October 22, 2023 Israel-Hamas war news

The US government has pressed Israel to delay its imminent ground operation Gaza to allow for the release of more Hamas hostages and aid into Gaza, according to two sources briefed on the discussions.

The Friday release of two Americans held by Hamas signaled the possibility of freeing more of the around 200 people believed to be kidnapped by the militant group after its deadly attacks two week ago.

The National Security Council did not immediately respond for comment.

When US President Joe Biden was asked Saturday if he was encouraging Israel to delay the invasion, he responded: "I'm talking to the Israelis." 

Qatar, acting as a middle man for the US and Israel, has been leading the discussions with Hamas about releasing the hostages since they were abducted by Hamas two weeks ago. According to a diplomat briefed on the talks, the negotiations have included talks about getting much-needed aid into Gaza and the need for a temporary ceasefire to get the prisoners out. Israel has not indicated they are considering a ceasefire. 

Hamas does not appear to have gotten anything concrete out of the Friday release of Judith Tai and Natalie Raanan. 

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said in a statement Saturday they were prepared to release two "detained individuals" whom they identified by name. “The same procedures" used to release the Raanans would be employed for the new proposed release, the statement said. 

The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the claim Saturday evening, saying it would not comment on "false Hamas propaganda," adding Israel's government would "continue to do everything necessary to bring all the captives and missing back home."

An official in the Israeli prime minister’s office told CNN on Friday, after news of the Americans’ release, that it may have been an attempt by Hamas to lessen the Israeli military response.

“That (military) pressure isn’t going to go because they were released,” the official said. “It won’t change the mission, which is to dismantle Hamas.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that if Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will be crippled “with a force (it) cannot even imagine.” 

In a video, Netanyahu tells commandos “we are in a battle for life, a battle for home. This is not an exaggeration; this is the war. It's 'to be, or to cease' — they should cease.”

Some context: Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East.

The group, which has its main base on the Israel-Lebanon border, could become a wildcard player in the Hamas-Israel war, and spark a wider regional conflict.

The conflict that started with Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel – which Israeli officials say killed 1,400 people – has already had broad ramifications in the Middle East, and triggered diplomatic rifts and protests around the world.

The fallout is palpable on the Lebanon-Israel border, where Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in low-rumbling tit-for-tat skirmishes since the war began, putting the entire region on a knife’s edge.

It remains unclear whether Hezbollah will intervene in the Hamas-Israel war on behalf of the Palestinians. Should Hezbollah get involved in the war, it would open up a multifront conflict, propelling the Middle East into uncharted territory with unpredictable consequences.

The United Nations' fuel supply in Gaza will run out in three days, a top official has warned, reiterating that supplies must be allowed into the besieged enclave. 

The 20 aid trucks that managed to cross through the Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza on Saturday delivered food, water, medicine and medical supplies but no fuel, according to Egyptian border authorities. 

Lazzarini emphasized that as the "largest humanitarian actor in the Gaza Strip," without fuel, the UNRWA is not able to "help the people of Gaza whose needs are growing by the hour."

Despite welcoming Saturday's convoy into Gaza, he stressed that the supplies delivered are "far from enough," maintaining that "to be meaningful, Gaza needs an uninterrupted and scaled up humanitarian supply line." 

Overnight airstrikes in central Gaza’s Deir Al Balah have killed at least 143 people, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital says. 

A total of 262 people were wounded in those strikes, according to the hospital, which received the bodies and the wounded.

The hospital has been overwhelmed with bodies, according to a journalist at the medical center working for CNN. Videos obtained by CNN showed more than a dozen bodies wrapped in shrouds brought into the hospital. Family members are seen grieving and trying to identify the bodies.

As the hospital’s morgue is full, bodies were being kept on the grounds surrounding the hospital, according to the CNN journalist. They counted five airstrikes near the hospital on Sunday morning.

What the Israeli military is saying: The Israel Defense Forces told CNN that strikes around the overwhelmed hospital were intelligence-led and resulted in the killing of a high-ranking Hamas figure.

He was an artillery commander who had ordered strikes on Israel a day before, an IDF spokesperson said. She could not immediately confirm if he was the same person as a rocket array commander whom IDF chief spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari had announced earlier had been killed.

The spokesperson emphasized that the IDF did not strike the hospital itself.

Some context: Deir Al Balah is a city roughly 8 miles south of Wadi Gaza, and outside the evacuation zone laid out by the Israeli military, which has told civilians to leave the crowded northern portion of the Palestinian enclave.

Last week, the IDF issued guidance telling all civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate to areas south of Wadi Gaza "for your own safety and the safety of your families" as the IDF continues "to operate significantly in Gaza City."

