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CNN's Breaking News Coverage on the Resumption of Israel-Hamas Fighting after the One-Week Truce. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired December 01, 2023 - 03:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[03:00:00]

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada, and all around the world as we continue our breaking news coverage of the Israel-Hamas War. I'm Kim Brunhuber.

It's 10 a.m. in Gaza where Israel has resumed combat operations after a seven-day truce with Hamas expired. The Israeli military says Hamas violated the agreement by firing a rocket towards Israel, which was intercepted. The IDF says more rockets were fired after the deadline passed and no injuries have been reported. The Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in Gaza reports Israeli aircraft in the skies over Gaza and military vehicles firing on the ground. They also say at least 14 people have been killed in the latest Israeli strikes.

Meanwhile, sources tell CNN negotiations over hostages continue despite the resumption of fighting. The pause had been extended on Thursday when Hamas agreed to release additional hostages. Two women were freed earlier in the day, followed by a group of six people. Another 30 Palestinian women and children were released from Israeli prisons as part of the agreement with Hamas. Many had been only detained and were never officially charged.

Meanwhile, the "New York Times" and Israeli media report Israel knew about Hamas' plans for the October 7th attack more than a year in advance. Now, they didn't know the exact date, but reportedly dismissed it as aspirational and too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

CNN's Scott McLean is following developments and joins us now from Istanbul. So Scott, the resumption of war was only a few hours old and already reported civilian casualties in Gaza.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. And the IDF spokesperson has already made clear since the resumption of fighting began that Israel is, in his words, back and is out to destroy Hamas once again. Look, you had the Qataris mediating talks, the Egyptians, the Americans all trying to get this truce extended. But ultimately, it is Hamas and the Israelis who needed to agree -- to agree. And clearly that has not happened. We are getting word from the IDF that air raid sirens are going off in the communities in Israel, which surround. the Gaza Strip, including the city of Ashkelon.

And we also know from the IDF that they are striking targets inside Gaza. And we are already starting to see the pictures from the ground coming in from places like Rafah in the far south of Gaza and Khan Younis a little bit further to the north from Rafah as well. And a doctor inside one hospital in Gaza says that there are patients coming in from airstrikes that have taken place in other parts of the territory as well.

We also have this statement from the Israeli Prime Minister saying that Hamas violated the outline, did not live up to its duty to release all the kidnapped women today and launch rockets at the citizens of Israel. With the return of fighting, we will emphasize the Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war to release our hostages, eliminate Hamas, and ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel.

I should also mention that the Hamas-controlled military of health in Gaza says that there have already been 14 people killed just since this bit of fighting started already and dozens more injured. They also have said that the majority are women and children.

So Kim, why was this truce not extended? The answer is not entirely clear, but it is important to note that yesterday Israel reluctantly agreed to accept only eight hostages from Hamas rather than the expected 10 agreeing to include two hostages, two Russian-Israeli hostages that had been released on Wednesday as part of Thursday's total. So perhaps Hamas is running out of women and children hostages that it is willing to hand over or maybe even able to hand over since we know that there are other militant groups in Gaza that have hostages being held as well.

Israel knows that once we start talking about civilian men, once we start talking about soldiers, that the price that they will need to pay to get them released will be higher.

A member of the Israeli Knesset, Danny Danon, said, look, as long as Hamas is willing to hand over hostages, Israel is willing to talk. But now that fighting has resumed, those talks are continuing, we understand from sources, but what impact the fighting will have, we just don't know. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Alright, thanks so much. Scott McLean in Istanbul. I appreciate it.

I spoke earlier with military analyst Malcolm Davis and I asked him if he was surprised the truce collapsed or that it lasted as long as it did. Here he is.

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MALCOLM DAVIS, MILITARY ANALYST: We're getting to the point whereby Hamas would start sort of thinking about potentially releasing male hostages. The price would go up for that. But it's clear that Hamas decided that for whatever reason they weren't going to continue this process going forward. And so they've been the ones that have broken that ceasefire. And now the Israelis are responding appropriately.

BRUNHUBER: Appropriately. So what happens next in this operation? A full resumption of Israel's attacks, do you think?

DAVIS: It has to be. Look, I think that Israel knows that if at the end of this war Hamas is still intact, still able to undertake operations, its leadership is intact, then that would basically be a mark of an Israeli defeat.

