November 23, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

Our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war has moved here.

The number of people killed in Gaza from Israeli attacks since October 7 now stands at 14,854, including 5,850 children, according to information from Hamas authorities in the strip.

Getting up-to-date information on the number of fatalities in Gaza has become harder as Israel’s massive air and ground campaign grinds on.

On Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, which takes its data from hospitals and other sources in the Gaza Strip, put the number killed at 12,700.

In health updates since then, the Ramallah-based ministry said serious disruptions to communications networks in Gaza have made its own efforts at accurate data collection impossible.

The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which collects and audits data from across the occupied Palestinian territories, has continued to cite the figures originating from Gaza.

On Wednesday, UN OCHA chief Martin Griffiths told CNN the UN stood by its use of statistics from the Health Ministry in Gaza, saying his team had “triangulated [the numbers] over the years to make sure we feel confident about them.”

“We don’t put these figures out without thought,” he said.

A senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the fragility of the hostage agreement with Hamas, saying he is keeping his “fingers crossed” it will go ahead.

Some context: A truce between Israel and Hamas is scheduled to begin Friday at 7 a.m. local time (midnight ET), with 13 civilian hostages to be released by Hamas hours later, according to key deal negotiator Qatar. More will follow, with a total of 50 hostages expected to be freed over four days, while Palestinian prisoners are also released in waves.

“Like (US President Joe) Biden, I think Israelis are keeping their fingers crossed that this will, in fact, happen, and we’ll see 13 Israelis returned tomorrow. That’s our hope. But we have to wait and see. We know who we’re dealing with. Hamas is a brutal, ruthless terrorist organization and we have to be ready for things that are unexpected,” Mark Regev, senior advisor to Netanyahu, said on CNN’s The Situation Room.

The hostage release was initially supposed to take place Thursday but was delayed until Friday. Regev said he couldn’t “go into the details” of why the plan was pushed back by a day.

“All I can say is that I’m hopeful that it will happen tomorrow. Like President Biden, I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” Regev said.

Asked how confident he was that this will be the beginning of at least 50 Israeli hostages coming home, Regev said: “That’s the understanding reached. And that’s what we’re hoping for. Though it’s bittersweet, because if we get 50 home, there’s still 190 in Hamas captivity being held hostage and, of course, we want them all home.”

When pressed on whether he had confidence the deal would ultimately work, Regev said, “I don’t have a lot of confidence.”

“But because Hamas has been under military pressure, we’ve been hitting their machine, we’ve been hitting their commanders, we’ve been eliminating their top military commanders, they’re under pressure. They want this time-out,” he said, adding that such a truce was a “calculated risk.”

Palestinians in Deir Al Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip, expressed hope for an end to the hostilities ahead of an expected truce beginning Friday.

“We hope for a truce, we are tired. The people of Gaza are tired,” said one woman who had fled south from Gaza City, the focus of Israel’s massive air and ground campaign.

A man told CNN he had fled to Deir Al Balah from the Al Shati refugee camp, located just north of Gaza City. He, too, said he wanted an end to the constant state of anxiety.

“[A truce] will be a good beginning, and the fear in us will go away,” he said.

All the people CNN spoke to talked on condition of anonymity.

Another man similarly addressed the mental respite a truce would provide.

“If there is a truce, we will be mentally relieved; the truce is a mental comfort,” he said.

A third man told CNN he hoped the truce would see an increase in aid entering the Strip — as the terms of the agreement lay out — as well as the restoration of electricity.

He expressed hope the four-day pause would become something permanent and that the war would end.

“We hope they will reach an agreement and that it will be an agreement that allows us to hold our head high,” he said.

In the first release of Hamas’ hostages held in Gaza, scheduled for Friday afternoon local time, 13 women and children will be freed, according to a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, Majed Al-Ansari.

Al-Ansari could not provide details on who the hostages are, nor could he provide details on the route they might take due to safety reasons. However, many of the first 50 hostages are expected to come out through Egypt.

The Israeli government said their families and the families of hostages who will not be released had been notified. Al-Ansari also revealed that hostages from the same families will be released together in the first group.

Meanwhile, an Israeli official tells CNN a total of 39 Palestinian prisoners will be released Friday as part of the deal.

The prisoners will be taken from two jails — Damon and Megiddo, both southeast of Haifa — and driven to the Ofer prison, south of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, for final checks by the Red Cross.

Women and male teenagers up to the age of 18 are expected to make up the released prisoners.

The timing of the release is unclear, but the Israeli official said the prisoners would not be freed until the hostages from Gaza are back in Israeli hands.

