What we know
- Israeli forces in heavy disguise raided a hospital in the occupied West Bank this morning, killing three militants who the IDF said were using the hospital as a base to plan terrorist attacks. Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group claimed the trio as members. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the soldiers opened fire inside hospital wards.
- Hamas said it was reviewing a proposed hostage deal after a source familiar with the talks told NBC News that Israeli, Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. officials in Paris had reached a “unified position” on a framework involving a 60-day pause of hostilities in Gaza.
- President Joe Biden said he has made a decision about the U.S. response to the attack that killed three service members in Jordan, though he did not offer any further detail. The response could be multilevel and come in stages, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. One theory about the strike suggests that the drone was able to evade air defenses because it flew in as a U.S. drone was also entering.
- More than 26,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 65,000 have been injured, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead.
- Israeli military officials said at least 220 soldiers have been killed during the ground invasion of Gaza. About 1,200 people were killed and about 240 hostages were taken after Hamas' multipronged attacks on Oct. 7.
- NBC News’ Keir Simmons, Hala Gorani, Raf Sanchez, Matt Bradley and Chantal Da Silva are reporting from the region.
'No human brain can process this': Photojournalist Motaz Azaiza on life after leaving Gaza
Gazan photojournalist Motaz Azaiza opened up about life in the Palestinian enclave after more than 100 days of covering the war and the fear that he may never be able to return home.
Azaiza, who has more than 18 million Instagram followers, announced this month that he was leaving Gaza for refuge in Doha, Qatar — which he described as a difficult decision in an interview today on Al Jazeera's "The Stream." He said that during his coverage of the war, he'd get anonymous calls that made him fearful for his life.
"I spent like more than a month of the war sleeping on the streets to not go to home, even to, to eat, to shower see my family. ... I was worried if maybe if I enter the house they will bomb the house because I was the one causing noise," Azaiza said.
But he vowed to continue making noise after leaving Gaza and keep speaking about what was happening, even as he fears he may never be able to return home.
Azaiza said it is almost worse outside Gaza, as even having clean drinking water inspires guilt.
He said he has lost friends and relatives in the last four months, sometimes even forgetting those who were killed early on in the war. Asked whether any of the images he photographed stick with him, Azaiza said "the most terrifying pictures" were ones he never took.
"No human brain can process this," he said.
Israeli minister who pushed idea of resettling Gaza threatens to quit government over any ‘reckless’ deal
JERUSALEM — A far-right partner in Netanyahu’s coalition threatened to quit the government over any attempt to enter a “reckless” deal with Hamas to retrieve hostages held by the Palestinian militants.
“Reckless deal = dismantling of the government,” Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Jewish Power party posted on X amid media reports that Israel was considering a long-term pause, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, in its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has stressed his commitment to destroying Hamas, whose Oct. 7 cross-border killing and kidnapping spree blindsided Israel, and he argues that the military pressure improves the chances of recovering the 132 hostages.
But at least one member of Netanyahu’s decision-making war Cabinet — former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, whose son and nephew died fighting in Gaza — has cast doubt on the prospects for rescue missions and called for a hostage deal.
That has set off speculation that Netanyahu is under pressure from both his left- and right-wing flanks, spelling a potentially wider shakeup — and perhaps even a snap election.
Jewish Power accounts for six of the 64 seats Netanyahu’s religious-rightist coalition held in the 120-seat parliament before the Gaza war. He has since brought Eisenkot’s 12-seat centrist National Unity party into an emergency Cabinet.
Ben-Gvir and another ultranationalist coalition partner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party, have chafed at their exclusion from the war Cabinet. They have called for no let-up in the offensive and for Israel to resettle Gaza, from which it withdrew in 2005. Netanyahu has ruled out rebuilding Jewish settlements there but says post-war Gaza will be under Israeli security control.
Israeli lawmaker faces possible expulsion over support of South Africa's genocide case
JERUSALEM — An Israeli parliamentary committee has recommended expelling a lawmaker for supporting the South African genocide case against Israel in the U.N. world court.
