Hamas releases first video of a hostage taken to Gaza

The short video clip shows Mia Schem lying on a bed, her right arm being bandaged by someone out of the frame. A long, fresh scar is clearly visible.

Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman, is being held hostage by the militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The video released by Hamas on Monday is the first footage of any of the dozens of people held in the enclave.

Speaking into the camera, Schem, who looks pale, but is sitting up straight with her head held high, says she was injured and taken to Gaza, then pleads to be returned to her family.

As she speaks, loud rumbling can be heard in the background.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Tel Aviv, Schem’s mother urged the government and world leaders to bring her daughter back home.

Holding a picture of her daughter, Keren Scharf Schem said: “I am begging the world to bring my baby back home, she only went to a festival party to have some fun and now she is in Gaza and she is not the only one.”

Scharf Schem said she did not know if her daughter was dead or alive until Monday and that all she knew is that she might have been kidnapped.

“I saw she is alive, I saw that she was… I heard before rumors that she was shot in the shoulder or in the leg so I can see she was shot in her shoulder, I see she had an operation, she looks very terrified, she looks like she is in big pain, and I can see that she says what they tell her to say,” she told reporters, urging everyone to “stop this terror” and bring her daughter back home along with other hostages.

Schem’s mother told CNN on Monday that she believed her daughter’s resilience would help her survive. “She’s very, very strong. That’s why we all believed in our hearts that she is alive, because we knew that she will never give up.”

CNN cannot independently verify where and when the video of Schem was taken and what condition she is in at the moment.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it had informed Schem’s family about her kidnapping last week and are keeping in touch with them at this time.

IDF spokesperson Maj. Libby Weiss told CNN on Tuesday that the release of the video was “another way by Hamas to wage a psychological war” on civilian population of Israel. CNN is not publishing the video.

‘We’re waiting for you, we love you’

It is still unclear how many hostages are held in Gaza. A spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a video statement on Monday the number was at least between 200-250.

The spokesperson, Abu Obaida, said the Al-Qassam Brigades held about 200 hostages, while the rest was held by other “militant formations” in Gaza, adding that they cannot determine the exact number of hostages in the strip at this stage due to constant Israeli bombardment.

The IDF has been relentlessly pounding Gaza with airstrikes and artillery following the deadly Hamas terror attack. Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Monday that more than 2,800 people have been killed in Gaza.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli military said at least 199 people were being held hostage in Gaza. The IDF said it was using “all intelligence and operational means to return the abductees” and that “Hamas is trying to present itself as a humanitarian organization while acting as a hideous terrorist organization responsible for killing and kidnapping infants, women, children and the elderly.”

Meanwhile, Abu Obaida claimed 22 of the hostages in Gaza were killed in Israeli airstrikes, including an Israeli artist whom he said lost his life on Saturday. CNN cannot independently verify those claims.

Abu Obaida added that the Al-Qassam Brigades will be releasing hostages holding foreign citizenship when “the opportunity arises on the ground,” and said Al-Qassam is “committed” to protecting them.

Schem was kidnapped from the Nova festival near the Gaza Strip after Hamas fighters launched a terror attack last Saturday that so far killed at least 1,400 people.

At least 260 people were found dead at the site of the festival, according to the IDF.

Scharf Schem said her daughter had messaged a friend who was also at the festival at 7:17 a.m. on Saturday morning saying, “They are shooting at us please come save us.”

Calling her daughter the “heart of the family” Scharf Schem described Mia as a caring sibling and “her best friend.”

“Mia if you can see us, we want to tell you from all the family and all the people in Israel,” Schem’s brother Eli Schem told CNN. “We’re waiting for you, we love you, and we are going to do anything to bring you back home.”

Clashes at Lebanon-Israel border raise fears of wider war

On the face of it, the crossfire on Lebanon’s border with Israel appears marginal, dwarfed by the scale and intensity of the Hamas-Israel war further south.

The fighting has stayed within a roughly 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) radius of either side of the demarcation line, with at least 13 people killed since last Saturday.

Yet this barely populated swathe of mountainous terrain could be the launching pad of a regional war, drawing in a myriad of actors, including Iran and the United States.

