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Hamas Says, 120 Rockets Fired into Israel; CNN Team Takes Cover as Rockets Hit Near Israel-Gaza Border; IDF Says, More Than 700 Israelis Killed in Hamas Attack. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 09, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We continue to follow the developments coming in this hour. We are getting more of the firsthand look at the dangerous situation still unfolding on the ground throughout Israel and Gaza now three days after the massive terrorist attack from Hamas on Israeli civilians.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This is new this morning. The Israel Defense Forces have a number of suspects who infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon were killed and IDF soldiers are searching the area there. Meantime, you're seeing rockets raining down on Israel from Gaza, as well as airstrikes being pounded, pounding the city of Gaza there this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Our teams have seen the Israeli troops and armor moving towards Gaza border.

CNN's Clarissa Ward and her team were near that border. They had to take cover in a ditch as rockets flew overhead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Guys? Are you seeing our situation, guys?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

WARD: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you hear the shells?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lie down.

WARD: Stay down.

Guys, come to us.

[10:05:00]

Yes, right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have got to come right now. You have got to come right now.

Were you guys rolling on this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they were rolling.

WARD: Okay.

BERMAN: Clarissa, tell us what's happening.

WARD: Hi, John. So, forgive me, I was slightly in an elegant position but we have just had a massive barrage of rockets coming in here not too far from us. So, we have had to take shelter here by the roadside. We are just about five minutes away. Gaza is in that direction. We can hear now a lot of jets in the sky. WE could also hear the Iron Dome intercepting a number of those rockets as they were whizzing overhead and making impact in that direction not too far from here.

We came to this location, because this was ground zero for this entire operation of carnage. Hamas militants came on a pickup truck. This was the first place where they breached that border wall and they basically drove down this strip just spraying lead wherever they went. We saw -- in fact, I was just grabbing it before that happened and we had to hit the deck, but heavy weaponry being used.

They're saying we can get up now. Where are we moving to? Sorry, one second, guys. Okay.

All right, so now I can show you the scene here. This is where the militants first came opening up fire on these vehicles. There is a baby carriage turned over on its side.

You can see over there, Clayton, if you can just show in the distance there, some kind of strikes, looks like, in Gaza as well return fire or is from the rocket launches? Forgive me. It's a little difficult after being crouched in a ditch to know exactly what's been going on.

But, yes, multiple casualties along this area. You can probably see the scale of the damage that was done to these vehicles. A lot of them just blew up with the force of the ammunition they were taking. And they are just now towing away the actual pickup truck that was carrying those Hamas fighters. It met with some resistance. Careful, Clayton. There were a couple of bullet holes in the window shields -- in the windshield, rather. So, they stopped the car, they got out of it, and they just went on this shooting spree.

This is also, they believe, where a lot the hostages were taken. They just got out of this, started grabbing people, started shooting people and taking them back to that side of the border. John?

BERMAN: So, Clarissa, I will give you a chance to catch your breath right here. You are headed closer to the Israel/Gaza border. You heard the rockets fired from inside Gaza. Maybe some of them, many of them, hopefully, all of them, being intercepted.

What is around you in terms of the civilian life? Are the Israelis back in their homes? WARD: Not here, they are not. This was -- you know, the city of Sderot is just over there, which was a pretty buzzing city, but almost everybody has left at this stage where they are spending most of their days in a shelter. And this has really become a kind of an area where the only vehicles in light you see are ones like these, Israeli military, Israeli personnel, Israeli Army being moved and deployed all up and down along this border, fueling speculation that some kind of a ground offensive could be imminent, although, obviously, that is complicated by the fact that there are a lot of hostages.

I am just moving us out of the roadway here. Oh, another one.

You can see where they shot up car here, just completely, completely destroyed. We don't know. We asked how many lives were lost here. It is very difficult to get a sense who might be alive, who is taken as a hostage. But you can imagine the visceral terror as this scene was unfolding, John.

SIDNER: Clarissa, this is Sara. Let me ask you about -- you have not only been there where you are seeing the rocket fire still coming in, but you have actually went to the site where there was this festival, and that awful video of people running for their lives and being slaughtered by Hamas militant.

[10:10:02]

Can you give us some sense of what you saw there?

WARD: So, we visited there yesterday, Sara. I'm just going to step out of the way. There's an ambulance coming this way. We visited there yesterday and, again, just carnage. You can still see the dead bodies of those Hamas militants all over the approach to that kibbutz, where thousands of young revelers had gathered, celebrate the end of the high holidays.

