November 4, 2023 Israel-Hamas war news

No new fuel has entered Gaza since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in early October, US Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues David Satterfield said Saturday.

The US expects that additional fuel will be brought in once that fuel runs out, and there is an agreed mechanism in place for that, the envoy said. This fuel would only be going to south Gaza, he noted.

Israel has accused Hamas of hoarding and diverting fuel, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that “Israel has raised appropriate concerns, concerns that we share, about Hamas’s hoarding and syphoning of fuel in northern Gaza.”

“Again, its cynicism knows no bounds, denying fuel itself that it has to hospitals and other places that desperately need it. In meetings with regional partners, I’ll continue conversations about getting assistance to flow, including with help from the United Nations,” Blinken said Friday during a visit to Israel.

US officials are not aware Hamas diverting any humanitarian assistance that has entered Gaza in the past weeks since trucks began entering via the Rafah crossing, Satterfield said Saturday.

Aid workers in the field have not reported “interdiction of or seizure of goods by Hamas,” he said.

CNN cannot independently verify the amount of fuel in the enclave.

Deteriorating conditions in hospitals: Gaza's hospitals and staff are overwhelmed as the facilities are housing both patients and the countless displaced who have nowhere else to go.

Gaza’s leading cancer hospital, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital, has stopped operating due to Israeli bombardment and fuel shortages, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said in a statement Wednesday.

A doctor at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital Friday said that low fuel stocks have plunged wards into darkness and cut off major, basic functions like oxygen generation.

Hamas is blocking foreign nationals from departing Gaza until Israel guarantees that ambulances from the Palestinian enclave can reach the Rafah crossing to Egypt, a US official familiar with situation told CNN Saturday.

The demand comes after Israel admitted on Friday that it attacked an ambulance outside Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the enclave. The vehicle had been in a convoy headed for Rafah, which is the only remaining option for getting in and out of Gaza during Israel's siege of the territory.

Israel claimed the ambulance was being used by Hamas fighters.

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed it had been notified about the convoy, but did not have any of its own ambulances present at the time of the strike.

“Even if we were not present, this is still medical convoy, and any violence towards medical personnel is unacceptable,” the ICRC said Saturday.

More than 700 foreign nationals were expected to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing Saturday, according to an official source on the Egyptian side of the crossing.

CNN reported Friday that initial efforts to secure safe passage for foreign nationals in Gaza were stymied in part by Hamas including its own members on a list of wounded Palestinians designated to pass through the Rafah crossing, according to a senior US official.

CNN's Donald Judd contributed reporting to this post.

A total of 9,425 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to figures released Saturday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah.

An additional 24,000 others have been injured, the ministry said.

The figures are drawn from sources inside the Hamas-controlled enclave.

According to the ministry's report, nearly 73% of the fatalities are from among vulnerable groups, including children, women and the elderly. 

The number of deaths reported Saturday is 270 higher than that reported by the Ministry on Friday, with the number injured about 1,000 higher.

The Israeli military continues to encircle and pound the Gaza Strip with airstrikes in response to a cross-border terror attack launched by Hamas militants on October 7.

Calls for a ceasefire by Hamas, aid organizations, and much of the global community have been rejected by Israel’s government, which has vowed to wipe out Hamas after the brutal attack last month, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians.

Arab foreign ministers are set to "call for an immediate ceasefire" in Gaza during a summit in Amman on Saturday, Jordan's Foreign Ministry said in a post on social media.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with several Arab foreign ministers during the summit to discuss the situation in Gaza.

Blinken also met separately with Jordan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ayman Safadi, in Amman ahead of the joint meeting. 

Some context: Foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Qatar, as well as the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, were set to meet with Blinken, according to a statement from Jordan's foreign ministry.

On Saturday morning, Blinken met with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to discuss weeks-long tensions between Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah and Israel on the Israeli-Lebanese border, according to US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Israeli airstrikes have damaged a building located in front of the emergency entrance of Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City, injuring 21 people, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said Saturday in a post on social media.

