Israel-Hamas war: U.S. submits draft U.N. resolution calling for immediate Gaza cease-fire

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., accused Israel of committing this century's worst crimes against humanity during a speech today calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Tlaib is the only Palestinian American member of Congress. As she spoke she had two images beside her, one of a 10-year-old Palestinian boy who starved in Gaza and another of children waiting for food with buckets.

"This isn't a tragic accident," Tlaib said. "What we are witnessing, all around this world, is the Israeli government using starvation as a weapon of war. The starvation is a result of the total siege on Gaza and the intentional targeting of local food production, infrastructure, and obstruction of aid convoys."

Israel has denied accusations that it has limited humanitarian aid in Gaza and that it has violated international humanitarian law. Blinken said today in Egypt that Israel needs to "do more" to increase aid into Gaza.

Tlaib ran out of time, ending her speech by telling her congressional colleagues that "lasting cease-fire is what we need."

Support for Hamas as a political party has fallen to 34% among Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a 12-point drop from December, according to a poll released yesterday by a leading Palestinian research institute.  

While the war is eroding Palestinians’ view of Hamas as the governing body in Gaza, support remains relatively high for the militant group’s role in the war.

Seventy percent of Palestinians said they were “satisfied” with Hamas’ war performance, compared to that of other Palestinian entities, like its political rival Fatah, whose deeply unpopular leader, Mahmoud Abbas, governs the West Bank. Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, which has killed more than 31,000 people in Gaza, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. 

The poll was conducted in person March 5-10, at the start of the fifth month of the war, with a sample size of 1,580 — 830 of those polled lived in the West Bank and 750 in the Gaza Strip — by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an independent survey organization based in Ramallah that has surveyors across Gaza. The center has measured public opinion in the Palestinian territories quarterly since the 1990s.

Read the full story here.

The World Health Organization and its partners have been unable to contact medical staff at Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza since Israeli forces raided the medical complex days ago, according to a statement from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

"Accessing Al-Shifa is now impossible, and there are reports of health workers being arrested and detained," Tedros wrote on X. "A planned mission to Al-Shifa today had to be cancelled due to lack of security."

International aid agencies are seeking information about patients' conditions and about reports of medical staff members' being arrested, he added.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari alleged today that militants have barricaded themselves inside rooms at Al-Shifa hospital and that Israeli forces are relocating patients as they operate inside. The IDF alleges that it has killed or arrested hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Jihad militants at the hospital complex.

NBC News has not independently verified the IDF's statement.

The U.S. is putting forth a resolution to the United Nations Security Council tomorrow morning that will call for an "immediate" cease-fire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal, said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. delegation.

Though it calls for an immediate and sustained cease-fire, the U.S. resolution also ties a pause in hostilities to the immediate release of all hostages remaining in Gaza, according to a draft seen by NBC News earlier today.

"This Resolution is an opportunity for the Council to speak with one voice to support the diplomacy happening on the ground and pressure Hamas to accept the deal on the table," Evans said.

This draft comes after the U.S. used its veto to reject three prior cease-fire resolutions brought to the Security Council since the war began in October. The most recent veto was the Algerian proposal in February that had 13 out of 15 members' approval, with the United Kingdom abstaining.

Tensions are apparent between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, in a change of course, the U.S. has submitted a draft resolution to the U.N. calling for an immediate cease-fire.

MSNBC analyst Peter Baker notes that part of Biden's challenge is that Netanyahu's policies are supported by Israel's political establishment, even as the president makes his disagreement known to the public.

"Now this language you're hearing today suggests a further slip-step toward, you know, a more vocal, a more assertive position by the president," Baker said. "But if you look inside his administration, he is the one person who is standing by Israel the most."

Pregnant Palestinians in northern Gaza are trying to go into labor early, risking their own lives in the hopes that their babies may live, the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency said.

The agency shared a video from one of its staff members, Scott Anderson, taken while he was visiting Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City. He said that while he remembers the joy of his own child's birth, parenthood in Gaza has become a "frightening experience."