Hezbollah – an Iran-backed armed group that is also a regional force in its own right – dominates south Lebanon. It also operates alongside Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, where the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights separates Israel from Tehran-aligned fighters.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian on Monday raised the specter of expanded fighting after talking to counterparts in Tunisia, Malaysia and Pakistan.

“Underlined the need to immediately stop Zionist crimes & murders in Gaza & to dispatch humanitarian aid,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I stressed that time is running out for political solutions; probable spread of war in other fronts is approaching unavoidable stage,” he added.

It is a scenario that has gained more currency across a restive Arab and Muslim world as images of dead Palestinian civilians, including more than 500 children, flash on television screens and social media posts, reflecting a civilian death toll rapidly rising at a rate not seen in decades.

Meanwhile, the US has deployed two of its largest aircraft carriers — including the nuclear-powered USS Gerald Ford — to the eastern Mediterranean. It is an ominous sign of what may come if the situation on the Lebanon-Israel border combusts into a full-scale war.

Both countries are bracing themselves. Israel turned the 4-kilometer area near its border into a closed military zone. It also evacuated residents from 28 communities within 2 kilometers of the Lebanese border.

In Lebanon, the national airline carrier Middle East Airlines said it parked five of its planes in Istanbul as a precautionary measure due to the security situation.

Beirut’s international airport is normally one of the first places to be hit by Israel after the eruption of war between the two countries. Swiss Air and Lufthansa have also suspended flights to Beirut.

On Tuesday, at least four Lebanese were killed in an exchange of fire between the two countries, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. Hezbollah said it attacked several Israeli locations, including two gatherings of troops. The Israeli military said Tuesday two reservists and a civilian were injured in an anti-tank missile attack from Lebanon.

Skirmishes escalate into serious clashes

For most of last week, the skirmishes were a low-rumbling exchange of fire between Lebanon-based militants and Israeli forces.

Palestinian militants fired the first shots from Lebanon, hours after Hamas’ surprise attack of October 7, launching rockets that were intercepted over Israel. Israel responded by shooting into Lebanese territory, including at Hezbollah positions. Hezbollah then launched missiles into Israel’s northern-most territory. That cycle repeated for several days.

By Friday morning, three Israeli soldiers and three Hezbollah fighters had been killed in the exchanges across the border.

But then the tit-for-tat escalated. At around 5 p.m. on Friday, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, who was also a south Lebanon native, was killed in an Israeli strike that wounded at least six other international journalists.

A CNN video analysis found that the journalists were wearing vest jackets clearly marked as press.

An Israeli Apache helicopter was flying over their location, according to a Lebanese security source as well as video seen by CNN, when they were fired upon by what Lebanese army and Israeli statements indicate was artillery.

Israel said it was investigating the incident. In an Israeli military statement that was released around the time of the attack, it said it was shelling Lebanese territory with artillery fire in response to an explosion at a border fence in Israel’s Hanita, near to where Abdallah was killed.

The situation at the border spiraled further the next day.

On Saturday, Hezbollah launched a series of strikes at Israeli targets in the disputed Shebaa farms, which was followed by a barrage of artillery fire from Israel. On Sunday, the Lebanese militants fired at several Israeli locations at the border, killing one civilian and one soldier.

In Hezbollah’s statements on Sunday, the group said its cross-border attacks were in response to Abdallah’s killing and the killing of two elderly civilians in Sunday’s Israeli attacks in the border region.

Unlike low-tech rockets that are fired by Palestinian fighters in Lebanon — and are mostly intercepted by Israel — Hezbollah uses Russian anti-tank guided missiles known as Kornets.

Every Hezbollah attack over the last week was followed by a video released by the group that demonstrated precision. They were direct hits that seemed to blindside Israeli troops seen in the videos.

These videos are key to the psychological warfare that underpins this flare-up. It shows clearly how much more sophisticated the group’s arsenal had become since its last conflict with Israel in 2006, when it relied largely on inaccurate Soviet-era Katyusha rockets.

Back then, the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war ended with no clear victor or vanquished. At the time, many parts of Lebanon were devastated, but Hezbollah foiled Israel’s ultimate plan to dismantle the group, dealing a blow to Israel’s aura of invincibility.

