Israel-Gaza live updates: New video claims to show American hostage in Gaza
Israel launched a retaliatory strike against Iran on Friday, a senior U.S. official told ABC News. The strike followed Iran's April 13 attack, when Tehran sent a volley of more than 300 drones and missiles toward targets in Israel, according to Israeli military officials.
Iran's attack came more than six months after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, after which the Israeli military began its bombardment of Gaza.
Latest Developments
Apr 24, 12:29 PM
New video claims to show American hostage in Gaza
A video showing a man who identifies himself as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 24-year-old American who was captured at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, was released Wednesday on a Hamas-run Telegram channel.
According to the video, his left arm has been amputated at the forearm. Goldberg-Polin suffered a serious injury to that arm before being captured, his parents told ABC News in an interview in Israel just days after the attack.
In the heavily edited video, he denounces Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to secure the release of the hostages.
It is unclear when the video was filmed. In the video, he makes reference to a holiday and says he has been held for nearly 200 days.
"Hirsch's cry is the cry of all the abductees - their time is up! The State of Israel has no more time to waste, the abductees must be put first, without them the State of Israel will have no resurrection and no victory. All must be brought home - the living for rehabilitation, the murdered for a dignified burial," a spokesperson for the Hostage Release Center said in a statement Wednesday.
Apr 24, 12:06 PM
Gaza could surpass famine thresholds in 6 weeks, WFP official says
The World Food Programme warns that famine in the Gaza Strip is getting closer by the day and it could surpass famine thresholds of food insecurity, malnutrition and mortality in six weeks, according to an official.
"We estimate 30% of children below age of two is now acutely malnourished or wasted, and 70% of the population in the north is facing catastrophic hunger. There is reasonable evidence that all three famine thresholds -- food insecurity, malnutrition, mortality -- will be passed in the next six weeks," said Gian Carlo Cirri, the director of the World Food Programme's Geneva office.
"The conflict makes it so difficult and sometimes impossible to reach affected people that as humanitarians we usually don't -- for humanitarian principles, to abide to those principles -- we don't call for ceasefire. On these two contexts, we have no other choice than asking for a ceasefire. This is the only way for us as humanitarians, as World Food Programme, to access these people that are in acute needs."
-ABC News' Will Gretsky
Apr 23, 5:29 PM
Highest number of trucks since Oct. 7 entered Gaza Tuesday: UNRWA
More than 310 aid trucks entered Gaza Tuesday, the highest number of aid vehicles that have entered Gaza since the Israel-Hamas conflict began, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"It needs now to be sustained & further increased," the agency said in a statement.
The UNRWA, which has been critical of the aid effort in Gaza, reiterated its calls for increased access for humanitarian groups to prevent famine in the region.
-ABC News' Will Gretsky
Apr 23, 3:22 PM
State Department: Time to move past 'counting trucks' in Gaza
Israel has dramatically increased the flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza, allowing on average 200 aid trucks a day, with some days as many as 400 trucks getting through, according to a top U.S. official.
Now, the focus needs to move beyond "counting trucks" and instead look to ensure the right supplies are being distributed throughout Gaza, according to David Satterfield, the State Department’s special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues.
"Our first priority was -- because it had to be -- averting famine," Satterfield told reporters on Tuesday. "But we now need to move on beyond that goal to addressing the true needs: sanitation, availability of medicines, availability of potable water, the specialized care required for these vulnerable populations."
The United Nations this week is conducting a more detailed assessment on the needs for the civilian population, Satterfield said.
He said the U.N. needs more trucks that are cleared by the Israeli military to operate inside Gaza. He also said the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel and an additional northern crossing must become accessible.
"Our work is focused every day, every hour, on seeing continuous progress made," he said.
-ABC News’ Anne Flaherty
Apr 23, 2:53 PM
IDF denies mass grave claims
The Israel Defense Forces has denied accusations from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that they buried at least 283 bodies in a mass grave near Nasser Hospital in Gaza.
"The claim that the IDF buried Palestinian bodies is baseless and unfounded," the IDF said in a statement. "During the IDF’s operation in the area of Nasser Hospital, in accordance to the effort to locate hostages and missing persons, corpses buried by Palestinians in the area of Nasser Hospital were examined."
"The examination was conducted in a careful manner and exclusively in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages," the IDF said. "Bodies examined, which did not belong to Israeli hostages, were returned to their place."
White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said Tuesday that the reports of mass graves are "deeply concerning," but the White House is not in a place to validate the reports.
"I wouldn't expect a U.S. investigation," Kirby said, adding, "We'll certainly talk to our Israeli counterparts."
Apr 23, 11:36 AM
Israel responds to report released on UNRWA
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, is claiming that more than 2,135 workers at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, are members of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
"Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA so deeply that it is no longer possible to determine where UNRWA ends and where Hamas begins," Erdan said. "Israel calls on the donor countries to refrain from transferring their taxpayers' money to UNRWA-Gaza, as these funds will go to the Hamas terrorist organization, and that violates legislation in the donor countries themselves."
This comes after an independent review of UNRWA released on Monday found the agency had policies in place to back up its principle of neutrality, but also found UNRWA had "serious gaps in implementation," The Associated Press reported. The report made recommendations to improve the agency’s neutrality.
The report also found that Israel hadn’t provided evidence to back up its claim that a significant number of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas or PIJ, the AP said.
Apr 22, 3:11 PM
Iran calls Israel’s attack 'harassment' that 'caused no damage whatsoever'
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani called Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran last week "harassment" that has "caused no damage whatsoever."
"In our opinion, this issue is not worthy of addressing," Kanaani said Monday.
Apr 22, 2:58 PM
State Department considers Gaza a 'severe humanitarian crisis'
The State Department has released its annual assessment of human rights across the globe.
The U.S. assessed that Israelis have killed or injured nearly 80,000 Palestinians in Gaza -- accounting for 3% of the population.
The State Department stressed that Israel "must conduct military operations in accordance with international law and take every feasible precaution to protect civilians."
"We continue to urgently raise concerns surrounding the deaths of and injuries to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including women, children, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable persons," the U.S. said. "We repeatedly have pressed concerns about Palestinian civilians’ access to humanitarian assistance, displacement of the majority of the population of Gaza, and the unprecedented number of journalists killed."
The U.S. continues to review allegations that Israel violated international laws of war in Gaza and the West Bank, and part of that review will look into whether U.S. weapons were involved, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference Monday.
Blinken said the process will be fair, whether a country is "an adversary or competitor, a friend or an ally."
-ABC News’ Chris Boccia
Apr 22, 5:42 AM
Israeli intelligence chief resigns over Oct. 7
Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, has submitted his resignation in the wake of the Oct. 7 surprise terror attack, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday.
"The Chief of the General Staff thanked Major General Aharon Haliva for his 38 years of service in the IDF, during which he made significant contributions to the security of the State of Israel as both a combat soldier and commander," IDF officials said in a post on social media.
-ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian and Kevin Shalvey
Apr 22, 5:20 AM
US drops 50,000 meals over Northern Gaza
The U.S. military on Sunday dropped 50,688 ready-to-eat meals into northern Gaza, Central Command said.
The humanitarian aid, which was dropped from four Air Force aircraft, brings the total U.S. assistance supplied by air to about 1,001 tons, CENTCOM said.
"The DoD humanitarian airdrops contribute to ongoing U.S. and partner-nation government efforts to alleviate human suffering," CENTCOM said on social media. "These airdrops are part of a sustained effort, and we continue to plan follow-on aerial deliveries."
-ABC News' Lauren Minore and Kevin Shalvey