They were dancing through the night until at about six in the morning when the militants started firing a barrage of rockets overhead. Then they actually infiltrated the dance party.

Sorry, I'm just going to move us over here again. We're trying to keep out of the way of these guys and let them do their job. I also wonder if someone in the control room can turn around that video that just showed the initial moments we were taking shelter there when that barrage of rockets came in.

But the scene that Re'im, that kibbutz that you're talking about, was just nothing short of horrifying. And the fear that so many families still have, they don't know, Sara, if their loved ones are even alive. An Israeli volunteer group that identifies human remains said at least 260 bodies were found, but there were thousands of people there and there are still families desperately looking, desperately hoping and not knowing where their loved ones are.

BOLDUAN: What you're showing in stark relief right now, Clarissa, this is Kate, that this isn't a terrorist attack from just this weekend. This is ongoing. Take us back to -- I mean, when we came to you, you would hit the deck with your crew. What is happening? What was happening around you? And what does it tell about this ongoing situation?

WARD: Yes. So, just as we started this live shot, the red alert went out, which means incoming is imminent. We tried to run to the shelter. We didn't quite make it because we could already hear the rockets whizzing overhead. So, we had to sort of jump into a ditch over there and wait until the barrage passed. We could hear the Iron Dome being activated overhead.

But it really just gives you a sense that even with the most sophisticated military technology, the Israelis are still up against a really tough fight.

And the prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged that himself. He has told the Israeli people, you've got to prepare yourselves for a long fight, for a tough fight. At the moment, the focus is obviously on trying to ensure that any Hamas militants who were able to infiltrate that border have successfully been pushed out and to repair the breaches to the border, dozens and dozens of breaches all along that border, and, of course, then to try to win back the release of these dozens of hostages, Hamas saying more than 100 hostages.

The Israeli military here on the ground telling us they don't know if these guys are alive. They don't know what the situation is with regards to their whereabouts, to their health. And so it's a very, very delicate calibration that the Israelis have to engage on trying to thread the needle between issuing a fearsome response to this unprecedented act of aggression while at the same time trying to protect the lives of those who may be held hostage in the Gaza strip.

BOLDUAN: Clarissa, thank you so much. We'll get back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: All right. That was Clarissa Ward from earlier, well just about one hour ago, is when we last connected with her. Yes.

BERMAN: All right. We're getting some new video just in. I do want to warn you, it is graphic video of what officials in Gaza say was an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp there. Again, be warned, this is graphic.

[10:15:00]

BOLDUAN: That from a refugee camp is what we're here for reports.

We also have new video in of the massacre by Hamas on a music festival in Israel on Saturday. That celebration interrupted by a warning on the festival speakers that everyone was told to leave immediately, and then the sound of rockets.

SIDNER: CNN's Nic Robertson is in Re'im in Israel. We've been watching you all morning as there have been people coming to that area where all of those cars have been shot up, pulled over to the side, trying to find anything that they can salvage to help people understand where their loved ones are. Can you give us a sense of what is happening now there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it's eerie. There are moments of silence where you're standing around by these cars where you know that there was so much carnage perpetrated, where there was so much fear. These were people who just come -- young people come to party. And look, the shoes that are strewn here, these are party shoes. People were running away.

The people who are here taking the documents, they've moved on. This is really an active military area right now. There's a lot of military coming and going, a lot of military vehicles, a lot of military deploying along here. But this is just left the way that it was Saturday night as people were trying to flee Hamas.

And you just get that sense of the desperation getting in the cars but there are bullet holes. They're sprayed with bullet holes here, windows shot out, party chairs, bottles of water in the back here. People had come, young people, innocent young people, teenagers, people in their 20s, had come here to enjoy themselves, to relax after the holidays.

They heard that warning and they ran. They ran away and they came here to try to get in their cars and they were gunned down. The cars scattered here in the fields, doors open as people were trying to jump in and get away at the last minute. Strewn across the road, belongings up here in the road, there's blood in the road here.

But what I want to show you here, and, Sara, you mentioned this before about the shelters, the bomb shelters, these brightly painted, concrete bunkers here for people to go hide in when there's danger close, when the rockets are coming.