"Mothers are concerned they won't be alive in two weeks," Anderson said. "They’re concerned that the hospital won't be here in two weeks and they're trying to have babies early — to give up their own lives to preserve their baby's."

Two infants Anderson visited were 2 months old and had signs of malnutrition.

The United Nations reported earlier this month that only two hospitals are offering maternity services in Gaza, though an estimated 180 women are giving birth every day. In northern Gaza, where famine is imminent, pregnant Palestinians face malnourishment in addition to the high risk of infection and communicable diseases.

Israel must do more to facilitate aid into Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said today, saying that recent efforts have improved the flow of goods but it's still "not enough."

Blinken, who is once again visiting the region, spent Thursday meeting with ministers from other Arab nations and held a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. The group discussed a number of issues, including concerns over an invasion into Rafah and pathways to regional stability.

"I think if you look back on these past couple of months since I was here in January, we have been working very closely together with our Arab partners on all of these post-conflict pieces," Blinken said. "There's not only more consensus on the priorities ... I think there's increasingly a consensus on the steps needed to get there."

As for aid, Blinken noted that it's not just a surge of supplies that is needed, but to ensure that the aid is sustained over time.

"The cease-fire that we are working on would be the best, most immediate way ... but it is not the only way," Blinken said.

WASHINGTON — Nearly 70 former U.S. officials, diplomats and military officers on yesterday urged Biden to warn Israel of serious consequences if it denies civil rights and basic necessities to Palestinians and expands settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.

“The United States must be willing to take concrete action to oppose” such practices, the group said in an open letter to Biden, “including restrictions on provision of (U.S.) assistance (to Israel) consistent with U.S. law and policy.”

Among the signatories were more than a dozen former ambassadors, as well as other retired State Department officials and former Pentagon, intelligence and White House officials, including Anthony Lake, a national security adviser to former President Bill Clinton.

The letter underscored rising dismay in the United States over Israeli operations against the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas militants ignited by their Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israel in which they killed some 1,200 people and took 253 hostages.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved an Israeli delegation to go to Qatar tomorrow as part of ongoing hostage negotiations, his office said today.

The delegation will be led by Mossad director David Barnea and will meet in Doha to discuss an agreement framework for a truce deal that ensures both the return of hostages in Gaza and a pause in hostilities.

Other officials that will be present at the meeting, according to the prime minister's office, are CIA Director William Burns, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abd Al Thani and Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel.

Hezbollah said in various statements that it launched four attacks on Israeli settlements in northern Israel today.

The targets included settlements in Metula, Avivim, and two in Al-Malikiyah, according to the statements. Al-Malikiyah is a village that was once recognized as a part of "Greater Lebanon" but was drawn into the British Mandate of Palestine after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

NBC News has not verified Hezbollah's statements but the Israel Defense Forces said it identified launches from Lebanon into "various areas" of northern Israel.

Israel's military said it hit targets of the Hezbollah militant group in southern Lebanon today.

In a statement on Telegram, the Israel Defense Forces said a launch was detected and it struck the sources of the fire. It added that it struck two Hezbollah military compounds.

Lebanese state news reported that one of the attacks, in the town of Tayr Harfa, caused significant damage to local infrastructure, "especially the electricity and water networks." Raids in the area of Meiss al-Jabal, a border town, damaged two different residential homes, state news said.

The Israel Defense Forces said troops have killed 140 "terrorists" at Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza today, while Gazan officials reported that 13 patients have died amid the military raids this week.

Israeli forces have been operating at Al-Shifa Hospital this week in what the military described as intelligence-based missions to eliminate Hamas and Palestinian Jihad militants. The military alleges that Hamas has regrouped at the recently reopened medical complex, which was first raided in November.

The Gaza media office said that 13 patients died this week, blaming the raids for cutting off access to basics such as medicine and food. At least four intensive-care patients died after their ventilators were cut off from electricity, the office said.

NBC News has not independently verified either the IDF or the Gaza media office's statements.

"Angels in America" writer Tony Kushner defended Jonathan Glazer for his Oscars speech, which draw pushback from fellow Jews in the industry.

