Refaat Alareer, a leading Palestinian professor and writer, was killed in an airstrike in northern Gaza, on December 7. We spoke in October about the trauma of being a parent during war. He asked for the audio to be shared in the event of his death.

“I did not get complete and sufficient privacy during my birth. I was very afraid of bleeding,” Mayas Sufyan Musa, a Palestinian mother displaced in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, told CNN. “I faced great difficulty in giving birth due to fear of the shelling next to the hospital.” Although a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began last week, the survival challenges facing new and expecting mothers in the enclave remains dire — after more than 15 months of Israeli bombardment and siege. Israel has inflicted “serious and sometimes life-threatening danger” on pregnant and postpartum women and girls in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, according to a new Human Rights Watch report. HRW accused Israel of enforcing an unlawful blockade, a near-total ban on water, food and electricity, starvation as a method of war, attacks on the medical system, and repeated forcible transfer – violating the right to follow-up and postnatal care for pregnant women and girls, and their children. CNN has reached out to the Israeli military and COGAT, the Israeli aid agency, for comment. Responding to a question about Israeli attacks on medical facilities and health care workers in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeated allegations that Hamas uses hospitals for its military operations. Hamas denies using hospitals as cover. CNN cannot independently verify either claim. At least 12,316 women have been killed in Gaza, and another 808 were babies who were under aged one, Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) reported on January 24. At least 56 children have starved to death, according to Zahir Al-Wahidi, the director of Information Systems at Gaza’s health ministry. Eight infants and newborns have reportedly died from hypothermia, the UN’s children’s agency said in January. Israa Mazen Diab al-Ghul, 30, a pregnant woman displaced in Nuseirat, central Gaza, told HRW that in early 2024, she and her relatives had nothing to drink but sea water for two days. “I vomited, and I was worried it would kill the baby … I started begging that God would take the baby, so I wouldn’t need to give birth during this war.” Read our reporting, with @Dahmancnn.

“I cried a lot, and I think I will cry more and more when I see my destroyed home there in the north," Asma Mustafa, a mother displaced in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, told me on Thursday. "The crime of genocide in Gaza exceeded all the world’s imaginations.” When news first broke of a ceasefire in Gaza, parents there told CNN that moments of celebration were dwarfed by fears over an uncertain future. Israel’s 15-month onslaught following the Hamas-led attacks has orphaned more than 17,000 children in Gaza, the UN reported in October. More than 95% of schools have sustained damage, according to the agency. “We cannot (stop) ourselves from thinking about the people that we have lost… and the people from the south who will come and find that their homes have been leveled to the ground,” Abeer Barakat, an educator and mother-of-four displaced in Gaza City, in northern Gaza, said on Thursday. Mohammed Hamouda, a father-of-three and health worker displaced further south, said: “We do not know where we will go after the war. Our beautiful city, Beit Lahia, has been completely destroyed. “The future of our children is dark.” Read my reporting ✍️🏽

Before a delayed Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement came into effect Sunday, several Palestinians told me they were worried they would not survive to see the implementation of the deal. Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed 46,913 Palestinians and injured 110,750 other people since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, according to the Ministry of Health there. “Until this moment, (we) are still afraid and worried about what will happen during these days. Before the truce, there is always madness in the intensity of the bombing… We hope that God will keep everyone safe,” Wassim Khalifa, a 21-year-old displaced in the Al-Shati camp area west of Gaza City, said on Thursday. Another displaced Palestinian, Raghad Ezzat Hamouda, told CNN: “After a year and a half of genocide in Gaza... There were shouts of takbirs (God is great) and cheers. “I cannot believe that the war will end. The massacres, blood and bombing will end, she added.“It's like a miracle happened here… We lost a lot, but we are happy because we survived," she said. Fadi Adwan, an engineering student in his early twenties, displaced with relatives in southern Gaza, said: “It’s like a miracle happened here … We lost a lot, but we are happy because we survived.” Read our reporting. CNN’s @kareemJerusalem contributed.

