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Israel-Hamas war

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Joe Biden held Israel closer than any American president ever has in the horrific days after the Hamas attacks on October 7.

But more than two months later, following days upon end of Israeli strikes in Gaza that have killed thousands of civilians, unprecedented tensions are widening between the White House and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden accused Israel, for example, of carrying out “indiscriminate” bombing in an off-camera political event this week. He used exceedingly blunt language, which typically causes pushback from Israel’s leaders, who insist they try to spare civilians but accuse Hamas of using innocent Palestinians as cover.

The next big geopolitical question over the war in Gaza is not whether it will isolate Israel internationally — that’s already happened. It’s whether the White House’s firm support for the operation will also alienate the United States from its friends in a way that could severely compromise wider national security goals.

And the unrelenting toll on Palestinians is also increasing the political price that Biden is paying at home for his backing of Israel — and raising doubts about his capacity to invigorate his political coalition ahead of the 2024 election.

This is the sensitive backdrop of a trip to Israel on Thursday by Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who will meet Netanyahu and other key officials following strikingly direct criticisms of the right-wing Israeli coalition from the president.

Read Collinson's full analysis of the US-Israel tensions.

Israel has canceled a planned trip to Qatar by the head of its foreign intelligence service to restart talks on a possible second hostage release deal, a source familiar with the negotiations confirmed to CNN.  

Mossad director David Barnea will not travel to the Qatari capital Doha, where previous talks on the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza have taken place, the source said, confirming a report by Israel's Channel 13 on Wednesday.  

Hamas is being unresponsive to overtures made in recent days to try to restart hostage negotiations, a source familiar with the efforts told CNN, as the US and other mediators try to resurrect talks that would see more hostages who were abducted on October 7 be released from captivity.

On Wednesday, the Israeli prime minister's office said hostage Tal Chimi, 41, had been pronounced dead. The office believes 135 hostages remain in Gaza, 116 of whom are alive. 

Here's what else you need to know:

Biden administration staffers held a vigil in front of the White House on Wednesday to call on President Joe Biden to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

More than three dozen people attended, including political appointees, administration staffers and civil service career staff, with participants wearing sunglasses and masks to conceal their identities.

Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned from his job in October over disagreement with the Biden administration’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war, delivered opening remarks. 

A former administration staffer also read a statement given to him by a group of Palestinian administration officials who did not want to be identified.

The United States has repeatedly blocked ceasefire calls at the United Nations Security Council. Its stance is at odds with most countries, which voted Tuesday to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire at the UN General Assembly.

The group that organized the vigil Wednesday called the violence that has unfolded in Gaza over the last few weeks “unacceptable.”

Last month, more than 700 staffers and political appointees signed a letter calling on the president to support a ceasefire.

Israel visit: US national security adviser Jake Sullivan will visit Israel on Thursday for "extremely serious conversations" about humanitarian aid and the next phase of Israel's military campaign, a US official said. It comes as the White House struggles to square Biden's comments about "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza with its insistence that Israel's "intent" is to limit civilian casualties. Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided, according to a US intelligence assessment.

Israel has canceled a planned trip to Qatar by the head of its foreign intelligence service to restart talks on a possible second hostage release deal, a source familiar with the negotiations confirmed to CNN.  

Mossad director David Barnea will not travel to the Qatari capital Doha, where previous talks on the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza have taken place, the source said.  

Israel’s Channel 13 first reported Wednesday that the Israeli war cabinet, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had called off the trip and that senior Israeli officials would not go to Qatar to restart negotiations. 

CNN has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office about Barnea’s canceled trip. The Mossad answers directly to the Prime Minister. 

Around 240 people, from infants to octogenarians, were taken hostage during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. Dozens have been freed but many more remain missing, presumed to be held by the Palestinian militant organization and other groups in Gaza, following the breakdown of a temporary truce last month. 

The Israeli prime minister’s office believes 135 hostages remain in Gaza, 116 of whom are alive. 

Formal negotiations have not resumed since hostage talks that had been taking place in Doha broke down earlier this month. 

But Israel, the United States and Qatar have continued to discuss ways to try to jump start the discussions, multiple sources said. “We never stopped,” one source familiar with the talks said. 

Families of some of the Israeli hostages were outraged by the decision to cancel Barnea's trip and demanded answers. “We are fed up with the indifference and deadlock,” they said in a statement. 

Tamar Michaelis, Kaitlan Collins, and Katie Bo Lillis contributed to this report.

Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza in its war with Hamas since October 7 have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment.

The assessment, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it, says that about 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided. The rest have been precision-guided munitions, the assessment says.

Unguided munitions are typically less precise and can pose a greater threat to civilians, especially in such a densely populated area like Gaza. The rate at which Israel is using the dumb bombs may be contributing to the soaring civilian death toll.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden said Israel has been engaged in “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.

Asked for comment on the assessment, IDF spokesperson Nir Dinar told CNN, “We do not address the type of munitions used.”

Maj. Keren Hajioff, an Israeli spokesperson, said on Wednesday that “as a military committed to international law and a moral code of conduct, we are devoting vast resources to minimizing harm to the civilians that Hamas has forced into the role of human shields. Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza.”