And it would certainly, I think, sow the seeds for future attacks on Israel of the same sort that what happened on October the 7th. So I think Israel knows that it has to decisively defeat Hamas. I would go so far as to say, route Hamas. And I think that it has to be done in a fairly decisive manner. The challenge obviously for the Israelis is doing it without actually causing far more civilian deaths in the process.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah. All right. So to do that, you know, geographically, will the next phase involve the ground operation in the south? Will we see that coming shortly, do you think?

DAVIS: I think that's likely. That's the next logical step. Obviously, the challenge then, of course, is that the further south they go, the more risk there is to civilians and obviously Hamas is not prepared to allow civilians to leave across a border crossing such as Rafah. So the risk is that the deeper they get into Gaza, the greater number of civilians will be killed or injured and the more risk is that then that would generate additional support in effect breeding new Hamas fighters for the future.

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BRUNHUBER: So as negotiations over further hostage releases continue, CNN's Matthew Chance is in Tel Aviv with more on the former Israeli hostages who were set free on Thursday.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The latest group of Israelis being handed to the Red Cross includes 40- year-old Amit Sossana and 21-year-old Mia Shem, an Israeli-French dual national who appeared earlier in this Hamas propaganda video being treated for an injured arm.

Please get us out of here as soon as possible, she pleads to the camera.

And now finally, the moment Mia's family separated since October the 7th were reunited. A glimmer of joy amid Israel's horror. But the horror continues. Tonight, Hamas posting a video of an Israeli hostage whose wife and two children, it says, were killed by Israeli strikes. The Israeli military says it's investigating, but in a video message which CNN isn't airing, Yadan Bibas calls on the Israeli government to bring his family home so they can be buried in Israel. And now there are growing concerns at what comes next.

The U.S. Secretary of State has been meeting Israeli officials to discuss the next steps. As one Israeli government legislator tells CNN, we are close to the end of this deal, at least this phase of it.

This phase being the release of three Palestinian prisoners for the release of every Israeli woman or child. When it comes to the men and the Israeli soldiers being held, Hamas wants to set new terms.

They want a different equation, the legislator says, and as long as they can provide hostages, we are willing to talk.

Indeed, there's broad interest in keeping some kind of deal in place, not least in Gaza, where residents are receiving crucial food supplies, as well as medicine and fuel during the pause in Israeli strikes.

We wish this was the last day of the war and that we can be done with all this chaos, says Mohammed al-Basha. Enough people have died or suffered, he says.

It's a sentiment being voiced on both sides of this bitter divide.

In Tel Aviv, Israeli protesters are calling for efforts to bring the hostages home to be stepped up and for the Israeli government to avoid returning to a war that may put more lives at risk.

Matthew Chance, CNN Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Ofir Engel was one of the Israeli hostages released on Wednesday. His mother and father were there to greet him as he arrived back in Israel. Ofir had turned 18 during his weeks of captivity. Not long after his release, CNN spoke with his aunt who described the emotional difficulty of seeing him after his ordeal. Here she is.

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YAEL ENGEL LICHI, AUNT OF RELEASED HOSTAGE OFIR ENGEL: I saw him today for the first time after we saw him last night around 12:00 PM -- AM, at night, midnight. They just came into Israel. It was so exciting. I can't imagine and I can't, I didn't know you can feel all those feelings together at the same time in such a - so we went to visit him today and I was really frightened to see him because you know after 54 days we saw him yesterday on T.V. he looked a little bit pale and much more thinner but he's alive and he's walking on his feet and when I saw his mother and father hug him I knew the hard part was over and we start new episode of recovering and healing and having him.

It was not easy to see him. I think it's -- I look in his eyes, as I told you before last time, he has such big green eyes. And sorry, it was not the same. It was not the same. He looks good. He was smiling at us. We hugged him, but we saw he had been through something very, very hard. And he told us things from there. But he's alive and he's back home. So not home yet in the hospital.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: And still ahead this hour we'll speak live with Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.

When negotiators get on the same page about helping those who experience the worst damage from climate change. Still ahead, a big decision at COP 28 about a payout to the country's most affected by rising temperatures. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Tough negotiations are expected to get underway at the United Nations Climate Conference in Dubai. What's officially called the World Climate Action Summit is opening as we speak. We're seeing live pictures of it right now as part of the COP28 conference that began on Thursday. Britain's King Charles is expected to address the summit. Negotiators have already agreed to set up a fund to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change. But they're yet to begin difficult talks about the future of fossil fuels about how much has been done to tackle rising temperatures.

