LIVE | Day 42: Internet, phone networks collapse; Israel set to target south Gaza

WATCH: Israeli forces strike Hamas observation post

צוותי לוחמים של גדוד 636 מחיל הגנת הגבולות בפיקוד המרכז, בסדיר ובמילואים, משולבים בכוחות הלוחמים ברצועת עזה.

במסגרת פעילותם במרחב בית חאנון זיהו לוחמי האיסוף עמדת תצפית שהקימו מחבלי חמאס, הלוחמים הכווינו אש מדויקת, חיסלו את המחבלים והביאו לסגירת מעגל מהירה על המחבלים והתצפית>> pic.twitter.com/EpEGrzMX09

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) November 17, 2023

Israeli airstrikes targeted areas near Damascus: Syria's state news agency

Syria’s state news agency reported Israeli military strikes near Damascus causing material damage without casualties. Most missiles were intercepted, said an unnamed Syrian military official. Israel hasn’t confirmed this. In the aftermath of the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, Syria faced airstrikes damaging Damascus and Aleppo airports, rendering them non-operational. Israel has conducted numerous strikes in Syrian government-held areas over the years, including these airports, often without public acknowledgment or discussion.

Thousands of bodies lie buried in rubble in Gaza; Families dig to retrieve them, often by hand

The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.

They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbors. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The corpses are there, somewhere in the endless acres of destruction.

More than five weeks into Israel's war against Hamas, some streets are now more like graveyards. Officials in Gaza say they don't have the equipment, manpower or fuel to search properly for the living, let alone the dead.

Hamas, the militant group behind the deadly October 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, has many of its bases within Gaza's crowded neighbourhoods. Israel is targeting those strongholds.

But the victims are often everyday Palestinians, many of whom have yet to be found.

Omar al-Darawi and his neighbours have spent weeks searching the ruins of a pair of four-story houses in central Gaza. Forty-five people lived in the homes; 32 were killed. In the first days after the attack, 27 bodies were recovered.

The five still missing were al-Darawi's cousins.

They include Amani, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mom, who died with her husband and their four children. There's Aliaa, 28, who was taking care of her aging parents. There's another Amani, who died with her 14-year-old daughter. Her husband and their five sons survived.

“The situation has become worse every day,” said the 23-year-old, who was once a journalism college student. The smell has become unbearable.

“We can't stop,” he said. “We just want to find and bury them” before their bodies are lost in the rubble forever.

More than 11,400 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities. The U.N. humanitarian affairs office estimates that about 2,700 people, including 1,500 children, are missing and believed buried in the ruins.

The missing have added layers of pain to Gaza's families, who are overwhelmingly Muslim. Islam calls for the dead to be buried quickly — within 24 hours if possible — with the shrouded bodies turned to face the holy city of Mecca. Traditionally, the body is washed by family members with soap and scented water, and prayers for forgiveness are said at the grave site.

The search is particularly difficult in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, where Israeli ground forces are battling Hamas militants. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled southward, terrified by the combat and pushed by Israeli warnings to evacuate. But even in the south, continued Israeli airstrikes and shelling mean nowhere is safe in the tiny territory.

The Palestinian Civil Defense department, Gaza's primary search-and-rescue force, has had more than two dozen workers killed and over 100 injured since the war began, said Mahmoud Bassal, the department spokesman.

More than half of its vehicles are now either without fuel or have been damaged by strikes, he said.

In central Gaza, outside the northern combat zone, the area's civil defense director has no working heavy equipment at all, including bulldozers and cranes.

“We actually don't have fuel to keep the sole bulldozer we have operating," said Rami Ali al-Aidei.

At least five large bulldozers are needed just to search a series of collapsed high-rise buildings in the coastal town of Deir al-Balah, he said.

This means that bodies, and the desperate people searching for them, are not the focus.

“We're prioritizing areas where we think we will find survivors,” said Bassal.

As a result, the search for bodies often falls to relatives, or to volunteers like Bilal Abu Sama, a former freelance journalist.

He ticks off a handful of Deir al-Balah's victims: 10 corpses still lost in what is left of the al-Salam Mosque; two dozen bodies missing in a destroyed home; 10 missing in another mosque attack.

“Will those bodies remain under the rubble until the war ends? OK, when will the war end?” said Abu Sama, 30, describing how families dig through the wreckage without any tools. “The bodies will be decomposed. Many of them have already decomposed.” On Tuesday, 28 days after an airstrike flattened his home, Izzel-Din al-Moghari found his cousin's body.

Twenty-four people from his extended family lived in the home, in the Bureij refugee camp. All but three were killed.

Eight are still missing.

A civil defense bulldozer came three days after the strike to clear the road, then left quickly for another collapsed building. The bulldozer came again Tuesday and helped find al-Moghari's cousin.

After finding his cousin, al-Moghari went back into the wreckage in search of his father and other relatives.

"I am stunned,” he said. “What we lived through is indescribable.” Gaza has become a place where many families are denied even the comfort of a funeral.

Al-Darawi, the man searching for his cousins, understands that.

“Those who found their dead are lucky," he said. - AP

WHO worried over disease spreading in Gaza

The World Health Organization has expressed deep worry regarding the escalating risk of disease in Gaza due to weeks of Israeli bombardments. The population has been compelled to seek shelter in crowded conditions, facing shortages of food and clean water.

Richard Peeperkorn, WHO's Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, stressed on the imminent arrival of winter and its potential impact on disease spread, saying, "We have significant concerns about disease transmission."

He highlighted startling figures: over 70,000 reported cases of acute respiratory infections and more than 44,000 cases of diarrhea within the densely populated area, both surpassing anticipated numbers. These figures disclose the urgent health crisis unfolding in the region.

Hebron in occupied West Bank witnesses shootout

Reports from local Palestinian sources indicate a exchange of gunfire in Hebron's Ras al-Joura area in the occupied West Bank. According to an Al Jazeera correspondent, Israeli forces fired upon a young Palestinian man's car in Tarqumiyah, one of the entrances to Hebron. Israeli forces claimed on their website that they fatally shot "two terrorists" who had approached the Olive Junction near Hebron by car and had fired at the operating forces there.

Irish MP wants Israel investigated by ICC

Ireland's Sinn Fein leader, MP Mary Lou McDonald, urged her government to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court over Gaza actions. She insisted on the need for Ireland to increase pressure on Israel for a ceasefire, citing Israel's disregard for international law due to a lack of accountability.

Israel doesn't care about international law.

Why?

Because Israel is NEVER held to account.

When it came to Ukraine, there were multiple complaints to the International Criminal Court over Russia's actions. Correctly.

Why is Israel any different? pic.twitter.com/OsGDGGVF9m

— Sinn Féin (@sinnfeinireland) November 15, 2023

UN agency warns of “immediate possibility of starvation” in Gaza

Hamas moved hostages from Al-Shifa Hospital: Netanyahu

Israel says it attacked underground sites

Body of woman abducted by Hamas found near Shifa Hospital: IDF