December 26, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Communications and internet services in the Gaza Strip are fully down, three Palestinian internet providers announced on Tuesday in statements posted on their social media accounts.

Internet monitoring site Netblocks told CNN on Wednesday that the network data indicated a new collapse in connectivity in the Gaza Strip.

"Our telemetry confirms a new disruption in connectivity in the Gaza Strip — today's incident is consistent with previous internet and telecoms blackouts and, as in past incidents, is likely to leave most residents offline. Even when there's some connectivity, service remains significantly below pre-conflict levels," Netblocks told CNN in a written statement. 

The Israel Defense Forces is using its ground, air, and naval troops to strike at what it says are "terror targets" in the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from the military on Tuesday.

“As part of assistance to the ground troops, dozens of IDF fighter jets struck over 100 Hamas terror targets, including tunnel shafts, infrastructure, and military sites used by the terrorist organization to attack IDF troops,” it said Tuesday.

The statement comes as Ron Dermer, considered one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidants, is meeting with officials from the White House and the State Department Tuesday to discuss the next phase of the war in Gaza. The US has looked for Israel to move away from the high-intensity war it has waged for nearly three months in Gaza.

More than 20,900 people in Gaza have been killed and 55,000 injured since October 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza.

CNN cannot independently verify the numbers released by the ministry in Gaza, as access to the enclave is limited and reliable numbers are hard to confirm amid the fighting. 

A senior Israeli official told CNN that while there are differences between the US and Israel over Israel's war with Hamas, both countries want to see the end of the the militant group.

Ron Dermer, considered one of Netanyahu’s closest confidants, is expected to meet with officials from the White House and the State Department Tuesday to discuss the next phase of the war in Gaza, CNN has reported. The meetings come as the US has looked for Israel to move away from the high-intensity war it has waged for nearly three months in Gaza. 

Regev said “it’s only a matter of time” before Israel has victory in northern Gaza, arguing that reconstruction in the enclave can’t happen until Hamas is eliminated.

Israel’s defense minister has said the country is in a “multi-arena war,” with Israel being attacked from seven arenas.

Yoav Gallant, while speaking to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Israeli parliament, warned of a long fight ahead of the country.

"We are in a multi-arena war, we are being attacked from seven different sectors: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran," said Gallant, using the biblical names — Judea and Samaria — for the West Bank.

"We have already responded and acted in six of these decrees, and I say here in the most explicit way: Anyone who acts against us is a potential target, there is no immunity for anyone," he added.

Gallant's comments follow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks Monday that the war is far from over, after the Israeli leader visited Gaza for the second time since October 7.

The Indian navy has deployed three guided missile destroyers in the Arabian Sea as a deterrent after a chemical tanker was struck off the Indian coast on Saturday, India’s NDTV reported. 

The navy inspected the vessel, MV Chem Pluto, which docked in Mumbai on Monday, and analysis of the assault pointed to a drone attack, NDTV cited an Indian navy spokesperson as saying. The navy has also deployed long-range patrol aircraft for surveillance. 

The United States has blamed Iran for the attack. The Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated tanker was struck by a one-way attack drone fired from Iran, a US Department of Defense official told CNN. 

Iran denied the accusation, with foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani saying at a briefing on Monday that the claim was “baseless,” according to Reuters.  

On Tuesday, two explosions in the Red Sea were reported by a vessel sailing off the coast of Yemen shortly after two unmanned aircraft were sighted, Reuters reported, citing the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British maritime authority. 

The explosions occurred around 5 miles from the vessel in an area of the Red Sea 50 miles from the port of Hodeidah on Yemen's west coast, it said, adding that the vessel was in contact with coalition forces and that the ship and crew had been reported safe. 

Officials from the World Health Organization visited Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza on Monday, where scores of people are being treated, including many from reported airstrikes on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp.

In response to a CNN inquiry Sunday, the IDF said it had received reports of an incident in the Al-Maghazi camp and was "reviewing the incident."

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X on Monday that staff at Al-Aqsa had reported receiving around 100 casualties. He said the WHO team at the facility had heard "harrowing accounts shared by health workers and victims of the suffering caused by the explosions."

Tedros emphasized that the hospital is above capacity and warned that "many will not survive the wait."

Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, described in a video posted by Tedros watching a 9-year-old boy die due to brain damage he suffered after being wounded by shrapnel in a building explosion. Casey said the only way Al-Aqsa hospital workers could help the child was to sedate him "to ease his suffering as he dies," because the facility didn't have the capacity to treat complex neurological cases. Casey said the operating theaters at Al-Aqsa were working 24 hours a day, yet people were still waiting hours and even days for treatment.

Dozens reported dead: At least 70 were killed in Al-Maghazi, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported on Monday. At least 250 were killed and 500 injured in the past 24 hours in the central Gaza areas of Bureij, Nuseirat and Al Maghazi, the Hamas-run ministry added. CNN cannot independently verify the numbers released by the ministry in Gaza, as access to the enclave is limited and reliable numbers are hard to confirm amid the fighting. 

Responding to a CNN inquiry about the deaths, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday: “In response to Hamas' barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities.” 

Visits across the strip: WHO and its humanitarian partners visited several hospitals across Gaza over the weekend. Among them was the Al-Shifa hospital in the north, which Tedros called Sunday "a microcosm of the nightmare playing out across Gaza, where drastic shortages of medicines, food, power, water and – above all – safety imperil the population."

Israel has focused a huge amount of attention on Gaza’s hospitals since it began its offensive in Gaza in October, claiming Hamas uses medical facilities for military purposes and showing what it says are underground Hamas tunnels below them, claims CNN cannot verify.

Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, has been heavily damaged during the fighting. Israel alleged that Hamas had built a large-scale command and control center under the facility, a charge the militant group has denied. CNN last month visited an exposed tunnel shaft in the Al-Shifa hospital compound under IDF media escort. The tunnel shaft extended down farther than CNN's reporter could see, especially in the meager light of headlamps.

Israel’s war in Gaza "will be a long fight" and is far from ending, the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, after he returned from a trip to the enclave. 

It comes a day after Netanyahu reiterated Israel's commitment to the war effort, saying the military was “intensifying” operations inside the strip. 

At least 250 people were killed and 500 others injured over the past 24 hours in central Gaza, the strip's Hamas-controlled health ministry said Monday. More than 20,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in early October.

Here's what you need to know:

A close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with Biden administration officials on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the plans, after the Israeli leader vowed a “long fight” ahead in the war in Gaza.

Ron Dermer, considered one of Netanyahu’s closest allies, is expected to meet with officials from the White House and the State Department to discuss the next phase of the war in Gaza, the source told CNN.

Dermer is a member of Israel's war cabinet who previously served as ambassador to the United States.

He is expected to meet with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and members of Congress, according to Axios, which first reported the meetings.

The National Security Council told CNN they do not have any meetings to announce “at this time.”

The expected meetings come as the White House has looked for Israel to move away from the high intensity war it has waged for nearly three months in Gaza that has resulted in approximately 20,000 people killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Healthy in Ramallah, which draws its data from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Last week, the White House told reporters that Israel has assured the United States that it would transition to operations of lower intensity, though the administration would not put a specific timeline on the transition. US officials previously told CNN they expect Israel could shift its tactics to more localized operations by January.

Netanyahu vowed Monday that the war in Gaza was still a “long fight and it is not close to ending.” After his second visit to Gaza since the war began on October 7, Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel would “deepen the fighting.”

Iran and several of its armed proxies on Monday vowed to retaliate against Israel following the alleged assassination of a senior Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commander in Syria. 

IRGC commander Seyyed Razi Mousavi was killed Monday in an Israeli airstrike that targeted him a Damascus suburb, Iran's state-run IRNA reported, citing a statement from IRGC public relations.

The IDF declined to comment on the report when asked by CNN.

The IRGC vowed to avenge his killing, saying "the Israeli regime would undoubtedly pay the price for this crime."

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also warned Israel of repercussions, saying: "Tel Aviv should expect a tough countdown.”

Israel has for years targeted what it calls Iran-linked positions in Syria, where the IRGC, an elite wing of the Iranian military, has a significant presence.

According to IRNA, Mousavi was serving as a military adviser in Syria. His alleged assassination comes at a time of heightened regional tensions over Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, which has led to fears of a wider conflict.

Iran's warnings of retaliation were echoed Monday by Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Iran-linked al-Nujaba Resistance Movement in Iraq.

In a statement Monday, Palestinian Islamic Jihad condemned Mousavi's killing and said he “had a fundamental and pivotal role in supporting the resistance forces in the region, and supporting the Palestinian people, their resistance and their cause.”