News on Gaza conflict from Nov. 17, 2023

Israel announced Friday that it will allow for the first time “very minimal” daily shipments of fuel into Gaza for use by the U.N. and communications system.

Aid agencies say the lack of fuel has forced them to call off deliveries of basic necessities in the Gaza Strip. They warned of possible widespread starvation in the besieged enclave because of the lack of fuel, and said most people in Gaza were without adequate food and clean water.

— Associated Press

Paltel announced the partial restoration of telecom services in some areas of the Gaza Strip after UNRWA provided a limited quantity of fuel to operate generators.

“Service continuity depends on receiving fuel supply regularly,” Paltel said in its post on social media.

Telecommunications services were completely out off in Gaza after a severe fuel shortage amid ongoing strikes, the two main telecom companies in Gaza, Paltel and Jawwal, said in a statement on Thursday.

— Riya Bhattacharjee

Maxar Technologies satellite imagery shows a large crowd of people gathered along Salah al Deen Road in southern Gaza attempting to flee south along the evacuation corridor on Nov. 17.

— Maxar Technologies | Getty Images

Amid the bustle and footfall of thousands of visitors and exhibitors at the 2023 Dubai Airshow, one pavilion was notably empty: that of Israel.

During its first-ever Dubai Airshow in November of 2021 following the Abraham Accords, which saw it normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, Israel was represented by several of its defense contractors and smaller tech firms. Its companies’ stands saw no shortage of engagement, including from Emiratis and Saudis.

Two years later, and five weeks into Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the scene was unrecognizable. The only visible Israeli representation was a large pavilion for state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, as well as stands for Elbit Systems Ltd. and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.

More notable than the pared down presence of Israeli companies was the lack of staff and visitors; the spaces were typically deserted or occupied by unaffiliated airshow visitors who said they were just there to use the free chairs and tables.

CNBC attempted to speak to one individual who said they worked for IAI and two who were working at the Elbit Systems stand, but in all cases the individuals declined to comment.

Read the full report here.

— Natasha Turak

Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza continue their march on the fourth day from Tel Aviv to Knesset in Jerusalem demanding the release of their relatives on Nov. 17, 2023. Protesters holding Israeli flags and pictures of their family members plan to finish the march outside Knesset by tomorrow.

Airlines have seen a drop in bookings in the weeks following the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and some expect it to cut into their future profits.

According to travel analytics firm ForwardKeys, international flight bookings were 20% below 2019 levels in the three weeks after the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, and 5 percentage points below the period of three weeks before the attack.

In the days following the attack, major airlines suspended or reduced flights to Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. But air travel demand to and from other countries and regions was noticeably affected, too.

Read the full report here.

— Natasha Turak

Israel National Security Council Chairman Tzachi Hanegbi said Friday that there would be no cease-fire “without a massive release of hostages” from the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

His comments come after weeks of international pressure to reach a cease-fire and humanitarian pauses.

Hanegbi said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had insisted in all of his conversations with U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders that a cease-fire would not be possible without the return of hostages.

“We did not agree to order the IDF soldiers to stop advancing even for a minute. When we know that it is possible to release hostages, a massive release of hostages, only then will we agree to a ceasefire, and it will also be very limited and short, because after it we will continue to achieve the combat goals,” Hanegbi said.

— Sam Meredith

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell dubbed the Israel-Hamas conflict a collective “great political and moral failure” for which both Israeli and Palestinian people are now paying a high price, urging a political solution to the war.

Speaking in a press briefing with Mohammad Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, in Ramallah on Friday, Borrell said the EU condemns Hamas for its terror attack of Oct. 7 “in the strongest terms” and calls on the Palestinian militant group to “free the hostages, and to give immediate access to them to the Red Cross or the Red Crescent.”

He also entreated Israel, where Borrell traveled on Thursday, to have a proportionate response in its retaliatory war campaign in the Gaza Strip.

“A horror doesn’t justify another horror. And the best friends of Israel are the ones who ask them not to be driven by rage,” he said Friday.

Characterizing the humanitarian needs of the besieged and resource-deprived Gaza enclave as a “gigantic effort,” he nevertheless said that “the international community should be able to provide this assistance.”