For more, CNN's David McKenzie joins us live from Dubai. So David, as I mentioned, the Climate Action Summit just started, what, a quarter of an hour ago or so. What more can you tell us about what's going on there right now and who's there?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, many of the world's leaders here are Kim, as well as royals and dignitaries, the U.N. Secretary General. This will be the official opening ceremony that you're seeing of the COP28 meetings. And many of the critical things will happen behind the scenes. But still, there will be speeches, including from King Charles, as you said, of the United Kingdom. He is expected to talk about the importance of this moment, according to information provided by them that in particular, saying, this is a time for transformational action.

And it is a time for action because the world is far behind its goals to reduce emissions. And as you touched on, Kim, one of the key sticking points of this meeting will be whether there can be a phase out, a timing of a phase out of fossil fuels. That's something that activists and nations impacted by the climate crisis have asked for a long time. That will initially be potentially phasing out the use of coal and then oil and gas.

But really without concrete details we are in a lot of trouble on the planet. The current estimate is even with the pledges of nations now we will blow past that 1.5 degrees centigrade warming that the Paris agreement in 2015 agreed upon go way past that.

And so deeper cuts are needed. There was some bit of good news on the first day of that -- of this conference and that is to set up a loss and damage fund, something that has been asked for a long time.

BRUNHUBER: Yeah, David, can you take us through that a bit because this is a significant development. What importance will it have? And I know you talked to somebody who was very invested in that development.

MCKENZIE: Well, Kim, you know, for decades now, at least since the mid-90s, there has been discussion by many nations to try and have this kind of fund to help the poorest countries and developing nations deal with the ravages of climate change. That is something that the U.S. and other rich nations were less keen on discussing.

The U.S. frequently said that they didn't want this to be a compensation fund, but rather something that was due to cooperation on their side but they did manage on the very first day of this climate summit to operationalize as they put that the loss and damage fund already hundreds of million dollars -- dollars have been pledged towards it.

[03:20:00]

So this is a positive step. I spoke to the Minister of Climate Change and Finance in at Tuvalu, a nation in the pacific that if you look at these images will be inundated by sea level rises they've even had an agreement, tentative agreement with Australia to start sending their citizens to Australia to preserve something of their nationhood. Here's what I asked him.

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MCKENZIE: This nation of just over 11,000 people doesn't have the power and other nations aren't cutting their emissions. Do you get angry when your entire country is under threat?

SEVE PAENLU, TUVALUAN MINISTER OF FINANCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Of course. We are very saddened and we are furious that the impact of the emissions felt very much by the frontline states like my country Tuvalu. And yet we contribute negligibly to those total emissions. So we are really calling on the international community and the large emitting nations to do something about it.

Reduce rapidly those emissions through phasing out of fossil fuel, but also increase their climate finance to countries like Tuvalu to be able to implement permanent adaptation solutions to save our nation and our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKENZIE: And just a few minutes ago, Kim, on the issue of climate finance, the UAE pledging $30 billion to help bridge the gap and finance green solutions. This meeting will be a lot about financing the impact of climate change, but really it's not just about paying for that, it's about changing the way we operate on this planet and reducing emissions, because scientists say no matter what you do to stop the impact of climate change without reduction of emissions, you will have these very dangerous scenarios developing as the years go by. BRUNHUBER: Yeah, absolutely. All right, David McKenzie in Dubai,

thanks so much.

Still to come, people who've been forced to leave their homes in Gaza are struggling to survive. We'll look at what they're up against. That's just ahead. Stay with us.

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[03:25:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada, and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

Our breaking news this hour, the Israeli military has resumed combat operations against Hamas in Gaza. Israel accused Hamas of firing on Israel early Friday, violating the truce that had been in place for the previous seven days. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Interior Ministry reports Israeli strikes in the southern part of Gaza near Khan Younis and Rafah. And the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says at least 14 people had been killed. Hamas released eight hostages on Thursday on what turned out to be the final day of the pause. Meanwhile, sources tell CNN negotiations over hostages continue despite the resumption of fighting.

56 truckloads of aid arrived in Gaza City and northern Gaza on Thursday, delivered by the Palestine Red Crescent Society. An Egyptian official says nearly 3,000 trucks carrying international assistance have entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing since October 21st. Now, that's a fraction of what was allowed to enter Gaza before the war. The shipments contain medications and medical supplies, along with food, water, and other relief materials, including tents. The U.N. Secretary General said Thursday that the success of humanitarian aid efforts can only be measured by the number of lives saved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL: We know that the measure of success will not be the number of trucks dispatched or the tons of supplies delivered, as important as these are. Success will be measured in lives that are saved, suffering that is ended and open dignity that is restored. The people of Gaza are in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world. We must not look away.

