November 13, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday doubled down on Israel’s war against Hamas, vowing that Israel will see the “war to the end.”  

Some more context: Netanyahu on Sunday refused to answer whether he would take responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attack on Israel, saying that there would be time for such “difficult” questions once the war is over.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Netanyahu acknowledged that it is “a question that needs to be asked,” but that the country for now needs to unite around the goal of defeating Hamas – the militant group that controls Gaza and launched the assault on Israel.

“We’re going to answer all these questions,” the prime minister said, adding that, “Right now, I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose; to achieve victory.”

Gaza has faced frequent disruptions in communications and three near-total blackouts since Israel began to expand ground operations on October 27.

Hospitals in the north of Gaza — including the enclave's largest, Al-Shifa — are struggling to report their conditions from the inside with little internet service available or electricity. Humanitarian agencies have expressed concerns for the safety of the medical staff and difficulties providing care.

A coalition of 11 news organizations sent a letter on Monday to the leaders of Israel and Egypt, asking their governments to grant access for international journalists to enter the Gaza Strip to cover the ongoing war.

"As the current crisis enters its sixth week, the need for more journalists to document events on the ground is greater than ever — particularly when so much information is being shared informally via social media," the letter said.

The letter, which was addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, was signed by CNN, BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, CBS News, ABC News, ITV News and Sky News.

The news organization noted in the letter that "while we have been able to see images and read accounts from inside Gaza, the only reliable reporting has come from a small number of incredibly brave journalists who are working to document events there."

More background: The lack of direct access to the Gaza Strip has posed significant challenges for news organizations trying to report on Israel’s campaign against Hamas.

Since the onset of the war, western news organizations have largely covered the war from Israel, having virtually no ability to get personnel inside the Gaza Strip independently. Instead, newsrooms have largely relied on freelancers and producers to get news out from the war-torn environment. 

In the last few weeks, some journalists, including for CNN, have been granted the ability to embed with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as they carry out missions inside the Palestinian territory. But those journalists have had to agree to various conditions, including staying with the IDF during their brief time inside Gaza.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it has no fuel to fill its trucks in Gaza and will not be able to facilitate aid deliveries through the Rafah crossing on Tuesday. 

Thomas White, director of UNRWA Affairs in the Gaza Strip, told a press briefing Monday that the agency had about 80 trucks in its fleet that have been transporting aid through the Rafah crossing, which connects Egypt to Gaza.

UNRWA had issued similarly bleak warnings regarding its dwindling fuel supplies on October 25. At the time it said that if it did not receive fuel deliveries within one day it would be forced to halt operations in Gaza.

During Monday’s briefing, White explained that for the past two and a half weeks, the agency had been using fuel from a strategic reservoir inside Gaza after brokering access with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). That reservoir, which receives fuel from a pipeline to Egypt and has a one-million-liter capacity, has now run completely dry, according to White.

UNRWA had been “signaling to various interlocutors” for the past few days that the reservoir’s supplies were set to run out, White said.

Negotiations to refuel the reservoir are currently “stalled” at the “highest level of the Israeli government,” he added.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli government for comment.

UNRWA’s aid operation in Gaza has been “strangled of resources,” White stressed, warning that the situation is “going to get exceptionally tough” in the coming days.

The agency will be forced to entirely halt some services, including desalination plants and waste removal, he said. There is a “real potential” that free-flowing waste in the streets will lead to a “devastating” cholera outbreak in Gaza, White warned.

A US official with knowledge of American intelligence says Hamas has a command node under the Al-Shifa hospital, uses fuel intended for the hospital and its fighters regularly cluster in and around Al-Shifa.

Hamas and hospital officials have denied the command center accusation. 

The US official's information comes after comments made Sunday by a top White House official that the hospital, which is the largest one in Gaza, was being used not just to treat civilians. 

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Hamas has headquarters in civilian areas.

"(T)here's an added burden here on Israel because of the way Hamas is fighting, headquartered in hospitals and schools and digging tunnels under residential buildings and apartments," he told Fox News in an interview. "I mean, that's what Hamas does. They don't abide by any law of war, and they're deliberately putting the people of Gaza at greater risk by how they are conducting themselves."

Kirby said the US administration is talking to Israel about how "to minimize civilian casualties, particularly when we're talking about a hospital with a pediatric unit and young babies premature that they have no – have no voice, have no stake in this and just want to survive." He pledged the administration would "keep working with them about how to do this in a way that, again, goes after the leadership and protects civilian life to the maximum extent possible."

Israel has insisted it is justified in taking military action around the hospital, despite criticism from the UN and others. The Israeli government announced it has created evacuation corridors and called for the removal of civilians, in addition to providing fuel. 

"There's no reason why we just can't take the patients out of there, instead of letting Hamas use it as a command center for terrorism, for the rockets that they fire against Israel, for the terror tunnels that they use to kill Israeli civilians," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview on CNN's State of the Union. 

