November 8, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

The United States believes that the Palestinian Authority “is the appropriate place to look for governance eventually” of the Gaza Strip, a State Department official said.

Leaf said that the State Department is “looking at all of these questions right now” and “would like to begin those discussions sooner rather than later.” 

The US has been urging Israel to avoid an occupation of Gaza if and when Hamas no longer governs the territory, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked concern among US officials when he said earlier this week that Israel would be responsible for Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period.” 

Leaf’s comments echo what Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference in Tokyo on Wednesday, which is that a sustained peace must include “Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.” 

Blinken added that peace must also include “a sustained mechanism for reconstruction in Gaza, and a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in space of their own with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity.” 

The US’ Arab partners, including Jordan and Egypt, have expressed concerns over the possibility that Palestinians are forcibly displaced from Gaza, officials have said, and want to focus for now on reaching a ceasefire. 

“I would say our Arab partners are very focused on the here and now,” Leaf said. “They're very focused on the issues of humanitarian crises and their focus on obtaining a ceasefire.” 

Blinken reassured those partners on Wednesday that the US believes “key elements” of a peace deal “should include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now; not after the war."

Some background on Gaza's governance: In 2006, Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections – the last polls to be held in Gaza.

Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that formed in 1987, emerging out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.

The group considers Israel to be an illegitimate state and an occupying power in Gaza. Unlike other Palestinian groups, such as the Palestinian Authority, Hamas refuses to engage with Israel.

At least 40,000 people have trekked on foot from northern Gaza to southern regions since the establishment of periodic evacuation "corridors" by the Israel Defense Forces on November 4, according to a statement by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees published on Wednesday. 

The IDF has repeatedly called on civilians to move south of Wadi Gaza – a waterway bisecting the center of the enclave – as it intensifies its assault on Hamas in Gaza City and northern Gaza. The agency said that UN monitors and non-government organizations are providing water and biscuits to evacuees just south of the Wadi Gaza.

Almost 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the agency said.

A deal to secure the release of a large number of hostages that Hamas is holding in Gaza appears elusive for now, despite active negotiations involving the US, Israel, Qatar and Hamas. 

There is no prospect of Israel agreeing to a sustained pause in fighting without a substantial number of hostages being released, one senior US official told CNN. The multi-party talks – in which Qatar is playing a key mediating role – have been ongoing for weeks and have so far produced many ideas, including the release of around 10 to 15 hostages in exchange for a one- or two-day ceasefire, diplomatic sources close to the talks said. 

But as of Wednesday, such a proposal was not on the table, the US official said.

One Israeli official said Israel was “ready for a pause” if there could be certainty that Hamas was “serious about releasing hostages.” What is not clear is how long of a pause Israel would be willing to agree to, and what would amount to an acceptable number of hostages released. 

Negotiations have also centered around exchanging hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, CNN has previously reported.

Only a handful of hostages – including two American citizens – have been released since the start of the war. After their successful exit, US President Joe Biden revealed that Israel had agreed to a brief ceasefire to secure their release. 

The Biden administration has continued to call on Israel to put in place additional “humanitarian pauses” to facilitate the release of more hostages. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will not agree to a ceasefire without the release of hostages, a message he reiterated in a social media post Wednesday.

The weeks-long efforts to try to get a big group of hostages out have brought to light a myriad of complexities. The hostages, who are of various nationalities, are not believed to be in one location and it is not clear exactly how many of them are in Gaza; communication with Hamas is slow; and there are concerns about how to safely move any big group of civilians through Gaza when the strip is under constant bombardment. 

Officials have also stressed that Hamas is far from a typical – and by any means a trustworthy – negotiating partner. “Frankly, we're dealing with Hamas,” a senior administration official said. “This is not something that anyone is expecting [to be conducted in] good faith.”

International Rescue Committee President David Miliband on Wednesday called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza for "a period of at least five days," emphasizing that's the "absolute minimum" timeframe needed to allow aid agencies to relieve some of the humanitarian suffering.

Miliband oversees the IRC's humanitarian relief operations in more than 40 war-affected countries, according to the aid organization.

On Wednesday, he said that any coordinated halt in the fighting in Gaza "needs to have sufficient duration if it's really to relieve the humanitarian suffering and save lives," adding that it is "desperately beyond time for the world community to get serious about what a humanitarian halt in the fighting" or a ceasefire or pause looks like in practice.

"The words matter much less to us as a humanitarian agency than the substance of the action that takes place," Miliband said.

"There needs to be a flow of aid — at the moment, it's a trickle of aid," Miliband told CNN. "There needs to be a massive scale-up of the aid flows — that's medicines, that's non-food items, that is food, that is water, the basics of life and the fuel to get those goods around the Gaza Strip."