Here’s what else you should know this Thursday:

Two more months of fighting: Israel’s defense minister says he expects the military operation against Hamas will continue “forcefully” after the brief truce, for at least two months.

No names of Palestinian prisoners: A Palestinian official told CNN he has not yet received a list of names of those expected to be released from Israeli prisons on Friday.

Biden hopeful 3-year-old American freed: US President Joe Biden said he has his “fingers crossed” that a 3-year-old American girl held hostage by Hamas will be freed on Friday. But he said he will not provide further updates until the deal is finished.

US will contact American hostage families: The US will contact family members of American hostages who are freed from Gaza “after we have confirmation they are departing Gaza,” a US official said.

Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel: Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired 48 rockets at the headquarters of an Israeli infantry unit at Ein Zeitim military base earlier Thursday. In a statement, Hezbollah said it also fired a guided missile at Israeli Merkava tanks located near Al-Raheb, near the Israeli town of Shtula, and targeted Israeli infantry forces in the area.

The Israel Defense Forces said it “intercepted a number of the launches,” and later confirmed that it used helicopters and fighter jets to strike Hezbollah infrastructure and rocket launch sites in Lebanon, in response to the militant group’s attacks.

Medical aid group says 80 aid trucks entered Gaza from Egypt: The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says it received 80 trucks that entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Thursday. The trucks brought food, water, medical equipment, medications and general relief equipment into Gaza, the PRCS said.

A large convoy of aid trucks is lined up at the Rafah border crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border — on standby for when a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas begins. The United Nations anticipates that aid trucks will move into the strip “immediately” after the Israel-Hamas truce commences, an official told CNN on Thursday.  

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a commander of Hamas’ naval forces was killed Thursday in an airstrike in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza. 

“Amar Abu Jalalah was a senior operative in Hamas’ naval forces and involved in directing several terror attacks by sea that were thwarted by the IDF,” the IDF statement read.

Another member of Hamas’ naval forces was also killed in the strike, the military said.

Israel believes it is having some success in removing senior Hamas military operatives, which a senior IDF official discussed with journalists earlier this week. 

Israel’s assessment suggested the military wing of Hamas was made up of 24 battalions, 10 of which had been “hurt significantly” by Israeli strikes since October 7, the official said.

Some battalions in the north of Gaza lost more than four of their commanders, the official said, representing a loss to those battalions of more than half their senior command. 

Among other things, this made it harder for the military leadership of Hamas to issue orders for counterattacks, the official said, because there was increasingly no one available to direct operations.

Replacing commanders in the middle of a war was not possible, the official added.

One of the very few medical staff members still at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza has told CNN heavy airstrikes are creating even deeper challenges for evacuating staff and patients.

Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati said there were still hundreds of people at the hospital, describing the situation as “really terrifying here.”

“It’s a really horrible situation. Currently we are around 200 patients, maybe 250 family members or relatives of the patients, and only a few staff.”

Mokhallalati, who is head of plastic surgery and burns at Al-Shifa, said he was one of only two doctors at the hospital, which has seen an extensive presence of the Israeli military for more than a week.

The Israel Defense Forces have reported uncovering extensive tunnel networks used by Hamas at the hospital, whose director was detained Wednesday while in a United Nations-led convoy heading south.

Mokhallalati said the last evacuation was supposed to be on Wednesday for the remaining patients. “Unfortunately, Israel allowed the WHO and the UN to get only 14 ambulances and two buses with 20 passengers each,” he said.

Mokhallalati said the IDF had repeatedly demanded the hospital be evacuated, but he had insisted that was not possible without ambulances, as many of the patients had severe back injuries, including spinal fractures. “These patients, at least 57 of them, they should be on a stretcher,” he told CNN.

Twenty patients in wheelchairs had decided to leave the hospital on their own Thursday, he said, along with approximately 50 family members. Another 50 people who had been staying at the hospital had also left. 

Mokhallalati said that for maybe 10 days the hospital has had no electricity, no water, drinking water or fresh food. Those still there were getting by on tinned food.

Mokhallalati said the truce due to begin at 7 a.m. local time Friday was “the only hope to evacuate the patients in a proper way.”

“We should be clear and say (Al-Shifa) is no more a place to help patients. So we should leave it,” he said. “I hope by tomorrow morning we’ll be able to leave Al-Shifa and evacuate the patients.”

Thirty-nine Palestinian prisoners will be released Friday as part of a deal between Israel and Hamas to secure the release of hostages from Gaza, an Israeli official has told CNN.

