October 10, 2023 - Israel-Hamas war news

The scale and sophistication of the Hamas incursion into Israel Saturday prompted questions about whether the militant group could have done it alone — and if it had help, whether that could have come from its longtime backer in the region, Iran.

While Tehran has commended the operation, it has denied involvement. US deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said there is no “direct information” linking these attacks to Iran at this time, but that the US believes Iran is “broadly complicit” in Hamas attacks in Israel.

Yet Iran’s evolving relationship with Hamas and its Palestinian militant partners, the Islamic Jihad, is well documented.

Here's what you need to know:

CNN’s Betsy Klein, MJ Lee, Jim Sciutto and Pamela Brown contributed reporting.

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Tomer Shalom, an Israeli citizen whose 20-year-old daughter has been missing since the weekend, said the capture of hostages by Hamas militants is a "crime against humanity."

Shalom told CNN his daughter, Noam, called him frightened and crying at around 8:30am on Saturday from a music festival in southern Israel after Hamas militants stormed the event.

He heard gunshots over the phone, he said.

At least 260 people died in the festival attack and an unknown number of revelers were taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Shalom said his daughter, a paramedic, spoke to a friend on the phone around 9:15am on Saturday from an ambulance where another friend was being treated for a gunshot wound.

It's the last time anyone heard from her, he said.

"Fragile" situation: Israeli authorities believe women and children are among up to 150 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the country's UN ambassador. Hamas has claimed it is holding more than 100 captives.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces are pounding Gaza from the air after Hamas threatened to kill civilian hostages and broadcast the executions if airstrikes target the enclave without warning.

Shalom said the situation is "very fragile."

Killing hostages "will not make things better," an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said Tuesday, a day after Hamas militants threatened to execute civilian captives if Israel targets Gaza without warning. 

Israeli authorities believe women and children are among up to 150 hostages being held by Islamist militants in Gaza, according to the country's UN ambassador. Hamas has claimed it is holding more than 100 captives, including high-ranking Israeli army officers.

Dozens of Israeli fighter jets struck more than 200 targets in Gaza overnight, the IDF said in a statement Tuesday. 

The bombings have killed at least 687 people, including dozens of children and women, and left thousands injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

More than 137,000 people are taking cover from Israeli strikes at UN emergency shelters in Gaza. The shelters are at 90% capacity, the UN relief agency said.

Hecht said Tuesday that the IDF was sending some warnings before bombing targets, including via social media and warning shots.

Asked if the IDF was distinguishing between civilian, governmental and military targets, Hecht said the distinction was not so simple.

"In buildings where people are living there could be a weapons store... there could be a Hamas kingpin living there," he said.

Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have existed since before the nation’s founding in 1948. Thousands of people on both sides have been killed and many more injured in the long-simmering conflict between the two sides over the past few decades.

Violence has been particularly heightened this year. The number of Palestinians — militants and civilians — killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces is at its highest in nearly two decades. The same is true of Israelis and foreigners — most of them civilians — killed in Palestinian attacks.

Israel and the militant group Hamas have been involved in armed conflict dating back as early as the 1987 First Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in a 1967 war, then withdrew in 2005. The small territory — home to some 2 million Palestinians — fell under Hamas’ control in 2007 after a brief civil war with Fatah, a rival Palestinian faction that is the backbone of the Palestinian Authority.

After Hamas seized control of Gaza, Israel and Egypt imposed a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza.

Before Saturday’s operation, the last war between Hamas and Israel was in 2021, which lasted for 11 days and killed at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.

Saturday’s assault occurred on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, when Israel’s Arab neighbors launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, on October 6, 1973.

Dozens of Israeli fighter jets struck more than 200 targets in Gaza overnight, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement Tuesday. 

The targets were in the Rimal and Khan Yunis neighborhoods in the densely populated coastal enclave, where the IDF claimed a number of attacks against Israel were directed from. 

