Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Israel-Hamas war news or read through the updates below.
May 17, 2024 Israel-Hamas war
By Leinz Vales, Deva Lee, Adrienne Vogt, Aditi Sangal, Tori B. Powell and Chris Lau, CNN
Updated 0401 GMT (1201 HKT) May 18, 2024
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Israel recovers bodies of 3 hostages. Here's what you should know
From CNN staff
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recovered the bodies of three hostages in the Gaza Strip, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a news conference in Tel Aviv Friday.
The hostages were identified as Shani Louk, Amit Bouskila, and Itshak Gelernter, Hagari said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed grief over the hostages, saying "the heart breaks for the great loss." Louk's family said they have closure now that her body has been recovered.
Here are other headlines you should know:
Developments on the ground
- Hamas' military wing Al Qassam Brigades said a commander was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon's West Bekaa area, near the Syrian border, on Friday.
- Also, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike on "an operations center" in Jenin, in the West Bank, Friday and killed "a significant wanted" militant.
Humanitarian aid
- Trucks carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza began moving ashore Friday via a temporary pier built by the US military, according to a statement from US Central Command (CENTCOM). The pier was anchored to a beach in Gaza on Thursday and will be used to funnel aid from various countries into the besieged strip, with most border crossings to the enclave closed and a catastrophic humanitarian disaster unfolding inside.
Official meetings
- US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel over the weekend, according to a US official, as ceasefire and hostage negotiations have stalled and Israel continues to threaten to intensify its military operations in Rafah. He will meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their respective countries, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Calls from the United Nations
- A panel of UN experts said Friday that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was “politically targeted” as it voiced disappointment over some countries not reinstating their funding weeks after an independent review cleared the agency.
Doctors leaving Gaza
- Seventeen of the 20 American doctors who were stuck in Gaza after Israel shut the border crossing from Rafah to Egypt have safely departed the enclave, Kirby said Friday.
- Aid organizations will face challenges getting doctors back into Gaza following the departure of the American doctors, according to sources familiar with the efforts to help the doctors escape.
The wife of a doctor describes her husband's "survivor's guilt" after deciding to leave Gaza
From CNN's Betsy Klein
Dr. Mahmoud Sabha was among the American doctors who were evacuated after being trapped in Gaza this week after Israel's military offensive in Rafah shuttered a critical border crossing where they were planning to exit.
Sabha, 39, a Dallas-based doctor who specializes in wound care, was on his second humanitarian trip to Gaza that was supposed to end last Monday.
His wife, Dr. Samaiya Mushtaq, learned his plans to leave were on hold last Friday afternoon in a voicemail.
"He said we're not leaving on Monday and I remember listening to it and just responding, 'No - no, no, no,'" she told CNN in a phone interview.
She described an intensely emotional week amid the uncertainty: "I didn't think this would be morally or legally allowed."
Three of the American doctors stayed behind on Friday as 17 were able to evacuate.
Early Friday morning, her husband contacted her to say there was the possibility of an evacuation. He called again when he had reached the border and was in Jerusalem Friday evening eastern time.
"It's been emotionally complex because there's a lot of guilt," she said of her husband's decision to leave.
"The survivors' guilt is much more pronounced because there's no mission coming after him," she said.
Still, she said, "I think he'd go back. I think the call to help this incredibly vulnerable population is a humanitarian call. He would go back if there were an opportunity to rebuild the hospital systems."
IDF says it killed "significant wanted" militant in West Bank
From CNN's Kareem Khadder, Eyad Kourdi and Mohammed Tawfeeq
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they carried out an airstrike on "an operations center" in Jenin, in the West Bank, on Friday and killed "a significant wanted" militant.
The IDF said in a statement that militant Islam Khamaysa was a senior operative in the Jenin Camp, responsible for numerous attacks in the area.
Al Quds Brigade, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, confirmed the killing of Islam Khamaysa in a statement on Friday, saying he was a leader of the Jenin Brigade.
The Jenin Brigade is a faction affiliated with the wider Islamic Jihad group.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said eight people were also injured in the airstrike and evacuated to two separate hospitals in the West Bank.
Family of hostage Shani Louk says recovery of her body gives them closure
From CNN's Eliza Talmadge
The family of Israeli hostage Shani Louk, whose body Israel announced on Friday was recovered from Gaza, said they have closure now that her body has been recovered.
In a statement given to CNN, the family said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) came to their house on Friday and informed them that they were able to rescue Louk's body from a tunnel in Gaza and bring her back to Israel.
"Every news like this brings us back to the horrific moment we had to find out that our loving daughter was brutally murdered by Hamas on the 7th of October. However, it is also a relief to get the body back and we are now able to bury her close by. It gives us some kind of closure," the family said.