The prisoners will be taken from two jails — Damon and Megiddo, both southeast of Haifa — and driven to the Ofer prison, south of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, for final checks by the Red Cross.

From there they will be driven through the nearby Beitunia crossing point and on to their hometowns and villages in the West Bank.

Women and male teenagers up to the age of 18 are expected to make up the released prisoners.

The timing of the release is unclear, but the Israeli official said the prisoners would not be freed until the hostages from Gaza are back in Israeli hands.

Those hostages — which CNN has already reported number 13 women and children — are expected to be released at 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET).

The official said the hostages will enter Israel at two locations, the Nitzana border crossing with Egypt, and directly via the Kerem Shalom crossing from Gaza.

Once back on Israeli territory, the freed hostages will be taken by helicopter to two hospitals close to Tel Aviv, the official added.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says Israel’s military operation against Hamas will continue “forcefully” after the brief truce beginning Friday, and that the fighting is expected to go on for at least two more months. 

“A fighting of at least two more months is expected,” he added.

A tenuous agreement: The Israeli military has said the hostage handover process will be “complicated,” warning there could be changes in the deal at any moment.   

“Nothing is finalized until it’s actually happening. And even amid the process, changes might occur at any moment,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in his daily media briefing Thursday.   

He said the Israeli army continues to fight in the Gaza Strip “at this hour,” pointing out that once the pause goes into effect, the IDF soldiers will be stationed along the “truce lines” established inside the strip. 

The truce line effectively keeps Israeli troops in northern Gaza, and they won’t move south during the pause in fighting, an IDF spokesperson told CNN.

This post has been updated with comments from an Israeli military spokesperson on the state of the hostage deal and fighting in Gaza.

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond in Sderot and Sugam Pokharel in London contributed reporting to this post.

A Palestinian official with a lead role in the planned prisoner release has told CNN he has not yet received a list of names of those expected to be freed on Friday.

Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, indicated to CNN he expected about 30 to 35 people to be released tomorrow as a first group.

All prisoners would be released at the Beitunia checkpoint, which is immediately south of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, he said.

Israel has published a list of 300 names of people eligible for release in the exchange. The vast majority are male teenagers aged between 16 to 18 – children under the United Nations definition – although a handful are as young as 14.

Some 33 people on the list are women, according to a CNN count. 

US President Joe Biden told reporters he has his “fingers crossed” that a 3-year-old American girl being held hostage in Gaza will be among those released Friday in the Israel-Hamas hostage deal — but that he will not be providing any updates until the deal is finished.

“I’ll be able to talk to you guys tomorrow,” he told the traveling media pool in Nantucket, Massachusetts, after greeting first responders. “I’m not prepared to give you an update until it’s done.” 

When asked about Abigail Edan, the 3-year-old hostage, he said: “Keeping my fingers crossed.”

The president also said he won’t give up until he has freed other Americans held abroad, like Paul Whelan, the former United States Marine, and Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, who are being held in Russia. The US classifies both as being wrongfully detained.

Israel has notified the families of the hostages set to be released on Friday, the country’s coordinator for hostages and missing persons, Gal Hirsch, said in a statement.

Hirsch said “liaison officers have informed all of those families whose loved ones appear on the list, as well as all of the hostages’ families.”

The first hostages expected to be released will include members of the same families leaving together, Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in a news conference earlier Thursday. 

A reminder: The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group that sprang up in response to the Hamas attack on Israel, lists 201 Israelis believed to be alive and held hostage in Gaza since October 7.

That list of Israeli hostages includes 39 children aged 18 and under; 44 adult women and 89 adult men aged 19 to 64; and 29 people aged 65 and over. The youngest is Kfir Bibas, who is 10 months old; the oldest are Yafa Adar, Shlomo Mansour and Arye Zalmanovich, who are all 85.

The Israel Defense Forces says the estimated total number of hostages — which includes Americans and other foreign nationals — fluctuates with the latest intelligence, but stood at 236 earlier this week.

Qatar will receive a list with the names of hostages expected to be released by Hamas in a “day-by-day process,” Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in a news conference Thursday.

Qatar will hand the names over to the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, which will in turn hand over a list of Palestinian prisoners expected to be released to the Qataris, he added.

“Whenever we have both lists confirmed, this is when we can begin with the process of getting people out,” Al-Ansari said. 

Once released, the hostages will be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Al-Ansari said.

Some background: The Israel-Hamas hostage deal will see the release of 50 women and children held captive in Gaza by the militant group, according to Qatar, which mediated negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

In return, Israel will grant a “humanitarian pause” in its assault of the enclave and release some Palestinian prisoners.

