October 21, 2024 news on the wars in the Middle East

Our live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East has moved here.

Philippe Lazzarini speaks during an interview in New York on September 24.

The head of the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency has accused Israel of preventing aid from reaching northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people face a dire humanitarian situation amid a renewed Israeli military offensive.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote in an X post on Monday that Israel continues “to deny humanitarian missions to reach the north [of Gaza] with critical supplies including medicine and food.”

UNRWA’s “remaining shelters are so overcrowded, some displaced people are now forced to live in the toilets,” Lazzarini added, as he as he urged Israel to allow access for UN teams.

“Denying & weaponizing humanitarian assistance to achieve military purposes is a sign of how low the moral compass is,” he said. “Assistance must reach everyone in need in Gaza: civilians, including children and the hostages.”

Some context: Lazzarini’s remarks are the latest in a string of warnings from UN agencies about the deteriorating situation in the Palestinian enclave. On Sunday, the UN Human Rights Office said Israel’s military operations in northern Gaza may be destroying the Palestinian population through “death and displacement.”

CNN reached out to the Israeli military for comment on the OHCHR statement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken walks to board a plane en route to the Middle East as he departs Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on Monday, October 2.

As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Israel, President Joe Biden’s administration is unclear about what the coming weeks will hold for the future of Hamas as well as Gaza hostage and ceasefire talks, a senior State Department official said, according to press pool.

While the US is trying to take advantage of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death to push the Israel-Hamas conflict closer to a resolution, the group needs to figure out its leadership in order to get back to the table, the official said. Right now, the US, Qatar and Egypt don’t know who is calling the shots for Hamas inside Gaza, the official said.

The US cannot say whether the new leader of Hamas will ultimately be able to consolidate power over the group to agree to a ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages, meaning that the possibility of productive future negotiations is not certain, the official explained.

Blinken will also be discussing the day after — or post-war — plans for Gaza that the US has been working on for the better part of the last year, the official said. Those talks have entered a new phase in recent weeks, with specific details being discussed, the official said.

But there remains a major impediment — Arab countries are not in agreement on what governance of Gaza should look like after the conflict, the official said.

When it comes to the more immediate needs in Gaza, given the horrific humanitarian situation there for Palestinians in recent months, Blinken will evaluate improvements Israel made — and steps that still need to be taken — since the administration sent a letter to Israel pressuring them to take more actions to get the aid into Gaza, the official said.

Read more on CNN’s reporting on Blinken’s trip.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations said the United States would be “complicit” in any Israeli aggression against Iran if it emboldened Israel by providing it with advanced weaponry.

The letter also accused US President Joe Biden of making “inflammatory” remarks at a press briefing in Berlin on October 18, during which Biden said he had a good understanding of how and when Israel would respond to Iran’s October 1 missile attack.

The Iranian mission said his comments signaled Washington’s “tacit approval and explicit support for Israel’s unlawful military aggression against Iran.”

Hezbollah says it carried out 31 attacks against Israel and its troops in southern Lebanon, according to a group statement early Tuesday local time.

The attacks involved rockets, missiles, and drones and were carried out in support of Palestinians in Gaza and the “defense of Lebanon and its people,” the group’s statement read.

Hezbollah said it had confronted Israeli forces attempting “to advance” on the Lebanese border, and it had also conducted “operations against the sites, bases, and deployment of the Israeli enemy army and settlements in the north (of Israel.)”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that Hezbollah had on Monday fired “approximately 170 projectiles” that “crossed from Lebanon into Israel.”

The United Nations warned Monday that almost no aid is entering the besieged Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where a two-week Israeli military campaign has killed hundreds of people and left thousands trapped.

Requests by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to enter the Al-Faluja area of Jabalya to help those trapped under rubble had been denied by Israeli authorities for four consecutive days, Haq told the briefing. He also said a request by OCHA Monday to distribute food, medicine and fuel in the Jabalya camp was denied.

Only four out of 66 planned humanitarian missions from southern to northern Gaza had been facilitated by Israeli authorities since the start of October, Haq added.

“We reiterate once again that these delays are likely costing lives,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the strip, insists that supplies are reaching Gaza. In a post on X on Monday, it said that that in the past 24 hours, 47 humanitarian aid trucks had been transferred to northern Gaza. For comparison, the UN previously reported that an average 500 trucks entered the strip per day in the months before October 7, 2023.

CNN has reached out to COGAT for comment specifically on Haq’s claims.

