April 5, 2024 Israel-Gaza updates

Our live coverage of Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza has moved here.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concerns over reports of Israel's use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

"I am deeply troubled by reports that the Israeli military’s bombing campaign includes AI as a tool in the identification of targets, resulting in a high level of civilian casualties. AI should be used as a force for good to benefit the world; not to contribute to waging war on an industrial level, blurring accountability," Guterres said in a post he shared on X late Friday.

His words come amid intensifying international scrutiny of Israel’s military campaign, after targeted airstrikes killed several foreign aid workers delivering food in the Palestinian enclave.

A recent investigation by online news publication +972 Magazine also revealed that Israel's military has been using artificial intelligence to help identify bombing targets in Gaza, and cited Israeli intelligence officials who had been involved in the alleged program.

When asked about the allegations, a spokesperson for the Israeli military did not dispute the existence of the tool but denied AI was being used to identify suspected terrorists.

Israel has authorized the Erez crossing to be temporarily reopened, but aid shipments are likely to face significant logistical challenges because of just how much destruction there is in northern Gaza, especially to the road infrastructure, according to a CNN analysis of recent satellite imagery.

For the border crossing to be truly functional, authorities or aid agencies will likely need to clear and repair northern Gaza's roads or pave new ones, beyond the immediate crossing complex. 

Several roadways in the crossing complex were bombed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the weeks after the attack. The new satellite images from Maxar Technologies show that further destruction by bombing and bulldozing occurred after the IDF ground invasion began in late October.

Some major roadways in the four towns closest to the crossing — Beit Lahia, Jabalya, Izbat Beit Hanoun and Beit Hanoun — have large craters that span the entirety of their surface. Others, including many side streets, are covered in debris and the remains of large residential buildings. 

The Erez border crossing has been closed since Hamas militants stormed it – and took a number of prisoners from it – during the October 7 attack.

 Israel has yet to say when and what kind of aid it will allow through the crossing. It's also unclear whether the DF will allow for aid distribution in northern Gaza, where they have been ordering all Palestinians to leave for months. 

Oxfam and the United Nations estimate that well over a million Palestinians fled the north to the South, and only about 300,000 Palestinians remain in northern Gaza despite those IDF orders.  

The American founder of a humanitarian aid organization assisting displaced people in Gaza said the situation for humanitarian workers in the enclave is “very unnerving" following the Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staffers.

“To have that pit in your stomach of, 'Am I going to be targeted because I am part of an aid organization, or because this whole deconfliction process isn’t working properly?'” said Arwa Damon, the founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA).

Damon, a former CNN correspondent, described the humanitarian situation as “inexplicably desperate” for the people of Gaza as organizations struggle to safely distribute aid. 

“The minute you are out of your vehicle and they see that you're an aid organization, people swarm you because they have so little and they have zero faith as to whether or not aid is actually going to reach them. So it's complete chaos,” said Damon, speaking from Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a report Friday saying the deadly strike on the WCK aid convoy on Monday was carried out in "serious violation of the commands" and procedures, and "should not have happened."

WCK responded saying the IDF "cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza" and urged for systemic change. WCK also said the IDF acknowledged that the team " followed all proper communications procedures," but were attacked regardless. 

CNN's Niamh Kennedy and Vasco Cotovio contributed reporting to this post.

The United States has warned Iran not to use the Israeli strike in Damascus earlier this week as “a pretext to attack US personnel and facilities,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN on Friday.

The warning was sent in response to a message from Iran, the spokesperson said, without providing details about the contents of the Iranian message.

“As Iran noted publicly, we received a message from them,” the spokesperson said. “We responded by warning Iran not to use this as a pretext to attack US personnel and facilities. We did not ‘ask.’” 

The spokesperson did not provide further information about the US response or how it was conveyed to Iran.

A senior administration official described the US’ warning to Iran as: “Don’t think about coming after us.”

That official told CNN that the US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack by Iran that could come as soon as within the next week, targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s strike that killed top Iranian commanders.

The US received Israel’s report on the deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy in Gaza and is “reviewing it very carefully,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

There are "no plans" for the US to conduct an independent or separate investigation, according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

The Israel Defense Forces fired two of its officers and reprimanded others for their involvement in the strikes, but the WCK charity said Israel could not be trusted to investigate its own errors in Gaza.

