May 7, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military operation in Rafah serves the twin goals of returning the hostages held in Gaza and eliminating Hamas. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said the Israeli military’s operations in Rafah will “continue and expand as necessary.”
• The last remaining operational hospital in Rafah has issued a call for all available medical teams to help with the constant influx of injured patients arriving at the medical facility. 
• The remaining field hospitals in the area of an eastern Rafah hospital that was evacuated Monday will only be able to provide less than one-third of its offered services, according to the hospital medical director.

• Hamas’ latest written response in ongoing ceasefire negotiations said the group intends to offer Israel the corpses of dead hostages in addition to hostages who are still alive, during the first phase of the truce, according to sources familiar with the talks. A senior representative of Hamas says the proposed deal it agreed to includes the “withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip.”
• CIA Director Bill Burns returned to Cairo on Tuesday for more talks, a source familiar with the meetings told CNN, as the US and other mediators look to revive an effort to bring about a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.

• The US finished the offshore construction of the temporary humanitarian pier system, also known as JLOTS, meant to get aid into Gaza, according to the Defense Department.
• US National security spokesperson John Kirby stressed it is “absolutely critical” that Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza after Israel’s military seized control of crossings at Kerem Shalom and Rafah, blocking two vital points for aid into the Strip. According to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, Israel “has committed to reopen” the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday.

• Biden on Tuesday opened a speech on antisemitism at the US Capitol honoring the victims of the Holocaust and warning that the memories of that genocide might be sliding from the public's perception.
• Biden drew connections between the Holocaust and the October 7 attack on Israel and pointed to a "ferocious surge" in antisemitism in the US since the October 7 attack, while offering a sweeping call for a return to the nation's values.

• Students in the Spanish capital set up a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at the Complutense University of Madrid on Tuesday. Like many of their counterparts around the world, the several dozen students are asking the university to divest from Israel-linked businesses and entities, as well as requesting the Spanish government cut diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, according to a CNN en Español team on the ground.

The remaining field hospitals in the area of an eastern Rafah hospital that was evacuated Monday will only be able to provide less than one-third of its offered services, according to the hospital medical director.

Al Homss confirmed the hospital is now out of service including care for nearly 400 kidney dialysis patients. He said after it closed, vandalism started that led to the theft of fuel that was running the generators.

Hospital crews didn't leave until all patients were evacuated, he said.

“They were afraid for their lives, and afraid of being killed because of previous instances where Israelis abuse the patients and medical crews,” Al-Homss said.
“Now, with this hospital being out of service, the remaining field hospitals won't be able to account for 30% of the services Abu Yusuf Najjar provided.”

 Al-Homss said that over the past 48 hours, more than 56 people in the area had been killed, of whom 40% were children.

CNN is unable to confirm his estimate.

Rockets were fired from the Rafah area in the Gaza Strip Tuesday toward Kerem Shalom and the Re’im area of southern Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Six projectiles were fired toward Kerem Shalom, the IDF said. 

“The projectiles that were fired toward the area of the Kerem Shalom Crossing are preventing the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The IDF will continue to operate to enable the necessary security conditions to re-open the Kerem Shalom Crossing,” the IDF said.

The Kerem Shalom crossing, one of the main conduits for humanitarian aid into Gaza, was closed Sunday after a rocket attack nearby killed four Israeli soldiers. It is due to reopen Wednesday, according to the US State Department.

The IDF said about 12 projectiles were also identified crossing from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza into the area of Re'im earlier today. The IDF Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted five of the projectiles and the rest fell in an open area. No injuries were reported.

“Within less than an hour, IAF aircraft struck the launcher that fired toward Israel.”

When Hamas declared on Monday evening that it has “agreed” to a ceasefire deal, it caught many off guard. Israel was evidently not expecting it, and it was not even immediately clear what Hamas had agreed to.

Hamas’ announcement was initially met with jubilation in Gaza and cautious optimism by regional leaders after it was presented as an acceptance of an Israeli proposal. But Israel issued what looked like a holding position, saying that Hamas’ position was “far from” meeting its demands.

And it pressed on with a controversial military operation in Rafah, southern Gaza, conducting air strikes on Monday and seizing control of the Palestinian side of a border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday morning amid intense pressure from his hardline coalition to go all-in.