The truce will begin Friday at 7 a.m. local time (midnight ET), with an initial group of 13 civilian hostages set to be released around 4 p.m. local time, Qatar said Thursday.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group that sprang up in response to the Hamas attack on Israel, lists 39 children and 58 women believed to be alive and held hostage in Gaza since October 7. The women range in age from 19 to 85.

Eleven of them are mothers of children also being held hostage, according to the group.

The US government will contact family members of American hostages who are released from Gaza “after we have confirmation they are departing Gaza,” according to a US official. 

That confirmation will come once an American official or a trusted third party has eyes on the hostage, the official said — which in some cases may not be until the hostages are out of Gaza.

As dual Israeli-American citizens are involved in the release, it is very possible that some of their families would hear first and separately from the Israeli government. 

US officials also met earlier this week via Zoom with all of the families of the unaccounted for Americans who were available.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it fired 48 rockets targeting the headquarters of an Israeli infantry unit at Ein Zeitim military base, near the town of Safed in northern Israel. 

In a statement Thursday, Hezbollah said it also fired a guided missile at Israeli Merkava tanks located near Al-Raheb, near the Israeli town of Shtula, and targeted Israeli infantry forces in the area.

Hezbollah also launched nine other attacks on Israeli military posts and soldier gatherings Thursday morning, including in Jal Alalam, Berket Risha, Al-Manara and Ramim.

The Israel Defense Forces said it “intercepted a number of the launches,” and later confirmed that it used helicopters and fighter jets to strike Hezbollah infrastructure and rocket launch sites in Lebanon, in response to the militant group’s attacks.

“IDF soldiers struck Hezbollah military infrastructure with the ‘Iron Sting’ weapon system in Lebanon,” the military said in an update on Thursday afternoon.

“In addition, an IDF helicopter, a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), and tanks struck a terrorist cell that launched an anti-tank missile toward the area of Biranit, and the launch post from which the missile was fired.” 

Meanwhile, the Lebanese state news agency (NNA) said that on Wednesday afternoon and in the overnight hours, it recorded the highest number of Israeli artillery fire and airstrikes on southern Lebanon since this round of hostilities began on October 8.

NNA reported on Thursday that several towns along the border came under Israeli artillery fire in the morning.

Remember: Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed paramilitary group, is one of the central focuses of international concerns that the war between Israel and Hamas could expand into a broader conflict in the Middle East.

The group’s leadership has expressed support for Palestinians and condemned Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but has yet to directly intervene on Hamas’ behalf.

Skirmishes at the Israel-Lebanon border, however, have seen an uptick since Hamas launched its October 7 terror attacks in Israel. The crossfire is becoming increasingly deadly.

A truce between Israel and Hamas will begin at 7 a.m. local time (midnight ET) on Friday, and civilian hostages will be released at 4 p.m. local time, Qatar announced Thursday. 

Thirteen women and children will be released, according to a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, Majed Al-Ansari.

An undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners are also set to be released around 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET), after the hostages are freed from Gaza, the Qatari spokesperson said in a news conference.

The route the freed hostages will take cannot be disclosed for safety reasons, Al-Ansari said in response to a question from CNN. Qatar will be working closely on the operation with the Red Cross and “parties of the conflict.”

The list of hostages expected to be released has been handed to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, and talks between all mediating parties continued until this morning, Al-Ansari said.

Israel is “examining the details of the list and are in the meantime communicating with all the families of the kidnapped,” Ofir Gendelman, the Israeli prime minister’s spokesperson to the Arab world, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Remember: A truce was slated to begin Thursday but was delayed. Under the Israel-Hamas deal, at least 50 hostages held in Gaza are to be freed.

This post has been updated with further details from the news conference.

Israel is working on getting the first group of hostages out of Gaza, but “it’s not without its challenges,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday. 

“We hope to get this first tranche out, and then we’re committed to getting everyone out,” Netanyahu said during his meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. 

“We will continue with our war aims, mainly to eradicate Hamas,” Netanyahu said.

“There is no hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the Arab states, if we don’t eradicate this murderous movement that threatens the future of all of us,” he added.

Cameron is meeting with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders about the crisis and the way forward, the United Kingdom’s foreign office said Thursday.

“He will discuss the need to get all hostages out of Gaza and get more aid in, as well as the need to work towards a lasting solution that delivers security and justice for Israelis and Palestinians,” the British foreign office said in a statement on social media. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has arrested the director of Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital.

