December 4, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

The number of civilians being killed in the Gaza Strip is "rapidly increasing" as Israel continues its bombardment and ground operations, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday.

He added that another evacuation order to move civilians from Khan Younis into Rafah in southern Gaza due to Israel's ongoing bombardment "created panic, fear and anxiety."

Lazzarini said that at least 60,000 people were forced to move to an "already overcrowded UNRWA shelters, with more asking to be sheltered. Many have already been displaced more than once fleeing the war in other parts of Gaza." 

UNRWA is currently housing more than 1.2 million people in shelters, including in southern Gaza, according to the agency. 

"The evacuation order pushes people to concentrate into what is less than one-third of the Gaza Strip. They need everything: food, water, shelter, and mostly safety. Roads to the south are clogged," Lazzarini said, noting that access to water is limited in Gaza.

Lazzarini refuted claims that the UN is planning to open new refugee camps in Rafah. "Claims that the UN has thousands of tents and plans to open new refugee camps in Rafah are false," he said.

The UN official also said that the entire enclave is no longer safe.

Earlier on Monday, the director of UNRWA Affairs Thomas White told CNN that "in the last hour here in Rafah, in the south, has seen dozens and dozens of air strikes into the city where there are thousands of people seeking shelter." 

UNRWA reiterated its calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and for Israel to reopen the Kerem Shalom border crossing and other crossings to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

The Israeli military will not wait until the end of the war in Gaza to investigate potential failings in preventing Hamas’ October 7 attack, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said on Monday.

Gaza is currently in a "near total blackout," according to London-based internet monitoring firm, Netblocks.

Netblocks said live metrics showed the Gaza Strip to be "in the midst of a near-total internet blackout," according to a post on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after 1 p.m. ET.

The last remaining major telecommunications operator in Gaza, PalTel, also provided an update on the situation shortly after 1 p.m. ET, announcing that all telecom services in the Gaza Strip have been completely cut off. 

PalTel had previously warned of disruption to the "main elements" of its network earlier on Monday, cutting off telecom services in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip. 

The blackout comes after what Netblocks described as days of "relatively stable service" in Gaza, brought about by the week-long truce enacted by Israel and Hamas. 

Why this matters: As Israel responded to the October 7 attacks by Hamas, its deadly airstrikes across Gaza destroyed homes, schools and hospitals in the densely populated territory. Israel cut electricity to the territory and service providers said the bombardment destroyed vital network infrastructure.

Without the ability to communicate, Palestinian civilians caught in the line of fire are unable to check on each other or call for help; emergency and medical workers can’t coordinate their responses, according to Mirna El Helbawi, the founder of Connecting Gaza, a grassroots initiative that uses virtual SIM cards to help Palestinians skirt telecommunication blackouts.

Additionally, the Israel Defense Forces said last week a new interactive map showing “evacuation zones” is meant to reduce casualties when it carries out strikes in civilian areas. But unreliable access to the internet and power makes it difficult to access.

There are 220 American citizens and hundreds more family members and legal permanent residents left in Gaza, US State Department spokesman Matt Miller said Monday. 

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), during a visit to the Gaza Strip, said the level of human suffering there is intolerable.

“The purpose of my visit is to advance efforts that alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation,” Mirjana Spoljaric said Monday in a statement, adding that civilians currently have “no safe place to go in Gaza."

Spoljaric also said the ICRC must be allowed to safely visit hostages being held in Gaza. She said it would enable the organization to provide updates to family members on the well-being of their loved ones. 

The ICRC president highlighted the positive impact of the week-long truce between Israel and Hamas, describing it as “a small degree of humanitarian respite” and a “positive glimpse of humanity." 

“As a neutral actor, the ICRC stands ready to support further humanitarian agreements that reduce suffering and heartbreak," she said.

The ICRC helped facilitate the release of many of the hostages released from Gaza under the week-long truce agreement between Israel and Hamas. It has also repeatedly called for the protection of aid workers, civilians and critical infrastructure.

Palestinian children who were recently released from detention are barred from going back to school this term, the Israeli Ministry of Education told CNN in a statement.

The Ministry of Education said former child detainees, many of whom are teenagers considered children under international law, won't be able to "study in the education system and will be accompanied by a parole officer" at least until the end of the winter term on January 10, 2024.

After that date, their return to school will be examined on an "individual" basis according to the "the necessary adjustments for each one of the students are underway," the ministry said. 

In a video posted on social media, the father of a Palestinian boy named Ahmed, who was reportedly released as part of the exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, says he was "surprised" when the school did not allow his son to continue hid education there. 

"Now we are by the school door to say: we have many prisoners in Jerusalem, young children at [school] age... They are the future generation and the builders of the future and they want to stop them from getting an education. Our question is: where should we go with our children from today?," the father says in the video.

The negotiations over the release of additional hostages from Gaza that broke down early Friday appear highly unlikely to resume any time soon, multiple senior administration officials tell CNN, leaving the fate of multiple Americans believed to have been taken captive by Hamas up in the air. 

The White House has said there is one American woman and seven men unaccounted for following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. So far, four Americans have been released since the start of the war. All are believed to be dual Israeli-American citizens.

The talks have stalled, and there does not appear to be any real prospects of those discussion starting back up any time soon, according to multiple senior administration officials. 

The major reason for the impasse remained unchanged as of Monday, according to one senior administration official: Hamas is refusing to release a remaining group of young women hostages, and Israel will not accept the suggestion of moving on to discuss the next category of hostages: Men.

And it also appears unlikely that the administration would be able to negotiate separately for the release of Americans citizens – similar to what the Thai and Russian governments did for Thai and Russian national hostages. There is no reason to think that Hamas would do the US any “special favor” in that manner, said a second senior administration official, who all but dismissed that possibility.

With fighting having resumed in the war, it remains unclear what – if anything – could bring back a cessation in hostilities and revive hostage talks.

As CNN has previously reported, Israeli and US officials believe that that Hamas is refusing to release a number of women in the 20- to 30-year-old age range, many of them taken from the Nova music festival, claiming that those women are considered soldiers. That refusal, one official said, is “totally unacceptable” given that there have been “credible allegations of sexual violence linked to Hamas and the October 7 atrocities.”

Hamas on Monday denied that its militants committed rape during the October 7 attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis.

Israeli police are investigating whether rape occurred during the attack, using forensic evidence, video and witness testimony, CNN first reported in November. The Sunday Times of London published testimony this weekend from those who attended the Nova music festival and said that they witnessed rape.

The statement also denied that Hamas targeted festivalgoers at all at the Nova festival in Re’im. At least 260 bodies were recovered from the festival site, according to Israeli rescue service Zaka.

Yoni Saadon, who attended the Nova music festival, told the Sunday Times of London that he witnessed a rape first-hand.

“I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her. She was screaming, ‘Stop it — already I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!’ When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head," the Sunday Times of London reporting said.

The Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) objectives in northern Gaza are "nearly completed," the head of the Israeli military’s Armored Corps said Monday.

"The war objective in the northern Gaza Strip is nearly completed," Brig. Gen. Hisham Ibrahim told Israeli Army Radio on Monday.

The comments were echoed by the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a visit to the Israeli border with Gaza on Monday.

"This action that is happening now, in the north of the Gaza Strip, will soon lead to the breaking of the entire area of Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip," Gallant said.

It is not the first time Israeli officials have said that the military was close to achieve its objectives in northern Gaza. On November 16, before a since-expired temporary truce with Hamas went into effect, the Chief of the IDF General Staff Herzi Halevi said, “We’re quite close to destroying the military system that [Hamas] had in the northern Gaza Strip.”