In the longer term, only a political solution can truly end tensions between the Israeli and Palestinian people, Borrell said, setting out principles on which lasting peace can be achieved. Echoing some of the views previously expressed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the EU diplomat envisions this as involving no displacement of Palestinian people out of the Gaza Strip, no territorial changes to the enclave, no dissociation of the Gaza Strip crisis from the overall cause of the Palestinian people, and no “reoccupation by Israel or a safe haven for Hamas in Gaza.”

Borrell also says that the Palestinian Authority must be able to fully return to the Gaza Strip, while also calling on firmer involvement from Arab countries and the European Union toward building an independent Palestinian state.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Israel’s war cabinet agreed to allow two fuel trucks into the Gaza Strip each day for the use of U.N. humanitarian aid workers, Reuters reports, citing an Israeli official who declined to be identified.

The decision followed a request from close ally Washington.

The fuel is meant to provide “minimal” support for the enclave’s water, sewage and sanitary systems in order to prevent a potential pandemic.

The World Health Organization has flagged the risk of spreading illnesses as a result of the Gaza Strip’s collapsing sanitation and water systems, many of which have ceased to work as a result of fuel shortages. The lack of power has also taken offline medical equipment and telecoms networks.

Israel has previously allowed U.N. trucks to refuel at the Rafah crossing, but only permitted them to use these supplies to transport aid, and not for power generation.

Earlier on Friday, Janez Lenarcic, European commissioner for crisis management, issued a call on social media for further fuel deliveries:

“I most strongly urge the parties involved to stop hindering humanitarian efforts and ensure sufficient & non-interrupted delivery of fuel into #Gaza to humanitarian organisations as well as to turn back on communications which are crucial for delivery of life-saving assistance.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

Three people were killed and more than 15 were injured during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Telegram, according to a Google translation.

Four of those injured are in a critical condition.

The Palestine News & Info Agency (Wafa) earlier in the day said that Israeli forces had struck the Jenin camp, leading to violent clashes. The Israeli force also surrounded the local Ibn Sina hospital and interrogated paramedics, Wafa reports, according to a Google translation.

CNBC could not independently confirm the reports.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The Israel Defense Forces said their fighter jets struck several Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, including infrastructure, a military post and a storage facility, according to a Telegram update.

The military added that it hit a “terrorist cell” in Lebanon, near the al-Aramshe region.

Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet al-Manar corroborated that the al-Aramshe area had been targeted, according to a Google translation. In a separate Google-translated report, the agency also said that Hezbollah continues to target Israeli positions on the southern border with Palestinian territories, out of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

CNBC could not confirm developments on the ground.

Israel has been exchanging fire with Hezbollah — which, like Hamas, receives support from Iran — since the start of its conflict with the Palestinian militant group.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The procedures were “impeding their ability to aid the injured and transport patients in Jenin Governorate,” the PRCS said.

CNBC could not independently confirm the report.

The PRCS has been active across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, assisting with medical services and hospital evacuations. Jenin has been the site of multiple clashes and raids since the start of the conflict, raising concerns over the fate of the West Bank, which is not controlled by Hamas, throughout Israel’s hostilities with the Palestinian militant group.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Israel is doing all it can to get civilians out of harm’s way as it battles Hamas in Gaza, including dropping leaflets warning them to flee, but its attempts to minimize casualties were “not successful”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

Netanyahu was asked by U.S. television’s CBS News whether Israel’s killing of thousands of Palestinians as it retaliates for the Oct. 7 attack by Gaza’s ruling Hamas militants would fuel a new generation of hatred.

“Any civilian death is a tragedy. And we shouldn’t have any because we’re doing everything we can to get the civilians out of harm’s way, while Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way,” Netanyahu said.

“So we send leaflets, (we) call them on their cell phones, and we say:’leave’. And many have left,” Netanyahu said.

-Reuters

The leaders of several humanitarian agencies have said they will not take part in “unilateral” proposals to create “safe zones” in the Gaza Strip.

