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Israel-Gaza live updates: IDF says it's discovered one of Hamas' biggest tunnels under Gaza

The 2 1/2-mile-long tunnel is large enough to drive a car through, the IDF said.

ByABC NEWS
Last Updated: December 17, 2023, 5:01 PM EST

The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended on Dec. 1, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.

The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

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Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 1, 2024, 6:03 am

What we know about the conflict

The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.

Dec 11, 2023, 2:00 PM EST

134 UNRWA workers killed since beginning of the war, UN says

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said 134 of its workers have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began more than two months ago.

Palestinians search building rubble for survivors following Israeli strikes on al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Dec. 11, 2023.
AFP via Getty Images

Although northern Gaza was the first region intensely targeted by Israeli forces, the UNRWA said half of its killed staffers died in central and southern Gaza.

There are 1.9 million people now displaced in Gaza, where conditions continue to deteriorate, the UNRWA said.

Palestinian children look at the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Dec. 10, 2023.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

"Despite everything, our UNRWA colleagues keep going, keep doing everything they can to support their communities," the UNRWA said.

Dec 11, 2023, 12:21 PM EST

IDF says it recovered explosives, rifles in UNRWA-labeled bags in Gaza home

The Israel Defense Forces said its soldiers found explosives, AK-47 rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade hidden inside UNRWA-labeled bags in a home in Gaza.

The IDF said it also found long-distance rockets inside a truck near a school in Gaza.

The Israeli army has "directed aerial strikes on dozens of terrorists in the Gaza Strip” over the last day, the IDF said, and “in one incident, armed terrorists spotted exiting a medical clinic during operational activity were struck by the IDF."

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel towards the Gaza Strip, in a position near the Israel-Gaza border, Dec. 10, 2023.
Leo Correa/AP

Dec 11, 2023, 6:43 AM EST

104 Israeli troops killed since fighting began, IDF says

At least 104 Israeli service members have been killed since the country’s war with Hamas began on Oct. 7, Israel Defense Forces officials said Monday.

Soldiers carry the casket of Master Sgt. Naftali Yonah Gordon at his funeral on Dec. 10, 2023 at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti

Dec 10, 2023, 5:29 PM EST

Global health organizations call for immediate cease-fire over dire conditions in Gaza

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the World Health Organization released updates on a deteriorating situation in Gaza, imploring for an immediate cease-fire to allow aid to enter and civilians to take shelter.

The MSF is seeing a "complete collapse" in the healthcare system in Gaza, the organization said. It has been 10 days since MSF was forced to stop providing support to Martyrs and Beni Suheila clinics due to the Israeli forces’ evacuation orders for the area, according to the statement.

In Rafah, on the southernmost area of the Gaza Strip and where people from Khan Younis and central Gaza have been pushed to, health services are extremely limited, according to MSF.

"The United Nations Security Council must demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire, to lift the siege and ensure unrestricted aid to the entire Gaza Strip," the MSF statement read.

Meanwhile, according to the WHO, a mission it conducted with partners to deliver essential trauma and surgical supplies to Al-Ahli hospital to cover the needs of 1500 people, and to transfer 19 critical patients, was successful.

The high-risk delivery was managed despite active shelling and artillery fire in the region, according to a statement from the organization.

The hospital itself has been substantially damaged, and in acute need of oxygen and essential medical supplies, water, food and fuel as well as medical personal, the WHO said.

"We cannot wait any longer for a sustained ceasefire and a safe, scaled-up humanitarian response," WHO officials said in a statement.

-ABC News' Will Gretzky

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