Lebanese forces take security measures around Rafik Hariri University Hospital after an Israeli attack near the area, in Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday, October 22.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has hit more than 3,200 Hezbollah targets since ground operations started in southern Lebanon on October 1, with approximately 300 targets hit in the last 24 hours.

At least four people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli strike outside Rafik Hariri University Hospital, considered the largest public hospital in Beirut, the Lebanese health ministry said Monday night. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment. Agence France-Presse news agency footage showed large plumes of smoke rising around south Beirut’s skyline Monday night.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also raised alarm about Israeli attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza, saying “patients and medical staff must be protected. Hospitals must not be targeted. Access to essential medical care and supplies must be prioritized to prevent further loss of life.”

Here’s what else to know:

An official at the Sahel General hospital in central Beirut has vehemently denied the Israeli military’s accusations that a Hezbollah bunker is located below it, calling it “baseless” in an interview with CNN.

What Israel claims: IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari claimed at a press briefing Monday that a bunker containing “millions of dollars in gold and cash” located directly under Sahel General Hospital in the heart of Lebanon’s capital. The bunker “serves as a central financial facility for Hezbollah,” he said. Hagari also showed computer-generated graphics and illustrations of the alleged bunker that could not be verified by CNN.

What hospital officials claim: Hagari’s claims are baseless, according to Fadi Fakhry Alame, one of the directors of the Sahel General Hospital. “The Israeli allegations are baseless and are a pretext to justify attacks on Lebanon and its institutions,” Alame said, speaking to CNN on Monday night local time. He also invited the Lebanese army, the United Nations and journalists to inspect the hospital themselves to disprove the Israeli statements.

The Israeli military has made similar claims in Gaza before targeting hospitals, he said. “Now they are doing it in Lebanon.”

An Israeli strike near Lebanon’s biggest public hospital on Monday night was not in an area covered by evacuation orders issued by the military, a CNN analysis of the strike and maps of no-go zones has found.

Before the strike, Israel’s military issued a slew of evacuation orders for Beirut’s southern suburbs, with maps indicating specific buildings slated for targeting, along with 500-meter radius no-go zones around those targets.

The area surrounding Rafik Hariri University Hospital, which was hit in one of several Israeli airstrikes on Monday, was not included in those instructions, nor in any evacuation orders published since Israel ramped up strikes against Hezbollah last month.

The strike near the hospital killed at least four people — including a child — and caused “a lot of damage” to the hospital, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it hit a “Hezbollah terrorist target” in a strike near the hospital, insisting that the hospital itself was not hit, targeted or affected by the strike.

The Lebanese health ministry said earlier the strike killed at least four people, wounded 24 others, and caused “a lot of damage” at the hospital.

Smoke rises from areas targeted by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs late on Monday, October 21

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has hit thousands of Hezbollah targets since ground operations started in southern Lebanon on October 1.

The Israeli forces had “struck over 3,200 terror targets, including hundreds of weapons storage facilities, rocket launchers, anti-tank posts, terrorist infrastructure, and command-and-control centers,” the IDF said in a statement Monday.

“Of these, approximately 300 targets were hit in the last 24 hours alone,” the IDF read.

The IDF also claimed it killed dozens of Hezbollah members since October 1, including “seven Hezbollah brigade commanders, 21 battalion commanders, and 24 company commanders.”

Lebanese forces take security measures around Rafik Hariri University Hospital after an Israeli attack near the area, in Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday, October 22.

At least four people, including a child, were killed in an Israeli strike outside Rafik Hariri University Hospital on the outskirts of Beirut, the Lebanese health ministry said Monday night.

Rafik Hariri University Hospital is considered the largest public hospital in Lebanon.

Another 24 people were wounded in the strike, according to a preliminary toll from the ministry. The strike caused “a lot of damage” at the hospital, the ministry said.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.

Displaced Palestinians evacuate from Jabalya refugee camp.

Crowds of displaced Palestinians were evacuated en masse on Monday from the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza where thousands have been trapped for days.

Over 400 people have been killed in the two-week Israeli military campaign in and around the camp, which has left residents living in “extremely difficult humanitarian conditions,” according to Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal.

Drone footage shared by the Israeli military showed Palestinians being escorted past the camp’s bombed-out buildings.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the footage showed it “allowing civilians to safely evacuate the area” via organized routes. The IDF said it had arrested several people in the camp suspected of belonging to terrorist groups in an ongoing operation.

However, the UN’s main agency in Gaza, UNRWA, contested the Israeli characterization of the evacuation. It said the Israeli military had “reportedly besieged and forcefully evacuated seven UNRWA schools in Jabalya Camp” which had been serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians.