In the intervening years, Hezbollah has dramatically built up its arsenal, and its fighters are far more experienced in urban warfare. They’re battle-hardened from fighting in Syria against ISIS, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and armed opposition groups that tried to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly evoked a hypothetical scenario where his fighters would conduct an incursion into northern Israel in case war erupted between Lebanon and Israel again. Israel and US officials have repeatedly expressed alarm about Hezbollah’s precision-guided missiles, which were used against Israel for the first time this month.

Nasrallah has also said that his group boasts more than 100,000 fighters and reservists. Historically, Israeli and US officials have been reluctant to dismiss claims by the paramilitary leader, who oversaw a surge in the size and power of the group in the 32 years of his leadership.

Yet Nasrallah, known for his fiery televised speeches, has been noticeably silent since October 7. Observers don’t know what to make of this. In addresses he delivered in recent months, Nasrallah lauded the growing alliance between his group and Hamas, though they were on opposite sides of Syria’s bloody civil war.

He has also indicated that the loose rules of engagement between Hezbollah and Israel may soon change, with the Lebanon-based group possibly intervening on behalf of the Palestinians.

This has led many observers to speculate that Hezbollah may expand its fight against Israel in case of the much-anticipated Israeli ground invasion into Gaza.

Yet what happens from now is anyone’s guess. World leaders will continue to watch this border with bated breath.

What is the Rafah Crossing, Gazans’ last hope to escape the war?

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have descended on the south of the Gaza Strip as a potential Israeli ground operation looms.

But where they will go from there is anyone’s guess. The coastal enclave is blockaded by land, air and sea by Israel, which has declared war on its Hamas rulers for a brazen attack on October 7 that killed 1,400 people. Israel has also shut off the supply of water, electricity, food and fuel, leaving the impoverished territory’s 2 million residents helpless.

A border crossing with Egypt in the south has been touted as the last hope for Gazans to escape as Israel’s bombs rain down, and many Palestinians have begun moving in its direction in anticipation.

That crossing at Rafah however is shut. Here’s what we know about it.

What is the situation at Rafah now?

The crossing is currently shut, with aid unable to get into Gaza. The United States has been pressuring Egypt to establish a humanitarian corridor for civilians in Gaza, as well as for foreigners. Egypt has said it won’t allow refugees to flood its territory and has instead insisted that Israel allow it to deliver aid to Gazans.

Opening of the border may be a complicated matter given the number of parties involved. It would require the approval of Egypt and Hamas, which directly control the crossing, as well as an okay from Israel, which has been bombing Gaza, including Rafah’s vicinity. Egypt has demanded assurances that Israel won’t bomb aid convoys.

Multiple airstrikes have been reported around the Rafah Crossing since the war started, including one on Tuesday. Asked about the bombing, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said on Tuesday: “When we see Hamas targets moving, we will take care of it.”

Dozens of trucks are on the Egyptian side of the crossing waiting to get into Gaza. Egypt has said there has been no progress in efforts to open it and Israel has denied there were any arrangements for its opening.

Why is the crossing so important right now?

Located in Egypt’s north Sinai, the Rafah Crossing is the sole border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. It falls along an 8-mile (12.8-kilometer) fence that separates Gaza from the Sinai desert.

Gaza has changed hands several times over the past 70 years. It fell under Egyptian control in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and was captured by Israel in the 1967 war, after which Israel began settling Jews there and significantly curtailed the movement of its Palestinian residents. In 2005, Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the territory, and two years later the strip was seized by Hamas.

Since then, Egypt and Israel have imposed tight controls on their respective borders with the territory and Israel blockades it further by restricting travel by sea or air. Israel has also enclosed the territory with a heavily fortified border fence.

Before the war that started this month, Israel had two crossings with Gaza: Erez, which is for the movement of people, and Kerem Shalom, for goods. Both were heavily restricted and have been shut since the war began.

That has left the Rafah Crossing with Egypt as the territory’s only entrypoint to the outside world.

According to United Nations figures, an average of 27,000 people crossed the border each month as of July this year. The border was open for 138 days and closed for 74 this year until that month.

Closures often depend on the security and political situation on the ground. While Israel has no direct control over the crossing, Egypt’s closures often coincide with Israel’s own tightening of restrictions on Gaza.

How has Rafah Crossing access changed over time?

Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1982, which saw the Jewish state withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula that it had captured from Egypt in 1967.

