November 15, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Around 23,000 liters (6,078 gallons) of fuel from Egypt were delivered to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to be used only for transporting aid from Rafah, the organization’s director in Gaza, Thomas White, said on X. 

“Just received 23,027 [liters] of fuel from Egypt (half a tanker) – but its use has been restricted by Israeli authorities - only for transporting aid from Rafah,” White wrote. “No fuel for water or hospitals.”

The truck carrying the fuel crossed the border from Egypt into Gaza on Wednesday morning, a CNN stringer at the Rafah border crossing saw. It’s the first truck to carry fuel into the Gaza Strip since Israel imposed a blockade on the strip following Hamas’ attack on October 7. 

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a government agency that liaises with Palestinians on civilian affairs, said earlier that UN trucks transporting humanitarian equipment from the Rafah crossing into the southern Gaza Strip will be refueled at the crossing Wednesday. 

Hamas has claimed Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, is under the control of Israeli forces, the militant group said in a statement Wednesday.

Israeli forces launched a raid on the Al-Shifa hospital complex early Wednesday after accusing Hamas of operating from tunnels beneath the vast complex – a claim that has been repeatedly and vehemently denied by the militant group and hospital officials.

“We hold the 'Israeli' occupation fully responsible for the lives and safety of medical personnel, the wounded, the sick, premature children, and the displaced,” the Hamas government media office said. 

More on the hospital raid: Khaled Abu Samra, a doctor at the hospital, told CNN they were given 30 minutes’ warning before the Israeli operation on the complex began in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

“We were asked to stay clear of the windows and the balconies. We can hear the armored vehicles, they are very close to the entrance of the complex,” he said.

Khader Al Za’anoun, a journalist inside the hospital, told CNN on Wednesday morning Israeli tanks and military vehicles were in the hospital courtyard. He added Israeli soldiers were “in the buildings and departments are conducting search and interrogation operations with the young men amidst intense and violent gunfire inside the hospital,” and were using megaphones to ask young men in the hospital to “raise their hands, come out, and surrender themselves.”

CNN cannot independently verify Israel’s claims that Hamas is operating from the hospital.

Israeli army spokesperson Peter Lerner told CNN on Wednesday that the IDF had informed hospital administrators, patients and civilians inside to take cover “because we intend on conducting our military operation in order to differentiate and distinguish between the civilians and the terrorists.”

CNN's Nadeen Ebrahim and Jessie Yeung contributed reporting to this post.

“I’m an American citizen. And they shot me.”

From a dark room in Gaza’s Al Quds Hospital, Farah Abuolba speaks matter of factly into the camera. For more than a week, the teenager has been languishing without hope that she, her mother, and her sister will ever escape the nightmare they have entered.

On November 3, as she and her family tried to reach the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the bus she was traveling in along Gaza’s coastal road came under what she believes was Israeli attack, with a blast that severed half her left hand. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has denied that it struck that street on November 3.

That was her third attempt to evacuate from Gaza, where Israel has conducted thousands of airstrikes since October 7. But without being able to reach the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, through which some foreign nationals have been permitted to exit into Egypt, Abuolba remains stuck in the battered Palestinian territory.

Approximately 400 American citizens plus their family members — about 1,000 people total — are stuck in Gaza and are seeking to leave, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on November 1. The number has changed little since, according to the latest from the State Department.

Abuolba grew up in rural Pennsylvania, where she has lived with her family since the age of three. Israel’s siege of Gaza has been the unexpected coda to her first trip to see extended family in the enclave.

Speaking to CNN, she remembered the initial joy of the visit, relaxing on Gaza’s beaches with her cousins. Now all she wants to do is go home.

“I’m trying so hard to find a way home just so I can fix my hand. How am I – how am I going to go to school now, like it’s normal? Like my life is normal?” she asked CNN.

Read more about Abuolba's ordeal as she tries to evacuate Gaza.

The main United Nations relief agency operating in Gaza warned on Wednesday that its "entire operation is now on the verge of collapse."

The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), Philippe Lazzarini, warned "by the end of today, around 70% of the population in Gaza won't have access to clean water," in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

UNRWA is sheltering some 780,000 people in more than 150 overcrowded facilities even as basic services have crumbled. Yesterday, the agency said a total of 102 aid workers with UNRWA had been killed and 27 others wounded in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began.

Echoing Lazzarini's calls, the UN's emergency relief chief, Martin Griffiths, said the "carnage" in Gaza "cannot be allowed to continue."

He called for the "warring parties" to respect international law and agree to a humanitarian ceasefire.

Some context: Israeli airstrikes in response to Hamas' attack on Israel more than a month ago have killed over 11,000 people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, citing medical sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. A fuel blockade has resulted in a deepening humanitarian crisis as hospitals, water systems, bakeries and other services reliant on electricity shut down.

CNN's Sharon Braithwaite contributed reporting to this post.

Neonatal babies in Gaza's largest hospital are in "severe danger" as conditions in the medical facility further deteriorate, the director general of Gaza hospitals told Al Jazeera.  