The IDF said it struck an Islamic Jihad terror infrastructure in Khan Yunis, a weapons storage site of Hamas militants located inside a mosque, and "operational terror infrastructure used by Hamas terror operatives," among other targets. 

The fighter jets also struck a number of "operational residences" belonging to Hamas operatives, as well as a Hamas operational command center located inside a mosque, the IDF said.

So far, the bombings have killed at least 687 people, including dozens of children and women, and left thousands injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

A major Israeli offensive such as a ground incursion into Gaza is widely anticipated though the full scale of the Israeli response remains unclear.

Earlier Tuesday, the IDF said it had "more or less" restored full control over the border fence with Gaza, after it was breached by Hamas militants launching their surprise attack on Saturday.

Members of an Israeli family who survived a Hamas attack on their home have described the terror unleashed by the Islamist militants during their unprecedented assault in southern Israel on Saturday.

The Shindler family's home in the kibbutz of Kerem Shalom is located mere steps away from where militants bulldozed through the Gaza border as they launched a killing spree against civilians.

"They woke us up at 6:30, 'red alert,'" mother of six young children, Revital Shindler, told CNN. "We went to the bathroom. We started hearing shots from everywhere, and the house and living room were filled with bullets.

"My husband heard noises in Arabic in the house. He immediately went into the safe room and held the door handle so that nobody could get in. They screamed at us 'we are IDF soldiers, we want to come in.'

"We heard they had an Arabic accent, we said: 'We are not opening the door,' and there was a battle of shouting."

She said the militants threw a grenade at the door, sending her husband, Amichai, flying through the air.

Amichai Shindler, 33, survived the blast and is recovering in hospital in Tel Aviv after one of his arms was amputated, his wife said.

It's not the first time the family has experienced the pain of a terror attack. Over a decade ago, they lost Amichai’s 24-year-old brother, said his mother, Sagalit. He was shot by militants during a flare-up of tensions between Palestinians and Israelis. 

"It brings me back 13 years ago, to cope with this massacre, this monstrosity. It’s just so difficult and sad," she said.

Despite the horror of Saturday's attack, the family said they remain positive and hoped those injured would pull through.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have "more or less" restored full control over the border fence with Gaza, after it was breached by Hamas militants launching their surprise attack on Saturday, according to IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht. 

Hecht said Israeli forces have secured communities around the border and have nearly completed evacuations in the area.

He added there were two small firefights overnight in the Sa'ad and Kissufim communities. "We are focusing our offensive in the Gaza Strip and our airstrikes," he said. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has amplified its presence along the border with Lebanon, adding tens of thousands of additional troops after clashes in the disputed region, according to IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. 

Some context: Lebanon and Israel are considered enemy states, but a truce between the two has largely held since a conflict between them in 2006.

There have been several small-scale rocket attacks in recent years from Lebanon that have prompted retaliatory strikes from Israel. Palestinian factions in Lebanon were believed to be behind those rocket attacks.

On Monday, the IDF said militants had infiltrated from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with a "number of armed suspects" killed and IDF troops searching the area. An IDF officer died after an "encounter" with the militants, Israeli hospital officials said.

It came after Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group that is considered a terrorist organization by the US and much of the West, on Monday said three of its members died during an Israeli air raid in southern Lebanon.

Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that came into being in 1987, emerging out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.

The word “Hamas” is itself an acronym for “Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia” — Arabic for Islamic Resistance Movement.

The group, like most Palestinian factions and political parties, insists that Israel is an occupying power and that it is trying to liberate the Palestinian territories. It considers Israel an illegitimate state.

Its refusal to recognize Israel is one reason why it has rejected peace talks in the past. In 1993, it opposed the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The group presents itself as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has recognized Israel and has engaged in multiple failed peace initiatives with it. The PA is today led by Mahmoud Abbas and is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas, meanwhile, controls the Gaza Strip, an enclave that is home to some 2 million Palestinians and is frequently the site of civilian casualties when fighting flares between militants and Israeli forces.

Hamas has over the years claimed many attacks on Israel and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. Israel accuses its archenemy Iran of backing Hamas.