Israel then opened the Rafah Crossing, which it controlled until it withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Between then and Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in 2007, the crossing was controlled by the European Union, which worked closely with Egyptian officials.

Between 2005 and 2007, some 450,000 passengers used the crossing with an average of about 1,500 people per day.

Following Hamas’ takeover, Egypt and Israel significantly tightened restrictions on the movement of goods and people in and out of the territory. But in 2008, militants blew up fortifications on the border with Egypt near Rafah, prompting at least 50,000 Gazans to flood into Egypt to buy food, fuel and other supplies.

Shortly after the breach, Egypt sealed its barrier with barbed wire and metal barricades.

The Rafah Crossing has since been tightly controlled, with limited access and lengthy bureaucratic and security processes required of Palestinians wishing to cross into Egypt.

What is it usually like to cross the Rafah border?

Movement through Rafah on normal days is extremely limited; only Gazans with permits as well as foreign nationals can use it to travel between Gaza and Egypt.

Gazans wishing to cross the border often have long waits. Jason Shawa, a Palestinian American from Seattle who lives in Gaza, says the process has taken him a minimum of 30 days but wait times could last up to three months.

Travelers require an exit permit from Hamas and an entry permit from Egypt, he said. The process requires him to submit his documents to a Hamas government office for a permit to exit the territory. A few days later, he would receive a text message telling him which day he can leave, which could be up to three months later.

On the day of departure, a bus would take travelers from the Palestinian side of the border to the Egyptian one, where they would wait hours for Egyptian authorities to receive and process visa applications. Many travelers are turned away there, Shawa said, adding that Palestinians are regularly mistreated there.

Why is Egypt reluctant to open the crossing for Gazans?

Egypt, which already hosts millions of migrants, is uneasy about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees crossing into its territory. More than 2 million Palestinians live in Gaza.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi last week said his country is trying to help – within limits.

“Of course, we sympathize. But be careful, while we sympathize, we must always be using our minds in order to reach peace and safety in a manner that doesn’t cost us much,” he said.

Many have also fumed at the idea of turning the Gazan population into refugees once again by displacing them from Gaza. Most Gazans are registered by the UN as refugees, whose ancestors came from areas that are now part of Israel.

“I think that is a plan of the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground. No refugees in Jordan. No refugees in Egypt,” Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Tuesday.

Egypt has called on Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter via Rafah, but is yet to give in to US calls to establish a safe corridor for civilians inside Egyptian territory.

Gaza hospitals have entered a state of ‘collapse,’ Palestinian officials say

Hospitals in Gaza entered a stage of “actual collapse” on Tuesday due to electricity cuts and fuel shortages in the bombarded territory, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Meanwhile, vital humanitarian aid is piling up at Gaza’s shuttered border, despite diplomatic efforts to open a corridor with Egypt, as rights groups warned that vital supplies are running out for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Gaza has been under siege by Israel for more than a week, in response to the deadly incursion by Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the coastal enclave, home to 2.2 million people.

Some are gathering at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza hoping to leave, as critical supplies run short, leaving hospitals on the brink of collapse and families facing dehydration and starvation.

Israeli shelling has crushed the medical system in Gaza, with the Palestinian Ministry of Health urging people on Tuesday to donate blood due to severe drug and equipment shortages.

Human rights groups have said Israel’s complete blockade on essential goods entering Gaza is in violation of international law. Amnesty International warned the “collective punishment” of civilians for Hamas’ incursion amounts to a war crime.

Amid growing international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis, US President Joe Biden will travel to Israel on Wednesday, an extraordinary wartime visit that follows intense efforts by Secretary of State Antony Blinken across the Middle East.

Israeli and US officials on Tuesday said humanitarian aid would be allowed into southern Gaza, but Israel’s national security adviser warned it would be stopped if Hamas intervened.

However, it is unclear if any progress was made on the opening of the Rafah crossing, the only entry point to Gaza not controlled by Israel.

A Palestinian border official told CNN on Saturday that concrete slabs had been placed at the crossing, blocking all gates; Egypt, meanwhile, claims that Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza side of the border have made roads inoperable.

Satellite images provided by Maxar Technologies show four 30-foot (9-meter) craters blocking the roadway at the border crossing closest to the Egyptian gate, along with the concrete slabs.

