By Tara Subramaniam, Jack Guy, Aditi Sangal, Maureen Chowdhury, Elise Hammond and Tori B. Powell, CNN
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned Thursday that intense fighting is impeding efforts to assist people in Gaza.
“Intense fighting, lack of electricity, limited fuel & disrupted telecommunications severely restrict the @UN 's concerted efforts to provide life-saving aid to people in Gaza,” Guterres wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Guterres called for “conditions to allow for large-scale humanitarian operations” to be "reestablished immediately.”
From CNN staff
The Israeli military released videos it says show a network of tunnels in the center of Gaza City.
The army said it uncovered the network after securing operational control over Palestine Square, a plaza in the city's center. The videos purport to show a series of tunnel shafts and access points leading underground.
In one video, a camera descends a long ladder before proceeding along a narrow, arched hallway to reach a blast door.
In a different video, a camera descends a long spiral staircase into another tunnel. In one clip, a passageway to the tunnel network, hidden behind an electricity box, is identified.
Several of the tunnel shafts appear to have been demolished, which the Israeli military said had been done by Hamas fighters.
In a briefing with journalists, Israeli army spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the tunnels were a “substantial, elaborate network of interconnected command control positions.”
“What we're doing today is revealing layer by layer the extent of Hamas’ terror tunnel network. It is the most expensive, expansive construction project ever to exist in the Gaza Strip,” Lerner said.
Within the tunnels, Israeli forces found food, water, electric infrastructure, and communications capabilities, Lerner said.
It is not possible for CNN to immediately verify all the Israeli military’s claims.
From Tamar Michaelis and CNN's Andrew Carey
The father of one of the hostages killed by Israeli troops inside Gaza has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of cowardice for failing to call him or visit him to express condolences.
Avi Shimriz, the father of 26-year-old Alon, who was captured by militants from Kfar Aza on October 7, was speaking to Israel’s Channel 13 News following the disclosure of new details about how his son, and two other men, were killed.
“The prime minister doesn’t dare to make a call. He hasn’t called and he wouldn’t come here,” Shimriz said, drawing a contrast between Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who he said had called him twice.
Netanyahu did visit Wednesday with the mother of another of the slain hostages, Iris Haim, who lost her son Yotam in the same incident.
Shimriz expressed deep frustration over learning that Israeli soldiers had managed to kill the Hamas fighters holding the three hostages and get so close to gathering intelligence that could have saved them.
“It demonstrates how big the miss is […] There is a screw-up here, a serious one,” he said.
“The shooter should not have opened fire, and if he is a proper fighter, he should have known that you only pull the trigger once you are certain it is a terrorist.”
He said commanders had failed to tell soldiers there could be hostages in the area and said that photographs of the hostages should have been circulated so soldiers might recognize them.
But he acknowledged that troops in the field faced difficult circumstances.
“I cannot complain to our troops because they have encountered different situations where [Hamas] tried to ambush them and they suffered losses. I don’t want another such incident on my conscience,” he said.
From CNN staff
President Joe Biden said the United States is still working through whether to support a United Nations Security Council resolution that calls for a halt in Gaza hostilities to allow humanitarian aid.
Biden, who was asked by a reporter Wednesday when Israel should move to a less intensive phase of its conflict with Hamas, pointed to the negotiations at the UN as a reason not to give a firm answer.
"We’re negotiating right now at the UN the contours of a resolution...a resolution that we may be able to agree to," he told reporters in Milwaukee.
"That's still going on," he said. "I'll be happy to talk to you after that."
Biden's comments suggest US support is still an unresolved matter inside the White House.
Earlier, a vote on the matter was pushed to Thursday.
Meanwhile, Hamas' political chief is in Egypt for talks. The visit comes after Israel proposed a pause in fighting in exchange for the release of about 40 hostages, although an Israel official said they were not near a deal yet.
Here are the latest headlines:
From CNN's Caitlin Danaher and Tamar Michaelis
Israel and Cyprus have come a step closer to agreeing on the creation of a maritime corridor that would allow goods to bypass Israel on the way to Gaza, the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The maritime corridor would allow “the direct transfer of humanitarian aid and goods to the Gaza Strip," the statement said.
If the corridor goes ahead as planned, it would be the first time Israel has eased its sea blockade on Gaza since it was imposed in 2007 when Hamas took control.