At the same time, Israel said that it would send a delegation to Cairo to assess Hamas’ position. The CIA director, Bill Burns, also arrived in Cairo on Tuesday morning.

The US has finished the offshore construction of the temporary humanitarian pier system, also known as JLOTS, meant to get aid into Gaza, according to the Defense Department.

“As of today, the construction of the two portions of the JLOTS, the floating pier and the Trident pier, are complete and awaiting final movement offshore,” announced Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh at a briefing.

However, due to weather, the US military is unable to move the pier into position to be anchored ashore in Gaza, according to Singh.

“Today there are still forecasted high winds and high sea swells, which are causing unsafe conditions for the JLOTS components to be moved, so the pier sections and military vessels involved in its construction are still positioned at the Port of Ashdod,” said Singh.

But Singh added that the US is loading aid meant to be unloaded at the temporary pier on the ship MV Sagamore, which is currently in Cyprus. 

“The Sagamore is a cargo vessel that will use the JLOTS system, and will make trips between Cyprus and the offshore floating pier as USAID and other partners collect aid from around the world,” said Singh.

CNN first reported last week that the Sagamore will be the first vessel used to transport the aid from Cyprus to the pier, but US officials hope that aid groups will eventually begin contracting their own vessels to deliver the aid. 

Singh also said that while the pier's movement would depend on weather and security conditions, the Defense Department hopes to have it in position “later this week.” 

A senior representative of Hamas says the proposed deal it agreed to includes the “withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip.”

Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, told a news conference in Beirut that the proposed deal would secure "the main issues of the demands of our people and our resistance in stopping the aggression permanently, the withdrawal of the occupation from the entire Gaza Strip, the free return of the displaced, relief, reconstruction, ending the siege, and achieving a real and serious exchange deal.”

Hamdan said the proposed deal's three phases would be continuously implemented, claiming that Israel wanted “to complete one stage, in which it would achieve the release of its prisoners held by the resistance, and then resume its aggression against the Gaza Strip.”

Referring to Egypt and Qatar, Hamdan said that “the mediator brothers, if their proposal is approved…will have a role in completing all stages of the agreement, and putting pressure on the occupation to adhere to its provisions and implement them.”

Israel has said there are significant gaps between what Hamas has agreed to and what was on the table in previous rounds of negotiations. In a statement Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Hamas proposal “was designed to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah. That did not happen.”

Netanyahu said that “as the war cabinet unanimously determined, the Hamas proposal was very far from Israel's core demands.”

The White House said Tuesday that a close reading of Israel and Hamas’ separate negotiating positions on a hostage deal indicates the two sides should be able to strike an agreement.

National security spokesman John Kirby's comment was a fresh sign of optimism about the state of hostage talks after they appeared to stall Monday. CIA Director Bill Burns was in Cairo Tuesday for continued discussions.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller walked back his comment that Israel's seizure of the Rafah crossing looked like a "prelude" to a major military operation, saying, “we don’t know if it’s a prelude or not.”

“They have described it as limited. It looks at this (point) to not be the major operation that you would see say, for example, if they entered the neighborhoods where they ordered the evacuations,” Miller said when asked about his earlier comments at the State Department briefing.

“They have made clear that they intend to launch a major military operation and we have made clear that we are opposed to that,” Miller added.

New satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies shows how the area near to the Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing has changed in the hours since Israel's operation there. The images were taken this afternoon at 2:26 p.m. local time. 

One image shows a fire at the Arab Mall in eastern Rafah, just a mile north of the Egypt-Gaza crossing. It's unclear what started the fire, but there have been Israeli military strikes in the area. 

In northern Rafah, the area filled with tents from refugees appears to remain largely unchanged from days past. 

On the Egyptian side of the border, aid trucks that had gathered at the Egyptian border complex have since been moved into a buffer zone near the Gaza border. In recent months, Egypt worked to bulldoze the area and build a new wall along its Gaza border.

The roadway connecting the Egypt-Gaza border is also seen sealed on the Egyptian side by large cement walls. Egypt has periodically sealed this roadway section at the border since the start of the Israeli incursion into Gaza.