The Knesset’s House Committee today passed the measure to expel lawmaker Ofer Cassif on a 14-2 vote. The proposal now goes to the full 120-member parliament. Approval would require a 90-vote supermajority.
Cassif is the lone Jewish member of a small predominantly Arab party in parliament called the Joint List.
After today's vote, Cassif said claims that he supports Hamas are a “blatant lie.”
He called himself a victim of “political persecution and silencing.”
In response to South Africa’s case, the International Court of Justice last week called on Israel to take steps to prevent a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It rejected an appeal to order an immediate cease-fire.
Israeli leaders have rejected the accusations, saying the war in Gaza is against Hamas, not the broader civilian populations.
$300,000 allocation from 2023 budget to UNRWA suspended, State Department says
The U.S. will initially suspend $300,000 in funds from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the State Department said today, in the wake of allegations linking 12 UNRWA employees to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
This is the first time the State Department has quantified the U.S. aid that will be affected by the administration's decision to pause financial support. UNRWA is the leading provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The Biden administration has not said when the U.S. will resume funding. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said it will depend on the investigation into the matter and "whatever remedial steps" UNRWA takes.
"We’ve seen the initial steps to accountability and that UNRWA has fired eight of the employees and suspended two others while they conduct the investigation," Miller said. "We are engaging with UNRWA, we are engaging with the United Nations about what those steps ought to look like.”
Miller added that UNRWA's work is critical and that is why the U.N. must take the matter seriously.
The suspended $300,000 in U.S. funds is the last of those already allocated to UNRWA since the start of the fiscal year in October 2023, but hundreds of millions more could potentially be impacted when Congress passes a broader budget.
While the U.S. is operating on a continuing resolution and has provided $121 million to UNRWA so far, as the top government donor to the U.N. agency, the U.S. typically provides somewhere from $300 million to $400 million a year in funding.
NBC News’ Hala Gorani travels with critically ill Gaza refugees aboard a flight from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates, where they will receive treatment.
Path forward on UNRWA funding fuels global debate
As questions loom over allegations that a dozen staffers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the topic of funding the agency and its future has come to the foreground.
The U.S., U.K., Canada and other countries have suspended funding to the agency as UNRWA warns it will run out of money by the end of February. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the U.N., did not say when funding might resume. "We need to see fundamental changes before we can resume providing funding directly to UNRWA," she said.
"We need to look at the organization, how it operates in Gaza, how they manage their staff, and to ensure that people who commit criminal acts, such as these 12 individuals, are held accountable immediately so that UNRWA can continue the essential work that it is doing," Thomas-Greenfield said.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., released a statement urging the U.S. to reconsider its suspension of funding while saying the allegations against the 12 staff members were unacceptable.
“However, we cannot allow millions to suffer because of the actions of 12 people,” Sanders said.
Eylon Levy, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office, accused UNRWA of being a front for Hamas and of covering up the group’s crimes. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has described this as the actions of a small group, noting that it submits a list of hired staff to Israel every year and has not heard specific concerns on staff before this.
The United Nations' leadership said that it has terminated nine of those involved, confirmed that one is dead and said that the organization was working to confirm the identity of two others. An investigation was also immediately launched into the matter.
A group of aid agencies including Oxfam and Save the Children issued a joint statement yesterday urging countries to resume funding to UNRWA, saying the suspension would have serious consequences to the more than 2 million Gazans dependent on UNRWA for survival as civilians are cut off from basic necessities. The agencies encouraged the investigation but also noted that the cut in funding comes after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to act to ensure humanitarian assistance to civilians.
"We are shocked by the reckless decision to cut a lifeline for an entire population by some of the very countries that had called for aid in Gaza to be stepped up and for humanitarians to be protected while doing their job," the statement said.
'UNRWA is a failure': U.N. agency under microscope at House hearing
The House Foreign Affairs Committee's hearing examining UNRWA's mission and operations is under way in Washington.
Three witnesses criticized the agency and said the agency supports terrorism, while a fourth argued the agency is crucial to a population in need.