One video released by the PRCS shows people sheltering from dust and debris at the hospital's entrance, while some are running from across the street to avoid the debris.

Another video shows people rushing towards the damaged building.

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment about the reported airstrikes.

Some context: The IDF has repeatedly called on civilians to evacuate Gaza City and northern Gaza and move southwards, as it intensifies its assault in the area. The IDF has frequently asserted that civilian infrastructure, including hospital compounds, is being used by Hamas.

Al-Quds Hospital is located north of Wadi Gaza, the line Israel has urged people in Gaza to flee south of.

Turkey has "crossed out" Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and will strive to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court for its actions in Gaza, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday, according to Turkish state media outlet Anadolu. 

The Turkish leader has been a vocal critic of Israel's actions in Gaza, last week accusing Israel of going beyond its right to defend itself, committing what he described as "oppression, atrocity" and "massacre" in Gaza. 

On Saturday, Erdogan recalled a speech he made at a recent pro-Palestinian rally during which he announced Turkey's support for "initiatives that would bring Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes to the International Criminal Court."

"Our relevant authorities, especially our Foreign Ministry, will carry out this work,” Erdogan added, according to Anadolu. 

The Turkish president is set to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken soon, after the top US diplomat added a stop in Turkey to his shuttle diplomacy tour of the Middle East. 

Israel is not a member of the ICC, a body which was established in 2002 to bring justice to those found responsible for crimes against humanity and genocide.

A UN-run school serving as a shelter in a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip was struck Saturday, according to the UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees in Gaza, UNRWA.

The strikes killed 15 people and injured more than 70, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. 

Touma said that at least one strike directly affected the Al-Fakhoura school yard which had been converted to accommodate tents for the displaced families. Another strike damaged the school's perimeter wall, where women were making bread, she said.

Images obtained by CNN of the shelter show damage, bloodshed and casualties within the school's courtyard. 

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on the UNRWA statement.

Some context: As of October 12, the Al-Fakhoura school accommodated as many as 16,000 displaced persons. However, the current number of those sheltering there is unknown.

The IDF has repeatedly called on civilians to evacuate Gaza City and northern Gaza and move southwards, as it intensifies its assault in the area. The IDF has frequently asserted that civilian infrastructure is being used by Hamas.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with Arab officials, including several foreign ministers and Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, at a summit in Jordan's capital, Amman, on Saturday to discuss the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

Foreign ministers from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Qatar, as well as the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, are set to meet with Blinken, according to a statement from Jordan's foreign ministry.

On Saturday morning, Blinken met with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to discuss weeks-long tensions between Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah and Israel on the Israeli-Lebanese border, according to US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

The Jordanian foreign ministry said the summit would be focused on ending the war and addressing “the humanitarian catastrophe it has caused.”

Blinken has also met with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Neither spoke during a brief photo opportunity at the beginning of their meeting.

Qatar has served as a key negotiator in discussions with Hamas amid the conflict in Israel and Gaza. The US has credited the Qataris for their help in securing the release of four hostages held by the group, as well as for the partial opening of the Rafah gate between Gaza and Egypt.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed his condolences for the more than 70 UN staff that have been killed in the ongoing conflict in Gaza. 

The Israel-Hamas war has resulted in the highest number of UN workers killed in a conflict anywhere in the world in such a short period of time, the Commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, announced earlier this week. 

Lazzarini, who oversees the "largest humanitarian operation" in Gaza, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that 72 staff members have now been killed in Gaza.  

Blinken told reporters Saturday that he holds "extraordinary admiration" for the "courage" shown by UNRWA employees, stressing that the purpose of his visit was to "talk to people in the field and to express our own ongoing support for this work." 

Some context: UN staffers in Gaza are working lengthy days as dozens of UN-operated schools provide shelter for civilians fleeing Israel's bombardment.

UNRWA said on Friday that nearly 50 of its buildings and assets across Gaza have been impacted by the conflict, with some being “directly hit.”