Ivana Kottasová

Senior Producer, CNN International

Ivana Kottasová is a London-based senior digital news producer at CNN International.
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Released Palestinian prisoners react from inside a vehicle after leaving the Israeli military prison, Ofer, amid a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank November 26, 2023. REUTERS/Ammar Awad TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Ammar Awad/Reuters
Release of Palestinian prisoners sheds light on controversial Israeli justice system in the occupied West Bank
Nov 29, 2023
Some of the prisoners were held under a murky military justice system that theoretically allows Israel to hold people indefinitely without trial or a charge.
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November 26, 2023 Israel-Hamas war
Nov 27, 2023
A third set of hostages was released by Hamas on Sunday, including the first American to be successfully freed, according to Israeli and US officials.
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Truce gives Gazans moment to breathe – and reveals scale of devastation
Nov 27, 2023
The truce between Israel and Hamas has given people in Gaza a chance to take stock of the extent of the destruction around them.
11/02/2023, Nablus, Palestine. Israeli soldiers have positioned themselves along the road between the West Bank cities of Nablus and Tulkarem. This move follows the tragic incident on November 2, 2023, near the Jewish settlement of Einav, where an Israeli citizen was killed when their car came under fire. The incident occurred amidst the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In response, the Israeli army has confirmed the establishment of roadblocks in the area and is actively pursuing the individuals believed to be responsible for the shooting near the Palestinian city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. (Photo by Wahaj Bani Moufleh / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by WAHAJ BANI MOUFLEH/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Wahaj Bani Moufleh/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
West Bank Palestinians face increasing restrictions and settler violence as Gaza war escalates
Nov 13, 2023
To be at work by 9 a.m., Joseph Handal gets up at 4:30 a.m., even though his workplace, a Franciscan church in the Old City of Jerusalem, is only a few miles from his home in Bethlehem.
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CNN
Israel is stepping up its campaign on Gaza City. Here’s what we know about the fighting
Nov 10, 2023
Israeli has intensified its ground and air campaign on Gaza in recent days, with officials claiming to have reached “the heart” of the besieged enclave’s main city.
Muqbel Abdullah Al Radia said he was abused by Israeli authorities.
CNN
Gaza workers expelled from Israel accuse Israeli authorities of abuse, including beatings
Nov 10, 2023
Palestinian workers who were expelled back to Gaza from Israel last week have accused Israeli authorities of “torture,” alleging they were stripped naked, held in cages, viciously beaten and, according to one worker’s account, subjected to electric shocks.
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This Palestinian girl went from wearing a sparkly tiara to bandages. Even in her hospital bed, she may not be safe
Nov 10, 2023
Three-year-old Joudi hasn’t uttered a word in 16 days, her father says. Wearing a gray dress adorned with a picture of an ice cream cone, she stares ahead, a vacant look in her eyes, while sitting in bed at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Souad Al Alem speaks to CNN at a refugee camp in Gaza.
Mohammad Al Sawalhi/CNN
She fled the Israeli army as a young woman. Now in her 90s, she is running again
Nov 10, 2023
Souad Al-Alem was one of the roughly 10,000 people forced to flee the Palestinian town of al-Majdal. It was 1948, she was a young woman and Israel’s troops were approaching the community during the Arab-Israeli war in what is now part of the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 4: Families of kidnapped hostages join thousands of supporters in a protest to demand that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secure the release of Israeli hostages, at the Family of Hostages Square outside The Kirya (HaKirya) on November 4, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Family members have erected tents and began sleeping in the Square last night to reaffirm their commitment that the emergency government see them and bringing the hostages back should be the first priority. They have said they will stay there until every hostage is returned to Israel. As Israel's response to Hamas's Oct 7 attacks entered its fourth week, the Israeli PM said the current war would be a long one and would amount to a "second war of independence." In the wake Hamas's attacks that left 1,400 dead and 230 kidnapped, Israel launched a sustained bombardment of the Gaza Strip and began a ground invasion to vanquish the militant group that governs the Palestinian territory. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The world is turning against Israel’s war in Gaza – and many Israelis don’t understand why
Nov 07, 2023
Yoav Peled says he has started wondering if the world has gone mad.
