December 10, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Dark clouds of smoke billowed over the skyline of Khan Younis in Gaza on Sunday as Israel expanded its operations in the south of the strip, according to a video livestreamed by Reuters.

The video, which was shot from the rooftop of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, shows heavy smoke on the horizon — with some explosions heard in the distance. CNN has also geolocated a video from social media that shows the sounds of heavy gunfire in Khan Younis.

Meanwhile, the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, said the southern city has come under “a series of airstrikes and artillery shelling on a number of areas" Sunday and hospitals in the area are facing increased pressure.

In an update Sunday, Israel's military said it struck more than 250 Hamas targets in the past 24 hours, including what it called Hamas military communication sites and tunnels in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military also said it continued to engage in intense battles with Hamas fighters in the southern city of Khan Younis this week.

On Saturday, the IDF issued “an urgent appeal” for civilians to evacuate from much of Khan Younis amid fierce fighting in the area. It is unclear how many people were aware of the instruction given the lack of communications networks and internet availability in much of Gaza. 

Catch up on some of the other latest developments in the war:

A convoy of 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing Sunday, according to a statement published by the Palestinian crossing authority.

Three of the trucks had 129,000 liters of fuel and two trucks contained cooking gas, the statement from Sunday added.

A total of 513 people exited the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including 468 foreigners and 25 injured Palestinians, accompanied by 20 individuals. 

The current count of trucks is consistent with the daily average permitted over the past week.

Prior to the conflict, the United Nations reported that an average of 455 trucks delivered aid supplies each day.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), accused the Israeli military of attacking a marked evacuation convoy in Gaza on November 18.  

Two family members of MSF staff were killed; one was a volunteer nurse at Shifa Hospital, a news release from MSF from December 1 said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN it recognizes the special protections given to medical teams under international humanitarian law, and “takes action to prevent harm to them.” The IDF also added that when it strikes military targets, it takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian casualties.

MSF said its convoy that was "clearly identified as MSF vehicles" was attacked while returning to their offices in Gaza City after the Israeli military did not allow it to cross the last checkpoint near Wadi Gaza in order to get to the south of Gaza, as the IDF urged people there to do.

MSF said it initially informed both parties to the conflict that it was heading south and followed the itinerary indicated by the Israeli army to go along Salah Eddine street in five marked vehicles.

“We stayed there around three hours. It was getting dark. Hundreds of people were waiting and some of them decided to head back north because the checkpoint would not let them through,” an MSF staff member who was part of the convoy said in the statement.

After hearing shots fired, the convoy decided to return to its offices in Gaza City, according to the statement. 

"We contacted Paul [an MSF colleague in Jerusalem] to inform him that we would head back because we were not allowed to pass the checkpoint. He said he would ask for authorization for us to go back,” the MSF staff member said.

The convoy was allegedly attacked close to MSF’s office on its way back in the late afternoon, the statement said.

Alaa died as a result of the attack, the staff member said. 

Separately on November 20, while sheltering at the MSF offices, staff said they saw five MSF vehicles and their clinic in Gaza City allegedly damaged by an Israeli bulldozer and a heavy military vehicle, which were all identifiable by the MSF logo, the release said. 

“Before they were destroyed, these MSF vehicles were potential evidence for any independent investigation into the November 18 attack on the MSF convoy,” the statement said.    

After the five MSF vehicles were destroyed, MSF teams in the south of Gaza sent more vehicles to Gaza City to attempt an evacuation again, the release stated.

“However, they were also hit by bullets while approaching the MSF clinic, and the evacuation was canceled. On November 24, those vehicles were also destroyed by Israeli forces,” the release said.

“Eventually, our colleagues and their families were able to reach the south once the truce came into effect on the morning of November 24, thanks to the vehicles of other civilians evacuating,” the release said.

MSF has called for an independent investigation and a formal explanation for the attack from Israeli authorities, the release says.

Dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed, with others wounded, after a series of Israel air raids across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA. 

