What we know
- U.S. retaliatory attacks against Iran-backed militants will be a “campaign” that could last “weeks,” officials told NBC News. The targets are expected to include Iranian targets outside Iran, and the campaign will involve both strikes and cyber operations. Tehran has warned it would respond decisively to any attack on its territory or interests after President Joe Biden said he had decided how to retaliate for the drone strike on a base in Jordan that killed three American service members.
- Hamas' political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said yesterday that he will travel to Cairo to consider a potential new hostage deal. A senior Israeli official told NBC News that the country's war Cabinet has discussed the deal but that it has not yet been put to a vote. Meanwhile, a combative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that he will "not release thousands of terrorists" or take Israeli forces out of the Gaza Strip in any cease-fire.
- The United Nations has warned that the decision of countries to halt funds to UNRWA, the primary aid provider in Gaza, could have catastrophic effects and lead to the collapse of the enclave's humanitarian system. The U.S. is among several countries to have pulled funding for the agency after Israel alleged that aid workers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks.
- More than 26,900 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 65,900 have been injured, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead.
- Israeli military officials said at least 223 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.
Victims of Hamas attack in Israel and their families blame Iran in new federal lawsuit
A group of U.S. citizens filed a federal lawsuit today charging that the Hamas-led massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people and injured thousands more, was “masterminded and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Among the 67 plaintiffs are people who were injured or taken hostage, as well as family members of those who were killed.
“Iran bears direct responsibility for the October 7 Attacks,” according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Indeed, that point is essentially undisputed. The Iranian regime has openly flaunted its motive for aiding the horrors.”
While it’s not clear what role Iran played in the attacks, a former U.S. intelligence and military officer said in October that the sophisticated tactics Hamas used to attack Israel indicated Iran most likely played a significant role in the multipronged assault.
The plaintiffs contend that Iran, the “sworn enemy of Israel and the United States,” used Hamas to sabotage the ongoing diplomatic attempts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Netanyahu spokesperson calls reports on hostage deal framework 'inaccurate'
MSNBC's Katy Tur spoke with Tal Heinrich, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, about the ongoing hostage negotiations and Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.
Heinrich described some reports on a potential framework hostage deal terms as "really inaccurate" but declined to go into detail when asked by Tur.
"We don't really expand publicly about the nature of these talks from international mediators...or the terms that are being discussed for very good reason," Heinrich said. "Human lives hang in the balance."
‘Mercy’ flights provide critically wounded and sick Palestinians a chance to survive
EL-ARISH, Egypt — For 56 critically ill and wounded Gazans, the road to crucial medical care started yesterday on a military airfield in Egypt’s northern Sinai. That is where a plane was parked, awaiting patients driven in on ambulances from area hospitals or from inside Gaza.
Such “mercy” flights are made possible by countries such as the United Arab Emirates, where commercial planes are retrofitted with stretchers and beds to ferry patients on a four-hour trip from Egypt to Abu Dhabi to receive medical care. Yesterday’s flight was the UAE’s 11th humanitarian airlift since the Israel-Hamas war began with the Oct. 7 attacks.
Most of the patients on yesterday’s flight were children with complex fractures and head injuries. A few have chronic illnesses that have been left untreated since the supply of medicine into Gaza slowed to a trickle after the start of the war. The patients are tended to by a team of doctors and nurses who are on the flight with them.
“I remember the first girl that we evacuated in the first plane,” said Dr. Maha Barakat, the UAE’s assistant foreign affairs minister for health. “She had complex fractures and many broken bones. And her mother told us that for the first time in two months, she smiled when we were able to give her painkillers that relieved her of her pain.”
41 National Guard members injured in strike on Jordan base
The National Guard confirmed today that 41 of its members were injured in the drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers Sunday.
The injured service members were from units based in Arizona, California, Kentucky and New York, according to the statement. Of those injured, 27 were able to return to duty, and 14 are being evaluated for follow-up care.
“I echo President Biden and Secretary Austin’s condemnation of this attack,” said Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau. Austin is Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“It will not deter our citizen soldiers from their mission of defending America and its interests.”
South Africa says Israel is already ignoring court ruling order to prevent deaths in Gaza
PRETORIA, South Africa — Israel has ignored the ruling by the U.N.’s top court last week by killing hundreds more civilians in a matter of days in Gaza, South Africa’s foreign minister said today, adding that her country has asked why an arrest warrant for Netanyahu has not been issued in a case South Africa filed at the separate International Criminal Court.
Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said South Africa would “look at proposing other measures to the global community” in a bid to stop Israel from killing civilians.
“I can’t be dishonest. I believe the rulings of the court have been ignored,” Pandor said. “Hundreds of people have been killed in the last three or four days. And clearly Israel believes it has license to do as it wishes.”