Water and fuel warnings

Urgent calls for help are growing on both sides of the border.

On the Egyptian side, United Nations teams are waiting at the Rafah crossing, hoping they will be given the green light to enter Gaza and open a humanitarian corridor.

Fuel reserves at all hospitals in Gaza only have 24 hours of supply left, endangering thousands of patients’ lives, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warned on Tuesday. Israeli strikes targeted buildings neighboring Al-Karama Hospital, in the north, putting the facility out of service, the agency said later.

WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris told CNN the UN health agency had struck an agreement with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to open the Rafah crossing for aid – but Israel’s strikes rendered the facility unsafe, thereby halting the movement of crucial supplies.

There are about 84,000 pregnant women in Gaza, with many delivering every day, Harris said. “Babies don’t care about bombs, they come when they come.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday shops have been unable to replenish supplies and will run out of available food stocks in “less than a week.”

UN humanitarian envoy Martin Griffiths is expected to travel to Cairo on Tuesday to aid diplomatic efforts, his office said. His trip will include a visit to Israel.

A convoy of trucks carrying aid supplies was traveling through Egypt toward the crossing early Tuesday, according to state-affiliated media outlet Al-Qahera News. Much of the aid already arrived days ago, sent by multiple countries and international organizations.

On the Gaza side, large numbers of evacuees have gathered by the crossing, part of the mass displacement that has seen at least 1 million people flee their homes in the past week alone, according to UNRWA.

One family of five Palestinian-Americans, all US citizens, drove to Rafah on Monday after hearing the borders would be opened but to no avail, said Haifa Kaoud, whose husband Hesham is among the five stuck in Gaza.

The family had been visiting relatives in Gaza when the war broke out; now, their loved ones in the US are desperately trying to find ways to bring them home as they face shrinking supplies of vital medication, clean water and electricity.

UNRWA said Tuesday that Gaza’s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths, dehydration and waterborne diseases.

The UN agency added that one line of water was opened for three hours in southern Gaza on Monday, serving just half the 100,000 population of Khan Younis.

Rising death toll

Over a week of Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,000 people, including hundreds of children, and wounded 12,500 in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Tuesday.

Israeli strikes on two densely populated refugee camps and a school housing displaced people in central Gaza on Tuesday killed at least 18 people and injured scores, Palestinian officials said.

A high-level Hamas commander was killed in the strike on the Bureij refugee camp, Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement. CNN has reached out to the IDF on these claims.

In the occupied West Bank at least 61 people have been killed, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.

Casualties in Gaza over the past 10 days have now surpassed the number of those killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014.

On Monday, the UN Security Council rejected a Russian resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire after it failed to get enough votes. Several countries including the US, the United Kingdom and France voted against it because the draft did not condemn Hamas for the October 7 attack, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said killed at least 1,400 people with scores taken hostage.

The family of a French-Israeli woman, Mia Schem, who was shown in the first hostage video released by Hamas, pleaded with world leaders “to bring my baby back home.”

CNN cannot independently verify where and when the video of Schem, 21, was taken and what condition she is currently in.

Her mother, Keren Scharf Schem, told reporters on Tuesday she did not know if her daughter was dead or alive until Monday and that all she knew is that she might have been kidnapped.

‘No safe shelters’

Some Palestinians who fled to southern Gaza, after the IDF told them to leave northern regions, were killed by Israeli strikes at evacuation sites, according to health workers and civilians.

Mahmoud Shalabi, the senior programme director for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said Israeli attacks were concentrated in southern Gaza overnight on Monday.

In one instance, a doctor working inside Al-Aqsa Hospital told Shalabi 80 Palestinians were killed, including 60 who were internally displaced people from Gaza City.

The doctor was working in the largest hospital in central Gaza, located south of Wadi Gaza, where the Israeli military encouraged civilians to flee for safety ahead of an anticipated ground assault.

“Many internally displaced people have died last night in those alleged safe areas,” Shalabi said on Monday. “When the Israelis are talking about safe shelters, there are no safe shelters.”

The director of Gaza hospitals, Dr. Mohammad Zaqout, told CNN on Tuesday morning that since midnight hospitals had received 110 bodies from different areas of south Gaza.