Glazer, who received an Oscar for "The Zone of Interest," condemned in his speech the bloodshed in the Middle East and implored the audience to apply the message of the film, a World War II drama, by resisting dehumanization.

During an interview with “Hareetz Podcast“ released yesterday, Kushner, who is also Jewish, described Glazer's speech as "unimpeachable" and asked what kind of person thinks that "what is happening in Gaza is acceptable."

"What he’s saying is so simple," Kushner said. "He’s saying Jewishness, Jewish identity, Jewish history, the history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering must not be used in a campaign of — as an excuse for — a project of dehumanizing or slaughtering other people.”

Glazer's speech was criticized in an open letter signed by other Jewish members of Hollywood this week. The letter said that they "refute our Jewishness being hijacked" to draw an equivalence between the Nazi regime and Israel's self-defense.

A drone and a missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea yesterday were thwarted by American and coalition forces, U.S. Central Command said.

A coalition aircraft destroyed the drone, while CENTCOM said it destroyed an unmanned surface missile. No damage or injuries were reported.

“It was determined these weapons presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region,” CENTCOM said in a statement. “These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy and merchant vessels.”

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations also reported a small vessel made a suspicious approach to a ship southeast of Salalah, Oman. The smaller vessel, which appeared to hold seven people, followed for 20 minutes before the larger ship fired a warning shot and it left.

The U.S. is calling for an “immediate and sustained ceasefire” in Gaza tied to the release of all remaining hostages in the final draft of a resolution that will soon be put forward at the United Nations' Security Council for a vote.

The language in the resolution is the strongest yet put forward by the Biden administration, which has vetoed other cease-fire resolutions, but continues to link calls for a ceasefire to ongoing discussions between the U.S., Egypt, Israel and Qatar seeking the release of all hostages held by Hamas. 

The final text of the resolution obtained by NBC News expresses “the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides,” to allow for delivery of humanitarian aid “and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”  

An earlier draft of the resolution called for a “temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released.” The U.S. began circulating the draft of this latest resolution as they faced sharp criticism and condemnation from a swath of countries and member states for their third veto at the Security Council since the Oct. 7 attacks.

Satellite images captured yesterday show the construction of a pier to receive aid shipments from World Central Kitchen in the Gaza strip.

More than a third of all buildings or 88,868 structures, have been damaged in the Gaza Strip, according to an assessment by the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).

UNOSAT said it collected high-resolution satellite imagery last month and had used this to determine that almost 20,000 more structures had been destroyed since the last assessment in January.

In total, 35% of all buildings have been damaged, almost 32,000 have been identified as destroyed, and another 16,908 severely damaged, it added.

European Union leaders will call for a sustainable cease-fire in Gaza at their summit in Brussels today, the bloc's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said today.

“Today the Council goes much further” than in previous months, he said before the summit. “Asking for a sustainable cease-fire, certainly asking also for the freedom of hostages, but showing a strong concern for the situation of the people in Gaza, which is unacceptable.”

Borrell called on Israel to make sure more aid reaches Gaza and said he hoped E.U. leaders would do the same.

“They are starving. So I hope that the council will send a strong message to Israel, stop blocking, stop preventing the food to come into Gaza and take care of the civilians,” he said. “Certainly Israel has the right to defend, (but) not to revenge.”

At least 65 people died in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the enclave's Health Ministry said today, bringing the total number of dead since Israel launched its military campaign following Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack to 31,988.

It added that more than 74,000 people have been injured.

Many more bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Smoke billows from buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza, yesterday.

Israel has secured a trove of intelligence on Hamas during its military offensive in Gaza, giving it a detailed picture of the internal workings of the militant organization, according to an administration official, an intelligence official, a congressional source, an Israeli official and a former U.S. official.

The intelligence has been gleaned from hard drives, cellphones, laptops, maps and other material seized during Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, as well as electronic eavesdropping conducted by the U.S., the sources said.

The information obtained by the Israel Defense Forces includes extremely detailed information about Hamas’ leadership, command and control, and communications, an intelligence official said. 

“They have more understanding and intelligence on Hamas than they ever had before,” said Matthew Levitt, a former senior official in the Treasury and State departments and now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Read the full story here.

