michaelis and CNN’s Mariya Knight contributed reporting to this post.

Members of the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution calling for pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas in order to establish humanitarian corridors throughout Gaza during a meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Friday.

The United Nations passed a resolution Friday calling for the “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”

The United States, which has vetoed previous draft resolutions, abstained from voting. Russia abstained from the vote as well.

The vote passed 13-0. It comes after being delayed over the last several days as the council reworked the language of the text. 

Following the vote, US Amb. to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the council’s decision a “strong humanitarian resolution,” adding that the vote made it clear that “all parties must respect international humanitarian law.”

The representative from the Russian Federation, Vasily Nebenzy, had put an amendment before the Security Council just prior to the vote that focused on “immediate cessation of hostilities,” saying that the new language was “neutered” by the United States and that with “each new drafting, the text lost more and more important provisions.”

“By signing off on this, the council would essential be giving Israeli armed forces complete freedom of movement for further clearing of the Gaza Strip,” he added when speaking about the need for an amendment.

That amendment was rejected.

The UN Security Council has convened to address the ongoing situation in Gaza.

Friday’s proposed resolution on suspending fighting between Israel and Hamas and allowing more aid into Gaza has been softened, according to a source familiar with the text, as the United States says it’s ready to support it. 

It comes after reports from the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, indicating that over 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military since October 7.

Simultaneously, a new report from the World Food Programme and other UN agencies reveals that more than one in four households in Gaza currently face extreme hunger. The report warns of an impending famine if the conflict persists.

Smoke rises from an area hit during Israeli attacks in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on December 20.

Israel indicated Friday that it is widening its military operation in Gaza as the United States says it is ready to support a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for suspension of fighting and increase in aid to the besieged enclave.

The Israel Defense Forces on Friday ordered the residents of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in Deir al-Balah and several other areas in central Gaza to move to shelters for safety, signaling a new focus of the ground offensive.

The military operation had so far been largely focused on northern Gaza and parts of the southern side of the strip. 

Israeli military officials have said they believe they are close to defeating Hamas militants in Jabalya and Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, Hamas’ last remaining strongholds in northern Gaza.

Shortly after the warning on Friday, an Israeli airstrike hit the Al-Bureij refugee camp, a hospital spokesperson said.  

At least three people were killed, and 10 others injured after the airstrike hit the camp, Dr. Khalil Al Daqran, a spokesperson at the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, told CNN.  

UN resolution: Meanwhile, the much-delayed vote on Gaza in the UN Security Council is expected Friday after US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she was ready to support a resolution calling for an increase in aid to the strip.  

Language calling for “urgent steps” to lay the groundwork “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” was instrumental in the United States’ decision to support the resolution, a source told CNN. Negotiations have dragged on throughout the week as diplomats worked behind closed doors on the language.

The language of the now reads “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities,” according to the source.

It comes as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 20,000 since October 7, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said Friday.

The risk of famine in the Palestinian enclave is increasing every day that hostilities persist, a UN-backed food security agency has warned, as the World Health Organization said no hospitals are functioning in northern Gaza and the strip’s entire health care system is “on its knees.” 

CNN’s Michael Rios, Priscilla Alvarez, Donald Judd and Alex Marquardt contributed previous reporting to this post.  

Members of the United Nations Security Council hold sideline meetings as they take a break at the UN headquarters in New York on December 19.

A United Nations Security Council resolution on suspending fighting between Israel and Hamas and allowing more aid into Gaza has been softened, according to a source familiar with the text, as the United States says it’s ready to support it. 

The UN is poised to vote Friday on the resolution, with a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East scheduled for 11:30 a.m. ET.

Language calling for “urgent steps” to lay the ground “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” was instrumental in the United States’ decision to support a resolution from the United Nations Security Council, increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza while calling for a halt in hostilities.

The language of the text has been replaced with “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities,” according to the source. 

A diplomatic source previously told CNN that key issues with the negotiations over the draft included language on the “cessation of hostilities” and a call for the UN to “establish a monitoring mechanism in the Gaza Strip with the necessary personnel and equipment, under the authority of the United Nations Secretary-General.”

Diplomats had been working behind closed doors to finalize a resolution drafted by the United Arab Emirates. A US official familiar with the discussions said the draft had started with calling for an “urgent cessation” of hostilities. Neither the United States nor Israel currently supports a ceasefire, so the US countered with “a more passive formulation,” the official said, describing the language that ended up in the resolution.

“Israel is aware and can live with it,” the official added, while arguing it was not the language on the cessation of hostilities that caused the delays but rather the disagreements over the monitoring mechanism.

US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced late Thursday that the US would support the measure after previously voting four times to delay a vote on the resolution.