Okay let's just pause, John. Will you pan over there to Gaza? We're looking at Gaza, a large plume of smoke rising up from Gaza because, of course, we're hearing the fighter jets overhead. We know that they're impacting inside Gaza. You've just been showing images of injured people from a refugee camp there. That looks like a very recent impact. I'm still hearing the jet just off to the right. Another impact over there, the smoke has been rising from that one for quite a while. That other one we're looking at is very new.

I'll talk about this bunker. So, everyone's raced here, as many as could get away, raced here to get in their cars. And some of them did what they would naturally do, what they're trained to do. If there's danger close, you go and get in one of these brightly painted shelters here. This is Jewish National Fund USA.

They're brightly painted. People understand that this is where to go to get safe, but outside of here, smashed water bottles, broken shoes. And as I step inside here, you're overcome by the smell. And what is clear that happened here, people came in here to get shelter. There's gunshots and impacts all over the wall.

I don't think we'll go in too far, John, if we just step out and let me describe what we're seeing, because it is a very horrific testimony to the absolute carnage, rampage and utter, utter brutality of Hamas that people were hiding in there.

And it's absolutely clear from the blood on the walls, the bullet holes in the walls, that they just went in there and shot these innocent people, cowering and hiding away from them inside this concrete place of safety, this shelter. Hamas just chased them in and brutally gunned them down.

And there can be no stronger testimony, I think, to the horrific events of that morning and the horrific nature of what Hamas was doing and the deep scar that it's left on everyone in this country, and to that point, the military buildup that's underway to help ease some of that pain.

SIDNER: Nic Robertson, that was absolutely striking, showing us what happened inside of that shelter.

[10:20:01]

Because as anyone who has been to Israel knows, that is where you go for safety, but that is for rocket attacks. That is for attacks coming from Gaza, not gunmen on the ground who are there to slaughter and capture people. And just seeing that is so strikingly disturbing.

I know it's hard for you to see it. I know it's horrible for the families to see it, but thank you for showing us what is happening on the ground right now in the aftermath of this.

And this is still ongoing. There are still, as you said, airstrikes that we're seeing land in Gaza. We could hear the flights over your head. We could hear the attacks happening. And it is just a very, very dangerous situation.

Thank you to you and your crew for sharing that with us.

BERMAN: And, again, Israel has force moving toward the Israel-Gaza border. We're getting reports from the Israel Defense Forces of helicopter strikes, their helicopter striking inside Lebanon. We're going to get more information on that shortly.

In the meantime, let's get back to CNN's Becky Anderson in Tel Aviv. Becky?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Thank you. We are in Tel Aviv, in Central Israel, of course. And we have all day been feeling this sort of low-level rumbling of what is going on in Gaza and what is coming out of Gaza.

So, as we've seen, we've got witness now, video coming in from Gaza of the aftermath of the IDF strikes on military targets, as they described them, in Gaza, continuous, intensive strikes on Gaza now. So, we are also seeing an out coming fire from Hamas still today.

We had sirens go off in Tel Aviv here. We had to take shelter in the hotel that we are in as incoming mortars, claimed by Hamas, were targeted at the airport of Ben Gurion here.

What we are also seeing, I see Gaza down about 40, 50 miles down to my left here, to my right here in Tel Aviv, up the coastline, I can see the road going to Lebanon, and we do, as we understand it, know that the IDF has been targeting armed militants who they say have crossed into, breached the border, they crossed into Israel and they have taken out, been striking those militants and indeed targets inside Lebanon. We'll get more on that for you as we get it into CNN.

For more, now I'm joined by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Mr. Barak also served as the IDF chief, the military intelligence chief and the defense minister. Your files are numerous. You are well imbued in the politics and the policy and the strategy of Israel. What do you make of what we are seeing at present, sir?

EHUD BARAK, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: You know, yesterday, we suffered a major blow, very extremely painful, probably the most kind of highest death toll in any day of our fighting history, the number might amount to 800 or whatever.

ANDERSON: It's 700 officially at the moment. We'll say it could go 800, 900 Israelis killed.

BARAK: It might reach more. But, basically, so we are at war and we are a defined people and we will fight and we will win.

It's still a very sensitive situation. Hamas said to suffer a major blow, that he had not experienced it. It's accompanied by the risk of getting into deterioration on the north. I'm 80 miles to the north from here. But -- we already, Israel mobilized several hundreds of thousands of reservists and deployed.