But experts told CNN that if Israel is using unguided munitions at the rate the US believes they are, that undercuts the Israeli claim that they are trying to minimize civilian casualties.

Read the full story.

A doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza claims staff and patients were abused by Israeli soldiers after they were taken from the premises to a military screening center nearby.

The doctor, who declined to be named out of fear for his safety, told CNN in a telephone interview that dozens of men at the hospital had complied with an order from the Israeli military on Tuesday to form a line outside the facility.

They were then led about 500 meters away to a what he called a "filtration military camp" in the Al-Birawi area on the outskirts of Beit Lahia. 

At that location, he told CNN, they were ordered to remove their clothes and given blue overalls. They were handcuffed and sorted into groups based on their perceived threat level, the doctor claimed.  

He claimed the detainees were physically and verbally abused while handcuffed. At one point, the doctor said, when clashes broke out, Israeli soldiers had taken cover behind the detainees. 

The doctor’s claims cannot be verified.

CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces for comment on how staff, patients and others at Kamal Adwan were processed after leaving the hospital. 

The doctor said that after several hours, the detainees — numbering about 1,000 people —were released and instructed to head toward specific areas in southern Gaza.  

Gunfire injured several of the group, he said, as they walked south.

CNN received the same response from the IDF regarding several separate instances about their operations in Gaza.

The White House on Wednesday struggled to square President Joe Biden’s comments to donors that Israel’s offensive in Gaza was "indiscriminate" with the administration’s continued insistence that Israel’s “intent” is to limit civilian casualties.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked multiple times by reporters about Biden's blunt claim Tuesday that Israel was beginning to lose global support in its war against Hamas because of the “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.

Kirby repeatedly emphasized that the Biden administration sees Israel’s “intent” to minimize civilian deaths, despite the president saying Israel was not being deliberate and careful. 

Asked by CNN’s MJ Lee why the White House insists on saying Israel has the “intent” to minimize civilian casualties, Kirby responded that “sometimes in war… the best-laid plans don’t get executed exactly the way you want.”

There was “a clear intent by the Israelis — an intent that they have admitted to publicly — that they are doing everything they can to reduce civilian casualties,” Kirby added.

Pressed if the White House was trying to argue that Israel was both trying to be deliberate and careful but at the same time bombing indiscriminately in other situations, Kirby repeated his previous talking points. 

“We know they have the intent. We know they're acting on the intent. Civilian casualties continue to happen. And again, we're going to keep urging them to reduce those,” Kirby said.

The spokesperson was also asked about Biden's remarks that he believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to “change… with this government.” 

“The president realizes that Israel is a powerful, vibrant democracy and any change in the government is going to have to be determined by the Israeli people,” Kirby responded. He did not elaborate on what Biden meant by his comment.

About Biden's comments: At a campaign reception Tuesday, Biden said most of the world supported Israel but it was “starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.” He also seemed to admit that Netanyahu acknowledged the bombings.

“It was pointed out to me — I’m being very blunt with you all — it was pointed out to me that — by Bibi — that ‘Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why all these institutions were set up after World War Two to see to it that it didn’t happen again — it didn’t happen again,’” Biden said, according to the official White House transcript of the event.

He also called Netanyahu “a good friend” but said he “has to change and — with this government.”

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan will conduct “extremely serious conversations” with Israeli officials during his visit to Israel this week, the White House said, as the US looks to press Israel to conduct a more “surgical” campaign against Hamas.

Sullivan is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet during the trip, which begins Thursday. He also plans to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

The national security adviser will address the issue of aid to Gaza and the “next phase of the military campaign,” according to John Kirby, the Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council.

Sullivan will discuss with the Israelis “efforts to be more surgical and more precise and to reduce harm to civilians.”

“That is an aim of ours. And the Israelis say it is an aim of theirs,” Kirby said. “But it's the results that count.”

He said the US has concerns about the manner in which Israel is conducting its offensive against Hamas — as demonstrated by President Joe Biden’s remarks to Democratic donors Tuesday — and has raised those with Israeli officials.

“I’m not going to get ahead of the conversations that Jake will be having,” Kirby went on. “But I would like to just say that these are extremely serious conversations and we hope there'll be constructive as well.”

Sullivan is likely to make additional stops in the region, though Kirby declined to say where.

Additional inspection points for humanitarian aid bound for Gaza are helping accelerate shipments through the Rafah border crossing — with the amount of fuel being allowed in to rise by about a third, Egypt said.

The amounts, however, are still far lower than what international aid agencies say is required amid a growing humanitarian crisis exacerbated by overcrowding in makeshift encampments and cold, wet weather.

On Tuesday, Israeli authorities began inspecting humanitarian aid trucks at two crossings between Israel and Gaza, but the trucks must still cross from Egypt through Rafah into the enclave.

The additional inspections should allow 60 to 80 more trucks to enter Gaza every day, said Diaa Rashwan, chair of Egypt's State Information Service.

There was also agreement on increasing the amount of fuel entering the strip daily from 129,000 liters (about 34,000 gallons) to 189,000 liters (about 49,900 gallons), in addition to two domestic cooking gas trucks, he added.