December 12, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

The Israelis informed the US that they have begun “carefully testing out” flooding some of Gaza's tunnels with seawater “on a limited basis” to test the ability to degrade the tunnel network on a larger scale, a US official told CNN on Tuesday.  

The Israelis are still unsure of whether it will work, the official said, but they assured the US that they are being careful to only test it in tunnels where they do not believe hostages are being held.

CNN has asked the IDF for comment. 

The Israeli Prime Minister’s office said it believes 135 hostages are still being held by Hamas, some of whom are believed to be US citizens. 

The Israeli military said earlier this month that it destroyed at least 500 tunnel shafts in Gaza and located more than 800 around the Palestinian enclave. The IDF said last week that many of the tunnel shafts "were located in civilian areas" and inside civilian structures. 

In 2021, Hamas claimed to have built 500 kilometers (311 miles) worth of tunnels under Gaza, though it is unclear if that figure was accurate or posturing. 

There are barely “living conditions” for the people of the Gaza Strip, the emergency coordinator of operations for Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Tuesday. 

People sheltering in hospitals in Gaza are living in “horrendous conditions” without access to health care, she said.

While Gazans traveled to hospitals in search of safety, Perreaut said, they know that “this is just not the case.” 

She described a lack of food and water, cold temperatures, overcrowding, and widespread diseases in hospitals, saying that the situation is “very, very tough.” 

Many people are suffering from respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, and skin diseases such as scabies, she said.

"All of these are clear illustrations of the extremely tough and precarious living conditions,” Perreaut said, adding that, since health care centers were ordered to evacuate, people “just don’t have access to health care anymore.” 

Half of the patients that MSF was treating were children under the age of five, she said. 

“All those children are still living in those conditions, facing multiple evacuation orders in the south, and now, just do not have access to health care on top of it," Perreaut said.

Several hospitals in northern Gaza have ceased operations in recent weeks, saying they received orders from the Israeli military to evacuate. The Israeli military disputes issuing such an order. 

Fuel shortages have forced several hospitals in Gaza to close, while others have shut down due to airstrike damage, the World Health Organization has reported.  

The Israeli military says it only carries out operations in and around hospitals where they are being used by Hamas and other armed groups. 

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that troops inside Gaza are operating deep underground.

“They are locating Hamas infrastructure and destroying it,” he said.

On a visit to a divisional headquarters in southern Israel, Gallant also said that the IDF located the two brothers of Ahmed Randor, the commander of Hamas’ Northern Brigade in Gaza who was killed. 

“After the IDF eliminated Randor, the Northern Gaza Brigade commander, his brothers surrendered and now they are providing information to the IDF and ISA," Gallant said.

He went on to say that Hamas’ infrastructure in Gaza City and the northern area of the Gaza Strip was on the verge of collapsing. IDF operations were being conducted above and below ground, he said.

Separately, IDF spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the areas of Khan Younis in the south, as well as Jabalya and Shejaiya in the north, were the epicenters of the fighting.

The Israeli military arrested dozens of the medical staff at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday, a senior doctor told CNN.

Dr Hossam Abu-Safia, head of pediatrics, said that the director was among those taken to an unknown destination.

Separately, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said the Israelis had detained the director, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlot.

The situation was “very dangerous” and the bombing became more intense Tuesday around the hospital, Abu-Safia told CNN in a phone interview. Then the Israeli military arrived and asked for all men between the ages of 16 and 65 to leave the building to be searched. 

He and five other doctors had been allowed to stay in the hospital to look after the intensive care unit and premature babies. “They asked us to gather in only one section or building [and] close all the doors and windows, and not to be near doors or windows.”

Dr Abu-Safia said the hospital was without water or power. “We are working with primitive flashlights to follow up on the patients left in the hospital.”

He said displaced women, children and the elderly remained at the hospital.

Asked about the alleged arrests at the Kamal Adwan hospital, the Israeli military said it continues “to act against Hamas strongholds" in the north of Gaza, among them the area of Beit Lahia.

The military was taking precautions "to mitigate harm to non-combatants," it said.

Rifts between the United States and Israel spilled into public view Tuesday as President Joe Biden warned that Israel was losing international support for its campaign against Hamas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected American plans for post-war Gaza.

The divides, which until now had mostly been contained behind the scenes, reflected growing differences between the two staunch allies as the civilian death toll in Gaza mounts.

Speaking to Democratic donors in Washington, Biden voiced criticism of Israel’s hardline government and said Netanyahu needed to alter his approach.

“I think he has to change, and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” Biden said, calling Netanyahu’s government the “most conservative government in Israel’s history.”

He warned support for the country’s military campaign is waning amid heavy bombardment of Gaza and added that the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”

Speaking ahead of Biden’s comments at the fundraiser, Netanyahu admitted Tuesday that he and the US president disagree on what should happen to Gaza after the war. In a statement, the Israeli leader said: “Yes, there is disagreement about ‘the day after Hamas’ and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well.”

The pair of remarks amounted to some of the most candid to date when it comes to the persistent differences between Israel and the United States, its top international ally.

Before the war broke out following Hamas’ terror attacks on October 7, Biden had been open in his criticism of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which includes far-right parties. But he has mostly stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Netanyahu in public since the conflict began, despite mounting criticism of the Israeli campaign.

