Israel-Hamas war: News on Gaza conflict

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his country would like to see the current truce in the Gaza Strip extended and expressed belief that Israel is of a like mind.

“Its continuation, by definition, means that more hostages will be coming home, more assistance will be getting in,” he told reporters during a NATO press briefing, according to NBC News. “So clearly, that’s something we want. And I believe it’s also something that that Israel wants.”

He signaled he would be approaching the Israeli administration over a potential extension of the truce, which is due to lapse in less than 24 hours.

“I expect to take that up tomorrow when I’m in Israel, meeting with the government, and again, we have other colleagues in the government who are intensely working on that,” Blinken said. The U.S., Egypt and Qatar were central in brokering the agreement, which the U.S. top envoy said has facilitated the release of some hostages and further humanitarian assistance for the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. secretary of state is visiting Israel, the West Bank and the UAE over the course of this week.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ramped up criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has dubbed the “butcher of Gaza,” amid ongoing objections to the Israeli incursion in the enclave.

“Netanyahu, who committed one of the greatest atrocities of the last century in Gaza, has already written his name in history as the ‘butcher of Gaza,'” Erdogan said, in CNBC-translated comments reported by Turkish state agency Anadolu.

Erdogan, a supporter of Palestinian people who has sent convoys of humanitarian aid to the enclave, has heatedly and repeatedly spoken out against Israel for its campaign into the territory, which he accuses of harming civilians locally. He has previously said he could no longer speak to Netanyahu, in light of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu has responded by saying he would not accept being lectured by Erdogan.

CNBC has reached out to the Israeli prime minister’s office for comment.

— Ruxandra Iordache

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has once more called for a two-state solution to the Israel-Hamas conflict on the U.N.-observed International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The event is a “moment to reaffirm their right to live in peace and dignity,” Guterres said on social media.

“It is long past time to move in a determined, irreversible way towards a two-State solution, on the basis of @UN resolutions and international law,” he added.

Guterres has previously urged such a long-term resolution to the war, which would create an independent Palestinian state alongside that of Israel.

— Ruxandra Iordache

U.S. President Joe Biden said that pursuing a path of violence would “give Hamas what they seek,” amid international calls for an extension of the truce between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.

“Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace,” Biden said Tuesday night on social media. “To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.”

He further reiterated the merits of a two-state solution, which would generate an independent Israeli state, as “the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.”

He added, “To make sure Israelis and Palestinians alike live in equal measure of freedom and dignity, we will not give up on working towards that goal.”

A close ally of Israel, which has repeatedly endorsed the country’s right to self-defense, Washington has been increasingly backing efforts for a humanitarian pause and was, alongside Egypt and Qatar, one of three key mediators that brokered the current truce agreement.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Christos Christou, surgeon and international president of Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), said on social media that Israeli forces had carried out an incursion in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Christou said he was just visiting the MSF team at the local Khalil Suleiman hospital when the incident occurred.

CNBC could not independently verify the report. The Israel Defense Forces have yet to comment on such an incursion.

The occupied West Bank is not under Hamas control. Multiple Israeli raids have been reported in the region since the start of the Israel-Hamas wars, raising international concerns that the conflict could spill outside of the Gaza Strip.

A six-truck convoy carrying humanitarian aid has reached U.N. shelters in the Jabalia region, the site of the largest refugee camp in the Palestinian territories, which has been cut off from assistance for nearly 50 days, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency said Wednesday.

UNRWA and other humanitarian groups have been able to more freely receive and distribute aid resources throughout the north of the Gaza enclave — which has suffered under persistent bombardment throughout the Israeli offensive — since the start of the temporary Israel-Hamas truce late last week.

“Buildings have just been cleaved open. A mess of masonry, twisted metal and sheet iron blown everywhere. As we drove through Gaza City it was like a ghost town; all the streets were deserted. The impact of heavy airstrikes and shelling was so visible. Roads are riddled with craters, complicating aid deliveries,” said Thomas White, director of UNRWA Affairs in the Gaza Strip.

More than 70% of the people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced by the Israel-Hamas conflict, UNRWA estimates.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The Palestinian health ministry has resumed providing dialysis services at the Noura Al-Kaabi center in the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas said in a Google-translated Telegram update on Tuesday.

Specialized medical services in the Gaza Strip — particularly in the bombarded north of the enclave — have been disrupted by hostilities and fuel shortages that have depowered critical medical equipment. For weeks, multiple medical complexes in the north of the Gaza Strip have been unable to function in a hospital capacity, as a result, consigning the treatment of injured Palestinian people to the remaining medical facilities in the south of the territory.

The latest truce agreement between Israel and Hamas has allowed humanitarian assistants to bring in and distribute further fuel supplies for critical infrastructure.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Two Thai citizens were among the latest batch of hostages released by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Tuesday, alongside 10 Israeli nationals, the Israel Defense Forces said on Telegram. The captives were released in exchange for 30 Palestinian people who were freed from Israeli jails.

Groups of hostages have been released on a daily basis since the Friday start of a humanitarian pause in fighting, whose latest extension is set to lapse within a day. It remains to be seen whether Israel and Hamas will further prolong the agreement — a key objective of mediator Qatar.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven alliance released a Tuesday statement expressing support for the lengthening of a truce between Israel and Hamas, whose two-day extension is set to expire within a day.

“We support the further extension of this pause and future pauses as needed to enable assistance to be scaled up, and to facilitate the release of all hostages,” the statement said. “We underscore the importance of protecting civilians and compliance with international law, in particular international humanitarian law.”

The coalition praised the extended humanitarian pause agreement as a “crucial step” toward brokering the freedom of hostages and bringing in humanitarian aid into the besieged and resource-deprived Gaza Strip.

The G7 group reunites Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K, the U.S. and the EU. It further urged that all hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas should be released “immediately and unconditionally,” as well as emphasizing Israel’s “right to defend itself and its people, in accordance with international law, as it seeks to prevent a recurrence of the October 7 attacks.”

The statement also called on Yemen’s Houthi militants to cease maritime aggressions and released the detained Galaxy Leader vessel and its crew, seized on Nov. 19.

— Ruxandra Iordache

— Abed Rahim Khatib | Anadolu | Getty Images

— Mustafa Hassona | Anadolu | Getty Images

Israel released 30 more Palestinian hostages in Beitunia, Ramallah, West Bank to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Nov. 28.