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: January 31, 2024, 2:29 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.

Click here for updates from previous days.

Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 01, 2024, 6:03 AM EST

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, 2:29 PM EST

Palestinian statehood options part of 'ongoing policy planning,' State Department says

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to outright confirm or deny a report from Axios claiming that Secretary of State Antony Blinken ordered a review of options for recognizing Palestinian statehood, but Miller said the State Department has an "ongoing policy planning process" examining the matter.

Displaced Palestinians flee from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Jan. 30, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images

"There has been no policy shift in the administration -- we have made quite clear publicly that we support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," Miller said. "That's been the policy of the United States for some time."

"We do a lot of work inside the government to think about how to bring that about," Miller said regarding Palestinian statehood recognition. "We look at any number of options. That’s part of the normal planning process. The vast majority of options never usually get implemented."

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Jan 31, 2024, 11:55 AM EST

Netanyahu meets with hostage families

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Wednesday with family members of hostages still being held captive in Gaza, telling them the government is "making every effort" to bring the hostages home.

PHOTO: Protestors hold up portraits during a rally organized by family and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza to demand their release, Jan. 22, 2024, near the residence of the Israeli prime minister in Jerusalem.
Protestors hold up portraits during a rally organized by family and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, to demand their release, Jan. 22, 2024, near the residence of the Israeli prime minister in Jerusalem.
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

"The more public this effort gets, the more distant it gets, and the more discreet this effort is, the more likely it is to succeed," Netanyahu said. "Naturally, and for these two reasons, I am limited from sharing with you. I ask you to understand that we are truly committed in the full sense of the word."

-ABC News’ Jordana Miller

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