November 1, 2023 Israel-Hamas war news

Collapsed tunnels were partly responsible for the scale of destruction caused by Tuesday's strike on Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said Wednesday.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Hamas commander Ibrahim Biari, who was targeted in the strike, was in "an underground area located inside buildings inside a civilian refugee camp."

Hamas has claimed to have built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels underneath Gaza, which it has used to smuggle goods from Egypt and launch attacks into Israel.

Survivors and eyewitness spoke of apocalyptic scenes in the aftermath of the strike, which tore a massive crater through the middle of the crowded camp.

The IDF said it had killed Biari in the strike. Hagari described Biari as being “responsible for a significant area from which terrorists set out to massacre on October 7.”

Dr. Atef Al Kahlout, director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, told CNN on Tuesday the strike had caused hundreds of casualties, both dead and wounded. “Many are still under the rubble,” he added.

Second strike: Hagari also gave more details about a second overnight Israeli strike on the Jabalya camp.

“Terrorists shot at our forces in the field,” he said. “Hamas terrorists are using this building, like many other places, as a shelter. This case concerns a variety of civilian residential buildings near a school, a medical centre and government offices. Our fighters directed an aircraft from the air that attacked the threat and destroyed the terrorists."

Hagari's comments echoed those of Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, another IDF spokesperson, who accused Hamas Tuesday of "hiding, as they do, behind civilians."

A large barrage of rockets was fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel on Wednesday morning.

A CNN team on the ground in Ashkelon, southern Israel, counted at least 10 large bangs, most likely indicating the rockets being intercepted and destroyed by Iron Dome, the Israeli air defense system. It is unclear whether all of the rockets were intercepted.

A number of locations north of the enclave were placed under air raid warnings, prompting people to seek shelter.

Ashkelon’s proximity to the Gaza border means that its residents have only a few moments to find a safe place. When the sirens began, people were seen running towards shelters located around the city, including in parks, bus stations and other public spaces.

Hamas has continued to fire rockets from Gaza, despite the enclave having been under intense bombardment for more than three weeks and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launching a ground operation in the strip on Friday.

The IDF has said that destroying Hamas’ rocket infrastructure is one of its main goals of the war.

Up to 500 foreign nationals could be released from Gaza, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

CNN has spoken to three different sources close to the matter who say that around 500 foreigners are expected to leave Gaza at the Rafah crossing with Egypt. 

A Palestinian border official, Hisham Adwan, told CNN that 500 people were waiting to cross, revising this figure up from an initial 450.

One source close to the negotiations also said 500 foreign nationals could leave Gaza, and another source, at the border, said they were aware of 478 people who would be permitted to cross. 

No timeline has been set on when they will begin moving.

Sources told CNN that Qatar had brokered a deal between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the United States to release foreign nationals and critically injured civilians in Gaza.

This agreement is separate from any hostage negotiations, the source added.

CNN previously reported that 81 injured Palestinians will also arrive at the Rafah crossing Wednesday morning, as well as the hundreds of foreign nationals.

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is "likely to open today for a first group of foreign nationals,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Wednesday in a social media post.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said approximately 400 Americans and their family members — about 1,000 people total — are stuck in Gaza and seeking to leave amid diplomatic efforts to help them.

Blinken spoke with his Qatari counterpart Monday about pressing Hamas to allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave, according to a State Department spokesperson.

Border traffic: UK foreign minister Cleverley's remarks Wednesday came as a fleet of ambulances arrived at the Rafah crossing with Gaza to bring about 80 injured Palestinians to Egypt. The patients would be the first known Palestinians allowed out of the enclave since the war with Israel began more than three weeks ago.

Meanwhile, as aid trickles into the coastal strip, Cleverly said, “It’s vital that lifesaving humanitarian aid can enter Gaza as quickly as possible.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday said it has “struck over 11,000 targets belonging to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip” since the war began on October 7.

That’s an average of more than 440 strikes per day for the first 25 days of the war.

The IDF has repeatedly said it is not targeting civilians in its unrelenting bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400 people.

An Israeli strike targeting a Hamas commander in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza Tuesday killed a large number of people and left catastrophic damage, according to eyewitnesses and medics in the enclave.

Israeli troops directed airstrikes on “several Hamas terrorists” who had barricaded themselves in a multi-story building located near a school, medical center, and government offices in the Jabalya area, the IDF statement said. 

According to an earlier IDF statement, the airstrike Tuesday targeted and killed Ibrahim Biari, whom it described as one of the Hamas commanders responsible for the October 7 attack.

The IDF also said “numerous other Hamas terrorists” were hit in the strike, and claimed the Central Jabalya Battalion had taken control of civilian buildings.

