Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu equated those talking about the "day after Netanyahu" to people referring to the establishment of a Palestinian state, following a question today about NBC News' report on the U.S. officials hoping to create a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia in exchange for a two-state solution.

The prime minister said the current conflict is not about the absence of a Palestinian state but the "existence of the state of Israel," adding that areas in the region that Israel has vacated have continued hostilities.

"With or without the settlement, the State of Israel must have security control over the entire territory," Netanyahu said. "This conflicts with the idea of sovereignty. I also say this to the U.S. A  prime minister in Israel should be able to say ‘no’ even to our best friends, that's how I drive."

HuffPost reported last week that U.S. officials were concerned about a proposed U.S. plan to establish relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel by leveraging some assistance to Palestinians. A National Security Council spokesperson denied the report at the time.

NBC News reported on the framework today, with one former U.S. official saying that Saudi Arabia’s insistence that any deal bring with it a realistic pathway to a Palestinian state would be seen as contentious among Netanyahu's right-wing coalition. Two Israeli officials also told NBC News that the idea is too premature for the Israeli public to consider, as the nation is still reeling from Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and waiting for more than 100 hostages to return home.

Children in Gaza and their families are “suffering some of the most horrific conditions I have ever seen,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said in a statement.

“Since my last visit, the situation has gone from catastrophic to near collapse,” Chaiban said today, having concluded a three-day visit to Gaza.

The director added that the current conflict in Gaza is “a war on children” as 70% of the people killed are reported to be women and children, calling the enclave “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.”

“The killing of children must cease immediately,” he said.

Chaiban also called on lifting restrictions on the kinds of aid that are allowed to enter the city, saying the distribution of aid “is a matter of life and death.” He also urged their access to northern Gaza, where the information available to humanitarian agencies is highly restricted.

“We cannot wait any longer for a humanitarian ceasefire to end the daily killing and injuring of children and their families, enable the urgent delivery of desperately needed aid and the safe and unconditional release of the two remaining Israeli children still held hostage in Gaza,” he said in his statement. “This cannot go on.”

A “near-total” blackout of internet and mobile services continued for about 120 hours in Gaza, a London-based internet advocacy group said.

The six-day disruption set a record for the longest sustained telecoms outage since Oct. 7, NetBlocks said in a post on X yesterday.

According to the live metrics the group posted, the internet connectivity has dropped drastically in the whole enclave, from nearly 100% in most regions to 6% to 43%.

Sitting next to the photo of Hamas' youngest hostage, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Israelis can't think about peace talks until they know that they won't be attacked by their neighbors again.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Herzog said Kfir Bibas turned 1 in custody today.

Three months ago, he was kidnapped from his kibbutz, Nir Oz, along with his 4-year-old brother, Ariel, and their parents, Shiri and Yarden.

"His whereabout are known," Herzog said, adding that they know Kfir and his family "are going through hell."

Herzog said that while people in Israel "do not shy away from the fact that the Palestinians are our neighbors," the average Israeli is not thinking about peace agreements because they want to know if they can be promised "real safety" in the future.

"Every Israeli wants to know that he will not be attacked in the same way from north or south or east," he added.

TEL AVIV — Relatives of Kfir Bibas, who was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, gathered with supporters in Tel Aviv's "Hostage Square" today to mark his first birthday without him as he remains captive in Gaza, along with his 4-year-old brother, Ariel, and their parents, Shiri and Yarden Bibas.

Dozens of orange balloons were released into the sky, some with "Happy birthday" messages and hearts scrawled on them, while performers sang songs, including The Beatles' "Let It Be," in Hebrew.

Shiri Bibas' cousin, Yifat Zailer, said she was devastated that Kfir would be spending his first birthday in captivity. "I didn't know it's even possible to feel this way. I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm depressed. I'm anxious. I'm worried," Zailer, 37, told NBC News. "This is my every day. Every hour. It's a nightmare. And it doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon."

