November 6, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN its forces are moving forward towards Gaza City, which he says the Israeli military has encircled since reaching Gaza's coast on Sunday.

This “indeed means that we are pushing forward towards Gaza City, we have encircled Gaza City two days ago and we are moving forward," Lerner added.

Describing Gaza City as “the fortress of Hamas’s terrorist activities,” he said the IDF is determined and wants to destroy the militant group.

Lerner's comments came after his colleague, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israeli troops have split Gaza into two territories.

"Essentially today there is a northern Gaza and a southern Gaza. We have arrived at the beach and they (IDF troops) are strengthening this line," Hagari said Sunday.

He claimed the IDF will "allow for a corridor in order for the residents of northern Gaza and Gaza City to move southward."

"This is a one-way corridor to the south. We continue to attack with strength and we continue to carry out our ground operation in northern Gaza and the greater Gaza City," Hagari added.

CNN has previously documented Palestinian civilians being killed by Israeli strikes around evacuation zones, underscoring the reality that evacuation zones and warning alerts from the IDF haven’t guaranteed safety for civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, human rights officials have said Israel's evacuation order to civilians could breach international law.

US officials are still working Monday morning to reopen the Rafah gate for civilians to leave Gaza into Egypt, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. 

They have been trying to get wounded civilians to the gate, the source said, after Hamas' closure of the route this weekend in the wake of an Israeli strike on an ambulance. Israeli officials claimed it was identified as "being used by a Hamas terrorist cell."

The Israeli government is not the hold up on the reopening of the gate to allow civilians, including the wounded, to leave, the source said. 

The crossing into Egypt – the only way out of Gaza since Israel closed its two crossings – shut on Saturday and did not open on Sunday.

A breakthrough was reached last week to allow foreign passport holders and a group of critically injured civilians to depart through Rafah, with the first group departing last Wednesday.

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed reporting.

Communication services are slowly returning in some parts of Gaza after they were cut out across the Palestinian enclave, according to local providers.

“We would like to announce the gradual return of communication services (fixed, cellular, and Internet) to work in various areas of the Gaza Strip, after they were disconnected from the Israeli side,” Palestinian telecommunication company PalTel said on Monday.

Other telecoms operators, including JawwaL and Ooredoo Palestine, posted similar updates on Facebook. 

Netblocks, an Internet monitoring firm, confirmed in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday that internet access was coming back online.

“Metrics show that internet connectivity is being restored in the #Gaza Strip after Sunday's near-total telecoms blackout, the second-longest observed since the onset of the present conflict with Israel; overall service remains significantly below pre-war levels,” the organization said. 

Communications in Gaza had been disrupted on Sunday for a third time since October 7, with humanitarian organizations saying they were unable to reach employees inside the territory.

When asked by CNN to respond to previous communications outages, the Israeli military said they had no comment to offer.

In late October, Amnesty International said human rights organizations "have found it increasingly challenging to document violations due to the intensity of Israel’s attacks and restrictions on communications."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday it has struck hundreds of Hamas targets and taken control of a military compound in Gaza over the last 24 hours.

“Over the last day, IDF fighter jets struck over 450 Hamas targets, including tunnels, terrorists, military compounds, observation posts, anti-tank missile launch posts and more,” the IDF said in a statement on Monday.

The IDF captured additional territory inside Gaza, the statement added.

“Overnight, IDF ground troops took control of a Hamas military compound in the Gaza Strip. The compound contains observation posts, training areas for Hamas operatives and underground terror tunnels.”

Israeli forces are conducting a significant strike in the enclave targeting Hamas infrastructure above and underground, as well as militants and senior commanders, army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Sunday.

Some context: The IDF launched a relentless bombardment on Gaza, following the Hamas' attack that killed 1,400 in Israel on October 7.

Israeli strikes have hit civilian areas including residential neighborhoods, hospitals, refugee camps and schools, killing more than 9,700 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, using data drawn from medical sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. At least 4,800 of the fatalities are children, the ministry added.

The number of French citizens killed in Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel has risen to 40, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told radio station France Inter on Monday.

Eight French citizens remain missing, with some of them believed to have been captured by Hamas, Borne said. She was unable to provide an exact figure for the number of French hostages.

Some 240 hostages are being held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The United Kingdom's Foreign Office said Monday it is temporarily withdrawing some British embassy staff from Lebanon due to the security situation in the region.

"The embassy continues with essential work including services to British nationals," a statement on the Foreign Office website said.

Last month, the ministerial department advised British nationals against all travel to Lebanon due to risks associated with the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Tensions flared again at the northern Israel border Sunday, with Israel and Lebanon both announcing civilian casualties from the ongoing strikes between the Israel Defense Forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara on Monday on the final stop of his whirlwind diplomatic trip across the Middle East amid the escalating war in Gaza.

The top US diplomat will discuss the humanitarian situation in the enclave with Firdan and the need to prevent the conflict from widening, according to a State Department note.

He is not expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has strongly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, calling them “crimes against humanity.”

Erdogan said Saturday he was cutting off communications with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Turkey hosts some of Hamas’ leadership and Blinken has repeatedly said that things cannot go back to the “status quo” with the militant group following its October 7 attack on Israel.

The heads of 18 United Nations agencies and major aid organizations issued a rare joint statement Sunday calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” said the statement, signed by the heads of the World Health Organization, UNICEF, CARE International, Save the Children, the World Food Programme and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) among others.

The signatories called the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people and displaced tens of thousands, “horrific” and also said the killing of civilians in Gaza was an “outrage.”

More than 9,700 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since October 7, according to Palestinian health authorities in Ramallah, using data drawn from medical sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

The authors also highlighted the toll the conflict has taken on aid workers.

“Scores of aid workers have been killed since October 7 including 88 UNRWA colleagues – the highest number of United Nations fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict,” the statement said.

Thailand's government has seen photographic evidence that Thai hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are alive, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told reporters on Monday.

Without stating how many photos, or how many of the 24 Thai nationals the government has confirmed were taken hostage could be seen in them, Srettha said: "I understand, at the very least, they are alive."

Thailand has been one of Israel’s biggest sources of migrant labor for decades, and many of the Thai hostages were captured while working in the south of the country near the Gaza border when Hamas militants attacked on October 7.

Last week, Thailand's Foreign Ministry said it had secured "full support" from Iran, Qatar and Egypt to help negotiate the release of Thai hostages.

Malaysia has also provided significant assistance with the negotiations, Srettha said Monday.