Israel-Gaza updates: Hamas has received proposed hostage deal, Qatar says

Israel says the framework of the proposed deal has not yet been agreed upon.

ByABC NEWS
Last Updated: February 3, 2024, 4:50 PM EST

More than 100 days since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, the Israeli military continues its bombardment of the neighboring Gaza Strip.

The conflict, now the deadliest between the warring sides since Israel's founding in 1948, shows no signs of letting up soon and the brief cease-fire that allowed for over 100 hostages to be freed from Gaza remains a distant memory.

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Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 1, 6:03 am

What we know about the conflict

The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.

Jan 31, 2024, 7:22 AM EST

Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military infrastructure, IDF says

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday morning that its fighter jets struck Syrian military infrastructure overnight in the area of Daraa, the southernmost city of Syria near the border with Jordan.

The Israeli airstrikes were conducted after "a number of launches from Syria toward the southern Golan Heights were identified" on Tuesday night, according to the IDF.

-ABC News' Morgan Winsor

Jan 30, 2024, 9:00 PM EST

Experts say Israel may have violated international law with hospital raid

The Israelis may have violated international law in the raid they conducted inside a hospital in the West Bank that resulted in the death of three Palestinian men both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed as members, several experts told ABC News.

Israeli security forces disguised themselves as doctors and patients to infiltrate the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin on Monday, according to the Israel Defense Forces. They killed three Palestinian men whom Hamas and the Islamic Jihad both claimed as members, Dr. Wisam Sebehat, general director of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Jenin, told ABC News.

Doctors and patients are granted "protected status" in armed conflict under the Geneva Convention.

The experts cautioned that ultimately the International Criminal Court is the body that can determine if international law was violated during the raid, but they pointed to elements of the Rome Statute, the governing treaty of the ICC, and the study on the rules of customary international humanitarian law, that the Israelis may have violated in conducting the raid.

-ABC News' Ellie Kaufman, Helena Skinner and Nasser Atta

Jan 30, 2024, 4:23 PM EST

US details money earmarked for UNRWA held up by pause

For the first time, a member of the Biden administration Tuesday offered some detail on how many U.S. dollars earmarked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East are held up under the current pause.

"We have provided in this fiscal year already $121 million to UNRWA," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. "We have remaining about $300,000 -- a little more than $300,000 -- in funds that we were planning to provide to UNRWA. That funding has been suspended. That would not be the total of our funding in this fiscal year."

Smoke rises during an Israeli ground offensive, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis as seen from Rafah, southern Gaza Strip Jan. 29, 2024.
Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Miller went on to say that it was "really impossible" to say what the total amount for the fiscal year would be due to operating under a continuing resolution, and he did not know what its exact budget would be, but that historically the Biden administration had provided "somewhere between" $300 million and $400 million a year.

Nine countries, including the U.S., have paused funding for the UNRWA in wake of allegations that some UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The commissioner-general of UNRWA is investigating.

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Jan 30, 2024, 3:11 PM EST

Israel channeling water into Gaza tunnels

The Israel Defense Forces said its soldiers are sending "large volumes of water" into Gaza tunnels to try to stop terrorist infrastructure.

"The pumping of water was only carried out in tunnel routes and locations that were suitable, matching the method of operation to each case," the IDF said in a statement. "This project was developed following combat procedures, accelerated force-building efforts, and while training forces with technological expertise."

"This tool represents a significant engineering and technological breakthrough in combating the threat of underground terror infrastructure and is the result of a collaborative effort between various bodies in Israel’s security establishment," the IDF added.