February 14, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to "quickly" reach a deal for the release of hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Palestinian news agency WAFA said. 

CIA, Mossad, Qatari and Egyptian officials met in Cairo on Tuesday for talks about a potential hostage deal, which a US official described as “productive and serious,” although no breakthrough has been reached. 

Abbas urged the group to conclude the deal to “protect Palestinian people and avoid an attack on Rafah.” 

Abbas also called on the US and Arab nations to “work seriously” to complete the deal. 

A US official said the outstanding area of disagreement among the parties in the hostage talks is the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to hostages that would be released as part of the deal.

The Israeli delegation has since returned from Cairo, but Egyptian government sources told state media that consultations will continue in Egypt over the next three days.

Palestinian civilians on Wednesday are fleeing Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, amid an ongoing Israeli military operation, according to a journalist at the hospital, the Ministry of Health in Gaza, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

A journalist at the hospital with whom CNN spoke on Wednesday said that hundreds of patients and people sheltering at the hospital are leaving. The sound of heavy gunfire can be heard in the background.

“The Israeli occupation forces thousands of displaced people, families of medical staff, and patients who cannot move to forcibly evacuate from the Nasser Medical Complex,” Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled Gaza said in a statement on Wednesday. “They are threatened with extreme danger.”

What Israel is saying: The IDF in a statement Wednesday said that its soldiers had “opened a secure route to evacuate the civilian population taking shelter in the area of the Nasser Hospital toward the humanitarian zone.”

It said that it did “not intend to evacuate patients and medical staff,” and that the operation was “being conducted in a controlled and precise manner by IDF troops in order to prevent terrorists exploiting the evacuation.”

More on the situation on the ground: Video filmed on Tuesday at the hospital shows columns of smoke at its perimeter, an Israeli bulldozer destroying a hospital perimeter wall, and an armored vehicle entering the hospital grounds. The sound of gunfire can be heard throughout.

At least eight people were wounded after a rocket attack on the northern Israeli city of Safed on Wednesday, the Ziv Medical Center said in a statement. 

The Israel Defense Forces said a base in the north of the country was targeted by rockets from Lebanon, without specifying which city.  

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed armed group that is a regional force in its own right, has not claimed the attack.

Some context: From the day after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, crossfire has broken out on Lebanon's border with Israel.

These exchanges are between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as other factions operating in southern Lebanon.

This post was updated with the latest number of wounded people and context.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Tuesday urged Israel to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Gaza, warning that it would be in breach of international law if it doesn't. 

Limited aid: Only a trickle of aid is getting into Gaza since Israel placed the territory under a complete siege after Hamas' October 7 attacks, halting the supply of electricity, food and water to the enclave.

Israel has since begun allowing some aid to enter, but aid workers and the UN say it's a long and arduous process. The United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Martin Griffiths, has described the process as “in all practical terms, impossible.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent has said an average of 95 aid trucks per day entered Gaza between October 10 and February 1, down from 500 commercial and aid trucks a day before the war.

Nowhere to go: Cameron also urged Israel to "stop and think before going ahead with any operations in Rafah," where more than 1.3 million displaced Palestinians are believed to be crammed into makeshift shelters.

Panic is soaring in Rafah as desperate Palestinians decide whether to flee the last refuge in Gaza as Israel draws up plans for a ground offensive that the United Nations aid chief has warned could lead to “a slaughter.”

A growing number of countries and international organizations are now scrambling to convince Israel to halt its planned offensive, with Ireland’s Taoiseach (or prime minister) Leo Varadkar accusing the country of becoming “blinded by rage.”

The South African government made an “urgent request” to the International Court of Justice Tuesday to determine if Israel’s extended military actions in the southern Gazan city require it to “use its power to prevent further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Israel has been bombarding Rafah with airstrikes for weeks and says it is committed to a ground offensive as the alternative “is to surrender to Hamas and to sacrifice 134 people,” Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told CNN Tuesday, referring to the Israelis held hostage in Gaza. “That is not an option from Israel’s perspective,” he said.

It remains unclear how or when a ground offensive would unfold, and that uncertainty is adding to anxiety among Palestinians in Rafah about where to go and what to do.

He added that he prays the world pressures Israel to end the war and “release us.”

Read more on the situation in Rafah.

Palestinians who have sought shelter in the Rafah are scrambling figure out their next move amid Israel's looming ground offensive in the southern Gazan city which has drawn mounting international opposition.

Military operations in Rafah could lead to "a slaughter" and leave humanitarian efforts in Gaza "at death’s door," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths warned Tuesday. Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar also strongly criticized Israel, saying the country is becoming "blinded by rage" and risks unleashing "a massacre".

More than 1.3 million displaced people — over half of Gaza's population — have sought shelter in Rafah fleeing Israel's bombardment and ground offensives in other parts of the enclave. Humanitarian groups have repeatedly said there's nowhere safe left to go.

Here's what to know.

Military operations in Rafah could lead to "a slaughter" and leave humanitarian efforts in Gaza "at death’s door," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths warned Tuesday.

His comments add to growing international opposition to Israel's potential ground offensive into Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are estimated to be crammed into makeshift shelters. 

He urged Israel to listen to the international community’s warnings against "the dangerous consequences" of a ground invasion.

"History will not be kind" if those calls are ignored, he said.

The Israeli military has not yet presented its plan to the government for the evacuation of Rafah, according to a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces.

The military aims to create a plan that evacuates civilians "out of harm's way" and differentiates civilians from Hamas militants, the IDF spokesperson said.

Remember: More than 1.3 million people have sought shelter in Rafah fleeing Israel's bombardment and ground offensives in other parts of the enclave. Palestinians in Rafah are frantically trying to figure out whether to stay or evacuate after deadly Israeli strikes rained down on the southern city on Monday.

Mounting concerns: International alarm is mounting over Israel's planned ground offensive in Rafah, with Ireland's prime minister saying Israel has been "blinded by rage" and risks unleashing a massacre.

Leo Varadkar, Ireland's Taoiseach (or prime minister), strongly criticized Israel Tuesday, accusing the country of becoming "blinded by rage" as it doubles down on plans to launch a ground offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli forces previously told hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to seek shelter.

Speaking to lawmakers in the Irish parliament, Varadkar said it was "very clear" to him that Israel is "is not listening to any country in the world," even the United States. 

"They [Israel] have become blinded by rage. And they are going to, I believe, make the situation much worse for their own security in the long term by going down the path they are going," the Irish leader said. 

Varadkar said an Israeli ground offensive on the border city of Rafah "should not happen," drawing attention to the 1.3 million Palestinians who are "taking refuge there." 

Other members of the Irish government joined Varadkar in condemning Israel this week including Trade Minister Simon Coveney, who accused the country of acting like a rogue state and behaving "like a monster to defeat a monster."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a video recording Tuesday purportedly showing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar inside a tunnel below the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. 

Unveiling the video at his daily news conference, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the footage was recorded October 10 and shows Sinwar with his wife, children and his brother walking through a dark tunnel. Hagari said the IDF obtained the material in recent days and said the clip was captured on a Hamas CCTV camera.

CNN can neither independently verify that Sinwar is the man seen in the video, nor when it was recorded. The IDF did not provide additional evidence to support their claims.

Read more here.