UNRWA "indoctrinates generation after generation to hate Jews and Israel and prepare for genocide," Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in his opening testimony. "Terror finance is a feature, not a bug,” Goldberg added that UNHCR or the World Food Program would be better suited to support the Palestinian people.
Marcus Sheff, CEO of the international NGO IMPACT-se research and policy institute, which has examined UNRWA's education system for more than two decades, said textbooks taught in UNRWA schools glorify the killing of Jews.
He cited an example from a textbook that referred to a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus near the West Bank city of Ramallah as a “barbecue party.”
UNRWA responded to the House Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry with a January 15 letter from UNRWA’s Washington Representative Office Director William Deere that specifically addressed the allegations about the UNRWA education system.
“UNRWA devotes considerable time and resources to ensuring its teaching reflects U.N. values,” Deere wrote. “The U.N., in any refugee situation across the world, utilizes host country curriculums. This practice is aimed at ensuring students can matriculate into host country educational systems at any level and more broadly participate in the social and economic life of the host country.”
A spokesperson for UNRWA declined to comment beyond the letter.
Mara Rudman, Schlesinger professor at the University of Virginia Miller Center, testified during the House hearing that although UNRWA is not without problems, there is no other organization that could serve as a substitute for it at this time.
Waves of Gazans seen fleeing parts of Khan Younis
Large crowds of displaced Gazans were seen yesterday fleeing on foot sections of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and crossing through an Israeli military checkpoint.
In a series of interviews an NBC News team on the ground conducted with displaced residents along the route, Palestinians said they were heeding Israeli evacuation flyers that instructed them to leave the city's Al Mawasi neighborhood because of the intensity of hostilities there.
NBC News' footage showed a group of several hundred — if not more — young children, elderly people, men and women, many of whom carried their belongings in garbage bags and held sleeping bags over their heads. One older woman was transported in a hospital bed that had been strapped onto a donkey cart.
Locals described being "humiliated" by Israeli troops who they said were patrolling the evacuation route, which was lined with tanks.
Rima Al-Najar, a displaced woman who had been sheltering in a school, described gunfire and violence while fleeing the area.
“We were told to leave Khan Younis, there were tanks all the way, and it was crowded with young men and older people. The Jewish army called on young men to take off their clothes, and search them,” she said.
“The young men were running, the Israeli army opened fire, then a helicopter opened fire as well, and there were two injuries. The children were terrified, all the people were tense,” Al-Najar added.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the residents' accounts.
Um Akram, a displaced mother who had also been staying in a school, told NBC News that she struggled to walk such long distances because of her weak knees.
Once she reached the checkpoint, she said, "they hardly let us cross.”
Biden discussed U.S. response to Jordan attack with his team before saying he'd made a decision
Before departing the White House this morning, President Joe Biden had discussions with members of his national security team regarding the U.S. response to the drone attack that killed three American troops in Jordan, according to a U.S. official.
The president later told reporters that he had made a decision about how to respond to the attack. The official said the president’s decision took shape over the course of his discussions with advisers in the three days since the attack. However, no details have been released about what the president's decision is or what exactly the U.S. response will entail.
During a Situation Room meeting yesterday, Biden and his advisers analyzed and deliberated over response options, the official said.
Palestine Red Crescent Society says headquarters still surrounded by violence
Fighting continues around Al-Amal Hospital and the headquarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Khan Younis.
At least one displaced woman was killed and nine injured by shrapnel, the PRCS said in a post today on X. The organization posted a video clip of what appeared to be a gymnasium on its grounds, with audible shelling outside. Blankets and sheets had been hung inside to create makeshift rooms for displaced people.
According to the organization, some of the violence has reached the headquarters' front yard area and sparked fires in tents within the confines of its grounds.
"We deeply worry for the safety of our teams, the wounded, the sick, and thousands of displaced people in the building," the PRCS said in another post.
NBC News has not independently verified the details of the PRCS updates. The IDF said in a statement that it did not operated inside of Al-Amal Hospital or request its evacuation.
The IDF said last week that it had received information that militants were operating in and around Al-Amal Hospital, which is run by the PRCS, and the nearby Nasser Hospital.