January 23, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage of Israel's war against Hamas has moved here.

The US military conducted strikes in Yemen against two Houthi anti-ship missiles aimed to launch at the southern Red Sea, US Central Command said Tuesday evening.

The Houthi missiles posed an "imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US Navy ships in the region," CENTCOM said.

It comes after the US and the UK carried out additional strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Monday.

The Iran-backed Houthis have said they won’t stop their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea until the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza ends. 

Thousands of displaced Palestinians are fleeing Khan Younis in southern Gaza as the Israeli military said it has surrounded the city amid further operations west of the area.

CNN video shows displaced people sitting on the side of streets and in the vicinity of the seashore. The video shows cars, trucks, and tractors transporting families and their essential belongings, and crowds of people walking.

Many of those fleeing described terrifying scenes.

"There are dead people on the ground. We left them behind. There are people killed inside the houses," said displaced Gazan Hisham Sayegh. "We were expecting to die at any minute."

Meanwhile, Israel is reeling from the deaths of at least 24 of its soldiers in Gaza, in what is the biggest single loss of life for Israeli troops in the enclave since the war with Hamas began. More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.

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US strikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq killed at least one person and injured two others, an Iraqi security source told CNN on Tuesday.

The strikes targeted three facilities used by Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah and other Tehran-affiliated groups following repeated attacks on US forces, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

The person killed was a Kataib Hezbollah fighter, according to a post on the group's Telegram channel.

This post has been updated with additional information.

Read more about the US strikes.

Israel's “clear and repeated rejection” of a two-state solution is “unacceptable” and threatens to prolong the conflict with Palestinians that has become a global threat to peace, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a UN Security Council meeting Tuesday.

The UN chief called a two-state solution the only way to address the aspirations of both sides, saying any refusal to accept it must be firmly rejected.

Guterres also repeated his call for more aid deliveries into Gaza, saying the quantities that are entering the enclave are highly insufficient. “It is fantasy to think that 2.2 million people can survive on aid alone,” he said.

Guterres called for more crossing points into Gaza and for access to the north, saying only seven of 29 planned humanitarian missions to the north of Wadi Gaza in early January were fully or partially accomplished.

He also appealed again for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, saying, “this will ensure sufficient aid gets to where it is needed, facilitate the release of hostages, and help lower tensions around the Middle East.”

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron will travel to Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Qatar and Turkey to hold "high level talks” with regional leaders to end what he described as a “desperate” situation in Gaza.

Cameron will focus discussions on getting more aid into Gaza, releasing more hostages, and reaching a “sustainable and permanent ceasefire,” according to a statement from the British Foreign Office.

Cameron will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, to speak about humanitarian aid and civilian casualties in Gaza, the foreign office outlined.

The foreign secretary will also meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to reiterate the UK’s support for a two-state solution “so that Israelis and Palestinians can live side-by-side in peace,” the statement read.

Doctors Without Borders staff said they are unable to follow Israel's evacuation orders for the area around Al-Nasser Hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, as the sounds of "bombs and heavy gunfire" go off nearby.

Staff members and 850 patients cannot leave the hospital due to the "roads to and from the building being either inaccessible or too dangerous," according to a thread of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, from the organization, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Dr. Ahmed Al-Moghrabi, who is inside the hospital, spoke to CNN midday local time on Tuesday and said the hospital received evacuation orders from the IDF. But it is a "very difficult situation as there (is) fierce fighting by the hospital.”

Amro Abu Raydeh, one of the few remaining journalists inside the medical complex, told CNN that there is "ongoing artillery fire and drones (quadcopters) that are opening fire" around the hospital, and unidentified bodies are being buried in the hospital grounds or inside the hospital's morgue.

The US military conducted airstrikes Tuesday on three facilities used by Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq, the Pentagon announced. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the strikes “are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against US and coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria” by Iranian-backed militia groups. 

The strikes come just days after US personnel at Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq were injured in a ballistic missile and rocket attack on the base. While most missiles and rockets were intercepted by the base’s air defenses, some projectiles made impact, US Central Command said over the weekend.

Tensions in the region: The strikes on Tuesday are the first in Iraq since the beginning of the month, when the US targeted a member of an Iranian proxy group operating in the country who one US official said had “US blood on his hands.” They also come after multiple strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen over the last week and a half, as the US looks to reign in the aggressive actions of Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East amid heightened tensions in the region.

US forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted at least 151 times since attacks began on October 17, 2023, according to a US official — 10 days after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US will not support Israel creating so-called "buffer zones" permanently in Gaza that would effectively reduce the size of the Palestinian territory.

"When it comes to the permanent status of Gaza going forward, we've been clear, we remain clear, about not encroaching on its territory," said Blinken reiterated at a news conference in Abuja, Nigeria.

However, Blinken said that there may need to be "transitional arrangements" that provide "necessary security arrangements" to allow Israelis who fled areas adjacent to Gaza after October 7 to return.  

Blinken also maintained that Gazans who fled their homes must be allowed to return and that Palestinians be able to govern themselves.