Mohammad Abu Salmiya was detained for questioning “following evidence that the Shifa Hospital, under his direct management, served as a Hamas command and control center,” the IDF said in a statement Thursday.

Abu Salmiya was reportedly arrested while evacuating from the the embattled Al-Shifa hospital as part of a convoy marshalled by the World Health Organization. In response to his arrest, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said it had suspended cooperation with WHO and said the United Nations “bears full responsibility” for his detention.

Meanwhile, if all had gone to plan, by this time the skies in Gaza would have finally fallen silent, and some of the Israeli hostages would have returned home to their loved ones. But the Israel-Hamas truce agreement, slated to begin earlier on Thursday morning, was delayed and will not come into effect at least until Friday, diplomatic sources have told CNN.

Here are the latest developments:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has confirmed that it has detained the director of the Al-Shifa Hospital for questioning.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya was earlier reported to have been arrested while evacuating the embattled Al-Shifa Hospital as part of a convoy organized by the World Health Organization.

Abu Salmiya was “apprehended and transferred for ISA questioning following evidence showing that the Shifa Hospital, under his direct management, served as a Hamas command and control center,” the IDF said Thursday in a joint statement with the Israeli Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet.

The statement said Hamas’ “tunnel network situation under the hospital also exploited electricity and resources taken from the hospital. In addition, Hamas stored numerous weapons inside the hospital and on the hospital grounds.” 

“In the hospital, under his management, there was extensive Hamas terrorist activity. Findings of his involvement in terrorist activity will determine whether he will be subject to further ISA questioning,” the statement said.

On Wednesday, the IDF released video showing a tunnel network which it said extended from the main hospital building underneath other buildings in Al-Shifa complex.

Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry and hospital officials have denied Israel’s claims, saying that hospitals in the Strip have only been used to treat patients.

About 450 patients and medical staff have been forced to evacuate the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza after receiving an order from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza said Thursday. It is not clear when the evacuation took place.

Patients and staff had been told to move towards the Nasser Hospital and European Hospital, both in the south of the Gaza Strip, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the ministry’s director-general was quoted, in the statement as saying. He said the evacuation had been carried out in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Al-Bursh, who remains at the Indonesian Hospital, said 220 patients and wounded individuals are still trapped inside without water, medicine or food.

“We are still besieged at this moment in the hospital, and we have pledged not to leave until all the injured and sick leave with us, because if we leave them, their fate will inevitably be death,” he said in the statement.

In a brief telephone conversation with CNN, Al-Bursh told CNN “there are more than 65 bodies that are strewn around the hospital,” which is surrounded by Israeli forces.

CNN has asked the IDF to respond to Al-Bursh’s claims.

The ICRC told CNN that it was not physically present at the Indonesian Hospital.

“We have consistently stressed the need to secure access to operate in the north of Gaza. Our past attempts to access have been hindered by significant security challenges,” it said in a statement.

The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza is suspending cooperation with the World Health Organization, which had been helping to facilitate evacuations with the Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, a spokesperson for the ministry said.

The announcement came following reports that the hospital’s director had been arrested by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while evacuating as part of a WHO convoy.

Ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said a WHO convoy from Al-Shifa, in the north of the enclave, had been stopped for several hours on Wednesday at a checkpoint operation by the IDF in central Gaza.

Several medical staff had been arrested, including Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa.

“The United Nations bears full responsibility for this event and we await appropriate and urgent measures on their part to address this,” the Hamas-run ministry said.

“The Ministry of Health decides to stop full coordination with the World Health Organization on the issue of evacuating the remaining wounded and medical teams until a report is submitted explaining what happened and the detainees are released,” it added.

CNN has asked WHO for a response to the ministry’s decision.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said it “welcomes any respite from the fighting and bombardment in Gaza” but warned the agreed four-day pause was not long enough to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

It is “critical” to use any pause to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and secure the safe release of hostages, the IRC said.

“However, four days is not enough time to meet what are now catastrophic levels of humanitarian need,” the IRC said in a press release Thursday.

The IRC went on to say that the “scale of suffering requires a massive and sustained humanitarian assistance effort, and civilians must have protection that has been gravely absent.”

Assistance should be “scaled up alongside safety for civilians and aid workers,” the IRC said, adding Israel should “immediately allow for the permanent resumption of sufficient fuel, water and electricity supplies, without which humanitarian needs will continue to deepen.”

The IRC called for aid to be delivered “impartially by humanitarian agencies.”

“This must include prioritized medical supplies, food, shelter and dignity kits for women, and the assurance of safety to provide vital protection services and healthcare,” it said, adding that supply should be based on needs and free from interference, “leveraging all border crossings to reach Palestinians in need.”