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BRUNHUBER: And the people counting on that aid could use every bit of it. Israel's campaign against Hamas and Gaza has left much of the landscape a wasteland. Homes, businesses and infrastructure are in ruins. Many people have become internally displaced refugees struggling to survive every day. CNN's senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman has a closer look. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There isn't much left to retrieve from the moonscape that was Zahra city in central Gaza. Just some scraps of wood pulled from the ruins. The odds and ends that were once people's lives.

We've come to get what we can, says Amjad the Shanti. The kids' things, our clothing, whatever we can get from under the rubble. Here, I found this, my daughter's toy. No one can live here anymore. The destruction total.

Life in Gaza has been reduced to the basics. A pre-industrial existence where people have become hewers of wood where they can find it.

And drawers of water, even if that water is barely potable.

Bassem Al-Attar goes out early every day to collect the firewood his wife uses to prepare meals.

The United Nations estimates around 80 percent of Gaza's population has been displaced, more than a million jammed into schools, converted into shelters.

People here are living on top of one another, says Bessem. The place is full of filth. All these kids are going to get sick.

The World Health Organization reports that without adequate hygiene, health care and food, disease is spreading. Bessem's wife, Hitam, tears up the daily bread, old and stale, to be made into a thin soup with lentils.

We used to feed this to the sheep, now we give it to the children, she says.

There's no more room at this school in Merazi, central Gaza. Um Shadi and her extended family of more than 20 sleep in the back of a truck, protected from the elements by a plastic tarp. She fled from northern Gaza with only what she could carry, desperate now to find enough food to feed her children.

When my son tells me I'm hungry, what can I say? she asks. We try but we can't find anything. Our life is hard.

Hard, perhaps, is an understatement. Welcome to the apocalypse. Now.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: And if you would like information on how to help with humanitarian relief efforts for Gaza and Israel, please go to cnn.com/impact. You can find a list of vetted organizations providing assistance. That's cnn.com/impact. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country will be

strengthening its defenses by building up fortifications along the front lines. During a trip to Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, Zelenskyy met with local authorities to talk about defense efforts in the region and across the nation.

Now, the visit came as rescue crews are working to free people trapped beneath the rubble in Donetsk region after missile strikes killed at least two people. One person was pulled from the debris, but there may still be a family trapped below. The Russian army simultaneously hit three towns late Wednesday night.

The wife of Ukraine's top military intelligence official is recovering in hospital after apparently being poisoned. She's the latest in a list of Russian enemies also likely poisoned. CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ukraine's military intelligence wages war in the shadows, but it is hitting the Russians hard. Orchestrating cruise missile attacks on Vladimir Putin's black sea fleet ousting Moscow's forces from oil and gas drilling platforms off the coast of occupied Crimea in a daring amphibious assault and attacking the Russian capital with long distance combat drones while maintaining deniability.

The man leading the intelligence service GUR is Kyrgyzstan Budanov, one of Russia's most feared enemies.

I appeal to Russian soldiers, to those who got lucky enough to survive in destroyed trenches, he recently said. It will be even worse. You have a choice. Die or save your life.

But now Ukraine believes the Russians may have struck back. Kyiv saying Budanov's wife, Mariana Budanova has been poisoned by what they say is, quote, "a heavy metal." A Ukrainian source telling CNN, Budanova tested positive for both arsenic and mercury poisoning. Ukrainian officials believe the Kremlin could be behind it, like the foreign minister in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett.

DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Definitely our intelligence chief is the enemy of Russia as all of us are, all those who are fighting against Russia. So it's highly likely that Russia is behind it.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Kremlin-controlled media are already in a feeding frenzy, rejoicing in the news while seemingly brushing off the allegation.

OLGA SKABEEVA, RUSSIAN NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): Maybe she just broke a thermometer during one of the parties with her husband's colleagues. Not very sensational, but Ukrainians and their Western owners literally screamed from such news and began to blame Putin.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): But in a different episode, they brought in a Russian parliamentarian accused of poisoning and killing a former Russian agent in London in 2006 to explain how it would be done.

SKABEEVA (through translator): Well, something slipped in her tea and she drank it.

ANDREI LUGOVOI, FORMER KGB SPY (through translator): There's no other way to poison food and drink other than to pour it in and slip it in somehow.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): In the past, the U.S. and others have accused Vladimir Putin of ordering poison attacks on his opponents and few groups have enraged the Russian leader more than Ukraine's military intelligence led by Budanov, the former head of Ukraine's foreign intelligence, says.