Some parents in Gaza have resorted to writing their children's names on their legs to help identify them should either they or the children be killed, according to videos filmed by a journalist working for CNN. 

The videos are from Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, a district where Israeli airstrikes took place overnight Saturday into Sunday.

They show a toddler and three children who have been killed, bearing their names written in Arabic on their calves. All four are seen lying on stretchers placed on the floor in a room that appears to be a morgue, which is full. It’s unclear whether their parents were also killed.

The journalist says the practice has become more commonplace in recent days. There have been chaotic scenes in several Gaza hospitals in the aftermath of airstrikes, with insufficient room to handle the influx of patients and morgues overflowing.

The videos show that in parts of the Al Aqsa hospital, which is overrun with patients, the injured people, including children, were lying in corridors on makeshift beds and mattresses Sunday morning.

The videos also show a stream of patients being brought in on stretchers early Sunday morning. Dozens of people have gathered outside for safety, while others are seen grieving.

The death toll in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 4,651 with more than 14,245 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza on Sunday.

A spokesman for the ministry, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, said during the past 24 hours, 266 people had been killed including 117 children. 

The ministry has received 1,450 calls concerning missing people believed to be under the rubble, 800 of whom are children, according to Al-Qudra.

It comes after the Rafah border crossing opened for a brief window on Saturday, allowing Gaza to receive its first deliveries of vital aid.

However, international leaders have warned that much more is needed to combat the “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in the enclave that holds more than 2 million people.

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht refused to say Sunday if a fighter jet was involved in the rare airstrike on a mosque in Jenin.

Israeli media reported Sunday that the strike did come from a jet, in what would be the first fighter jet strike in the West Bank in nearly two decades. 

“All I can say is it was an aerial strike,” Hecht told reporters. He said it was the first IDF aerial strike of any kind in the West Bank since a June incursion into Jenin began with one. 

A local resident interviewed by Reuters mentioned a drone, but it is unclear from his comment whether he saw where the strike came from. 

Hecht suggested the strike was carefully targeted. “You will see the mosque is still intact but we took out the terrorists,” he said of Sunday’s attack. 

Video from the scene showed two holes in the mosque roof and rubble inside, but the building and its minaret are still standing.

Some context: The Israeli military said it launched the strike early Sunday to thwart what it called "an imminent terror attack.” 

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it viewed the strike on the mosque in a refugee camp in the city of Jenin as a “dangerous escalation.”

“The Ministry views with great seriousness the bombing of the Jenin camp yesterday, and considers it a dangerous escalation using warplanes, resulting in Palestinian civilian casualties and terrorizing them, including children and women,” the ministry said in a statement following the airstrike. 

It labelled the strike as “an attempt to generalize the model of bombing the Gaza Strip to areas in the occupied West Bank.”

Demands by Israel for the evacuation of Gaza hospitals amount to “a death penalty for patients,” according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The organization said the Israeli military issued three evacuation orders for the Al-Quds hospital on Friday. Spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told CNN Sunday: “We do not have the means to evacuate them safely. Most of the patients are with critical injuries.”

A total of 24 hospitals, including Al-Quds, are under the threat of “being bombed at any second due to Israeli evacuation orders,” Farsakh said. 

CNN has not independently verified this number. The Israel Defense Forces says Hamas frequently uses civilian facilities as cover for its military operations. The IDF told CNN Friday: "Hamas intentionally embeds its assets in civilian areas and uses the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”

The World Health Organization has condemned “Israel’s repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2,000 inpatients in Northern Gaza.”

Farsakh said her team is counting on the international community to take action ahead and “stand for humanity.”

A truck driver waiting to pass through the Rafah crossing into Gaza with aid has said he is hopeful he will be successful.

“God willing, I am now entering the crossing, or in a few minutes. God willing, to deliver this aid and will go in and out safely, God willing,” Ali Shousha told CNN on Sunday morning. He is carrying food, blankets among other supplies. 

Driver Gamal al-Sakka also sounded hopeful: “God willing, we will fulfil the job and we are going to our beloved brothers,” he told CNN.

A total of 17 aid trucks carrying food and medicine were getting ready to enter the Gaza Strip through Rafah, the only entry point to Gaza not controlled by Israel, Egypt’s Red Crescent said earlier on Sunday morning.

Those follow the first 20 trucks that went through the crossing on Saturday, which has otherwise been closed since Hamas' initial attacks on October 7. The border point was quickly closed again on Saturday after the aid convoy had passed.

But the level of aid is nowhere near enough to sustain those in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is dire. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed on Saturday that “the needs are far higher” than the aid people in Gaza have received.