“While families were evacuating the school, Israeli forces’ artillery shells directly struck one of the UNRWA schools. Seven people were reportedly killed, and several others were injured,” UNRWA said.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya described the situation at Kamal Adwan, the only operational hospital in northern Gaza, as “extremely difficult.”

A World Health Organization (WHO) team trying to bring blood and food supplies into the hospital was prevented by the Israeli military from delivering the aid, he added.

Northern Gaza has received virtually no aid supplies since the beginning of the month, compounding the humanitarian crisis.

Smoke rises from areas targeted by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs late on Monday, October 21.

Footage by the Agence France-Presse news agency showed large plumes of smoke rising around south Beirut’s skyline Monday night as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued evacuation orders for parts of the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs.

The IDF’s evacuation warnings were posted to X and included maps highlighting specific buildings in several evacuation zones.

“You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests that the IDF will act against in the near future,” one of the IDF posts read.

Israel’s military has vowed to continue targeting Hezbollah-linked financial sites with strikes in Lebanon.

“Tonight, we’re exposing Hezbollah’s financial network and how Hezbollah uses it to fund its terrorist activities. In recent years, the state of Lebanon has experienced a deep financial crisis, which was exploited by Hezbollah,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said at a press briefing earlier on Monday night.

Hagari vowed the IDF “will not allow Hezbollah to regroup and rearm.”

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Israeli airstrikes in Beit Lahia, that Gaza’s health ministry said killed at least 87 people.

“Civilians must be respected and protected at all times,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the secretary-general said Monday. “(The Secretary-General) remains deeply alarmed by the rapidly deteriorating situation for civilians in northern Gaza, including mass displacement and the lack of essentials for survival. The Secretary-General calls for immediate and unhindered access for humanitarian and rescue teams to save lives.”

Haq also highlighted the “dire humanitarian crisis” as hospitals in northern Gaza face attacks.

“Patients and medical staff must be protected. Hospitals must not be targeted. Access to essential medical care and supplies must be prioritized to prevent further loss of life,” he said.

Syrian emergency and security services inspect the wreckage of a car that exploded in Damascus on Monday, October 21.

Syria’s defense ministry has accused Israel of targeting a vehicle in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Monday, killing “two civilians.”

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report but “can’t confirm (anything) at the moment.”

The Syrian defense ministry said the strike targeted “a civilian car in the Mazzeh residential neighborhood in Damascus, resulting in the death of two civilians” and injury of three others.

The strike also caused material damage “to private property in the surrounding area,” the ministry added.

The pro-government, Damascus-based Sham FM radio published a video, verified by CNN, of the aftermath of the airstrike. The video shows a number of Syrian military officers near a vehicle that is completely charred. It also shows some damage to the Golden Mazzeh hotel building near the vehicle.

The Israeli military said it struck a senior Hezbollah member in Syria, who was in charge of the group’s money transfer operations.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said at press briefing on Monday: “Hezbollah Unit 4400 manages this financial network. It was run by Jafar Qasir, also known as Sheik Salah, until he was eliminated in a precise strike in Beirut at the beginning of October.”

On Monday, “in another precise strike in Syria, we have eliminated his successor,” Hagari added without mentioning the name of the person who was killed.

Earlier on Monday, Syria’s defense ministry said two civilians were killed when an Israeli strike hit a car in the Syrian capital. When asked for comment by CNN, the IDF referred to Hagari’s press statement on the strike in Syria.

Israel has designated the Hezbollah-linked financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan as “a terrorist organization,” a day after striking several of its branches across Lebanon.

“The designation is part of a wider campaign led by Israel’s defense establishment, targeting the economic resources of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations,” Israel’s defense ministry said in a statement Monday.

The ministry said intelligence indicated Al-Qard Al-Hassan was used to finance Hezbollah’s operations “via the purchase of munitions, payment of salaries to terrorists, and storing Hezbollah funds.”

The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari accused Al-Qard Al-Hassan of violating international law, noting it had been “sanctioned by the United States and other Western countries.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, center, dances during a conference calling for Jewish resettlement of the Gaza Strip near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel on Monday.

Hundreds of right-wing Israeli activists — including government ministers and members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary coalition — attended an event Monday calling for the Israeli government to establish Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Senior ministers who attended the event near the Gaza border included National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister for Social Equality and Minister for Women’s Empowerment May Golan.

While the Israeli prime minister has said Israel does not intend to settle Gaza, Golan was among several members of Netanyahu’s Likud party who participated, in addition to Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party.