A Palestinian emergency official has described a wave of heavy Israeli bombing in northern and central Gaza overnight — just after a ceasefire and hostage release agreement was reached between Hamas and Israel on Wednesday. "Every time there is talk about a truce or a ceasefire, we witness an escalation in the intensity of the bombardment,” Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson said in a voice message. “(Israeli forces) have destroyed homes over the heads of residents, killed innocent civilians, targeted cars and pedestrians in the streets, and attacked schools sheltering thousands of displaced individuals,” Mahmoud Basal added. “We are facing a dire reality. If the Israeli occupation continues to act with such methods, we will be speaking of hundreds of martyrs until the implementation of the agreement.” Israeli bombings in Gaza killed at least 81 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, health authorities in the enclave reported Thursday, after emergency crews reported heavy and intense strikes overnight. At least 188 other people have been injured, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Thursday. The number of people killed by Israeli attacks over the past day marked the highest daily death toll in 11 days, according to a CNN tally of recent figures from the health ministry. The Israeli military said it “conducted strikes on approximately 50 terror targets across the Gaza Strip” over the past day. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN that a Hamas militant who participated in the Nova Music Festival attack – the deadliest massacre on October 7 – was among those killed. Human rights groups welcomed the news and ramped up calls for a permanent ceasefire. Ongoing attacks are “a reminder that we are still subjected to ongoing, unrelenting killing, with no escape until the truce takes effect,” Mai Elawawda, a communications officer for the NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians, based in central Gaza, said in a statement on Thursday. “Every minute before the truce is a potential death." With CNN’s @kareemJerusalem and @AbeerSalmanCNN. CNN’s @Amro_AlHalabi, @Dahmancnn, Lauren Izso and Tamar Michaelis contributed reporting.

Relief workers in Gaza have described a “relentless cycle of horror” as Israeli bombing persists through ceasefire-hostage negotiations. Sulaiman Qasem, a humanitarian staffer in northern Gaza, warned on Tuesday that the scale and intensity of bombardment was “out of control.” “What we’re seeing now is a bloodbath,” said Sulaiman Qasem, who works for the NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). “Last night, the shelling and bombing here didn’t stop for a moment… God, let this end already. We just need this to end.” People trying to survive the onslaught are trapped in a “relentless cycle of horror and uncertainty,” according to Mai Elawawda, a communications officer for MAP, in central Gaza. “The war on them has utterly torn them apart, forcing them to flee death as Israeli weapons target them wherever they go.” Their testimony was shared with CNN by MAP. At least 46,707 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza following the Hamas-led October attacks, according to the Ministry of Health there. More than 110,200 people have been wounded. “A ceasefire would mean a great deal to Palestinians. First, it would bring an end to the constant fear of getting killed,” said Elawawda. “For many, a ceasefire represents the possibility of allowing the displaced to return to their homes with dignity and safety… Creating the necessary space for mourning.” Read our reporting, with @Dahmancnn.

Janat Abdel Aal, an 11-year-old Palestinian girl who survived an Israeli attack in Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza, on Thursday, has told CNN: “For 11 years, we’ve known nothing but humiliation. We’ve grown up with bombings, injuries, and burials… I don’t expect anything for the future. I have no hope left – not in life, not in anything.” It came after an Israeli strike killed at least 11 Palestinians overnight, including the director general of Gaza police and a deputy, west of Rafah, southern Gaza, local officials said. The Israeli military said that one of those killed was a “terrorist” who was “responsible for developing intelligence assessments in coordination with elements of Hamas’ military wing” in Gaza. The Israeli offensive since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in 2023 has eroded law infrastructure in Gaza. The presence of heavily armed groups has also stifled relief efforts in a territory besieged by Israel’s sustained aid restrictions and severe hunger, disease and mass displacement. In December, the chief of the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees stressed that Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that aid flows safely into Gaza. Read our reporting, with @Dahmancnn, @LucasLilieholm, Tareq El Hilou and @Amro_AlHalabi ✍️🏽