WAFA reported that 45 civilians were killed in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday after Israel launched “violent air raids” that targeted a house. The news agency says several people are still missing, buried under the rubble. 

Nine more civilians were killed in a residential square in Jabalya al-Balad, according to WAFA. 

Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, the city of Khan Younis has come under “a series of airstrikes and artillery shelling on a number of areas,” on Sunday, according to WAFA. 

WAFA reported that in the northern and eastern parts of Khan Younis, Israel “targeted homes in which residents were sheltering, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.”

Hospitals have also faced increased pressure in Khan Younis, with medical sources telling WAFA that wounded people arriving at the Nasser Medical Complex are having to lay on the ground because there are “no beds, medicines, and medical supplies available for them.”

WAFA said the vicinity of the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis has been bombed, with Israeli attacks occurring through Saturday night and during the day on Sunday.  

More context: According to the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli military has stuck 22,000 targets in Gaza since October 7.

In a statement on Friday, the Israeli military said it continues to fight in Khan Younis, which it said is a “main stronghold” of Hamas. On Saturday, the IDF issued “an urgent appeal” for civilians to evacuate from much of Khan Younis amid fierce fighting in the area. It is unclear how many people were aware of the instruction given the lack of communications networks and internet availability in much of Gaza.

In response to a CNN inquiry about where residents of Khan Younis should evacuate to, the Israel Defense Forces said that “the general instruction for residents is to move to the Al-Muwasi area, as well as blocks updated in the IDF interactive map published last week.”

Al-Muwasi is a strip of land of some 20 square kilometers on the coast. A statement last month by UN agencies and humanitarian groups such as Care International, Mercy Corps, and the World Health Organization, said the area could not function as a safe zone until all sides pledged not to fight there. Al-Muwasi has few facilities and is largely open land but has already seen an influx of people trying to escape from the fighting.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday forcefully condemned sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 attack and blasted those who have not forcefully condemned it or were slow to do so.

“I don’t know why countries, leaders, international organizations were so slow to focus on this, to bring it to people’s attention. I’m glad it is finally happening,” Blinken told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

The United Nations heard testimony about allegations of sexual and gender-based violence by Hamas at a panel hosted by Israel at the UN headquarters in New York last week. Several speakers reiterated that some human rights groups such as UN Women were too slow to condemn the alleged rape and sexual violence.

Asked by Tapper why the United Nations and the international community have been so slow to respond to the allegations, Blinken said, “I think it is a question that these organizations, these countries need to ask themselves.”

House Democrats are planning to introduce a resolution condemning Hamas’ use of sexual violence and rape against Israeli women after they were dismayed by the response to the allegations from some lawmakers on the left, including Progressive Caucus chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

Israeli police are interrogating suspects and compiling evidence, including video, forensics and witness testimony, to investigate accusations of rape during the attacks. Witnesses to the aftermath of the attacks say women and girls were sexually assaulted, tortured and killed.

CNN cannot independently verify individual allegations and claims.

However, several first responders who attended the scenes of the October 7 attack told CNN the attacks were overwhelmingly gruesome and that some female victims were found undressed.

Hamas denied that its militants committed rape during the attacks in a statement last week on Telegram and decried what it called “the coordination of some Western media outlets with the Zionist misleading campaigns that promote unfounded lies and allegations aimed at demonizing the Palestinian resistance… .”

Organizers of the UN meeting refuted that denial by showing mounting evidence that rape occurred during the attacks on October 7, including graphic video footage of bodies, videos of Hamas fighters admitting under interrogation that rape occurred and testimony from Israeli police officers and witnesses to the attack and its aftermath.

Speakers who prepared bodies for burial described evidence that militants gang raped some victims and purposely shot or mutilated victims in genital regions

CNN’s Sam Fossum, Catherine Thorbecke, Ivana Kottasová and Annie Grayer contributed reporting to this post.

Cyprus security services, in partnership with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, disrupted an Iranian group which Israel says was planning to attack Israeli and Jewish targets on the island, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday. 

