October 30, 2023 - Israel-Hamas war news

Dozens of Hamas operatives who had barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels were killed overnight as Israel continued its ground operations in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday.

In one incident, an Israeli aircraft guided by IDF ground troops struck a staging post inside a building belonging to Hamas with over 20 militants inside, the IDF said in a statement.

Overnight, a guided fighter jet also struck the area of Al-Azhar University, where IDF troops had identified what they said were armed terrorists and an anti-tank missile launching post.

Over the past few days, the IDF says it has struck more than 600 "terror targets," including weapons depots, dozens of anti-tank missile launching positions, and hideouts and staging grounds used by Hamas.

Some context: Israeli troops have advanced more than 2 miles [about 3 kilometers] into Gaza in their expanding ground operation, a CNN analysis has found.

Israel over the weekend announced it had entered a “second stage” of its war against Hamas and on Sunday said its ground operation in Gaza would intensify, following weeks of aerial strikes on the Hamas-controlled territory.

The country was prepared for a “long and difficult” war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday, as it seeks to root out and “destroy” Hamas after its October 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

The number of people killed during Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7 has risen to 7,950, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said Sunday, drawing the data from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of those killed are from vulnerable populations, including children, women and elderly people, according to the ministry's report. 

More than 20,000 people have been injured, the ministry added. 

The reported death toll includes 116 medical personnel, as many hospitals have been hit by military strikes.

In an earlier update, the ministry said 24 hospitals in northern Gaza, with a combined capacity of 2,000 beds, had been told to evacuate.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated the figures provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. This has been amended.

Touching the side of his neck gingerly, 30-year-old Withawat Kunwong reveals a jagged network of scars he received after being attacked at a poultry farm where he had been working in southern Israel.

The wound, Kunwong says, is a painful reminder of the fear and trauma he endured on October 7 when thousands of Hamas fighters broke through Israel’s border defenses in an unprecedented surprise attack.

The farm he had been working on was located in the Holit kibbutz, an agrarian community near the Gaza Strip. He was livestreaming from the farm when loud explosions were heard and thick black plumes of smoke rose into the air as rockets flew overheard.

He recalled hiding for hours that day but was discovered by a man he recalled as being a Palestinian dressed in civilian clothes who tried to cut his throat with a kitchen knife, after he “refused to surrender. A savage fight ensued.

After the violent struggle with his attacker, Kunwong was left for dead, heavily bleeding from the wound in his throat. He was eventually found and cared for by other migrant workers. He managed to survive, he believes, because the knife had been blunt and broken.

His story is a tragic illustration of the human toll of the ongoing war that has claimed thousands of lives in both Israel and Gaza and displaced more than a million people in the Hamas-controlled territory.

Hamas has described its brutal attack as an assault on Israel. But so many of those murdered and kidnapped by the militant group’s fighters were also foreign nationals.

Read more about the hostages.

"Civil order" is deteriorating in Gaza after weeks of siege and bombardment, with people breaking into warehouses to take survival essentials, according to United Nations agencies.

The UN World Food Programme said some of its aid supplies were looted in Gaza and warned of "growing hunger and desperation" in a news release Sunday. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said earlier Sunday that "thousands" of people had broken into some of its warehouses and distribution centers in the central and southern areas of the strip, "taking wheat flour and other basic survival items like hygiene supplies."

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An angry crowd in Russia’s mostly Muslim region of Dagestan stormed an airport where a flight from Israel arrived on Sunday, forcing authorities to close the facility and divert flights.

Clashes left at least 10 people injured, including two people in critical condition, according to a statement by the Dagestan Health Ministry late Sunday.

According to Russian state media TASS, “those gathered oppose the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

The Makhachkala Uytash Airport (MCX) was temporarily closed and flights were diverted, according to a statement from the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, saying “unknown persons” broke into the facility.

The Red Wing Airlines flight from Tel Aviv arrived Sunday at 7:17 p.m. local time, according to Flight Aware, and was quickly surrounded by protesters upon landing.

Multiple videos posted on social media showed a crowd of people inside the airport and on the runway, some waving the Palestinian flag, others forcing their way through closed doors in the international terminal.