Here are other headlines you should know:

• More on the WCK convoy attack: UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that while Israel had admitted mistakes in the killing of the WCK workers, there must be independent investigations and “meaningful” change on the ground. John Kelly, the appointed US representative to the UN, also highlighted the urgent need to protect humanitarian personnel in conflict zones. And the Palestinian ambassador to the UN accused Israel of deliberately targeting the WCK staff. "It took the deaths of foreigners" for the international community to acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 180 days, Ambassador Riyad Mansour said.

• Humanitarian crisis: The International Rescue Committee has issued a warning about the grim situation facing pregnant women and mothers in Gaza. These vulnerable groups are struggling to survive, confronting acute shortages of food, water, and medical care, along with the looming threat of famine, it said. Amid the crisis, the World Health Organization said it completed a “highly complex mission” delivering medical aid to hospitals in northern Gaza on Thursday.
• Potential Iranian attack: The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack that could come as soon as within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official told CNN.
• Pressure on Israel: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged Israel’s government to “quickly implement” its plans to reopen the Erez land crossing and port of Ashdod to allow more aid into Gaza, saying there are “no more excuses.” And Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told CNN of the “frustration” felt within NATO that Israel is “going too far” in Gaza after this week's attack on a WCK aid workers.

US President Joe Biden wrote letters to the President of Egypt and the Emir of Qatar on Friday on the state of hostage talks between Israel and Hamas. He asked the leaders to “secure commitments from Hamas to agree to and abide by a deal,” a senior administration official says. 

The letters come as hostage negotiations are set to resume in Egypt this weekend and will include US and Israeli officials. 

“This basic fact remains true: There would be a ceasefire in Gaza today had Hamas simply agreed to release this vulnerable category of hostages – the sick, wounded, elderly, and young women,” the official said. “Holding these innocent people is outrageous and a reminder as to how this war started in the first place. The onus is on Hamas to release the hostages and bring relief to the people of Gaza through a prolonged ceasefire.” 

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with the families of the hostages at the White House on Monday, the senior official added.

The status of hostage negotiations came up during Biden’s call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. On the call, Biden “made clear that everything must be done to secure the release of hostages, including American citizens, now held by Hamas terrorists for nearly six months.” 

Biden and Netanyahu also discussed the importance of “fully empowering Israeli negotiators to reach a deal.” 

CIA Director William Burns, Israel’s Mossad Director David Barnea and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar will meet in Cairo this weekend, a source familiar with the talks and an Israeli government official source previously told CNN.

The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack within the next week by Iran targeting Israeli or American assets in the region in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.

Senior US officials currently believe that an attack by Iran is “inevitable” – a view shared by their Israeli counterparts, that official said.

The two governments are furiously working to get in position ahead of what is to come, as they anticipate that Iran’s attack could unfold in a number of different ways – and that both US and Israeli assets and personnel are at risk of being targeted.

A forthcoming Iranian attack was a major topic of discussion on President Joe Biden’s phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

As of Friday, the two governments did not know when or how Iran planned to strike back, the official said.

A direct strike on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration is bracing for, as it would guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East.

Such a strike could lead to the Israel-Hamas war broadening into a wider, regional conflict – something Biden has long sought to avoid.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told CNN of the “frustration” felt within NATO that Israel is “going too far” in Gaza after this week's attack on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy that killed seven aid workers.

“Yesterday I was together with most of my Western foreign minister colleagues at the NATO meeting in Brussels and I could really feel that the frustration, even among those who have been most supportive of Israel until now, is that this is really going too far,” he told CNN’s Isa Soares on Friday.

Israel’s internal report into the aid convoy strikes that was published Friday, “brought home to us how easy it is for the Israeli forces to fire at people they believe to be or think are terrorists on what seems to be not very convincing evidence, to put it mildly," the foreign minister said.

“The only good thing about this tragic situation [is that] it seems that the level of critique and messaging from the entire world, including some of Israel’s closest allies, is now being stepped up, that you cannot continue to behave like this," Barth Eide said. 

He went on to call for a ceasefire. "And from there on humanitarian aid and eventually a political solution," the minister said.