March 18, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

The Israeli military operation at Al-Shifa Hospital in central Gaza is still ongoing, after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it started an operation in the early hours of Monday morning.

Approximately 3,000 people are sheltering at the hospital, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said.

Hamada Abdelhadi, a displaced Palestinian at Al-Shifa, told CNN Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers are “demolishing and excavating the outer edges of the hospital yards."

“Military vehicles are firing at the hospital buildings’ windows, and at anyone who is caught moving between the hallways,” Abdelhadi said.

“We are being ordered to stay inside the hospital until further notice,” he added, saying that most people in the hospital are displaced and injured, and consist of women and children.

While talking to him over the phone, incoming strikes could be heard.

According to Abdelhadi, the Israeli military operation started at around 2 a.m. local time.

On Monday morning, the IDF announced it had launched a military operation in the area of Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital based on intelligence that the hospital is being used by “senior Hamas terrorists," according to a statement on Monday morning.

CNN cannot independently verify the claim. 

Correction: An earlier version of this post quoted a Gaza Health Ministry estimate that 30,000 people were sheltering at Al-Shifa. The ministry says it made a typographical error in its estimate and meant to say 3,000.

Talks between Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Israel’s Mossad chief David Barnea and Egyptian officials are expected to commence on Monday on a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages held by Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told CNN. 

Hamas submitted a new set of demands on Thursday, including calls for a large number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and an eventual agreement on a permanent ceasefire.

On Friday, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Hamas is continuing to hold to unrealistic demands” but announced that an Israeli team would soon be traveling to Doha to further talks.

The Israeli delegation was authorized to travel to Doha after Israel’s war and security cabinets approved the delegation’s mandate for negotiations, an Israeli diplomatic source told CNN on Monday. 

The mandate, described by the source as “red lines” sets the boundaries and scope for the negotiation aimed to release Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

CNN's Amir Tal in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Deborah Droll had just performed the evening Isha prayer when she felt the ceiling of her flat in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, collapse down on her.

The Palestinian American teacher, 75, found herself crushed under the debris of her four-story building, which was hit by an Israeli air strike on March 13.

Hours later, she was rescued by other civilians.

“This is not my first war. It's the second, or third, or fourth, or fifth. I've lost count ... But this is the worst war ever,” she told CNN, while receiving treatment in the local Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital on Wednesday.

She sustained numerous injuries, including 60 stitches and a fractured rib.

“I could go back to America, but I would feel like it was not right to do that. I should stand beside them (Palestinians in Gaza).”

Droll, who has lived in the enclave for 35 years, called on US President Joe Biden to:

“The world is just sitting silently, closing their eyes. Someone has to stand up,” reflected Droll.

“Every street has been suffering from houses being bombed, children dying in the streets ... If they're going to kill me, they will kill me here in Gaza.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has accused Israel of using “starvation as a weapon of war” and “provoking famine” in Gaza.

Borrell on Monday said Gaza was “no longer on the brink of famine” but “in a state of famine affecting thousands of people," adding that it was not a natural disaster but directly caused by Israel “preventing humanitarian support entering into Gaza.”

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the European Humanitarian Forum, an international aid and cooperation conference in Brussels, Borrell alleged that hundreds of trucks were waiting at the border and being prevented entry into Gaza by Israel.

Aid delivery by sea and air was only necessary because the “natural” way of delivering aid by land was “artificially closed” by Israel, he added.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said that issues in delivering aid were not because of Israel blocking trucks’ access to Gaza.

On Thursday, Col. Elad Goren of Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the issue was distributing aid to people in Gaza, adding that international aid organizations “do not have the capacity and have yet to take real steps to improve on distribution of aid across Gaza.”

Speaking after Borrell, the UN aid chief Martin Griffith said that the UN in Gaza was being "prevented from doing its job and then criticized for not doing enough” as “humanitarian access is treated as optional” or used as “a weapon of war.”

The Israeli military has ordered all people near the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City’s Al-Rimal neighborhood to evacuate southwards.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) surrounded the medical complex early Monday, where the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said about 3,000 people were sheltering.