Hamas said in November, without providing evidence, that Kfir, Ariel and Shiri had been killed in an Israeli bombing, while the Israeli Defense Forces said the claims were unverified and accused Hamas of “psychological terrorism.” Zailer said it felt difficult to hold onto hope without certainty over whether her loved ones were safe.

In an emotional speech delivered to a crowd of supporters, Zailer stressed that there was more than "one way" to see her loved ones released — and the other more than 100 people who remain held hostage. She later expanded on her comments, telling NBC News she believed the best way forward was for Israeli leadership to focus on negotiating a hostage deal with Hamas, rather than on applying military pressure. "They should have done this in the first week, when the whole world wanted to help us," she said, adding that she hoped to see the war in Gaza come to an end.

"We appreciate life, not only war and death," she said. "I have every reason to be mad and say, I want everyone dead. And I'm not. Because I believe in humanity."

TEL AVIV — A nurse who has remained at Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after thousands of people fled the facility this week, says just a handful of medical workers are still there, treating the patients who were unable to escape.

"I never left the hospital despite the bombing that happened. I could not leave the patients," Mohammed Qudaih told NBC News in a WhatsApp message today.

He said Khan Younis' main hospital is now "almost completely empty of the displaced," with only a handful of doctors and nurses remaining to treat the patients who couldn't be transferred. He said they have been working "nonstop" to help the injured, adding: "We could not sleep or eat for a very long time."

NBC News’ team on the ground had reported intense bombardment in Khan Younis and Qudaih said thousands of people had fled Al Nasser to seek refuge further south.

NBC News was not immediately able to independently confirm the situation at the hospital, specifically, and the IDF declined to comment on the situation. Video shared on social media that NBC News geolocated to the hospital appeared to show sounds of gunfire in the area, with people running in the vicinity.

DAVOS, Switzerland— Israel is praying that an emergency shipment brought to the Gaza border through Egypt, in a deal arranged by Qatar and France, will reach hostages held by Hamas in the besieged Palestinian enclave, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday.

“We are praying that all the medication .... will reach them, but that’s only the beginning,” Herzog told the World Economic Forum in Davos, sitting next to a picture of the youngest of the 132 hostages, 1-year-old Kfir Bibas.

Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, repeated his government’s stand that the Gaza war must result in the removal of the ruling Palestinian Islamist faction Hamas, which carried out a shock cross-border rampage in southern Israel on Oct 7.

While saying he was not shying away from the “human tragedy” inflicted on Gaza civilians, Herzog cast the Israeli offensive as a step toward more peaceful relations with the Palestinians in the future, and as bolstering global security.

The Israeli military has indicated to NBC News that it conducted search and rescue operations, including for the bodies of dead hostages, in a cemetery in Gaza.

Asked to respond to claims made by residents in Gaza that Israeli soldiers had desecrated a cemetery in the southern neighborhood of Khan Younis yesterday, the IDF said in a statement that it is "committed to fulfilling its urgent mission to rescue the hostages, and find and return the bodies of hostages that are held in Gaza."

"When critical intelligence or operational information is received, the IDF conducts precise hostage rescue operations in the specific locations where information indicates that the bodies of hostages may be located," the IDF said in the statement, which was issued today. "The hostage identification process, conducted at a secure and alternative location, ensures optimal professional conditions and respect for the deceased. Bodies determined not be those of hostages are returned with dignity and respect."

It added: "If not for Hamas’ reprehensible decision to take Israeli men, women, children and babies hostages, the need for such searches for our hostages would not exist."

The population of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza has almost quadrupled during the war to 1.2 million, the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said today.

“There’s very little info about the north Gaza Strip & access remains highly restricted,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said in a post on X. “In middle areas, overcrowding is claustrophobic, people struggle for food & medicine, feeling cold & damp,” the agency added.

Around 1.9 million people in the enclave have been displaced as of Saturday, according to UNRWA, which added that 150 of its staff have been killed.

Many residents of northern Gaza fled south through designated routes as Israel urged them to flee fighting and bombardment. But strikes have intensified in the south, as the IDF's operation in the north appears to have eased in intensity.