Zaqout said 40 bodies had been received at al Nasser hospital, while 60 victims of air strikes in Rafah had been received at al Najar hospital. Another ten bodies had arrived at the European hospital.

He said the bodies included some who rescue crews were able to extract from underneath the rubble of houses.

“Remember these houses were hosting families who fled the north of Gaza…and took shelter with family members or people who they know,” he said, adding there were 150 people in one house.

The Palestinian Interior Ministry said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 49 people in strikes on the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN he was “not aware of any strikes specifically in those areas but they could have happened,” pointing to the IDF’s military operation against Hamas.

Fears of regional conflict

Regional leaders raised concerns of fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah in the north, and Syria, as strikes at the border become a flashpoint for wider conflict.

The IDF said on Tuesday shots were fired towards several locations on the security fence between Israel and Lebanon.

At the same time, Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, warned if the “atrocities” against Gaza persist, “Muslims and resistance forces could lose patience,” and no-one would be able to prevent their actions.

After Hamas’ incursion on October 7, Palestinian militants fired shots from Lebanon that were intercepted by Israel, leading to a deadly exchange of fire.

On Friday evening local time an Israeli strike killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah who was also from south Lebanon. The assault wounded at least six other reporters.

A CNN video analysis found that the journalists were wearing vest jackets clearly marked as press.

And on Tuesday, Israeli strikes killed at least four people in Alma al-Shaab, in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Red Cross said.

Two Hezbollah fighters were killed in confrontations on Tuesday, the militant group said. It is unclear whether they are part of the death toll reported by the Red Cross.

They followed evacuation orders. An Israeli airstrike killed them the next day.

When Palestinians in north Gaza heeded the warnings issued in the Israeli military’s phone calls, text messages, and fliers advising them to head south, they thought they were fleeing to potential safety.

The Israeli Defense Forces issued the guidance Friday, telling all civilians in north Gaza to evacuate to areas south of Wadi Gaza “for your own safety and the safety of your families” as the IDF continues “to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians.”

However, some Palestinians who followed the evacuation warnings and fled their homes in search of safety suffered the very fate they were running from: Israeli airstrikes killed them outside of the evacuation zone.

The killings underscore the reality that evacuation zones and warning alerts from the Israeli military haven’t guaranteed safety for civilians in the densely populated Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have no safe place to escape Israeli bombs.

In the early hours on Friday, Aaed Al-Ajrami and his nephew, Raji, received a phone call from an Israeli military official – warning him to get everyone he knows and head southwards immediately, the nephew told CNN. Despite following the instructions and successfully fleeing south of the evacuation zone, Aaed’s family was killed by an Israeli airstrike the next day.

An audio recording of the phone call obtained by CNN reveals the details of the brief conversation – which included the IDF’s instructions to flee south of the evacuation zone and no guidance on how to get there. Raji said once they realized who was calling, they recorded the conversation so they could share it with other family members.

“All of you go to the South. You and all your family members. Gather all of your stuff with you and head there,” the officer told them.

Aaed wanted to know what road would be safe to take and what time they should leave.

“It doesn’t matter which road,” the officer replied. “Do it as fast as you can. There is no time left.”

Aaed heeded the warning. By sunrise on Friday, he headed south with his family and relatives to stay with friends in Deir Al Balah, a city roughly eight miles south of Wadi Gaza and outside the evacuation zone.

The next day, an Israeli airstrike in the area destroyed parts of the building where Aaed’s family sought refuge – killing him and 12 other members of his family, including seven children.

His nephew Raji, 32, was staying in a different building nearby when he heard the explosion and feared the worst. He rushed to the scene after receiving a call telling him that his uncle’s family members were amongst the victims.

“The destruction was massive,” Raji said. “We started digging people out who were hit by the explosion, some of them were still alive … the gunpowder smell was very strong, the dust was everywhere.”

“These people all thought that they were finally safe and that nothing would happen in the area,” Raji said. “You can follow the orders so that you aren’t exposed to danger, but the danger will still reach you wherever you are.”

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment about the airstrike outside of the evacuation zone, including Deir Al Balah.

While an estimated 500,000 Palestinians have fled northern Gaza for the south since Friday, many others are unable to make the journey south of the evacuation zone and are stuck in northern Gaza.