Calls for Israeli settlements in Gaza were accompanied by calls for the expulsion of the strip’s Palestinian population.

“As a result of the brutal massacre of the 7th of October, the Gaza Arabs lost the right to be here,” Daniella Weiss, known as the godmother of the Zionist settler movement, said to cheers and applause. “We are here with one clear purpose; the purpose is to settle the entire Gaza Strip, not just part of it, not just a few settlements, the entire Gaza Strip from north to south.”

Stages were set up around an empty desert near Kibbutz Be’eri overlooking the Gaza Strip, where people danced, sang and distributed flyers about the importance of resettlement to protect Isael’s security.

Several rounds of outgoing artillery fire into Gaza could be heard from the event.

Counterprotest: Across the hilltop, residents of the surrounding areas and kibbutzim held a counterprotest. Ron Shifroni, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, told CNN the Israelis who want to resettle Gaza “have fantasies” that they can just “send people away”, referring to the Palestinians. “It’s not going to happen. And they want to live there, not because it’s for security, but because they think this is what is ordained by God. The security is just an excuse,” he scoffed.

The White House was clear-eyed about the status of a diplomatic outcome in Gaza or Lebanon, conceding that negotiations toward a ceasefire are not “about to restart.”

His comments come after weeks of stalled ceasefire talks. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris renewed calls for restarting the negotiations in the wake of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s killing.

US officials have had “some initial conversations,” Kirby said, with Israeli counterparts and “continue to engage in intensive diplomacy to see what can be done to try to find a path to a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.”

The US has also expressed a “strong desire to see what can be done to find a diplomatic path forward to get the hostages home,” he said.

US envoy Amos Hochstein is in Beirut Monday, Kirby noted, where he is working “to see what could be in the realm of the possible in terms of trying to find a meaningful ceasefire.”

Earlier, CNN reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will depart Monday for a high-stakes trip to Israel and the Middle East as the United States seeks to move forward with long-stalled negotiations to bring back the hostages and end the war in Gaza in the wake of Yahya Sinwar’s death.

President Joe Biden appears during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on October 4.

President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” following the leak of highly classified US intelligence on Israel’s plans to attack Iran and will be “actively monitoring” the investigation, according to national security spokesperson John Kirby.

He added: “You can rest assured that he will be actively monitoring the progress of the investigative effort to figure out how this happened, and obviously he’ll be very interested in hearing any mitigation measures and recommendations that come as a result of the investigative efforts.”

Kirby added that they do not yet know how the documents were released and that the Department of Defense is continuing their investigation.

Kirby also said that “at this time” they have no reason to believe similar documents will be released.

“We don’t have any indication at this point that there’s an expectation that there will be additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain,” he said.

Kirby also confirmed that the US has been in communication with the Israelis about the disclosure, but did not provide any details of those conversations.

More background: The documents, dated October 15 and 16, began circulating online Friday after being posted on Telegram by an account called “Middle East Spectator.” They are marked top secret and have markings indicating they are meant to be seen only by the US and its “Five Eyes” allies — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Documents of Hezbollah-affiliated bank Qard al-Hassan are scattered at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, on Monday.

Israel’s attacks on the offices of the Hezbollah-affiliated bank Qard al-Hassan were also some of the most intense strikes since the start of its offensive in Lebanon more than a month ago.

Some of the attacks destroyed whole residential blocks. Nearly a dozen of these airstrikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut – one of the targets was just a couple of hundreds of meters away from the country’s only commercial airport. Planes were seen landing on the tarmac as balls of fire lit up the night sky.

Israel said it aimed to cripple Hezbollah’s financial network as part of a larger bid to destroy the militant group’s infrastructure. Qard al-Hassan, it said, was the main vehicle through which Hezbollah paid its fighters’ salaries. But these lending offices also provide interest-free loans to working-class Shia Muslim families.

Keep in mind: As with much of Hezbollah’s institutions, services that fuel the militant group’s activities also provide a social safety net for Shia civilians in a virtually failed state. Where public institutions falter in Lebanon, sectarian factions step in. This is the bread and butter of the country’s kleptocratic power-sharing system which has chipped away at the country’s central government for decades, and Hezbollah excels at it.

Because Hezbollah is so deeply embedded in its Shia Muslim community, and in Lebanon at large, Israel may defend any infrastructure-related target as one that damages the group. But the more Israel’s strikes stray from Hezbollah’s military structure, the more Lebanese civilians and the state itself stand to suffer.