Israel-Gaza updates: More hostages released, including 4-year-old American girl
Fourteen Israeli and three foreign hostages were released Sunday, the IDF said.
ByABC NEWS
Last Updated: November 20, 2023, 3:48 PM EST
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.
Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 01, 2024, 6:03 AM EST
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.
Nov 20, 2023, 11:45 AM EST
Israeli forces will be operating in southern Gaza soon: Source
While southern Gaza is deemed safer than northern Gaza, Israel will be operating in southern Gaza soon, according to an Israeli official.
The official said operations in southern Gaza will be more "targeted."
Israeli soldiers advance near southern Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, Nov. 20, 2023.
Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images
The official said the actual "safe" zone would be in the sparsely populated Muwassi area in southwest Gaza.
But the official said Israeli forces would still strike there if need be.
An Israeli soldier gestures from a tank, near a border with Gaza, in Southern Israel, Nov. 17, 2023.
Amir Cohen/Reuters
6:35
Israeli forces say they’ll soon be moving to southern Gaza
ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman joins ABC News from Tel Aviv to report on the latest effort to evacuate babies and other patients from Gaza hospitals.
Nov 20, 2023, 11:36 AM EST
Al-Qaida calls for attacks against US, Israeli targets
Al-Qaida, citing Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, 9/11 and Benghazi, released a new statement calling for its followers to attack U.S. and Israeli targets, especially embassies, and to attack where they are without warning.
Nov 20, 2023, 11:11 AM EST
More aid passes through Rafah crossing
About 40 trucks carrying equipment for a Jordanian field hospital crossed from Egypt into Gaza via the Rafah border crossing on Monday, a border official told ABC News.
The convoy included 180 medics and nurses.
Health officials said the hospital will be set up in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Nov 20, 2023, 6:17 AM EST
28 premature babies to be transported from Gaza to Egypt
Dozens of premature babies are expected to be transported from the war-torn Gaza Strip into neighboring Egypt on Monday to receive emergency medical treatment.
Egyptian ambulance crews transfer premature Palestinian babies evacuated from Gaza to ambulances on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border in Rafah, Egypt Nov. 20, 2023.
The Egyptian Health Ministry via Reuters
The babies arrived on Gaza's side of the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing on Monday afternoon. Egyptian television footage showed Egyptian doctors moving the babies from Palestinian ambulances into mobile incubators. The infants will then be taken via Egyptian ambulances to nearby hospitals in the North Sinai province of northeastern Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed that its ambulance teams had transferred 28 premature babies to Egyptian medics at the Rafah border crossing on Monday afternoon. The process was done in coordination with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
At least 12 of the babies who are said to be in deteriorating condition will be airlifted to Egypt's capital, Cairo, according to Egyptian media.
Rick Brennan, regional emergency director for the WHO's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement, "We are cautiously optimistic that they will do well but we have to watch them very, very closely. They can still develop further complications. ... They are not out of the woods yet by any means. So they will need that intensive care for some time to come."
Three babies were in stable condition and didn't need to be transferred to Egypt for more treatment, according to the World Health Organization.
Premature babies, who were evacuated from an incubator at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, receive treatment at a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov. 19, 2023.
Hatem Khaled/Reuters
Earlier Monday, Egyptian TV footage showed medics with incubators at the Rafah border crossing as they prepared to receive the tiny patients. Egypt's heath minister was also seen on site inspecting the preparations.
The babies were evacuated on Sunday from Gaza's largest medical complex, Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and brought to Emirati Hospital in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza close to the border with Egypt.
Like many hospitals in Gaza, Al-Shifa has been struggling to function with a lack of electricity as well as limited fuel and medical supplies amid Israel's continued bombardment of the territory. In recent days, Israeli ground troops have been carrying out a raid at Al-Shifa Hospital, searching for evidence that Gaza's militant rulers, Hamas, were using the complex as a command center. The WHO described Al-Shifa Hospital as a "death zone" and urged a full evacuation after leading an assessment mission there on Sunday.
-ABC News' Ayat Al-Tawy, Guy Davies and Morgan Winsor