November 7, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

About 5,000 people fled on foot to southern Gaza in a four-hour window on Monday, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The Israeli military called on residents of Gaza and the North Gaza governorates to move south, opening a corridor between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time, OCHA said in a statement.

OCHA reported that about 1.5 million people in Gaza are internally displaced. Of them, about 717,000 are sheltering in 149 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facilities; 122,000 in hospitals, churches and public buildings; 110,000 people in 89 non-UNRWA schools; and the remainder residing with host families.

The Khan Younis Training Centre, the most overcrowded UNRWA shelter, hosts more than 22,000 internally displaced people — with the space per person less than two square meters (about 22 square feet) and at least 600 people sharing one toilet — OCHA also said in a statement on Tuesday.  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted at future plans for Gaza, saying that Israel is aiming to control the security situation in the enclave when the current conflict ends.

Elsewhere, a total 105 Palestinians have been evacuated to Egypt with serious injuries caused by Israeli airstrikes.

Here's what else to know:

The medical condition of 140 injured people transferred from Gaza to Egypt to receive treatment is "serious," Egyptian health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar told Egyptian government-affiliated ON TV on Monday. 

The tally includes 55 children under the age of 18, plus 35 women, Abdel Ghaffar said. 

More than 30 surgical operations are conducted daily, and some cases need several specialties to treat burns and other injuries, he said. 

The number of injured people evacuated is "undoubtedly low," the spokesperson said. 

On Saturday, the Egyptian Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said that numerous children have suffered extensive burns, with some cases involving burns covering up to 60% of their bodies.

Germany has seen a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents since Hamas' attacks on Israel one month ago, according to a government commissioner.

German Federal Criminal Police have counted "at least 2,000 crimes in connection with the Middle East conflict," Klein said, "with great pain, just two days before the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht 1938," referring to the violent Nazi attacks on Jewish homes and businesses in November 1938.

“How can it be that the day on which more Jewish people were murdered than on any other day since the Shoah (Holocaust) is met with massive, violent antisemitism worldwide?" Klein asked.

Klein said there have been reported incidents of antisemitic writings found on German streets, Jewish families' homes marked with the Star of David and a Jewish community center attacked with Molotov cocktails. 

The German government has increased security measures for Jewish and Israeli institutions in Germany, Klein said.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Jews in Germany have a "fear of being attacked," adding it makes "her heart bleed."

"The full force of the law" is needed against antisemitism, Baerbock said, calling for German citizens to speak up against hate.

It is Germany's duty to protect Jewish life in the country, she said. 

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel will "retain complete freedom of action to respond to any situation in the Gaza Strip" once the war ends.

Speaking at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday morning, Gallant said that "at the end of this 'campaign,' Hamas, as a military organization or governing body in Gaza, will cease to exist." Gallant's comments were published on the Ynet news website.

Gallant’s comments echo those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Monday said in an interview with ABC News that Israel will have the "overall security responsibility" in Gaza for an “indefinite period” after the war ends.

Taken together, the comments shed light on the Israeli government’s plans for post-war Gaza. Government officials have not yet elaborated on how Gaza would be governed should they succeed in eliminating Hamas.

Remember: US President Joe Biden warned Israel last month that re-occupying Gaza would be a mistake.

Gallant also said on the Ynet recording that the war's top priority was to "eliminate this phenomenon called Hamas," and that he was personally focused on "victory in the war" and returning Israeli hostages home.

Mourning his 8-year-old daughter Emily, who he believed was killed in Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, Thomas Hand said he was at least partially consoled knowing that militants had not taken her hostage.

Of all the terrible possibilities for her, death was the least painful, he said.

But then the Israeli military gave him the news that nearly made him collapse.

Emily might still be alive.

“She is more than likely in a tunnel somewhere under Gaza,” Hand told CNN, recalling how the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) recently shared new intelligence.

“It’s her birthday on the 17th of [November]. She will be 9,” he said. “She won’t even know (what) day it is. She won’t know it’s her birthday. There will be no birthday cake. No party, no friends. She will just be petrified in a tunnel under Gaza. That is her birthday.”

CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.

Read more of CNN's report here.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it destroyed several tunnels in a residential area in the northeastern part of the Gaza Strip. 

Soldiers, with the help of reservists, located and destroyed “a number of tunnels located in a civilian neighborhood in the Beit Hanoun area” on Monday, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The IDF also released a video claiming to show its soldiers destroying tunnels in Beit Hanoun, but CNN has not been able to independently confirm the location.

More context: Hamas in 2021 claimed to have built 500 kilometers (311 miles) worth of tunnels under Gaza, though it is unclear if that figure was accurate or posturing. Amid a land, sea and air blockade by Israel and a land blockade by Egypt since 2007, the tunnels are used to transport people and goods and house Hamas command centers away from the IDF's prying eyes.

A Palestinian American couple and their 1-year-old son are safely back at their Medway, Massachusetts, home after arriving in the US at Boston Logan International Airport on Monday, their attorney Sammy Nabulsi told CNN overnight.

Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their son Yousef are "incredibly thankful for their family and friends around the world who spoke up on their behalf, the Medway community, the media for sharing their plight and the plight of the hundreds of other Americans trapped in Gaza, their elected officials who fought hard for their return, and the State Department for providing them with safe departure,” Nabulsi said.

Nabulsi said the family asks for privacy at this time so they can rest and recover.  

Okal previously told CNN he was in Gaza to visit relatives he hadn't seen for years, and he said the US State Department hadn't been providing clear guidance.

A special flight carrying relief aid for Gaza, including hygiene kits, medicine and food rations, has departed from Pakistan on its way to Egypt, according to a statement from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani and Minister for Human Rights Khalil George, along with the Palestinian Ambassador to Pakistan, were present for the send-off ceremony at Islamabad International Airport.

According to the statement, the foreign minister “expressed Pakistan’s full solidarity with its Palestinian brothers and sisters and condemned Israel’s brutal, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force against civilians, including women and children, currently besieged in Gaza.”

Jilani also called for an immediate end to “Israeli aggression” and a “lifting of the siege of Gaza.”

The first shipment of aid from Pakistan, consisting of 100 tons of supplies, was sent on October 19.

On Thursday, Mumtaz Baloch, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said that Pakistan was deeply concerned about the dire situation in Gaza and condemned Israel’s military campaign, saying that “deliberate strikes against civilian targets including refugee camps, hospitals and apartment buildings has created an unacceptable humanitarian situation.”