October 21, 2023 - Israel-Hamas war news

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

Independent analysis by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicates with "a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the Al-Ahli hospital" in Gaza City on October 17, according to a statement released by Canada's Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces Saturday.

"This assessment is informed by an analysis of the blast damage to the hospital complex, including adjacent buildings and the area surrounding the hospital, as well as the flight pattern of the incoming munition," the statement added.

The blast that ripped through the packed Al-Ahli Hospital killed hundreds of people. Palestinian militants and the Israeli government have dueling accounts over who is culpable.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has dropped flyers in the Sabrah neighborhood of Gaza City that urgently warn residents to evacuate to the south or face the possibility of being considered "a partner for the terrorist organization,” according to a CNN translation. 

The flyer reads in Arabic:

The IDF confirmed it had dropped the flyers in a statement, adding there was "no intention to consider those who have not evacuated from the affected area of fighting as a member of the terrorist group."

The IDF "treats civilians as such, and does not target them," the statement said.

The IDF told CNN that the translation of the flyer from Arabic that “has spread online” was imprecise, but it did not elaborate.

The United Nations has said that the Israeli order to evacuate the entire population of northern Gaza, which is approximately 1.1 million people, is "impossible" without causing major humanitarian consequences.

There are currently 2.2 million people in Gaza. 

The IDF said they continue to urge residents in northern Gaza to evacuate “for their own safety.” 

The US military is sending more missile defense systems to the Middle East and placing additional US troops on prepare-to-deploy orders in response to escalations throughout the region in recent days.

The order for troops to prepare for deployment is meant “to increase their readiness and ability to quickly respond as required,” he said.

Both the THAAD and Patriots systems are air defense systems designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate ballistic missiles.

"These steps will bolster regional deterrence efforts, increase force protection for US forces in the region, and assist in the defense of Israel,” he added.

The Israeli military said it launched an airstrike early Sunday local time against a mosque in the West Bank city of Jenin to thwart what it called "an imminent terror attack."

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN the IDF had new intelligence that "suggested there was an imminent attack coming from a joint Hamas and Islamic Jihad squad" making preparations from an underground command center in the Al-Ansar mosque.

A few months ago, there was significant fighting in Jenin for about two days, and Conricus said during an IDF operation there, they discovered the "terrorist" tunnel system inside the mosque.

The IDF and Israel Securities Authority (ISA) also put out a statement Saturday confirming the strike on the tunnel.

The statement said Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives had been responsible for several "terror attacks" over the past few months and were plotting a new, "imminent" attack.

"Intel was recently received which indicated that the terrorists, that were neutralized, were organizing an imminent terror attack. The mosque was used by the terrorists as a command center to plan the attacks and as a base for their execution," the statement said.

A family member of an Israeli man who remains missing after being kidnapped by Hamas from an Israeli kibbutz two weeks ago said they live with hope that he will be released soon and reunited with his two young daughters.

Omri Miran was taken by Hamas militants in front of his wife and daughters, who survived the brutal attack, his brother-in-law, Moshe Lavi, told CNN.

It has been a "dreadful" two weeks, Lavi said, adding he worries for his sister and her two children, a two-year-old and six-month-old.

He said that his two-year-old niece has been asking about her father and when he is coming home.

During the October 7 attack, Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people, including civilians and soldiers, according to Israeli authorities, and abducted around 200 more. It was the most deadly attack by militants in Israel’s 75-year history and has been described as the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Lavi, who served in a special unit for the Ministry of Defense, said the trauma his two-year-old niece has experienced will likely stay with her for a long time.

Hamas released two American hostages, Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie Raanan, on Friday, giving Lavi's family hope that Miran will soon return home.

At least 13 Palestinians, including five children, were reported killed in an Israeli security forces' operation that lasted 28 hours in a West Bank refugee camp, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The operation took place in Nur Shams, the UNRWA director in the West Bank, Adam Bouloukos, said.

The statement added that the UNRWA has suspended schools, health services, and solid waste collections in the camp. 

Earlier in the day, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that at least 84 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7. 

The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, told IDF commanders Saturday that the military is readying an operation to enter Gaza and take out Hamas.

“We’ll enter the Gaza Strip. We’ll embark on an operational and professional task to destroy Hamas operatives and infrastructures,” the chief said in comments to the Golani Brigade of the IDF. He did not provide a specific timeframe.

Meanwhile, the IDF will increase airstrikes on Gaza, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Saturday. “We will increase our strikes, minimize the risk to our troops in the next stages of the war, and we will intensify the strikes, starting from today," Hagari told reporters during a briefing in Tel Aviv.

Airstrikes have killed at least 4,385 people in Gaza since Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Here are other headlines you should know:

In the days since a blast ripped through the packed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, killing hundreds of Palestinians and setting off dueling claims between Palestinian militants and the Israeli government over culpability are still raging. But forensic analysis of publicly available imagery and footage has begun to offer some clues as to what caused the explosion.

CNN has reviewed dozens of videos posted on social media, aired on live broadcasts and filmed by a freelance journalist working for CNN in Gaza, as well as satellite imagery, to piece together what happened in as much detail as possible.

Without the ability to access the site and gather evidence from the ground, no conclusion can be definitive. But CNN’s analysis suggests that a rocket launched from within Gaza broke up midair, and that the blast at the hospital was the result of part of the rocket landing at the hospital complex.

Weapons and explosive experts with decades of experience assessing bomb damage, who reviewed the visual evidence, told CNN they believe this to be the most likely scenario – although they caution the absence of munition remnants or shrapnel from the scene made it difficult to be sure. All agreed that the available evidence of the damage at the site was not consistent with an Israeli airstrike.

Israel says that a “misfired” rocket by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, a claim that US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday is backed up by US intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information suggested that Israel is “not responsible.”

Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza. Islamic Jihad (or PIJ) – a rival group to Hamas – has denied responsibility.

The Israel-Hamas war has triggered a wave of misleading content and false claims online. That misinformation, coupled with the polarizing nature of the conflict, has made it difficult to sort fact from fiction.

In the past few days, a number of outlets have published investigations into the hospital blast. Some have reached diametrically different conclusions, reflecting the challenges of doing such analysis remotely.

But as more information surfaces, CNN’s investigation – which includes a review of nighttime video of the explosion, and horrifying images of those injured and killed inside the hospital complex – is an effort to shed light on details of the blast beyond what Israel and the US have produced publicly.

Read the CNN investigation in full here.