In one video, a pilot takes to the speaker of his aircraft to say: “It is not safe to open the doors” because “protesters are below our plane.”

The incident is the latest to illustrate huge global tensions and divides over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which was sparked by a coordinated October 7 attack by the militant group that killed some 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of more than 200 people.

Read more about the incident in Dagestan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received sharp criticism after he accused security chiefs in a now-deleted social media post of failing to warn him about the impending Hamas attack prior to October 7.

Amid a chorus of disapproval from opponents and allies, Netanyahu deleted the post on Sunday morning, issuing a rare apology and stating Israel’s security heads had his “full backing.”

But the incident has done little to quell increasing frustration and anger directed at Israel’s leader for failing to anticipate the brutal Hamas attacks, which saw the group kill at least 1,400 people and take more than 200 hostages, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Netanyahu’s tweet comes at a time when he is also under increasing pressure from the families of hostages for a “comprehensive deal” to ensure their release. These calls are becoming more urgent amid concerns for what Israel’s expanding ground operations could mean for the safety of hostages trapped in Gaza.

An outpouring of criticism swiftly followed Netanyahu’s post, following which, the prime minister deleted the post and apologized. “I was wrong. Things I said following the press conference should not have been said and I apologize for that,” he wrote on X. Israel’s security chiefs had his “full backing,” he added.

But even in this apology, Netanyahu made no mention of his own responsibility for the failure to anticipate the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. By contrast, security chiefs Ronen Bar and Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, as well as chief of staff of the IDF Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have all taken responsibility to some extent for failures that led to the attacks.

The "fabric of society" in Gaza is starting to break down, an official from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) told CNN — echoing warnings Sunday of a breakdown in civil order.

Thomas White, director of affairs for Gaza for UNRWA, said people were looting logistics and aid warehouses in the enclave in a "breakdown in civil order." 

White said he was concerned for the people of Gaza but also for UNRWA's ability to maintain operations there. He called for a humanitarian ceasefire, citing the urgent need to "get the assistance that people need and stabilize society in Gaza." 

Hamas launched at least one of its weaponized drones in the October 7 terror attack from a residential building in southern Gaza, video circulating on social media shows.

CNN geolocated the takeoff site in the video to the eastern outskirts of the town of Khuza'a.

It's the latest video to come to light from captured Hamas weaponry and body cameras that sheds new insight into how Hamas conducted its surprise assault on Israel. 

The drone is seen rising in the video from the building, away from Khuza'a and toward the Gaza-Israel border. A second video, taken near an Israeli military outpost just east of Nir Oz, shows the drone flying. 

It is suddenly heard losing propulsion and is then seen hitting the ground. It's unclear what caused the drone to crash, and it's unclear whether it dropped munitions before crashing. 

Israel has "crossed the red lines" in Gaza, which "may force everyone to take action," Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi said Sunday, while US national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned of an "elevated risk" of a spillover conflict in the Middle East.

Experts say that while Iran is wary of being dragged into the Israel-Hamas war, it may not be in full control if the militias it backs in the region — like the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah — independently intervene as Hamas suffers heavy blows and the death toll in Gaza continues to mount.

Raisi's comments were not the first warning from an Iranian official of the potential for a broader conflict.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has also warned that Israel’s bombardment of Gaza could have far-reaching consequences, saying that if Israel does not halt its airstrikes, “it is highly probable that many other fronts will be opened.”

“This option is not ruled out and this is becoming increasingly more probable,” he told Al Jazeera in a recent interview.

Last Monday, Abdollahian said the US has sent Iran two messages regarding escalation in the region.

“The first message said that the United States is not interested in expanding the war, and the second message asked Iran to have self-restraint and insisted that Iran should also ask other countries and other sides to have self-restraint,” Abdollahian said during a news conference in Tehran, without saying how and when the messages were delivered.

He added that while the US says it wants to de-escalate, it has contradicted itself by continuing to support Israel.

Trita Parsi, vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, said there is no appetite or desire from either Iran, the US or Israel for a wider war, but that Washington’s failure to restrain Israel may inadvertently drive the region toward escalation.

Read more on Iran's role in the region.