Netanyahu has been asked repeatedly for his vision for a post-war Gaza in interviews with international media since October 7, telling CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview last month that he did see a role for “some kind of civilian Palestinian authority,” albeit one that had been “reconstructed.”

But in his statement Tuesday before Biden’s remarks at the Democratic fundraiser, Netanyahu said: “I would like to clarify my position: I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo.”

Read more about the Biden-Netanyahu comments.

Clarification: This post has been updated to include Biden's full remarks regarding Netanyahu and the Israeli government.

Israeli authorities say that 197 humanitarian aid trucks were screened and transferred to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah Crossing on Tuesday.

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said that 117 trucks were inspected at Nitzana crossing and 80 at Kerem Shalom crossing. 

The Israeli government has forbidden aid to be transferred directly from Israeli crossing points into Gaza.

Earlier Tuesday, CNN reported that the United States is pressuring Israel to open the Kerem Shalom border crossing to allow humanitarian aid trucks to go directly into Gaza on an emergency basis, according to US officials.

A spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment on the US move.

Israel has so far resisted the idea. It cut off all commercial and humanitarian aid traffic from Israel into Gaza since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack on October 7 and has vowed to sever all ties with Gaza.

Col. Moshe Tetro, a top official at Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which coordinates the flow of aid into the strip, told CNN on Monday that allowing aid directly into Gaza from Kerem Shalom “is not on the table at the current time” and that it would require a “political” decision to change that.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond contributed reporting to this post.

The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza says the Israeli military has detained the director of Kamal Adwan hospital and taken him to an unknown destination outside the hospital.

CNN spoke to the hospital Director, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlot, on Monday, but was unable to reach him again Tuesday.

The hospital is in northern Gaza and close to areas where there has been intense fighting. 

It claimed the Israelis had released five doctors, as well as women health personnel, but taken more than 70 health care staff out of the hospital to an unknown destination. The ministry also said Israeli forces have asked the remaining staff to gather all patients and staff in one building and evacuate the other buildings.

It said that in addition to medical personnel, there are 65 wounded and 12 sick children in childcare without electricity, water or food.

CNN is asking the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the claim that Dr Al-Kahlot and others were detained.

The United States is pressuring Israel to open the Kerem Shalom border crossing to allow humanitarian aid trucks to go directly into Gaza on an emergency basis, US officials told CNN.

The Israeli government on Tuesday allowed aid trucks to be inspected at Kerem Shalom for the first time since Hamas’s attack on October 7, but those trucks must still drive back through Egypt before entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing. While the move doubles Israel’s capacity to inspect aid trucks, it does not resolve the bottleneck that is emerging at the Rafah crossing. 

US President Joe Biden raised the issue directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their last call on Thursday, the US officials said. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also urged his Israeli counterparts to open up the Israel-Gaza crossing before he arrives in Israel for meetings on Thursday, the officials said.

A spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment on the US move.

Israel has so far resisted the idea. It cut off all commercial and humanitarian aid traffic from Israel into Gaza since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack on October 7 and has vowed to sever all ties with Gaza.

Col. Moshe Tetro, a top official at Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which coordinates the flow of aid into the Strip, told CNN on Monday that allowing aid directly into Gaza from Kerem Shalom “is not on the table at the current time” and that it would require a “political” decision to change that.

“We will see whether it is an option but at the current time we are talking only about doing the security clearance and inspection in Kerem Shalom Crossing,” Tetro added.

The Israeli government has told the US that it can increase the capacity for enough aid to cross into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, but a senior US official said the US has “definitively reached the conclusion that that is not the case.”

The US is making the case that the crossing should be opened to address an “emergency situation” for as long as there is a humanitarian need, the US officials said. 

Israel’s offensive in southern Gaza displaces hundreds of thousands more civilians and is driving an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation. Humanitarian aid officials say shelters in the south of the Strip, where civilians are being directed to flee, are overcrowded and under-resourced. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the bodies of two Israeli hostages have been recovered in Gaza.

It named them as Eden Zecharya and Ziv Dado.

“During an operation in Gaza, the bodies of the hostages Eden Zecharya and [Sergeant Major] Ziv Dado were recovered by IDF Special Forces and brought back to Israel,” the IDF said in a statement Tuesday.

The Israeli military continued: “After an identification procedure carried out by medical officials and military rabbis together with the Institute of Forensic Medicine and the Israel Police, today (Tuesday) IDF and Israel Police representatives informed the families of Eden Zecharya and (SGM) Ziv Dado, who were taken hostage by the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7th, that their bodies had been recovered and returned to Israel.”

Zecharya was taken hostage from the Re'im music festival and Dado was taken hostage and fell while serving in the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, and until today was recognized as a fallen soldier in captivity, the IDF said.

It added that during the operations that enabled the location of the bodies, two IDF soldiers on reserve duty were killed and others injured.

The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum headquarters said Zecharya was 28 and filled with joy for life.

She had traveled to Re'im with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Ofek Kimchi. She spoke to her father on the phone and said they were under fire.

Kimchi was killed in the attack. Zecharya was kidnapped with injuries to the upper half of her body.

In her last phone call, according to the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, she managed to ask her father to look after her two hunting dogs.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s office has revised the number of hostages in Gaza to 135, in light of the announcement that the bodies of two hostages have been recovered from Gaza.