Among others, signatories included Martin Griffiths, emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, CARE International Secretary-General Sofia Sprechmann Sineiro and Save the Children President Janti Soeripto.

“Under the prevalent conditions, proposals to unilaterally create “safe zones” in Gaza risk creating harm for civilians, including large-scale loss of life, and must be rejected,” the statement said. “Without the right conditions, concentrating civilians in such zones in the context of active hostilities can raise the risk of attack and additional harm.”

It added, “Any discussions around ‘safe zones’ must not detract from the parties’ obligation to take constant care to spare civilians – wherever they are – and meet their essential needs, including by facilitating rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to all civilians in need.”

The statement comes as Israeli military has been urging Palestinian civilians to flee their homes in the north of the Gaza Strip and evacuate to “safe zones” south of the Wadi Gaza wetlands.

— Ruxandra Iordache

A total of 144 trucks transporting humanitarian aid were inspected and transferred into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Israel’s agency for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories said on social media.

This included 88 trucks carrying food, 21 delivering medical equipment, 18 trucks with water and seven bringing in equipment for shelter. The remaining trucks delivered mixed cargo.

The U.N. previously estimated that roughly 500 trucks of supplies would enter the Gaza Strip on a daily basis, prior to the latest conflict.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine warned it will not hold a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah crossing that bridges the enclave and Egypt on Friday, amid ongoing telecommunication disruptions and fuel shortages.

“The communications network in #Gaza is down because there is NO fuel. This makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys,” UNRWA said in a social media post.

UNRWA assists with the receipt and distribution of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip and shelters Palestinian civilians in its facilities. Operations have been severely impacted by fuel shortages that prevent it to cross ground.

“We will not be able to uphold our commitment to provide for the Palestinian people any longer,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in an earlier Thursday statement. “I do believe there is a deliberate attempt to strangle our operation and paralyse the UNRWA operation.”

He also said at the time that the conflict to date has sparked the largest displacement of Palestinian people since 1948, as civilians flee to the south of the Gaza Strip, arriving “dehydrated, hungry, exhausted and shell-shocked.” 

— Ruxandra Iordache

Telecommunication services are offline in the Gaza Strip, amid critical fuel shortages.

On Thursday, Palestinian telecoms providers Jawwal and Paltel issued a joint statement announcing a “complete disruption of communication services (landline, cellular, and Internet) in the Gaza Strip, after fuel entry has been banned and all backup power sources have been exhausted to operate the main elements of the network.”

They have made no further updates since.

Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip from its own fuel deliveries and only allowed U.N. trucks to refuel with supplies that can be exclusively used toward the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Several primary services, including sewage, well pumping and water desalination, along with medical equipment, have consequently gone out of operation across the enclave.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The Israel Defense Forces said they discovered a tunnel in the Al-Shifa hospital, part of an extensive network believed to span the underground level beneath the Gaza Strip.

The IDF raided the Al-Shifa medical complex, the largest in the Gaza enclave, on suspicions of Hamas using the facility as an operations base.

IDF troops say they also located a vehicle that was used during the Oct. 7 terror attacks on site, along with previous discoveries of weapons, ammunition and a laptop. CNBC could not verify the report.

Israel has repeatedly defended its decision to carry out an incursion at Al-Shifa despite international backlash, citing the medical complex had been repurposed for Hamas hostilities. The Geneva accords state that civilian hospitals may “in no circumstances be the object of attack” under Article 18, but Article 19 provides that this protection for medical facilities “shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy.”

— Ruxandra Iordache

Israeli military says it has retrieved the bodies of two captives abducted by Hamas during the terror attacks of Oct. 7, including one of the force’s own soldiers.

One of the deceased was Corporal Noa Marciano, 19, whose death was announced by Hamas earlier this week. The IDF and Hamas have attributed responsibility to each other for her demise.

The second body was of kindergarten worker Yehudit Weiss, 65.

The Israel Defense Forces said they extracted both bodies from a structure adjacent to the stormed Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip and have transported it to Israeli territory.

CNBC could not confirm the reports.

Marciano and Weiss were two among over two hundred captives abducted by Hamas.

— Ruxandra Iordache