[03:35:10]

VALERIY KONDRATYUK, FORMER HEAD OF UKRAINE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE (through translator): I believe that this was a personal revenge from Putin, personal revenge for all the shame that the defense intelligence under the leadership of Budanov have inflicted on him, shame that supersedes what Prigozhin has done to him.

PLEITGEN: The Kremlin hasn't issued a direct denial of these allegations, but they do seem to be trying to brush them off. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came out and said, quote, "Ukraine blames Russia for everything." All this says Kirill Abudanov's wife battles the effects of that poisoning.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: All right, just ahead, we'll be speaking live with a spokesperson for the Israeli military about what happens next. Now that the truce has expired, that's coming up. Stay with us.

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[03:40:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Our breaking news this hour. Israel has resumed combat operations in Gaza after it says Hamas violated the terms of their temporary truce. The Hamas controlled Gaza Interior Ministry reports Israeli jets in the air, military vehicles on the ground and strikes in the southern part of Gaza near Khan Younis and Rafah. Hamas released eight hostages on Thursday on what turned out to be the final day of a week-long truce. Meanwhile sources tell CNN negotiations over hostages continued despite the resumption of fighting. Hospitals --

Actually, I want to bring in from Tel Aviv Israel Defense Forces spokesperson lieutenant colonel Peter Lerner. Thank you so much for joining us here. So first of all, I just want to ask you how and why did this truce fall apart? Was it the rocket attack or was that just one? Initial rocket just an outcome of the talks over hostages falling apart.

LT. COL. (RES.) PETER LERNER, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES SPOKESPERSON: Quite simply, because Hamas decided not to hold up their parts of the agreement and not release women and children. We still have 17 women and two children that are being held hostage by Hamas. They did not agree to release them, and therefore they broke the agreement.

This is where we are this morning, and we have been very clear from day one that we will mobilize when we are required to, instructed to by the government. But also, this is what we've been preparing for. I think this is very indicative of how Hamas has been trying to manipulate Israel from day one, from the 7th of October, when they conducted this most brutal massacre against our people.

BRUNHUBER: So what happens next in this operation? A full resumption of Israel's attacks? Are we going to see a ground operation in the south?

LERNER: We're conducting operations as we speak. We are instructing people to evacuate from areas that are considered potentially places of operation, including in the North and in the South. Indeed, we have operational requirements to seek out and hunt down Hamas wherever they're hiding.

Unfortunately, as we've seen over the last almost eight weeks now, Hamas is hiding intentionally in civilian areas, putting the people of Gaza at risk. We are very, very determined to make sure Hamas never has the power of death against us again.

BRUNHUBER: You talk about areas in the south. Are these new areas that you're now asking people to evacuate?

LERNER: We've indeed dropped leaflets in the south in specific areas adjacent to the fence, but also in the north in the Sajahiya and Zaitoun neighborhoods in northern Gaza.

Of course, this is part of our operational concept to alert people to evacuate areas where we intend on operating on. It's in order to get people out of harm's way. I know Hamas would like them to stay, but it is very important that people listen. I can also say that this morning we launched a website in Arabic for people to know where is safe, where they can move to. This is part of, I would say, our attention to try and mitigate the civilian effect of the war. Indeed, it is a war, a war that we were not prepared for, a war that even we were surprised at.

But it is a war, nevertheless, that requires a paradigm change with relations between Israel and Gaza. Hamas have to go. The end of this war has to result in a reality that is a better security reality for both Israelis and Palestinians alike.

BRUNHUBER: You talked about mitigating the effect on civilians. But hours into the resumption of this war, there are already reports from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health of civilian deaths in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the region, or he was in the region, and spoke to your prime minister saying that, quote, "before Israel resumes major military operations, it must put in place humanitarian and civilian protection plans that minimize further casualties of innocent Palestinians." Have any of those specific plans been put in place, anything different than what we saw before the truce?

LERNER: Absolutely, we are very attentive and listening to our allies, and specifically Secretary Blinken, who was here yesterday, but he also said that the end game of this is that Hamas has to go. And CNN reported this earlier today, and it is important to keep both of those goals in mind.

[03:44:59]

Hamas have to go, we need to facilitate the humanitarian efforts on the ground, but also we need to make sure that we are operating in the realm of the laws of armed conflict as we do. You know people need to listen what we're saying when we're saying evacuate specific areas. We've proven time and time again that we are serious about our operations and people need to evacuate.