Blinken met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi today to review progress in the cease-fire talks, Sissi’s office and the U.S. State Department said.

Sissi also stressed the need for a truce to address the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and warned of the dangers of a military operation in Gaza's southernmost Rafah, where more than half the enclave’s population of around 2.3 million people is now sheltering, pressed against the Egyptian border.

The meetings came after Blinken, who is on his sixth tour of the Middle East since October, met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

TEL AVIV — More than 50 Palestinian gunmen have been killed in the past day during an ongoing raid at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Israeli military said today.

It said more than 140 fighters had been eliminated as it carried out what it called a  “precise operational activity” at the compound. “Terrorist infrastructure and weapons storage facilities” were also located at the hospital, it added. 

The IDF launched the raid on the hospital, once considered Gaza’s main medical facility, in the early hours of Monday, saying it had learned the hospital was being used as a Hamas command center. Israeli forces also raided the hospital in mid-November. 

Gaza’s Health Ministry has said that around 30,000 people, including patients, medical staff and displaced people, are sheltering at the facility.

In cities across the country, highways have been blocked, trains have been delayed and sections of college campuses have been shut down by hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets.  

They’re protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Members of the movement say the size of the demonstrations is a response to the killing of more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. 

Pro-Israel groups, meanwhile, are pushing Congress and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate whether any of the protests across the U.S. are getting money from abroad and whether their leaders have ties to Hamas or other terrorist groups. 

To understand which groups are organizing the protests and any potential ties to foreign groups, NBC News reviewed the tax filings and social media posts of the organizations behind the highest-profile demonstrations, as well as court filings, government reports and legislative hearings related to the pro-Palestinian movement in America. 

Read the full story here.

Canada has not approved new arms export permits to Israel since Jan. 8 and the freeze will continue until Ottawa can ensure the weapons are used in accordance with Canadian law, the government said yesterday.

Export permits that were approved before Jan. 8 remain in effect, the office of Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement.

Canada’s Parliament passed a non-binding motion Monday on the Gaza conflict, which called on the government to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel.”

“It’s regrettable that the Canadian government is taking a step that undermines Israel’s right to self-defense against Hamas terrorists, who have committed terrible crimes against humanity and against innocent Israeli civilians, including the elderly, women, and children,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X in response to the vote. “History will judge Canada’s current action harshly.”

WASHINGTON — Netanyahu spoke virtually to Republican senators during a closed-door meeting yesterday and found a welcome reception.

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declined a request by Netanyahu to address the Senate Democratic Caucus, a spokesperson for Schumer said, adding: “Sen. Schumer made it clear that he does not think these discussions should happen in a partisan manner. That’s not helpful to Israel.”

The split-screen highlights the polarizing American views of Netanyahu and Israel’s conduct in Gaza, which has led to cracks in what was once rock-solid bipartisan support for Israel’s government. Tensions between Netanyahu and top Democratic leaders are escalating amid the growing and deadly war in the Middle East that began after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Schumer addressed questions about Netanyahu at his weekly news conference yesterday, saying that the Israeli prime minister has only himself to blame for the cracks in U.S. solidarity with his government.

Read the full story here.

The U.S. has submitted a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza tied to the release of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, Blinken said yesterday.

“We hope very much that countries will support that,” he said, according to the State Department’s transcript of the interview which he gave to Saudi Arabian TV channel, Al Haddath. He added that it would send a “strong message.”

Blinken, who is on his sixth tour of the Middle East since October, said that the U.S. stood with Israel and its right to defend itself, but that the focus should be on “the civilians who are in harm’s way and who are suffering so terribly.”

He added that that “gaps are narrowing” in cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas and he thought an agreement was "very much possible,” although he did not expand on why.

Blinken in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, this morning before heading to Cairo.

• Schumer rejects Netanyahu’s request to talk to Democrats as Israeli leader addresses GOP
• Who’s behind the pro-Palestinian protests that are disrupting Biden’s campaign events and blocking city streets?
• Defying Biden, Netanyahu renews pledge to launch Rafah offensive