RT @JomanaCNN: The IDF detained Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. “The whereabouts of Dr. Abu Safiya and other staff are unclear, friends and colleag…

As the Israeli offensive rages through winter, at least four infants have died of hypothermia from low temperatures and a lack of access to warmth while living in tents in the last week, Dr Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of pediatrics and obstetrics at Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, told CNN on Thursday. Staff in the neonatal ICU see at least five cases of hypothermia per day, added Al-Farra. Reduced breastfeeding and limited availability of infant formula has severely compounded the risk of hypothermia among babies, he said. Meanwhile, health workers are struggling to treat young patients due to shortages of electricity, diesel and other fuel.

Three newborn babies have died from the cold in Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza, as Israel’s war pushes Palestinians deep into tent camps. In the past 48 hours, Sela Mahmoud Al-Fasih and at least two other infants – a three-day-old and a one-month-old – have died there from low temperatures and a lack of access to warm shelter, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of pediatrics and obstetrics at Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, told CNN. Human rights advocates have warned that Palestinian children are bearing the brunt of Israel’s bombardment and siege. More than 17,600 children have been killed since the war started, Al-Bursh said on Wednesday. Children are unable to receive adequate care in the medical system, which has been paralyzed by Israel’s attacks, doctors have told CNN. Just 20% of neonatal care units are operational in the Gaza Strip, according to Al-Farra. Premature babies are dying due to lack of medical supplies including ventilators, while doctors are forced to triage cases to save children’s lives, he said. “For over 14 months, children have been at the sharp edge of this nightmare… In Gaza the reality for over a million children is fear, utter deprivation and unimaginable suffering,” Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF communications specialist, said in a statement on December 20. “The war on children in Gaza stands as a stark reminder of our collective responsibility. A generation of children is enduring the brutal violation of their rights and the destruction of their futures.” Read our reporting. With Tareq El Hilou, @Amro_AlHalabi, @Dahmancnn and @AbeerSalmanCNN ✍️🏽

The Israeli military battered Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza with heavy ground and aerial bombardment overnight Thursday into Friday, according to the director of the facility, who described as a “catastrophic” barrage. Israeli forces dropped bombs from quadcopters and injured at least three medical staff, including one colleague who had been injured at least twice before, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told CNN on Friday. “Tonight was one of the most difficult nights,” Abu Safiya said on a voice message, which was punctuated by the sound of bombardment. The scale and ferocity of the attacks blew off doors and windows on one side of the hospital, said Abu Safiya, adding water tanks “were blown away from the intensity of the explosion.” “As of now, heavy bombing persists throughout the night, accompanied by ongoing destruction of buildings,” he added. “It is a catastrophic scene, with airstrikes and artillery shelling occurring with unprecedented intensity and frequency.” CNN has reached out to the Israeli military about Abu Safiya’s accusations. On Friday, COGAT, Israel’s aid agency said that “intense fighting has been taking place in certain areas of the northern Gaza Strip between IDF forces and terrorist organizations operating in the area.” More than 4,000 Palestinians have been killed or reported missing, Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesperson, Mahmoud Basal, said on Tuesday, since October 5. Another 12,000 people have been injured. Emergency crews have previously told CNN that the magnitude of the Israeli assault means they are struggling to access survivors trapped under the rubble of pancaked buildings. Read our reporting, with @AbeerSalmanCNN, @kareemJerusalem and contributions from Dana Karni.