On a diplomatic trip to Cyprus, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen along with Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos visited the port of Larnaca, which is situated around 370 km (230 miles) northwest of Gaza. It is expected to be the starting point of the corridor, according to the statement.
Cohen said the goods will be subject to a security inspection at Larnaca that will be carried out “in coordination with Israel.”
The corridor could be used as an axis for the transfer of humanitarian aid in the coming weeks, Cohen added.
The minister stressed that the creation of the maritime corridor to Gaza will “help Israel's economic disengagement from the Strip.”
From CNN’s Joseph Ataman in Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that combatting “terrorist groups“ cannot mean “hitting civilian populations.”
He was speaking in an end-of-year interview with French broadcaster France 5.
“We can’t let the idea be accepted that fighting terrorism effectively would mean flattening Gaza or indiscriminately attacking the civilian population and to cause civilian casualties,” he said.
The fight against Hamas and other “terrorist groups” in the Middle East concerned countries beyond Israel, Macron said. But the security response to terrorism should not include massive destruction, "including civilian infrastructure and hitting civilian populations.”
From Tamar Michaelis and CNN's Charbel Mallo and Maija Ehlinger
There were fresh exchanges between the Israeli military and Hezbollah across the Lebanon-Israel border on Wednesday.
Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli military helicopters with surface-to-air missiles and also launched attacks on several other locations along the border, including Margaliot, near the town of Kiryat Shmona.
The Israeli military said artillery and tanks struck several locations in Lebanon in response to incoming fire. One man was killed when Israeli forces opened fire on the Lebanese border town of Kafr Kila, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.
"We are not returning to how things were beforehand," Israel’s Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said during a visit to the border area.
The remark is an indication that Israel remains focused on its perceived need to rebuild deterrence in the north of the country as well as in the south.
From CNN’s Kevin Liptak
President Joe Biden says the United States is still working through whether to support a United Nations Security Council resolution that calls for a halt in Gaza hostilities to allow humanitarian aid.
Biden, who was asked by a reporter when Israel should move to a less intensive phase of its conflict with Hamas, pointed to the negotiations at the UN as a reason not to give a firm answer.
"We’re negotiating right now at the UN the contours of a resolution...a resolution that we may be able to agree to," he told reporters in Milwaukee.
"That's still going on," he said. "I'll be happy to talk to you after that."
Biden's comments suggest US support for the resolution is still an unresolved matter inside the White House.
Earlier, a vote on the matter was pushed to Thursday.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters there were still "active discussions" on the resolution but said the US needed to see specific condemnation of Hamas as part of the resolution.
"It's important for us if the Security Council is going to speak on this, that there's a condemnation of Hamas and what they did on the seventh of October, there's a recognition of the need for Israel to be able to defend itself and there's, of course, significant commitment by all members on getting humanitarian assistance into the people of Gaza," he said.
From Tamar Michaelis in Tel Aviv and CNN's Sugam Pokharel
The voices of the three hostages who were accidentally killed by Israeli troops were captured on a GoPro camera mounted on an Israeli military dog five days before they were shot, a military spokesperson said.
The video, located by Israeli forces on Tuesday, shows the recording took place during an exchange between Israeli forces and Hamas militants at a site where the three hostages were being held, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at his daily press briefing. The dog was killed in the exchange.
“You can hear voices, and when we analyzed the clip, we understood that in the audio we can hear the three hostages, fully vocally identified,” Hagari said.
He did not provide details about what the hostages were saying.
The militants who held the three hostages were killed during the fighting which appears to have allowed the hostages to flee, Hagari said, citing an initial Israel Defense Forces analysis of the GoPro video.
Israel is reeling from the IDF’s admission that it shot and killed three hostages in Gaza on Friday. They had been taken hostage by Hamas during the group’s October 7 terror attack.
On Saturday, an IDF official said they emerged from a building tens of meters away from a group of Israeli troops. They were shirtless and were waving a white flag, according to the official, who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about an ongoing investigation.
At least one soldier felt threatened and opened fire, killing two of the men immediately. The third was wounded and ran back inside the building. The Israeli unit overheard a cry for help in Hebrew, at which time the brigade commander ordered his troops to stop shooting. However, there was another burst of gunfire. The third hostage died later.
CNN's Richard Allen Greene and Joshua Berlinger contributed reporting to this post.