It stressed all diplomatic efforts should work towards ensuring that civilians in Gaza are not plunged back into war and that all hostages are released.

The director of Gaza’s largest hospital was arrested by Israeli forces, according to a spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. 

Other doctors were also arrested alongside Al-Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya, spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said Thursday.

Abu Salmiya was reportedly arrested while evacuating with a World Health Organization convoy, an ER doctor inside Al-Shifa told Al-Jazeera News, citing doctors accompanying the director.

Responding to a CNN request for comment, the IDF would not confirm the arrest of Abu Salmiya, but said he “needs to be questioned.”

“He was in constant state of denial saying it doesn’t happen. How could a General Manager of the hospital not know about the extent of the tunnel system?” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN’s Max Foster.

“We need to see exactly what he can share with us about his knowledge,” the IDF spokesperson went on to say.

A flashpoint: Last week, the IDF launched what it called a “precise and targeted” operation against Hamas inside Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using the hospital for military purposes, which Hamas and hospital officials deny.

Abu Salmiya warned during the IDF’s operation of the deteriorating humanitarian crisis inside the hospital, as hundreds of wounded people, dozens of premature babies and thousands of displaced people were caught up in the fighting.

“The children are starving, and here I mean the displaced children because they need milk and there is no water to make milk for them,” Abu Salmiya said last week.

He accused the “Israeli occupation” of besieging the hospital, sabotaging sections and roaming within its premises.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has “not been made aware” of any agreement made between Israel and Hamas to allow ICRC staff to visit hostages in Gaza, after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this would be provided for the deal.

“Thus far, the ICRC has not been made aware of any agreement reached by both parties, related to visits by the ICRC to the hostages. Should a visit be agreed upon, the ICRC stands ready to visit,” ICRC spokesperson Fatima Sator told CNN Thursday. 

Sator said the ICRC has “continuously asked for the release of all hostages held in Gaza and for their humane treatment.”

“We haven’t stopped doing so and will continue as long as it takes,” she said.

Netanyahu said Wednesday that the Red Cross will be allowed to visit and offer medical support to the hostages that remain in Gaza after some of them are returned under the truce agreement.

As a neutral intermediary, the Red Cross has not been involved in the negotiations, but the organization says it was involved in facilitating the previous release of four hostages.

ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric traveled to Qatar on Monday “to advance humanitarian issues,” where she met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Qatar authorities.

The leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah met Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Lebanon on Thursday.

Nasrallah expressed the “readiness of the resistance on various fronts,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Hezbollah said the two discussed “the existing possibilities regarding the course of events and efforts to stop Israeli aggression on Gaza.”

Amir-Abdollahian also met Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in Lebanon on Wednesday.

The Iranian foreign minister is heading to Doha, Qatar’s capital, after Beirut.

Why this matters: Since Israel began its response to Hamas’ attacks on October 7, fears have grown that its attempt to “destroy” Hamas could lead to a wider regional war, pulling in Iran and the militant group Hezbollah, which dominates southern Lebanon.

Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, remained noticeably quiet for weeks after hostilities began and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensified. During that time there was consistent cross-fire between Israel and Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border.

In a speech earlier this month, Nasrallah warned clashes at the border had a “realistic” possibility of escalating into a broader Middle East conflict.

Israel is continuing to strike targets in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement Thursday, ahead of an anticipated truce to allow for hostages to be released and more aid to enter the enclave.

The IDF said it is striking targets in the northwestern city of Jabalya, and that its drones and tanks had killed a number of militants in the north of the Strip.

The IDF said its soldiers had also located a number of tunnel shafts, including inside a mosque. It said it struck another shaft in an agricultural area in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, where its soldiers located “numerous weapons” and found a tunnel shaft inside a civilian residence in the area.

More than 300 Hamas targets were struck from the air over the past day, according to the IDF, including military command centers, underground tunnels, weapon storage facilities, weapon manufacturing sites, and anti-tank missile launch posts.

The toll represents a slight uptick from the 250 strikes the IDF reported on Tuesday, as Israeli maintains its bombardment of the Strip ahead of an expected truce.

A large convoy of aid trucks has lined up on the Egyptian side of the the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, on standby for when a truce between Israel and Hamas begins.

The Egyptian Government press office told CNN on Thursday that it’s not yet clear what type of aid, or how much aid, will be allowed into the Gaza Strip. 

On Wednesday, Egyptian Government press office director Ayman Walash said a total of 2,222 tons of medical aid had been delivered via the Rafah crossing since the war began, in addition to 6,063 tons of food, 4,625 tons of water, and 1,407 tons of other aid.

