Deal brokered to get medicine to hostages and more aid for Gaza

JERUSALEM — The United Nations is expressing renewed concerns about death from disease and famine. Among the most vulnerable are the estimated 1.1 million children trapped in the war-ravaged enclave.

“Children at high risk of dying from malnutrition and disease desperately need medical treatment, clean water and sanitation services, but the conditions on the ground do not allow us to safely reach children and families in need,” UNICEF Director Catherine Russell said. “The lives of children and their families are hanging in the balance.”

Mohamed Yazji is praying the war will end soon.

In October, his mother was killed in an airstrike and his father disappeared. Mohamed, 13, is doing the best he can to care for seven siblings, including his sister Toleen, who’s just months old.

After fleeing northern Gaza and moving several times, the siblings now call a small tent in the southern Gazan city of Rafah home.

The responsibility is weighing on Mohamed. “I do not know what to do,” he said. “It’s been 100 days, and each day it is more difficult than the one before.”

Nine-year-old Iyas, unable to see or speak, expresses his pain through muted whimpers and cries. NBC News first met Iyas in October at the Mabarit Rahme Orphanage in Gaza City, where nearly two dozen children, many with severe disabilities, were living. As northern Gaza grew more dangerous, the orphanage staff moved the children south. Some, including Iyas, are now sheltering in a garage in Rafah.

Having debilitating complex needs, Iyas requires regular medication and treatment. But, with only limited medical care, his condition is worsening.

"We’re telling the world that things are getting worse and worse. Our needs are growing, and we can’t meet them,” said Abdullah Mohamed, Iyas’ caretaker. “We could lose Iyas at any moment.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is expected to announce the labeling of the Houthi rebels as a "specially designated global terrorist group" as soon as tomorrow, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the decision. The move follows U.S. strikes targeting the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen in response to a series of attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. 

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said today the U.S. continues to reserve the right to take further action against the Houthis and called on countries with influence in Tehran to make the issue a priority.

"The entire world rejects wholesale the idea that a group like the Houthis can basically hijack the world as they are doing,” Sullivan said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And so we want to work with countries across the board, countries who are allies and partners, countries who are not, in the common interest to get this to stop.”

The Houthis had been designated as both a "foreign terrorist organization" and a "specially designated global terrorist group" during the Trump administration, but they were removed from both lists under Biden in response to concerns over the repercussions for humanitarian groups working in Yemen.

The Biden administration is not expected to relabel the group as a foreign terrorist organization, and the sanctions associated with designation as a specially designated global terrorist group do not ban providing “material support” or restrict travel that would have a lesser impact on aid groups’ efforts.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said today that the bodies of 158 people killed in Israeli strikes have been taken to hospitals in the past 24 hours, bringing the war’s overall death toll to 24,285. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but it says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children.

Senior U.N. officials recently warned that Gaza faces widespread famine and disease if more aid is not allowed in. While they did not directly blame Israel, they said aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process and continuing fighting throughout the territory — all of which is largely under Israel’s control.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said U.N. agencies and their partners “cannot effectively deliver humanitarian aid while Gaza is under such heavy, widespread and unrelenting bombardment.” At least 152 U.N. staffers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.

Israeli officials say they have placed no limits on humanitarian aid and have called on the U.N. to provide more workers and trucks to accelerate delivery.

Israel completely sealed off Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and relented only under U.S. pressure. The U.S. and the U.N. have continued to push Israel to ease the flow of aid.

There is a "fairly serious and intensive discussions in Qatar about the possibility for another deal" between Israel and Hamas, Adm. John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, said at a news briefing today. 

"I don't want to get ahead of where we are, but we are having, I would say, very fairly serious and intensive discussions in Qatar about the possibility for another deal," Kirby said.

Kirby also said that while the images coming out of Gaza are "heartbreaking," Israel "has a right to defend itself." The U.S. is encouraging Israel to "shift to this new phase" of its military operation to defend itself "as surgically and as precisely as possible to minimize those casualties," he said.

A Palestinian man said Israeli soldiers used him as a human shield during a West Bank raid.

The IDF denied the claim, saying a riot broke out in the town of Dura, where 100 people threw Molotov cocktails at soldiers, "who responded with riot dispersal means and live fire."

“An assailant who hurled a Molotov cocktail at the forces was killed, and additional hits were identified," the IDF said in a statement.

The IDF also addressed a video of the incident, saying it showed a soldier arresting a suspect, not using him as a human shield.

The crisis in the Red Sea poses serious risks to oil flows and prices could change quickly if tensions lead to a major supply disruption in the Middle East, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth told CNBC.

“It’s a very serious situation and seems to be getting worse,” Wirth said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Wirth said he was surprised that U.S. crude oil was trading below $73 a barrel, because the “risks are very real.”

“So much of the world’s oil flows through that region that were it to be cut off, I think you could see things change very rapidly,” Wirth said.

Chevron has continued transporting crude through the region as it works closely with the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Wirth said. He cautioned that the situation is evolving.

“We really have to watch very carefully,” he said.

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Yossi Sharabi and Itai Svirsky, two Israeli hostages who had been held by Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack, have died, according to Be’eri kibbutz and the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

"Yossi Sharabi (53) was a loving and devoted father and husband, a real family man with a big heart. A kind soul, he was caring and known for his dedication to all those around him," the two groups said in a statement, adding that Sharabi's brother Eli is still being held hostage.

In a second statement, the groups said: “We share in the profound grief of the Svirsky family. This loss is unfathomable for the families. Everything must be done to bring the living home safely and the murdered for proper burial."

Video Hamas released yesterday purported to show the bodies of the two hostages, but the Israeli military initially said it could not confirm their deaths, Reuters reported.

Thanks to mediation efforts by Qatari and French officials, Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to deliver medicine and humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip in exchange for getting medication to Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity.

Majed bin Mohammed Al-Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced that medications are expected to leave Doha tomorrow en route to Egypt, in preparation for their transport into Gaza.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Saudi Arabia is “incredibly concerned for regional security” in the Middle East, the country’s foreign affairs minister said today.

“We think the priority needs to be de-escalation in the Red Sea and the wider region,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said at the World Economic Forum.

He added that the kingdom could recognize Israel, “but that could only happen through peace for the Palestinians through a Palestinian state.”

Calling for a cease-fire, he said, “We need to focus on the immediate crisis, and the immediate crisis is the situation for the Palestinians in Gaza.”

Saudi Arabia has not seen “any real sign that any strategic objectives that Israel has set are coming any closer,” he added.