Netanyahu added that Israel is "treading carefully when it comes to hospitals. But we're also not going to give immunity to the terrorists."

The CIA declined to comment. 

Ten buses carrying 564 foreign nationals departed the Gaza Strip for Egypt via the Rafah crossing on Monday, an Egyptian border official told a journalist working with CNN at the crossing. 

In addition, a total of 154 aid relief trucks also made their way into the Gaza Strip on Monday, loaded with essential supplies such as food, water, relief items, medical equipment, and medications, an Egyptian border official said. 

Before the conflict, the United Nations reported that about 455 trucks on average would enter daily with aid supplies. 

The official said that four injured Palestinians have been allowed entry into Egypt, each accompanied by another person. 

Among the injured evacuees Monday was a 59-year-old with grave head injuries who was transported in an ambulance. Another evacuee, a 38-year-old woman, arrived with a fractured right limb and meningitis, conditions she developed after being trapped for six days under the rubble of her bombed house, according to someone accompanying her.

This post has been updated with the latest number of aid trucks that entered Gaza on Monday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank has reported updated casualty figures in Gaza.

In its update Monday, the ministry, which is based in Ramallah, said that 11,180 Palestinians, including 4,609 children and 3,100 women, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, citing medical sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. 

Injuries from the attacks have affected 28,200 individuals, the ministry said. 

According to the ministry, 15 patients at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza have died in recent days, among them six newborns, due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies. Previously health officials at the hospital had said three neo-natal babies had died.

Additionally, 202 health care workers have lost their lives, and 53 ambulances have been disabled, the ministry added.  

The ministry did not issue a daily report on the death toll on Sunday, saying it was unable to update casualty figures due to Israeli attacks on hospitals. 

The Ministry of Health in Ramallah draws data from medical sources in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had killed a group of Hamas fighters “embedded” among civilians at Gaza’s Al-Quds Hospital after its troops were fired on from the hospital entrance.  

The IDF said its forces fired towards the fighters, some of whom were killed in the exchange. 

“During the incident, approximately 21 terrorists were killed and there were no casualties to our forces,” the IDF said. 

CNN cannot confirm whether any civilians were injured during the firefight. 

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), however, disputed the Israeli military's claims, saying, "There are no armed individuals inside the hospital and no shots were fired from inside."

“The Palestine Red Crescent Society condemns the false claims by the Israeli occupation army regarding armed militants launching shells from inside Al-Quds Hospital,” the PRCS said in a statement. “It considers these claims as clear incitement to continue targeting and besieging the hospital, in clear violation of international humanitarian law.”

The IDF also sent journalists a highly edited video, apparently shot from a drone, showing what it said was a video of a man carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at the entrance to the hospital and aerial footage purporting to show an RPG being launched at an IDF tank. “After the terrorists fired RPGs, they returned to hide in the hospital,” it said.  

CNN has verified that the video shows that this is the hospital entrance steps. 

The PRCS said the video “clearly shows that the militants came from the street while Israeli tanks were stationed in front of the hospital, putting the lives of medical teams and patients at risk.”

The PRCS called on the international community to protect the medical teams it said were trapped inside Al-Quds.

Some background: The Al Quds hospital is the second largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip and is no longer operational because of the lack of fuel and electricity. 

Earlier Monday, the PRCS had said “intense gunfire” was continuing in the vicinity of the Al-Quds hospital. A convoy accompanied by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to evacuate patients and staff from Al Quds Hospital had to turn back because of the "relentless bombardment and dangerous situation” in the area, the PRCS said.

This post has been updated with the latest statement from the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

The Lebanese state-run news agency (NNA) said two Israeli missiles struck a convoy of media in the town of Yaroun on Monday near the Israeli-Lebanese border.

There were no reported injuries, according to NNA. CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

Journalists in the convoy were reporting on recent exchanges across the border between the Israeli military and Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

The Lebanese TV news channel Al-Jadeed was broadcasting live from the area when an explosion occurred, starting a fire nearby. Several vehicles in the convoy appeared to have been damaged, according to video from the scene.

In the aftermath of the explosion, media personnel were urgently advised to leave the area to "avoid further attacks," NNA reported. 

Last month, Reuters cameraman Issam Abdallah was killed and others injured when a media convoy was hit in southern Lebanon.

Tensions rising: The incident on Monday comes amid rising cross-border exchanges. The IDF reported Monday that “in response to the launches over the past day, IDF fighter jets struck a number of Hezbollah military sites and terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon. These targets included terror infrastructure, weapons storage compounds, and an operational command center used by Hezbollah.”

Earlier on Monday, Hezbollah announced that it had targeted a site in Al-Ramtha within the Shebaa Farms area, claiming a direct strike. It also said that one of its fighters had been killed, but did not say where or when.

Additionally, the Lebanese state news agency reported Monday that two civilians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli air strike that hit a house in the settlement of Eyeta.