The hair color of displaced Palestinian children has turned “much lighter” from protein malnutrition over the past few months, according to a British doctor who volunteered in Gaza, as Israel’s siege severely depletes stocks across the strip. Dr. Mahim Qureshi, a London-based vascular surgeon, said the hair color of young children in and around medical facilities had become “much lighter” between her first deployment in April and her second from October 21 to November 21. “This is a consequence of protein malnutrition, starvation and deprivation,” Qureshi told reporters at a news conference in London on Thursday. Protein malnutrition causes a reduction in the amount of melanin in the body, the chemical that gives hair its color, according to Qureshi, who was deployed to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, and then in Nasser Hospital, further south. Israel’s 14-month war in Gaza since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has eviscerated entire communities and compounded civilian suffering. Human rights advocates have warned that Palestinian children are bearing the brunt of the campaign. At least 17,712 children have been killed, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO). Of those, at least 44 children have starved to death, the GMO reported on Tuesday. Read my reporting, with contributions from @kareemJerusalem ✍️🏽

The red, white, green and black Free Syrian Army flag flew over Damascus on Sunday as thousands of residents lined the main square in bursts of defiant jubilation – after President Bashar al-Assad relinquished his grip on power. Over the past 11 days, a rebel alliance charged through Syria in the boldest challenge to the Assad rule in years – following decades of brutal reign by the Assad dynasty marked by fighting, bloodshed and an oppressive political crackdown. Now, as the anti-regime coalition starts to disband Assad’s military, and lays out its vision for a post-Assad Syria, experts wonder if the next phase will be a new dawn for a people strangled by a brutal autocracy – or whether sectarianism will bring a different type of authoritarian rule. On the streets of Syria – and further afield – such concerns were eclipsed by scenes of excitement and mass celebration. “We thank our people in Syria and the free ones, for saving us from the injustice,” Wissam Ahmed, a displaced Syrian in Lebanon, told Reuters on Sunday. “We’re going to Syria, God willing, to rebuild our future and our homes. The feeling is really great, we cannot describe it more.” Read my reporting, with contributions from @JomanaCNN, @Amro_AlHalabi, @rajarazek, Mostafa Salem, @LucasLilieholm, Becky Anderson, @catmnicholls and @LaurenGKent.

Four doctors were killed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday, after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in surrounding areas, eyewitnesses told CNN. The military detained a “large number” of young men in the two-hour raid, including health workers and Palestinians who had sought refuge, added Abu Saifya. Members of an Indonesian medical delegation – the only team performing surgery at Kamal Adwan – were among those forced to leave and not allowed to return, according to Abu Saifya. The Israel Defense Forces denied striking or operating within Kamal Adwan Hospital in a statement to CNN, instead saying that its forces fought “against terror infrastructure and terrorists” in the nearby Jabalya area. On Thursday, an Israeli drone struck and killed a 16-year-old boy in a separate attack as he was entering the hospital’s X-ray department in a wheelchair, Abu Saifya told CNN. The teenager, Mahmoud Abu Al-Eish had been wheeled to the facility by his sister, who is a nurse at the hospital, Abu Saifya said. Another man in his thirties was also killed. CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on Abu Saifya’s allegations. “Kamal Adwan Hospital is now being subjected to a new war crime, and the occupation forces are practicing all forms of killing and violence in it and around it,” the health ministry in Ramallah said on Friday. Read our reporting, with @AbeerSalmanCNN, @Dahmancnn, @kareemJerusalem and Belal Mortaja.

Mahmoud Almadhoun, a Palestinian soup kitchen chef, was killed by a targeted Israeli drone attack, on November 30, in northern Gaza, according to his brother. We spoke in September, when he told CNN that surviving a year of war is “our greatest victory.” “They killed him on the spot,” Hani Almadhoun, Mahmoud’s brother, told me on Monday. “They’ve targeted him… It is an attack against him. It’s not an accident.” In September, Mahmoud told CNN that he feeds between 600 and 800 families per day in the northern Gaza strip. As Israel’s attacks intensified, the soup kitchen’s operations became increasingly precarious, Hani recalled. In the days preceding his death, Mahmoud delivered meals for as many as 200 to 250 families per day. “This is really purely ethnic cleansing. They’re just killing everybody. This is not a targeted operation,” Hani told CNN. “There is nothing left for them. They’re just destroying homes and kicking people out.” CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on Hani’s allegations. Read our reporting, with @AbeerSalmanCNN.