Yara Alhayek, 22, told CNN that her family living in the north had nowhere to seek refuge if they headed south. “We couldn’t leave because there is no safe place to go to … it’s really dangerous if we leave our house, it’s really dangerous if we stay in our house, so we have no idea what to do.”

Israel has defended its ongoing hammering of Gaza with airstrikes as targeting Hamas headquarters and assets which are hidden within civilian buildings, claiming that what may appear as a civilian building is actually “a legitimate military target.”

Independent UN experts have condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians.” Doctors Without Borders released an update Sunday night saying the strikes have also hit hospitals and ambulances and decried that the “indiscriminate bombing campaign in which most casualties have been civilians.”

Israel’s military airstrikes have killed more than 2,800 and injured 11,000 since October 7, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Monday, according to the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA.

Israeli troops and military equipment have massed at the border with Gaza as Israel prepares to ramp up its response to the deadly October 7 attack by the Islamist militant group Hamas. Warplanes continued to blast Gaza over the weekend, as civilians fled southward, following Israel’s evacuation instructions.

Several United Nations agencies have also warned that mass evacuation under such siege conditions will lead to disaster, and that the most vulnerable Gazans, including the elderly and pregnant, may not be able to relocate at all.

“The order to evacuate 1.1 million people from northern Gaza defies the rules of war and basic humanity,” wrote Martin Griffiths, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in a statement late Friday. “Roads and homes have been reduced to rubble. There is nowhere safe to go.”

Raji, who has taken in the wounded children that survived the attack, says he has to put on a strong face to support them despite being broken internally.

“I feel the injustice, these are innocent people, what did they do?”

‘No safe area’: CNN journalist details his family’s desperate flight south from Gaza City

Ibrahim Dahman and his family entered the hotel room and looked out toward the blue of the Mediterranean Sea. His two young sons were excited to spot a swimming pool below their window, but this was no vacation.

“But they don’t strike… they don’t strike hotels, right?” Dahman’s 11-year-old son, Zaid, asked nervously, as the family took the elevator down a short time later.

Exchanging an apprehensive look with his 30-year-old wife, Rasha, Dahman replied: “They don’t strike hotels, no.” A gentle white lie from a father trying to reassure his boys as the explosions, once distant, seemed now to be getting closer.

Born and raised in Gaza, the 36-year-old CNN journalist has grown accustomed to war with Israel. Palestinians have watched as Israeli strikes have battered the strip on several occasions in the years since Israeli forces withdrew from the territory in 2005, often in response to Hamas rocket fire. Fighting frequently breaks out between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza, including the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But for Dahman, this time feels different. While he wants to continue his work telling the stories of people in Gaza, he is now grappling with the reality of keeping his family safe at the same time.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians, including Dahman and his family, have been caught in the escalating crisis. Unlike across the border in Israel, there are no warning sirens, bomb shelters or high-tech Iron Dome defense system to intercept projectiles in Gaza.

Dahman has not stopped working since he was awoken by “the sounds of continuous rocket fire” from Gaza when Hamas launched its initial attack just over a week ago, signaling the start of what US President Joe Biden has called the largest massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

After filming the rockets whistling in the skies above his home, he immediately headed to the CNN office.

Situated in the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, the office has been something of a safe haven for Dahman. It was in this area he began his career in journalism in 2005, when he covered the Israeli withdrawal from the coastal enclave.

The office building sits in what Dahman called a “beautiful, upscale neighborhood in which all press offices and foreign and international institutions are located.” The neighborhood was considered one of the “quiet areas.”

But by Monday, things weren’t so quiet.

“The airstrikes were approaching us. I could see and hear the sounds of explosions and smoke from the office,” he explained. Journalists in the building which CNN shares with other media outlets had heard that the Israeli army had called on residents in the vicinity to evacuate.

Racing to his home a few minutes’ drive away, Dahman had expected to work remotely from there but, in yet another signal that this situation was different from previous fighting, “the surprise was that the house had no electricity, water, or internet.”

After hunkering down for a few hours, he began to see smoke and dust outside his apartment windows, and so he threw a few essential items – clothes, canned food, snacks and bottled water – into suitcases and the family made the short drive to a hotel.