Israeli security forces on the streets of Jerusalem, Israel, November 3, 2023.
Pavel Nemecek/AP
‘The reaction is extreme’: Palestinians fear arrest if they voice sympathy for Gaza civilians
Nov 05, 2023
Dua Abu Sneineh was shocked when a group of police officers – between 10 and 15, she said – barged into her home in East Jerusalem early on October 23. “I was not even considering for a moment that they would be coming for me,” she told CNN. But the police did come for her.
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CNN analysis of satellite imagery, and videos released by the Israel Defense Forces, CNN reporting
Israeli ground forces closing in on Gaza City, satellite imagery and videos show
Nov 03, 2023
Israeli ground forces are advancing on Gaza City, the largest and most densely packed population center in the Palestinian enclave, satellite imagery and videos from open and official sources suggest.
Israeli tanks and other military vehicles manoeuvre inside Gaza, as seen from Israel, on October 29, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Israeli troops advance in Gaza, hostage freed and ‘impossible’ hospital evacuation: What to know Monday
Oct 31, 2023
Israeli troops have advanced more than two miles into Gaza in their expanding ground operation, a CNN analysis has found, as aid groups warned civil order is breaking down and hospitals grapple with “impossible” orders to evacuate patients.
SDEROT, ISRAEL - OCTOBER 28: Smoke rises from an explosion in Gaza on October 28, 2023 in Sderot, Israel. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that left 1,400 dead and 200 kidnapped, Israel launched a sustained bombardment of the Gaza Strip and threatened a ground invasion to vanquish the militant group that governs the Palestinian territory. But the fate of the hostages, Israelis and foreign nationals who are being held by Hamas in Gaza, as well as international pressure over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, have complicated Israel's military response to the attacks. A timeline for a proposed ground invasion remains unclear. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Israeli ground forces inside Gaza as Palestinians take stock after intense overnight bombardment
Oct 29, 2023
Israeli ground forces are inside Gaza after entering the enclave overnight, as Palestinians experienced what they have described as the most intense round of airstrikes since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas’ October 7 terror attack.
Yossi Landau greets Snir Elmalih at his office in Ashkelon, Israel, on Friday, October 20, 2023.
Ivana Kottasová/CNN
‘You get home and then start crying’: Israel’s body collectors encounter horrors beyond their worst nightmares
Oct 28, 2023
Weeks after Hamas’ deadly terror attack, volunteers with ZAKA, a religious search and rescue organization, are still painstakingly working to recover victims’ remains in southern Israel.
An Israeli solider checks the gun of a Merkava tank deployed along Israel's border with Gaza on October 24, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. Thousands of civilians, both Palestinians and Israelis, have died since October 7, 2023, after Palestinian Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip entered southern Israel in an unprecedented attack triggering a war declared by Israel on Hamas with retaliatory bombings on Gaza. (Photo by Aris MESSINIS / AFP) (Photo by ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images
Here’s why Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza hasn’t happened yet
Oct 26, 2023
The lines of tanks, self-propelled artillery, armoured vehicles and army bulldozers stretch across the horizon near Israel’s border with Gaza. Pointing towards the enclave, they are ready to go.
A formation of Israeli tanks and other military is positioned near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel October 20, 2023.
Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters
As a ground incursion looms, the big question remains: What is Israel’s plan for Gaza?
Oct 23, 2023
Tal and Zak have no idea how long they’ll be deployed in what the Israelis call “the Gaza envelope,” the area in southern Israel that was attacked by Hamas terrorists two weeks ago.

About

Ivana Kottasová is a senior digital news producer at CNN International. She is based in London and covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

She regularly reports on the war in Ukraine, geopolitics, climate and the economy and has written extensively about coronavirus, Brexit, the eurozone crisis and economic policies and trends across Europe.
In 2022, she covered the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the battle for Kyiv, and she continues to report regularly on the human and environmental impacts of the ongoing conflict.

Originally from Prague, Kottasová joined CNN in 2012. She holds a master’s degree in European Government from the London School of Economics and a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University.

Before joining CNN, Kottasová contributed to the Financial Times, The Guardian, ITV News, various Czech newspapers and magazines, and Czech Radio.

News tips? Email ivana.kottasova@cnn.com. Follow her @ivanakottasova on Twitter.