Hamas however has strongly denied the presence of one of its leaders in the refugee camp. Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for the militant group, accused Israel of attempting to justify what he described as a “heinous crime against safe civilians, children, and women in Jabalya camp.”

More than 8,400 people have died in Gaza during the ongoing war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws on information from the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Battle footage: In its Wednesday statement, the IDF said soldiers also directed aircraft to strike a vehicle “carrying anti-tank missiles driving toward the forces operating in the Gaza Strip.”

Video shared by the IDF showed strikes on multiple locations, and soldiers on the ground in Gaza moving through rubble. The IDF also shared video showing a targeted vehicle turning onto a road before being hit by an explosive, setting it ablaze.

Some 80 ambulances from Egypt arrived at the Rafah border with Gaza on Wednesday morning to receive injured Palestinian patients, an Egyptian border official told CNN at the crossing.

The patients will be the first known Palestinians allowed out of Gaza since the war began more than three weeks ago, if they cross into Egypt.

Earlier, an Egyptian border official told CNN the crossing was set to open to allow 81 wounded Palestinians from Gaza to receive treatment in Egyptian hospitals.

Gaza's Al Shifa hospital director Dr. Mohammed Abu Silmiyeh told CNN most of the patients require surgical intervention in operating rooms, a procedure not currently available in the enclave.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday named nine more Israeli soldiers killed during its ongoing ground operation in northern Gaza.

Seven of the troops were members of the Givati brigade, which is focused on fighting terrorism, and the other two were part of the armored corps, the IDF said. It did not say how they were killed.

The IDF identified those killed as Ariel Reich, Asif Luger, Adi Danan, Halel Solomon, Erez Mishlovsky, Adi Leon, Ido Ovadia, Lior Siminovich, and Roei Dawi.

It comes after the IDF on Tuesday confirmed the first two deaths of Israeli soldiers in Gaza since its ground incursion ramped up on Friday.

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday condemned Israeli forces' "inhumane targeting" of the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, saying it "totally rejects the repeated targeting by the Israeli occupation forces of densely populated civilian areas."

The Israeli strike targeting a Hamas commander in the densely populated camp Tuesday killed a large number of people and left catastrophic damage, according to eyewitnesses and medics in the enclave.

The “dire humanitarian situation stemming from the ongoing escalation cannot be justified,” the statement added, noting that “halting the bloodshed, protecting civilians and the cessation of military operations are urgent priorities.”

“The failure to promptly adhere to these principles will inevitably lead to a humanitarian disaster for which the Israeli occupation and the international community bear responsibility,” it said.

Some context: Saudi Arabia had been in talks to normalize relations with Israel in recent months, something Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in September described as a pact that would be “the biggest historical deal since the Cold War.”

But Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack on Israel and the Israeli military's siege of Gaza in response has thrust the Palestinian issue back into the international spotlight. It may also have thrown a wrench in Israel’s efforts to expand what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls the “circle of peace,” referring to Arab nations that have sidestepped the Palestinian issue to establish ties with Israel.

Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, which was hit on Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a Hamas leader, was always known to journalists covering Gaza for the sheer number of children there.

Over several visits there over the years I found them to be curious and excited when strangers showed up. Crowding around our CNN teams, asking questions, trying their English and jumping in front of the camera. Often my TV producer, driver and fixer would have to keep the children busy and distracted as we attempted to report or record a shot on camera.

Like Gaza’s other refugee camps, these crowded built-up areas have houses, shops, and apartment buildings jammed up against one another, the roads between them in many areas barely wide enough for a car to pass. The open-air markets were always busy.

Even in the best of times though, life was tough in Jabalya. Schools were so crowded classes were held in two shifts a day. The tap water wasn’t fit for human consumption. Unemployment was high and most families were dependent on food aid provided by the United Nations. Yet one rarely got the feeling that people had given up hope.

Once when I was in Jabalya, after another round of fighting between Hamas and Israel in the spring of 2021, we stopped at a shawarma shop the day after the fighting ended. The shop had just opened and was doing a bustling business. Its owner, Amjad, greeted us heartily.

Two years later, in 2023, I was back after another reporting trip, and the shop had expanded. Amjad greeted us like long lost friends and snapped orders to the waiters to get our food.

Above our table was a television running on a loop an advertisement for a local school promising a top-quality education to ensure a shining future for the children of Gaza.

Yes, Jabalya was crowded and noisy and dusty — one of the poorer areas in Gaza — but it was a place where, despite the problems of Gaza, you always came away feeling that someday, somehow, the people there would be able to live a better life.

I can’t go back right now with Israel and Egypt blocking entry into Gaza, but I fear that optimism against all odds may now have been shattered.