“The evening hours began with the sounds of air raids and shelling from naval boats towards the seashore and the residential towers near the hotel,” Dahman said, adding that despite the chaos swirling around him, he “felt some comfort due to the presence of civilian families and some journalists.”

He added: “I felt somewhat safe, but danger exists throughout the Gaza Strip. There is no safety, and there is no safe area.”

Between Monday and Wednesday, he continued to look after his family while reporting the latest developments, exhausted both mentally and physically as he was only sleeping for a few hours each night – if at all.

“Thursday came and here the suffering begins,” he recalled.

Hotel management asked guests to relocate to the building’s basement due to an ongoing Israeli operation a short distance away. “It seemed that the Israeli army informed the hotel that there was a bombing,” Dahman said.

Families huddled together against the walls of the corridors downstairs, with young children sleeping or seeking comfort in their parents’ laps. In stairwells, people sat cross-legged on the floor as many anxiously typed on their cellphones, trying to get hold of friends and relatives.

Upstairs, loud booms could be heard and plumes of smoke edged closer and closer as Israeli warplanes continued to bombard the cramped enclave.

After witnessing an airstrike hit a residential tower opposite the hotel, Dahman was shocked to see one of his own extended family members being helped into the lobby by bystanders.

His father’s cousin lived in the building next to the tower that had been struck and he and his wife had been caught in the chaos as they tried to flee. His relative was clearly in shock, covered in a layer of dirt and dust, his shirt and skin torn by the blast, but he was alive.

Watching the scene unfold, Dahman knew he needed to get his family out.

“The airstrikes on the residential towers were very violent. I did not expect that I would be alive,” he explained. “These were very difficult moments because my wife is in her second month of pregnancy, and I was afraid that something bad would happen to her.”

As quickly as they could, they crammed their few possessions into their car – its back windows shattered by the blast and one of the wheels now damaged – and fled. “Seconds after we left the hotel, they fired a rocket or a barrel (bomb) that heavily damaged the entire area,” he said.

The family stayed overnight with Dahman’s sister as airstrikes continued to intensify in the streets around them.

On Friday, Israel told the 1.1 million people living in the north of the enclave to leave their homes and head south to get out of harm’s way as a possible ground incursion looms.

Dahman and his family used one of the so-called designated evacuation routes along Salah al-Deen Street to make the treacherous hour-long journey down to the city of Khan Younis.

The same day as Dahman and his family made their way to Khan Younis via this route, scenes of utter horror played out on Salah al-Deen Street, following an apparent explosion, with Palestinians seen fleeing along the street in videos authenticated by CNN.

A number of bodies, including those of children, could be seen on a flat-bed trailer that appeared to have been used to carry people away from Gaza City. It was unclear what caused the blast. In an interview with CNN on Sunday, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner denied any Israeli military involvement in the strike against an evacuee convoy.

Dahman’s immediate family made it through unscathed. While they haven’t entirely escaped the persistent airstrikes, they feel safer now that they’ve made it to a family member’s four-story house in Khan Younis, where more than 200 people, including women, children and the elderly, have sought refuge after leaving their homes in the north behind.

The humanitarian situation has been deteriorating rapidly for days. The healthcare system is on the brink and the siege has made it impossible to get aid into a place where there is a shortage of everything.

“The healthcare system there has always been extra fragile and was considered (a) humanitarian chronic emergency for many, many years and now it’s a complete catastrophe,” Avril Benoit, the executive director for Doctors without Borders, told CNN Saturday.

Dahman never expected to become part of a story, but he is now one of thousands displaced by the conflict, forced to flee with his family for their lives, leaving their home, loved ones and life behind. It is thought that approximately 500,000 people have left northern Gaza for the south following the IDF’s warning on Friday, according to the latest estimates from Israel.

As thousands move to southern Gaza, the UN has warned of “a very limited capacity” awaiting them.

“There aren’t shelters available in the south in terms of the numbers that are coming. Number two, because we don’t have water ourselves. Food, yes, there’s some food in distribution sites, but we can’t get to them because of the bombardment,” Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said Sunday.

Dahman said: “This war is tougher and more difficult than all the previous wars, as I feel intense fear. I am worried about myself, my wife, and my children.”

He added that while the family has found a temporary shelter, they know it’s only a matter of time before they will need to be on the move once again.