Israel-Gaza updates: Gaza to run out of fuel Wednesday night, UNRWA says

Without fuel, the agency said it'll "be forced to halt our operations."

ByEmily Shapiro and Ivan Pereira
Last Updated: October 24, 2023, 3:39 PM EDT

Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.

Click here for updates from previous days.

Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 1, 6:03 am

What we know about the conflict

The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.

Oct 24, 2023, 9:07 AM EDT

Hostages influencing Israeli military's operational plans, spokesperson says

Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col Peter Lerner confirmed that hostages are influencing the plans of Israel's forces.

"Of course the presence of the hostages is at the top of our priority list," Lerner told ABC News. "It is obviously influencing our operational capabilities, operational plans."

Israeli supports show placards with the faces and names of people believed to be taken hostage and held in Gaza, during a protest in Trafalgar Square, London, Oct. 22, 2023.
Frank Augstein/AP

Lerner said that while the military has been given the “green light” to go into Gaza, they have not officially been given the command to "go" from the government.

Asked if the window for an operation into Gaza will close, Lerner responded, "There is no choice for Israel."

PHOTO: Mourners gather around the graves of Sgt. Yam Goldstein and her father, Nadav, during their funeral in Kibbutz Shefayim, Israel, Oct. 23, 2023.
Mourners gather around the graves of Sgt. Yam Goldstein and her father, Nadav, during their funeral in Kibbutz Shefayim, Israel, Oct. 23, 2023. Yam and her father were killed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 at their house in Kibbutz Kfar Azza near the border with the Gaza Strip. The rest of the family are believed to be held hostage in Gaza.
Ariel Schalit/AP

Learner also said Israeli forces are actively trying to assassinate Hamas' leader in Gaza, Yahye Sinwar, but they haven't found him yet.

As the humanitarians conditions in Gaza become more dire by the day, Lerner said fuel will not be among the aid trickling into Gaza.

People unload humanitarian aid on a convoy of lorries entering the Gaza Strip from Egypt via the Rafah border crossing on Oct. 21, 2023.
Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images

"Hamas has over a million liters of fuel in their stockpiles in Gaza -- they are actually not far away from Rafah. All they need to do is give some to the hospitals," he said.

-ABC News' Becky Perlow and Matt Gutman

Oct 24, 2023, 8:29 AM EDT

Parents describe watching video of Hamas taking son hostage

The father of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage by Hamas at the Supernova music festival, said he has gained some "strength" from seeing a video of his son on the day of the attack.

"No parent should ever be subjected to this sight," Jon Polin said on ABC News' "Good Morning America" on Tuesday.

Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg open up about their son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was severely injured when Hamas attacked a music festival.
8:08

Parents of Israeli American hostage speak out

Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg open up about their son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was severely injured when Hamas attacked a music festival.
ABCNews.com

Polin and Rachel Goldberg's son was wounded in the Oct. 7 attack. He had been hiding with a group in a bomb shelter and witnesses saw him being loaded into the back of a Hamas pickup truck, his parents told ABC News earlier this month.

Goldberg-Polin's parents said on Tuesday they have since seen a video in which their son leaves the bomb shelter.

Rachel Goldberg, U.S.-Israeli mother of Hersh Goldberg Polin, which was taken hostage by Hamas militants into the Gaza Strip while attending a music festival in south Israel, holds photos of her son in their home, in Jerusalem October 17, 2023.
Ammar Awad/Reuters

"Knowing he spent an hour to an hour and a half being subjected to this massacre and he then gets up with an arm freshly blown off and walks on his own two feet, under his own strength, towards this truck and uses his weak hand, his only hand now, to pull himself onto the truck while bloodied, but looking sort of composed," Polin said. "It gives me a sense of, he's got a perseverance and fortitude that we hope carries him through this."

Oct 24, 2023, 8:25 AM EDT

Gaza hospitals as 'dire as it can be'

Hospitals in Gaza are "horrific scenes," filled with killed and injured children and "medical staff working 24/7 with almost nothing in terms of resources and equipment," said Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Seventy-percent of the victims are children, women and the elderly, according to the health ministry.

Palestinian medic takes a baby pulled out of buildings destroyed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Oct. 22, 2023.
Hatem Ali/AP

A Palestinian journalist comforts his niece wounded in an Israeli strike on her family home in Nusseirat refugee camp, in a hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, Oct. 22, 2023.
Ali Mahmoud/AP

The ministry said 12 hospitals and 32 health centers are out of service, with those numbers expected to rise as airstrikes continue and Gaza runs out of fuel.

"It's dire as it can be. The scenes inside the hospital are almost indescribable -- one of our doctors recently had to do an operation on the floor, in the corridor of the hospital, because there was nowhere to do it. The situation is untenable, absolutely horrific," al-Qudra said.

Oct 24, 2023, 6:52 AM EDT

'Through hell,' released Hamas hostage says of days in captivity

After Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, was taken hostage by Hamas militants, she was brought into a "huge network" of underground tunnels, which she described on Tuesday as being "like a spider's web."

"I've been through hell," Lifschitz told gathered reporters in the lobby of the Tel Aviv hospital where she's being treated. As Lifschitz spoke in Hebrew, her daughter translated her words into English.

Yocheved Lifshitz speaks to the media alongside her daughter Sharone Lifschitz, left, at Ichilov Hospital after she was released by Hamas last night, on October 24, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

The 85-year-old had been taken by motorcycle on Oct. 7, carried away through fields while her captors struck her with sticks and removed her watch and jewelry, she said. She was made to walk a few kilometers to the entrance of one of the many tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza.

The terrorist organization has now released four out of the over 200 hostages taken on Oct. 7 and one of the released hostages is now describing her ordeal saying she “went through hell.”
3:48

Hamas frees 2 more hostages

The terrorist organization has now released four out of the over 200 hostages taken on Oct. 7 and one of the released hostages is now describing her ordeal saying she “went through hell.”
ABCNews.com

She said she was kept during her captivity in a "clean" location, where doctors visited every few days. Medicine was available, she said.

She slept on a mattress on one of the tunnel's floors. She ate white cheese, cucumbers and pita bread, she said.

-ABC News' Joe Simonetti and Bruno Nota

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