“On evacuating the (Al-Shifa) hospital … we have said numerous times there is no place to move 40 incubators outside the hospital,” Mohammad Zaqout said.

CNN could not independently confirm his assessment of the situation. But earlier this week, pictures released by the hospital showed newborn babies taken off incubators and placed next to each other on one bed due to power shortages amid Israel's bombardment and blockade in Gaza.  

The Egyptian health ministry is trying to coordinate the transfer of 36 neonatal babies with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Egyptian Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar told CNN on Tuesday. He said Egypt has ambulances equipped with portable ventilators waiting on the border to receive the babies to be moved immediately to hospitals.

But Zaqout said “the mechanism (to transfer patients to Egypt) is extremely slow," claiming that "the transfer patient lists are getting rejected (by Israel)."

The Israel Defense Forces said it has offered to try to provide Al-Shifa Hospital with incubators and respirators for premature babies and children. On Wednesday, the IDF said the military had delivered incubators and medical supplies to the hospital. CNN is not on the ground and was unable to confirm that claim.

CNN has been unable to reach Al-Shifa Hospital due to a lack of communication access.

The director general of Gaza hospitals said the Israeli military entered the ground floor and basement of the surgery building during a raid in the Al-Shifa hospital complex — the largest hospital complex in Gaza.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic, Mohammad Zaqout said Israel Defense Forces interrogated medical teams, patients and their escorts.

 Zaqout said Israeli tanks had started leaving the complex.

CNN is not on the ground and cannot independently verify his account.

A senior Israeli defense official told journalists early Wednesday afternoon they had no information that people inside the hospital had been interrogated — though the official acknowledged the operation was still ongoing at the time of the briefing.

More context: Israel said its military launched a “targeted” operation against Hamas early Wednesday morning inside Al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of Palestinians are believed to be sheltering.

Conditions at the hospital, which has run out of fuel and is no longer considered operational, have deteriorated rapidly in recent days amid intense fighting, with doctors warning of a “catastrophic” situation for patients, staff and displaced people still inside.

The families of US citizens believed to be held hostage by Hamas will meet with the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, at the US State Department this morning, according to a source familiar with their plans.

They will then meet Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill in the afternoon.

On Monday, the group met with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Carstens at the White House.

For Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui is believed to be held hostage, Monday's meeting "assured" him that President Joe Biden's administration is "doing whatever is necessary" to secure the release of their loved ones. He told CNN he had "no doubt" that Biden was "totally committed."

Dekel-Chen said the officials have not provided an update on the status of the negotiations to release hostages or an update on his son’s status.

Status of the negotiations: Biden said Tuesday that he believes a deal can be reached to release hostages, voicing optimism as officials tell CNN prolonged talks to free hostages are nearing an agreement.

“I’ve been talking with the people involved every single day. I believe it’s going to happen. But I don’t want to get into detail,” Biden told reporters at the White House.

The White House said Tuesday night that Biden had “discussed at length” efforts to free hostages with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call earlier in the day.

A senior US official familiar with the talks told CNN on Tuesday that Israel and Hamas are moving closer to a deal to secure the release of hostages taken during the Hamas attacks on Israel in exchange for a sustained, days-long pause in fighting. The official stressed that while the parties have inched closer to striking a deal, the talks remained volatile and could still break down: “It’s closer but it’s not done.”

Israeli forces launched a raid Wednesday on Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, after accusing Hamas of operating from tunnels beneath the vast complex – a claim denied by the militant group and hospital officials.

Thousands of Palestinians are believed to be sheltering in and around the hospital, which has been surrounded by heavy fighting, trapping vulnerable patients, staff and displaced Palestinians as they run out of medical supplies and fuel. 

The hospital’s main building has effectively ceased functioning, with doctors working by candlelight and wrapping premature babies in foil to keep them alive – with some warning the situation inside has become “catastrophic.”

In recent days, the hospital has become a microcosm of the wider war and the rhetoric around it.

Palestinians hold up the fighting around Al-Shifa as proof of Israel’s wanton disregard for civilian life in Gaza, while Israel points to the hospital as an example of Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields.

Read more on the events unfolding at Al-Shifa here.

People inside Al-Shifa hospital have lost contact with other buildings in the complex, the supervisor of the ER department Omar Zaqout told Al Jazeera in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Zaqout said people are sheltering inside the buildings and staying away from windows and doors. 

Zaqout said that Israeli soldiers are present in buildings around the ER and that had earlier witnessed people handcuffed, stripped from their clothes and blindfolded. 

CNN is not on the ground and cannot independently verify his account. CNN has also reached out to the IDF for comment on these allegations but has yet to hear back. 

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israel was at war “with Hamas” and not “with civilians in Gaza,” and described the raid on Al-Shifa hospital as a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area [of the facility]”. 

“The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields,” Hagari also claimed on Wednesday.

For his part, Zaqout maintained that all the people inside the hospital are civilians.

“The situation is currently horrific,” Zaqout said.