He said 378 tons of fuel had been delivered since November 21, he told CNN. 

A journalist reporting for CNN on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on Thursday noted there were several dozen trucks lined up at the border.

Prior to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, about 455 trucks entered Gaza daily with aid supplies, according to the United Nations. While some aid has been able to trickle into the enclave since the recent hostilities began, the UN has repeatedly warned the current levels are doing little to address the needs of more than 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza.

Some context: A truce between Israel and Hamas slated to begin Thursday morning has now been delayed until Friday, an Israeli official told CNN, citing “minor implementation details.”

As well as providing for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the agreement would also set to initiate a four-day pause in the fighting, allowing more aid to flow into Gaza.

Police in Germany have carried out several raids in four regions on the homes of members and supporters of Hamas and the international network Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian organisation, which are banned in the country, German officials said Thursday.

“We continue our consistent action against radical Islamists,” Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement, adding “Islamists and anti-Semites must not feel safe anywhere.”

Faeser said banning Hamas and Samidoun in Germany “sent a clear signal that we will not tolerate any apology or support for Hamas’s barbaric terror against Israel.”

The interior ministry said it had conducted searches of 15 properties since 6.00 a.m. local time in Berlin, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, after courts in these four regions ordered the raids.

Germany banned Hamas and Samidoun on November 2, the statement said.

There are an estimated 450 Hamas members in Germany, according to the ministry. While these members had not staged “violent action” so far, the ministry said they had tried to raise funds to “strengthen the core organization overseas” and “influence the social and political discourse in Germany.”

It added that the international network Samidoun “advocates the use of violence as a means of asserting political interests” and “denies the right of Israel to exist.”

Qatar will announce “in the next few hours” when the truce between Israel and Hamas is set to begin, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said Thursday morning local time. 

A diplomatic source told CNN that the truce is likely to begin Friday, with the earliest time being midnight local time (5 p.m. ET).  

Previously, the expectation had been that the first releases and the pause in fighting would take place as early as Thursday.

The talks on how to implement the hostage deal between Israel and Hamas are ongoing and progressing positively, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said in a statement posted on X.

“The work between the two parties, and our partners in Egypt and the US, is ongoing to ensure the speedy implementation of the truce, and to provide what is necessary to ensure that both parties adhere to the agreement,” the statement added.

Later Thursday, Qatar’s prime minister – who also holds the post of foreign minister – spoke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said.

Mohamed bin Abdelrahman Al-Thani and Blinken spoke on the steps to implement the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, the progression towards release of civilians and the importance of increasing aid flow to Gaza, the statement said.

No hostages will be released before Friday, according to the Israel National Security Council.

The first hostages were initially expected to be released as early as Thursday. The start of an agreed temporary truce in fighting is also delayed until Friday, an Israeli official told CNN.

There is uncertainty over the reasons behind the delay from Gaza, with one Israeli official familiar with the matter downplaying its seriousness. They reduced the issue down to “fairly minor implementation details.”

Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to the Gaza hostage deal. Also, the hostage deal does not include the “release of murderers,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday while disclosing more details from the agreement.

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The Biden administration is hopeful the hostage release process will begin Friday morning as the parties work out “final logistical details,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement Wednesday night.

“The deal was agreed and remains agreed. The parties are working out final logistical details particularly for the first day of implementation,” Watson said. “It is our view that nothing should be left to chance as the hostages begin coming home. Our primary objective is to ensure that they are brought home safely. That is on track and we are hopeful that implementation will begin on Friday morning.”

A senior US official elaborated that more time was needed to iron out details related to the locations and routes of each of the hostages as well as the logistics of moving them. 

A decision was made to wait one extra day to minimize things going wrong, said the official, who added Israel made the decision together with Qatar and Egypt, and that the US was consulted on and agreed with the decision.

The official also said the fact that Israel had not yet received the names of the first group of hostages to be released was not a serious issue, but added that it would be more worrisome if there was still no list by Thursday evening. 

There is uncertainty over the reasons behind a delay in the release of hostages from Gaza, with one Israeli official familiar with the matter downplaying its seriousness. They reduced the issue down to “fairly minor implementation details.”

Another official told CNN part of the reason was Israel had not yet received names of the first hostages to be released by Hamas.

Israeli media is reporting that neither Israel nor Hamas have signed the hostage release agreement, though it is not clear whether this should be enough to pause the deal. 

Even so, no Israeli official has expressed concern the entire arrangement has fallen apart.