“We were accustomed to receiving martyrs and the wounded, but to receive your own son is catastrophic,” Dr Hussam Abu Saifya told CNN. “I still feel his presence in every corner. His voice, his scent, and his character remain with us.” The hospital director of Kamal Adwan Hospital has recalled scenes of mass slaughter, terrorized patients, and persistent Israeli attacks on one of three minimally operational hospitals in northern Gaza. In late October, his 21-year-old son, Ibrahim, was killed in an Israeli strike at the hospital gates. The Israeli military did not address Ibrahim’s death in a statement to CNN. They said that “dozens of terrorists were found inside the hospital, some of them even posing as medical staff.” CNN cannot verify the allegations. The Israeli military claims the offensive in parts of northern Gaza is targeting Hamas’ renewed presence in the region. You must watch @JomanaCNN, @AbeerSalmanCNN, @MaddieAraujo and @o_featherstone's formidable reporting, covering what Abu Saifya saw for weeks of Israel’s onslaught – and why he refused to leave.

RT @StockwellBilly: ‘My whole body was praying for my death’: LGBTQ Afghans say they face abuse in detention as Taliban crackdown intensifi…

"It's as if it's a new Nakba. It's a new diaspora for the Palestinians. And unfortunately, because we are being forced to flee from our homes under brutal force, we would not be able to go back." An aid worker displaced in Gaza City recounted the mental anguish of being uprooted from one neighborhood to another, after the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders to Palestinians in northern Gaza on Thursday. Mahmoud Shalabi, the deputy director of programmes for the UK-based NGO, Medical Aid for Palestinians, said he has been forced to flee at least seven times since October 2023 – including from northern Gaza to Gaza City. “My three children keep asking me, ‘When are we going to return back home?’ And I really can’t answer that question," he said. “To exist on this land is to resist. "I will not leave. I want to live a dignified life." At least 43,469 Palestinians have been killed and another 102,561 people injured in Gaza since the Israeli military launched its assault after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, according to the Ministry of Health there. Human rights agencies warned of “apocalyptic” survival challenges for Palestinians trapped in Jabalya, home to a large refugee camp, in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military ramped up aerial and ground attacks in early October that it says are targeting Hamas’ renewed presence in the area. MAP accused Israel of “making Palestinian survival in northern Gaza impossible as part of a policy of sustained pressure and forcible expulsion,” in a statement to CNN on Monday. Read the full story. By Mohammad Al Sawalhi, @Dahmancnn, @kareemJerusalem, @Amro_AlHalabi and @TimListerCNN, with contributions from me.

“I woke up to the sound, I started screaming.” A series of Israeli raids and airstrikes in towns and villages in the occupied West Bank that stretched overnight from Monday into late Tuesday have killed at least eight people, according to Palestinian authorities and local residents. The bloodshed comes as violence surges in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has intensified incursions following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks. Since October 7, 2023, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 775 Palestinians, including 167 children, in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, the Palestinian health ministry reported on Tuesday. CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the incidents. Israel has previously described its stepped-up military offensives in the West Bank as targeting militants and “terrorist infrastructure.” Earlier on Monday, Israeli settlers vandalized and set fire to vehicles in the city of Al-Bireh, in what Ramallah governor Laila Ghannam warned “could have ended in a massacre.” Video taken by CNN in the aftermath of the fire showed burned vehicles, some reduced to ashes, next to an apartment block with burn marks on its walls. A community of residents, including young children, can be seen standing bewildered outside the block. In total, nearly 1,600 settler attacks against Palestinians have been recorded since October 7, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on October 31. Read our reporting. With @kareemJerusalem.