BRUNHUBER: Has the pause sort of created any change in tactics or strategy?

LERNER: Yeah. We, throughout the six days seven days including yesterday of our operational pause we conducted both lessons learned sessions and operational approval of the different units on the ground for the next steps of the operation, indeed taking into consideration that there are civilians and it is a civilian arena.

However, we will operate, we will seek out Hamas, we will destroy their infrastructure, their tunnel system, their rocket launchers, their command and control positions, wherever they are operating, we will seek them out and destroy them.

BRUNHUBER: And finally, getting the hostages out is obviously a priority. Getting aid in as well is, I mean, how will the resumption of the war affect getting vital aid into Gaza?

LERNER: So it's important to know that hundreds of trucks came in over the last six days into Gaza for the international humanitarian organizations, for the people that are in dire need.

I can say that I've already had some indications this morning that some of that aid actually reached Hamas. We're looking into that at this hour, specifically with regard to fuel and other stuff. But I would say that from our perspective, the humanitarian aid needs to be able to come in. Of course, it will be affected by the ability to operate on the ground humanitarian operations. And that is what we are trying to consider how to implement that. Indeed, we see a clear humanitarian operation that works hand in hand with the operational activities.

BRUNHUBER: All right, we'll have to leave it there. We really appreciate the update from you, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much.

LERNER: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: And we'll be right back.

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[03:50:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Our breaking news this hour, Israel has resumed combat operations in Gaza after it says Hamas violated the terms of their temporary truce. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Interior Ministry reports Israeli jets in the air, military vehicles on the ground, and strikes in the southern part of Gaza near Khan Younis and Rafah. Hamas released eight hostages on Thursday on what turned out to be the final day of a week-long truce. Meanwhile, sources tell CNN negotiations over hostages continue despite the resumption of fighting.

Hospitals across Israel have been playing a key part in the road to recovery for so many of the freed hostages. CNN's Wolf Blitzer takes us inside a medical center near Tel Aviv where a number of released captives have been treated.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER" (voice-over): For these women released from Hamas captivity, this hospital is a key stop on their road to recovery.

DR. ADAM LEE GOLDSTEIN, DIRECTOR OF TRAUMA SURGERY, WOLFSON MEDICAL CENTER: The hospital, you know, since the war began, every hospital turns into a quote "war hospital" where we're prepared for anything at any moment.

BLITZER (voice-over): The team at Wolfson Medical Center has been gathering health records and talking to family members to anticipate any potential concerns.

BLITZER: Thank you so much for all you do.

BLITZER (voice-over): Dr. Adam Lee Goldstein is the head of trauma surgery and saw patients to confirm they didn't have any traumatic injuries.

GOLDSTEIN: Most importantly is for us to make sure they're okay health-wise and to reunite them with their families, which is just as important as anything else.

BLITZER (voice-over): Still, there's a long road ahead for those who spent weeks in Hamas captivity.

GOLDSTEIN: We've had a multidisciplinary team dealing with all the aspects from psychosocial to nutrition. surgical, infectious.

BLITZER (voice-over): Those long-awaited family reunions, an incredible relief for loved ones in Limbo. GOLDSTEIN: Families were waiting in the private rooms and you know the

second that these women saw their families, nothing else mattered really. When you're dealing with life and death, they're just happy they're alive.

BLITZER (voice-over): But Dr. Goldstein fears for the fate of other hostages still in captivity.

GOLDSTEIN: We're trained to think about worst case scenarios and how to treat worst case scenarios. I just want them to get home.

BLITZER (voice-over): Despite the trauma, these survivors show incredible resilience.

GOLDSTEIN: When you have one of these women, and the first thing that she says to you is, I'm so sorry for making you work tonight. You know, after everything she's been through, you know, you never. It's things you never expect and it just shows what type of people these are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: And again, if you would like information on how to help with humanitarian relief efforts for Gaza and Israel, please go to cnn.com/impact. And there you can find a list of vetted organizations that are providing assistance. That's cnn.com/impact.

And before we go, President Biden got a jump start on Christmas, as did British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Have a look.

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[03:55:00]

Well that was the scene in London Thursday where the British Prime Minister helped light the Downing Street Christmas tree and it was a similar scene in Washington.

So President Biden there, counting down to the National Christmas tree lighting across from the White House.

All right, that wraps this hour of CNN Newsroom. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "CNN Newsroom" continues with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo, next.

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