"Second, you can't deliver aid without aid workers," he added, noting that it's not safe for aid workers on the ground at the moment and scores of aid workers have died. "Thirdly — essential — we've got to be able to have safety for civilians who come to receive aid when they bring their kids when they bring their wounded, they've got to be able to be safe in a health center."

Miliband also said it's vital that injured people who require medical treatment are able to evacuate. 

"Our teams on the ground are saying that [...] we're on the verge of something much, much worse. Because the threat of communicable diseases, the threat of cholera, the threat of measles and typhoid, this is there," he added, reiterating the IRC's position that there is an urgent need for a ceasefire of at least five days. "We're saying that the imperative of relieving the suffering in Gaza now is absolutely core to the humanitarian mission."

In a social media post on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated "there will not be a ceasefire without the release of our hostages."

Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing northern Gaza as Israel continues its offensive in the war against Hamas.

It was the fifth consecutive day that the Israel Defense Forces opened an evacuation window, and numbers of people moving south have increased each day.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed Tuesday that IDF troops were at the “heart of Gaza City” and targeting Hamas infrastructure and commanders there. It is unclear where exactly Israel is fighting inside the city.

The number of civilian deaths in Gaza during the past month of war between Israel and Hamas means something is "clearly wrong" with the military operation that Israel launched in the wake of the deadly October 7 Hamas attacks, the United Nations secretary general said Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that "Israel cannot occupy Gaza," but "there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict" between Israel and Hamas. The top US diplomat’s remark came in response to comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier this week said Israel will have the "overall security responsibility" in Gaza for an "indefinite period" after the war with Hamas ends.

Here's what else to know:

The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday claimed it has destroyed 130 Hamas tunnel shafts since the start of the war, as Israel continues the "expansion" of its ground operation in Gaza. 

"As part of the ground forces' activity in the Gaza Strip, IDF soldiers are currently working to expose and destroy Hamas’ tunnels," the statement said. "Since the beginning of the fighting, 130 tunnel shafts have been destroyed." 

The IDF added that Hamas' "preparation for a prolonged stay in the tunnels can be seen based on water and oxygen means found in the tunnels." 

CNN cannot verify the IDF’s claims.

This post has been updated with additional information.

Palestinians fleeing south in Gaza through an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) evacuation corridor on Wednesday described an unbearable reality in Gaza City, with constant airstrikes and no water.

One teenage girl said that it felt like the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, of 2023 – the Arabic term for the expulsion of Palestinians from their towns during the founding of Israel.

A man who did not provide his name told a CNN stringer in southern Gaza that he and his neighbors had lived through “horrifying days.” He said that they had left their home in northern Gaza and moved several times, but that it was impossible to escape the airstrikes.

“This war left nothing safe – not churches, not mosques or anything. Today, they dropped the leaflet ordering us to leave to the alleged safe area. Now we are beyond this area of Wadi Gaza, and we are still hearing bombardments. There is no safe place in Gaza.”

The journalist said that the flow of people on Salah Al-Deen Street fleeing northern Gaza was much larger on Wednesday than on Tuesday. The UN estimates that on Tuesday, “up to 15,000 people may have passed” through the corridor. The IDF on Wednesday extended a four-hour ceasefire by one hour because, it said, of the large number of people fleeing south.

Read more about Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza here.

The death toll among employees working in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has risen to 99, United Nations secretary general spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news briefing on Wednesday.

The latest death toll came just hours after UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini mourned the dozens of his employees killed in Gaza since the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas.

The nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation into the Israeli military's attack on an ambulance outside Gaza's biggest hospital last week as a "possible war crime." 

"The Israeli military’s strike on a marked ambulance just outside of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital on November 3, 2023, was apparently unlawful and should be investigated as a possible war crime," according to a HRW statement released on Tuesday. 

The group, which reports on and investigates human rights abuses around the world, has further called on the investigation to be conducted by the United Nations Human Rights Council's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had targeted the ambulance because it was being used by Hamas. “An IDF aircraft struck an ambulance that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone,” the IDF said.

HRW, however, says it did not find evidence that the ambulance was used for military purposes after interviewing witnesses and verifying visuals of the damaged ambulance and its surrounding area. 

CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment and has not immediately heard back. In previous statements, the Israeli military has maintained it is following international law and only striking legitimate military targets in the strip.

The attack on the ambulance, which was part of a medical convoy, killed at least 15 and wounded 60 others, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Footage from the scene showed at least a dozen bloodied people strewn across the ground near an ambulance.

CNN's Andrew Carey contributed reporting to this post.