A crowded building is on fire at the hospital, a doctor said, and there are multiple casualties, according to the ministry.

The ministry said anyone attempting to leave the hospital “is targeted by sniper bullets and quadcopters."

People in the area are being told to move to the Al-Mawasi "humanitarian zone," said IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee.

The IDF said it was carrying out the operation based on intelligence that the hospital was being used by “senior Hamas terrorists to conduct and promote terrorist activity.”

CNN cannot independently verify this claim. 

The Israeli military also raided Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest medical complex, in November. The IDF has frequently targeted Gaza’s hospitals since October 7, accusing Hamas of using medical facilities as a front for its operations — which the group denies.

Correction: An earlier version of this post quoted a Gaza Health Ministry estimate that 30,000 people were sheltering at Al-Shifa. The ministry says it made a typographical error in its estimate and meant to say 3,000.

A surgical building is on fire in northern Gaza's Al-Shifa Medical Complex, according to a doctor at the scene, after the Israel Defense Forces said early on Monday that it was carrying out a military operation in the area of the hospital. 

The building is “crowded with wounded people," according to Dr. Abdullah Mohammed, who said in a series of social media posts that it was hit four times by Israeli missile strikes.

The IDF said that the operation was based on intelligence that the hospital was being used by “senior Hamas terrorists to conduct and promote terrorist activity.”

CNN cannot independently verify this claim.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said there were multiple casualties and people wounded, including cases of suffocation among displaced women and children sheltering inside the complex.

Rescuers had been unable to save many of the wounded or reach those trapped, due to the intensity of the fire and Israeli attacks, the ministry said.

An eyewitness who lives in the Al Rimal neighborhood near the medical complex told CNN he had seen “a big invasion of tanks,” particularly in that neighborhood and “around Al Shifa hospital.”

Hospitals targeted: The Israeli military also raided Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest medical complex, in November. The IDF has frequently targeted Gaza’s hospitals since October 7, accusing Hamas of using medical facilities as a front for its operations.

Israel's attacks on medical facilities have drawn global condemnation and calls to protect healthcare workers, infrastructure, and patients from fighting.

This post has been updated with the latest information.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to bow to calls by the top US senator for a new election and is pushing back against White House warnings about a potential new offensive in Gaza, widening a rift with top Democrats in Washington.

An extraordinary turn in US-Israel relations in recent days is coinciding with intense diplomacy aimed at securing a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas and the release of hostages as the conflict deepens bitter divides in US politics.

But the gulf in trust and goals between Israel and Hamas has thwarted hopes for a breakthrough for weeks.

Netanyahu’s defiance shone through an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, three days after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – the highest-ranking Jewish American in the US government – said that a new Israeli government was needed to reset war strategy and that Netanyahu was an obstacle to peace.

Despite the Israeli prime minister’s stand, there is increasing criticism of his approach in the US and overseas, at a time when his position among some Israeli voters is fragile, five months after terror attacks that besmirched his brand as the country’s ultimate security guarantor.

Thousands of protesters filled the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Saturday night, in two separate groups, one calling for the government to resign and others demanding the release of the hostages in Gaza.

Read the full analysis.

The World Health Organization chief said he is "gravely concerned" after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved plans for a military ground offensive in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

Netanyahu's office said the military is preparing to evacuate the estimated 1.4 million people stranded there — many after being displaced from other parts of the enclave. Aid agencies warn civilians have nowhere left to go.

The operation will take "several weeks," Netanyahu said Sunday.

The White House said it still has not seen a "credible" plan from the Israeli government on how it would protect the civilians. CNN has previously reported on Gazans who heeded evacuation warnings being killed by Israeli strikes in areas deemed safe by the Israel Defense Forces.

Here are the latest headlines:

The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday the death of Daniel Perez, who was abducted by Hamas on October 7.

Perez, 22, had served as a platoon commander, according to the IDF.

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum said that Perez had immigrated to Israel 10 years ago. 

According to CNN's count, 33 of the 130 people still held captive in Gaza after being taken hostage on October 7 are now believed to be dead.