What happened there, which is a major failure of the -- in Gaza, a major failure of our early warning system, our operational, and even of the authority at the political level, let's describe this way, is severe. But we'll have a time in the future to correct it. We're now united for the fighting and we will not repeat the mistakes that have been done there.

ANDERSON: So, in the short term, I want to talk about what this war will look like and what sort of price could be exacted. So, your sense of whether we are on the verge of a ground incursion, as the defense minister announces, that there is now a total siege of Gaza, electricity cut off, food cut off, fuel cut off.

BARAK: Yes, cut off is not yet incursion, but it's very probable there will be an incursion. It could be done militarily. You can take over the Gaza strip, the most of the Gaza within a few days and all of it within probably two or three weeks.

That's not the problem. The problem is how to relay to the fact that we have hostages there and how to deal with what will end up having it at hand.

[10:25:06]

ANDERSON: And a Palestinian population who are also at huge risk.

BARAK: Yes, we have to think about it in advance. And we do not have any interest in having a deterioration to a full-scale clash with the Hezbollah, but if it will happen upon their choice or deteriorating without control, we will win there as well.

So, it will be longer and more painful, but, you know, I have to put it in proportion. Israel, under any case, is not under any kind of existential threat. We are stronger, we will win, we suffer the blow, we learn, draw the lessons, the immediate lessons, immediately and the more profound ones, a long time.

ANDERSON: You are well aware that your enemies, the enemies of Israel, will say, it may not be a nation that is facing an existential threat but it looks vulnerable at the moment. Let us be quite clear, it looks vulnerable at the moment.

Can I just ask you a couple of things that you just brought up there? Let us start with the hostages, because this is really important, more than, as we understand it, 100 hostages. According to Hamas, the IDF has not released numbers, but it is significant. There are significant Israeli hostages now being held. And that, as we have been reporting now for hours, very much complicates what happens next so far as the IDF's tactics are concerned. But you know this better than anybody else.

BARAK: I know it very well, but I am not going to discuss the details and the subtleties of it in front of the camera. Even in the Gaza strip, they follow CNN very --

ANDERSON: Suffice to say, it is very complicated.

BARAK: Yes, it is very complicated, but we have good people at the top that might be capable of considering both responsibly and still determinedly. We have to give a major blow to the Hamas and the way it will be found to do that.

ANDERSON: You talked about Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group in Southern Lebanon on the northern border of Israel. You say Israel doesn't want to fight with them, but if there is a fight to be waged, Israel will win.

I've heard the Lebanese prime minister saying he doesn't want to fight with Israel, of course. Hezbollah, a group, which is not controlled by the prime minister, but he is being warned by many people around this region that he needs a line of communication with Hezbollah that says, don't get involved.

We have already seen some involvement. Are you concerned about how much involvement today, or do you see it as small enough to suggest that they're not wanting to get involved?

BARAK: What happened today is not enough to drag us into major clash. It's genuine. The normal authorities in Lebanon do not want it and the Hezbollah might consider it under certain situation. We cannot penetrate all the calculations but we have to be ready. So, what happened in Gaza cannot repeat over there. Because in every settlement in the north, there are now soldiers and heavy forces are there ready to protect the country and to come into clash, if it's necessary.

ANDERSON: What does this mean for Bibi Netanyahu, for Benjamin Netanyahu going forward? You've been in that chair. What's the impact on this prime minister at this point?

BARAK: Well, it's a very tough moment for him as well but he's an experienced prime minister. We are amid a major debate with him about other initiatives of him, which we feel has certain relationship to these events that we are facing now.

Basically, I fully back the protest movement, which think that all the judicial reforms, so to speak, was accurately described by our Chief Justice Esther Hayut. She said this is not a judicial reform. This is a blatant attempt to crash the independence of the Supreme Court, push Israel out of the family of democracy.

ANDERSON: And that's a file we should consider in context here. I'm asking specifically about Benjamin Netanyahu at the moment and I want to press you on this because the opposition leaders have said that they would be prepared to go into a unity government at this point. Even the most right wing government members have said an emergency unity government is important at this point. Is it? Do you expect to see that?

BARAK: Under normal situation, it was the most expected step to establish a --

ANDERSON: A war coalition?

BARAK: -- unity government in the moments of war, the Israeli public is united.

[10:30:00]

Nowadays, with those -- there are certain extremists in the government, which are damaging --

ANDERSON: The finance minister, the national security minister?

BARAK: Yes --