"We want to remember Shani as the beautiful and peace-loving person she was, who loved music, dancing and life. She brought us and many other people in the world light and the belief in good. This is how we choose to remember Shani," the statement read.
It will be a challenge to backfill the 17 American doctors who departed Gaza, sources say
From CNN's Kylie Atwood
Aid organizations will face challenges getting doctors back into Gaza following the departure of 17 of the 20 American doctors who were stuck there after Israel shut the border crossing from Rafah to Egypt.
Sources familiar with the efforts to help the American doctors escape said that backfilling them remains a major concern, largely because the Rafah crossing remains closed after the Israeli military seized it early last week.
Remember: The crossing – when it was operating — was the only entry and exit point for foreign aid workers. Israeli and Egyptian officials have so far failed to reach an agreement on reopening it.
One of the doctors who decided to stay behind is Dr. Adam Hamawy, who helped save Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s life 20 years ago in Iraq, according to a source familiar with the matter. Hamawy traveled to Gaza with the Palestinian American Medical Association and did not feel right leaving without other doctors coming in to take over, the source said.
Many members of Congress, including Duckworth, are working with the Biden administration to push Israel to do more to get aid and humanitarian workers into Gaza, and to get the protections needed for those workers. Earlier this week, a top USAID official said that Israel was not doing enough to ensure the safety of aid works.
"The deconfliction measures are not where they need to be yet, given the complexity of the environment. So those conversations are ongoing, they need to continue and they need to get to a place where humanitarian aid workers feel safe and secure and able to operate safely. And I don't think we're there yet,” said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, noting that Gaza is a “very dangerous place to work.”
CNN's Jeremy Diamond and Muhammad Darwish contributed to this story.
Hamas' military wing says commander killed in Israeli airstrike in Lebanon
From CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Eugenia Yosef
Hamas' military wing Al Qassam Brigades said a commander was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon's West Bekaa area, near the Syrian border, on Friday.
Sharhabil Ali Al-Sayyid, also known as "Abu Amr" was killed "after he was targeted by Israeli occupation aircraft," Hamas' military wing Al Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
The Israel Defense Forces ( IDF) confirmed in a statement Friday it killed Al-Sayyid in an airstrike, but described him as "a senior commander of the Jamaa Islamiya" in Lebanon "who cooperated with Hamas against Israel."
The IDF said Al-Sayyid "promoted numerous terror attacks from Lebanon against Israel in the eastern arena recently, as well as in cooperation with Hamas' wing in Lebanon."
17 American doctors who were stuck in Gaza have safely departed, White House says
From CNN's Kylie Atwood
Seventeen of the 20 American doctors who were stuck in Gaza after Israel shut the border crossing from Rafah to Egypt have safely departed the enclave, said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday.
“They’re out. There was 20 American doctors, 17 are out now, came out today. And all 17, they wanted to, they wanted to leave — I won't speak for the other three, but just, I can assure you that any of them that wanted to leave are out now,” Kirby said.
The Americans who made their way out did so with the support of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, said a State Department spokesperson. “We have been in close contact with the groups that these US doctors are part of, and we have been in contact with the families of these US citizens,” the spokesperson added.
The three American doctors who opted not to depart Gaza did so understanding that the US Embassy may not be able to facilitate their departure in the same manner, the source familiar said. They added that it “was an extremely unique operation.”
The Embassy team traveled to Kerem Shalom crossing to receive the doctors at the border, the source added, without providing details about how the doctors traveled to the border crossing.
Here's where the crossing is located:
UN panel calls for all member states to resume funding UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees
From CNN’s Kareem El Damanhoury and Richard Roth
A panel of UN experts said Friday that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was “politically targeted” as it voiced disappointment over some countries not reinstating their funding weeks after an independent review cleared the agency.
“The independent review ordered by the UN Secretary-General, following an increase of allegations since the onset of the military assault on Gaza in October 2023, has shown that the claim that significant numbers of UNRWA employees have ties with ‘terrorist organisations’ remains unsubstantiated,” the experts said in a statement on Friday.
Earlier this year, Israel accused at least 12 UNRWA staffers of being involved in Hamas' October 7 attacks and has alleged that about 12% of the agency's 13,000 staffers are members of Hamas or other Palestinian militant groups. Last month, the independent review found that UNRWA’s neutrality must be strengthened and that its facilities were sometimes misused, but noted that Israel did not provide supporting evidence for its allegations.
“UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank,” the review said, adding that the agency is "irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development.”
As of April 30, funding to UNRWA from nine states was still frozen, according to a UN statement.
With previous reporting from CNN’s Tim Lister