“Thanks to the anti-terrorist activity and the arrest of the cell by the security services in Cyprus, a lot of information was received that led to the exposure of the threats, the methods of operation, the targets of the attack and the Iranian planning to kill innocent people in Cyprus and in other arenas,” the statement said. 

The statement accused Iran of expanding its “efforts to promote terrorist activities around the world” since October 7.

Netanyahu's office said Iran has used its presence in the north of Cyprus, which is under de facto Turkish control, to plan activities against Jewish targets. 

It added that many Israelis have moved to Cyprus since the outbreak of the war.

CNN has reached out to Cypriot authorities for comments. 

Dark clouds of smoke billowed over the skyline of Khan Younis in Gaza Sunday as Israel expanded its operations in the south of the strip. 

The video, livestreamed by Reuters, was shot from the rooftop of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis and shows heavy smoke on the horizon — with some explosions heard in the distance.  

In the video, car horns are also heard in the distance, with some movement of people seen near the hospital. 

It is one of the few visual indications regarding the latest situation on the ground in Gaza.  

Accurate information about the strikes and clashes in Gaza, as well as about casualties and the state of hospitals, is challenging to obtain due to limited communications.

CNN has also geolocated a video from social media that shows the sounds of heavy gunfire in Khan Younis.

The video shows an empty street, with smoke on the horizon and the sound of gunfire in the near distance.

A woman and child are then seen riding donkey pulling a cart with two unconscious bodies lying on it. CNN cannot verify when this video was shot. 

Abu Obaida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said on Sunday that his fighters had killed and wounded 15 Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis after detonating a “large barrel anti-personnel device.”

CNN has asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.

In a statement on Friday, the Israeli military said it continues to fight in Khan Younis, which it said is a “main stronghold” of Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces issued what it calls “an urgent appeal” for civilians to leave much of the area.

Meanwhile, in north Gaza, the Qassam Brigades updated in a short statement on Sunday that their fighters were “waging fierce battles” with Israeli forces to the west of the Jabalya refugee camp. 

Israeli forces have been closing in on the Jabalya refugee camp.

On Friday, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, told CNN that Israeli forces had taken over half of the Jabalya camp while also surrounding the walls of the hospital. 

The number of people Israel considers to be held hostage in Gaza remains at 137 – of whom 117 are thought to be alive, while 20 are believed to be dead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told CNN Sunday.

Israel still considers those declared dead, such as Sahar Baruch, whose death was announced Saturday, to be hostages, the Prime Minister’s office said.

It is unclear how the 25-year-old died, but Hamas alleges that Baruch was killed Friday morning during a failed Israeli rescue operation. The IDF has not commented on that allegation.

As Israel continues its operations in southern Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that more needs to be done to protect civilians and provide humanitarian aid to people in the enclave.

“The intent is there, but the results are not always manifesting themselves," Blinken told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.

He added that there needs to be more deconfliction times, pauses and designated routes: "plural, not just one." The secretary of state also emphasized the need for "clarity of communication, so that people know when it is safe and where it is safe to move to get out of harm's way before they go back home. These are the kinds of things we're working on every single day again to make sure that that gap between intent and result is as narrow as possible.” 

Pressed by Tapper on the timeline going forward and whether Israel has told the US how long they think this current phase in operations will last, Blinken said that there has been discussions with Israel but wouldn’t provide any further details. 

“Israel has to make these decisions,” Blinken said. “Of course everyone wants to see this campaign come to a close as quickly as possible.”

Blinken then noted that whenever the military operation concludes, that it will be just one step in terms of reaching a sustainable peace. 

On US aid to Israel: Asked about the emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel that remains mired in Congress over disagreements between Republicans and Democrats on adding immigration provisions, Blinken urged congressional leaders to pass the aid and said that he’s “very concerned.”  

“I think the only people who would be happy if the supplemental budget request is not voted on and approved by Congress are sitting in Moscow, sitting in Tehran, sitting in Beijing. For Ukraine, this is absolutely vital,” Blinken said.