The preliminary ruling by the U.N.’s International Court of Justice in South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide against Palestinians in the territory. It stopped short of ordering a cease-fire. It also ruled Israel must urgently get basic humanitarian aid to Gaza and submit a report on steps taken to abide by the ruling within a month.
A top official in South Africa’s foreign ministry has said the country hopes that Friday’s ruling, and whether Israel is abiding by it, will be discussed on a wider level at the U.N.
Israel says it has abided by international law and is doing its best to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza. It says it has killed more than 9,000 militants, and it accuses Hamas of embedding in civilian areas, making it difficult to avoid civilian casualties.
Aunt of former 4-year-old hostage says families asked White House about potential hostage deal
Liz Hirsh Naftali, the great-aunt of former hostage Abigail Edan, told MSNBC today that hostage families were able to ask questions about a potential hostage deal in the works at yesterday's meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
"I think the key questions were about the news that we've been hearing that's being reported — is it accurate? — and are the negotiations as intense as we're told they are?" Naftali said.
Naftali said that Sullivan was not able to offer details but that the meeting offered hostage families some cautious optimism.
"I will just say that for our family, Abigail returning gave us the ability to move forward," Naftali said. "The other hostage families, until their relatives are back, they cannot move forward."
Netanyahu says hostage deal will not come 'at any cost'
A hostage deal outline is in the works, but Netanyahu clarified his "red lines" on X today after reports said the potential framework would include the release of three detained Palestinians per released hostage.
"We are working to obtain another outline for the release of our abductees, but I emphasize not at any cost," he said, according to an NBC News translation. "I have red lines between them: We will not end the war, we will not remove the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we will not release thousands of terrorists."
Netanyahu added that the war will continue as Israel fights for three goals: the return of all hostages, the end of Hamas and assurance that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.
Gaza unemployment near 80%, could take 70 years to return to pre-war economy, U.N. report says
Gaza's postwar recovery could take decades to return to its 2022 levels, which was already a shrinking economy as the majority of its population relied upon aid for essentials, according to a preliminary assessment from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Before the Oct. 7 attacks and the resulting war, gross domestic product per capita shrank by 27% in the Palestinian enclave from 2006 to 2022. Israel withdrew its settlements from the area in 2005 and imposed a blockade two years later.
Assuming the same growth rate postwar, the report estimated it would take Gaza 70 years to restore to its 2022 economy. The unemployment rate has also grown, from 45% in 2022 to 79% in 2023.
But the report noted that Palestinians in Gaza now face "multidimensional poverty" as much of the area becomes uninhabitable, losing civilian infrastructure to provide people with education and basic services.
"If Gaza is to remerge with a viable economy, the military confrontation should end immediately, and reconstruction should begin in earnest and without delay," the report said. "The international community needs to act now before it is too late."
Bloody floors, no pain meds, surrounded by the IDF: Inside Gaza’s last major hospital
Dr. Muhammad Harara is one of just five physicians left in Nasser Hospital, the last major medical facility still functioning in the Gaza Strip. The rest of his colleagues have fled or been killed.
Since the early days of the war, an NBC News crew has followed Harara and his fellow health workers on their hospital rounds, recording how they cope with the gravely injured, the bloodied, the terrified, all while surrounded by Israeli soldiers and tanks.
Harara, 27, whose sharp beard and lean features sit atop rumpled blue scrubs, checks on patients lying on filthy, blood-stained floors, who are increasingly being operated on with little or no anesthetic. Food and painkillers have run out. With the roads around them a battlefield, thousands of people are trapped inside Nasser Hospital, including 850 patients, according to the international charity Doctors Without Borders.
“We lost a lot of people today,” Harara said in the 16th week of the war, his deadpan words wrung of all emotion by weeks of violence. “I feel very, very sad for what happened today.”
Desperate, starving civilians overtook food delivery meant for Nasser Hospital, WHO says
The dire situation throughout Khan Younis was on display as the World Health Organization attempted to deliver food and essential medical supplies to Nasser Hospital.
Trucks were surrounded by starving civilians as staff members tried to explain that the food was meant for the hospital, according to Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO's representative for the Palestinian territories. He said part of the only thing left were the medical supplies as the full truck was taken by "people who were completely desperate and hunger."
The humanitarian space in Gaza is "shrinking," Peeperkorn said, as roughly half of the WHO missions planned for January were denied. Organizations are facing increasing delays, including the checkpoint delay that left the WHO food truck vulnerable to crowds.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the teams on the ground are reporting that staff and patients are averaging about one meal per day as the situation deteriorates.
"The hospital is operating with a single ambulance," he said. "Donkey carts are being used for transporting patients."