Speaking at a Wednesday evening news conference held before the delay was announced, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed confidence the agreement would soon go into effect, even as he offered few details about its implementation.

Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson had struck a note of caution over the hostage release process.

“This is a complicated process which is not yet complete – it will take time and will be executed in a number of stages. I wish to emphasize that it is not yet finalized, and it may yet take time until it is finalized,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said at his regular evening briefing.
“I don’t know when the truce will come into effect, but in the meantime … our focus is on the fighting,” he continued.

The Biden administration will watch the implementation of the deal made between Israel and Hamas, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday.

“Nobody’s doing touchdown dances here. Now’s the time for everybody to watch very, very closely. Because this is this is going to come down now to implementation and execution,” Kirby said in a virtual briefing for the American Jewish community.

Kirby said that the administration will be watching “very closely” to make sure that Hamas holds up their end of the hostage deal.

Kirby also offered some explanation into the remaining American hostages, explaining that there are 10 unaccounted-for Americans, and they are all believed to be held captive at this time.  

“We know there’s 10 unaccounted-for Americans — we don’t know that all of them are hostages but that’s the assumption that we’re making. So somewhere in that neighborhood,” he said. 

Three Americans would fall into the women and children category that is part of the release deal, and the US is optimistic the three “will be in at least one of the increments.”

But he continued to express some caution: “We’ll have to watch — the truth is we won’t know for sure until we start to see people moving.”

Pressed by CNN’s Bianna Golodryga on whether there is proof all of the hostages are still alive, Kirby hedged. 

“Our information is limited about all the hostages, including the remaining American hostages. So I can’t tell you definitively that we have proof of life on all of them. But I can say that we have no indication to the contrary. So we’re going to continue to work on this as hard as we can,” he said.

No hostages will be released before Friday, according to the Israel National Security Council. The start of an agreed temporary truce in fighting is also delayed until Friday, an Israeli official told CNN.

“Talks to release our hostages are advancing and are ongoing,” the council said in a statement. “The start of the release process will take place according to the original agreement between both sides, and not before Friday.”

Previously, the expectation had been that the first releases would take place as early as Thursday. No reason was given for the apparent delay.

Israel’s cabinet approved a deal early Wednesday for the release of hostages seized by Hamas in exchange for a four-day truce in Gaza.

The Gaza Strip is “the most dangerous place” in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund.

“More than 5,300 Palestinian children have been reportedly killed in just 46 days … That’s over 115 a day, every day, for weeks and weeks,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a video on Wednesday while addressing the UN Security Council. 

“Based on these figures, children account for 40% of the deaths in Gaza,” she added. 

“This is unprecedented. In other words, the Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” Russell continued.

She also said UNICEF is receiving reports that “more than 1,200 children” remain under the rubble of bombed-out buildings or are otherwise unaccounted for. 

The comments come a week after Russell’s visit to Gaza. In a statement following her visit, she described “grave violations” being committed against children, including “killing, maiming, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access.” 

Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected a legal challenge to the Gaza hostage deal which includes the release of at least 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The Almagor association, which was set up in 1986 to represent victims of terror, had claimed that the government’s decision, among a series of objections, intensified the risk of “the recurrence of serious acts of terrorism to which all the citizens and residents of the country are exposed.” 

Almagor had asked the Supreme Court to “annul the government’s decision … [and] order [the government] to discuss again the terms of the deal with Hamas,” according to information released by the Court.

The Court said it rejected the petition outright on the grounds that the hostage deal “is a clear political issue to which this court does not consider its involvement as necessary.”

The ruling clears any legal objection in Israel to the execution of the deal that involves the exchange of Israeli hostages in Gaza for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Coordinating the return of hostages from Gaza is not an easy task, Israel’s military spokesperson said at a briefing Wednesday evening.

“This is a complicated process, which is yet to be finalized, and could take time and last over a few stages,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Israel’s cabinet approved a deal for the release of hostages seized by Hamas in exchange for a four-day pause in fighting in Gaza, which is slated to begin Thursday morning. Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails will also be released as part of the deal.

Hagari said Israel’s military is cooperating with all the relevant bodies to administer “an orderly process” to receive hostages from Hamas.

The coming days will be “filled with moment of relief and moments of pain,” he said, warning that they could also include “attempts to carry out psychological terror, aimed against us by the terror organizations.” 

He also said that the chief of the general staff of the IDF, Herzi Halevi, has approved “the war’s plans and stages for the future, and particularly the readiness for the next few days.” 

Hagari stressed that “a long fight is ahead” for the Israeli military.