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Netanyahu: Israeli Response In Gaza "Is Just Beginning"; U.S. Still Seeking To Determine Iran's Connection To Hamas Attack; Israel Pummels Gaza With Airstrikes After Hamas Reportedly Kills 900. Aired 3-3:30 ET

Aired October 09, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:01]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I'm Anderson Cooper live from Tel Aviv alongside Boris Sanchez and Alex Marquardt in Washington, D.C.

Buildings in Gaza in flames tonight as Israel's military air assault on Hamas continues through the night. Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says this is just the beginning, speaking just moments ago, just the beginning of his country's response. The quickly escalating war between Israel and Hamas began, as you know, Saturday around 6.30 AM with that surprise Hamas terror offensive that left hundreds of civilians slaughtered, dead.

Just last hour, we learned volunteers in southern Israel collected more than 100 bodies from that massacre. Hamas claims to have taken more than 100 hostages. Islamic Jihad says they have taken 30.

Now Hamas warns they will start killing them if Israel strikes Gaza without warning.

I want to go back on the ground with CNN's Nic Robertson, who is, I believe, still around Sderot.

Nic, talk about what you are seeing there this evening.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. We've heard the fighter jets in the sky. We haven't heard any major, massive explosions coming from Gaza for a little while. There haven't been any incoming artillery shells fired by - rather, there hasn't been any incoming rocket fire from Hamas into this area in the past hour or so. So in that way, it's been quiet.

But I think one thing that we're picking up on in that slightly quieter state that it is, is outgoing artillery fire. We've seen howitzer weapons being deployed around here by the IDF. We've seen some of the sort of mechanized, very big howitzer guns that can fire a long distance. And we know from previous standoffs and situations with Hamas that this is the sort of area where the Israeli Defense Forces put - have emplacements of howitzers and they'll use those howitzers to fire artillery shells, which can be very precise onto precision Hamas targets within Gaza. We can hear the outgoing shells and very faintly hear some thuds detonating at the other end. Now, the Israeli, the IDF is not saying that it's using howitzers at the moment, but they have done in the past, been very open about it, standard warfare procedure. So it appears that potentially as well as alongside the fighter jets with those precision airdrop munitions, there's a possibility that the - a lighter weapon is also being used at the moment, the artillery shells, to target Hamas, to target their firing positions. That would be very much in keeping with what Israel's done before and very much in keeping of it now, sort of getting a footprint on the ground here, getting a forward momentum in keeping what the prime minister is talking about here, which is building up and putting pressure on Hamas, the military hardware we've seen coming in place over the past 24 hours plus now in place, it seems, some of it, and is being used to target Hamas in Gaza, Anderson.

COOPER: Nic. I want to bring also in CNN's Clarissa Ward who is in Ashkelon, also along the border with - very close to the border with Gaza.

Clarissa, we heard from Benjamin Netanyahu no real details about what the next stage of this war is going to look like, no specifics about a ground incursion. We're re-listening to his comments just to make sure of that.

But so far, it seems like he was talking in generalities. What are you seeing on the ground?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's really interesting, Anderson, because I think everybody had been sort of anticipating that he might announce some kind of a ground incursion or offensive. But as you say, he was pretty vague with his language, basically just stealing the Israeli people, as he has on previous occasions, for a fight that is not going to be easy and is not going to be quick.

We've been seeing an awful lot of movement towards that border in terms of armory, in terms of personnel. We saw a large staging ground for tanks earlier on today. So there has been a lot of speculation that that is what would be on the cards. The complicating factor, as everybody has mentioned before, is the wild card of what that would mean for these hostages, these dozens of hostages who we believe are still inside the Gaza Strip, who we do not know if they are still alive, but who, of course, now Hamas has threatened to execute, potentially broadcasting those executions.

I will say that, strangely, after more or less 24 hours of nonstop bombardment, in the last 20 minutes or so, it has suddenly gone very quiet here.

[15:05:06]

And I don't know if that's - as Nic was alluding to, that they are using different sorts of munitions and weaponry at this stage. But the jets that have been overhead and I should say it's also raining a little bit, it could be a cloud cover thing - frankly, it's impossible to say. But it is a little quieter here in this moment after a day which was just nonstop, really ratcheting up the tension and the tempo and the specter of some kind of a ground incursion, which for the moment, at least, does not appear, from Prime Minister Netanyahu's comments, to be imminent.

COOPER: And, of course, in terms of - in Gaza, I mean, the Israelis have cut off electricity access, that crossing - that humanitarian crossing, which is where supplies used to move between - which was used, I should point out, by Hamas militants - Hamas terrorists to invade and attack civilians in Israel Saturday morning. That's one of the major crossing points that they used, this humanitarian - so- called humanitarian crossing point they used to attack. Can you just talk a little bit about what you have been seeing, what we've been seeing in terms of the bombardment inside Gaza?

WARD: So, Anderson, I've been covering Gaza since 2006 and I have seen some pretty intense bombardment before. I have never seen anything on the level of what we've been seeing going into the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours - 2 million people there. Of course, the vast majority of them are civilians.

Tonight, there is no food going in, no fuel going in, no electricity. It is dark. It is quieter right now. But it has been a horrendous day. The latest death toll that we're hearing is that 560 Palestinians have been killed, and I think there is an anticipation that that number is only going to get much higher as the coming days unfold and it's unclear for those civilians who are trapped there where they can go, what they can do, how they can protect themselves, Anderson.

COOPER: And Nic Robertson, in terms of military movement, what are you seeing?

ROBERTSON: Yes, quite literally while we've been chatting here, we've seen another military convoy come down this road. I mean, one of the reasons we put ourselves here this evening is to have this view of what happens in Gaza through these nighttime hours, but also this main road here, there's a lot of military traffic on it.

And just down here, there's a left-hand turn and if you take that left-hand turn, there's only one place that road goes to. It goes towards the Gaza border fence and we just saw another large military convoy come down the highway and then take that left-hand turn down there towards Gaza. It doesn't mean that they're going in, but what you could see very clearly about that convoy, it was loaded up with boxes and supplies under tarpaulins, the troops in their combat vehicles as well. They had a lot of supplies lashed on the back.

There was - without giving away too many military details here of what we're seeing unfolding in front of our eyes, this was a unit that was going in with everything they needed from food to fuel, to troops, to weapons, to go in and stay somewhere and maintain a presence there for an extended period of time.

And as I say, that road that they took, it goes only one place towards the Gaza border fence, indicative of just more forces being deployed ready to help secure the border or for any other potential mission that might come their way, such as an incursion, Anderson?

COOPER: Yes. And we should point out just - there have been troops going toward the border to try to shore up the border over the last 60 hours. That has been one of the - obviously, there were a number of infiltration points for Hamas terrorists into Israel throughout the day, Saturday into Sunday. Most of those have been shored up. Some are still patched up. And obviously, it's still of great concern.

Clarissa Ward, Nic Robertson, thank you.

And a major show of support for Israel, I want to talk a little bit about the United States' response. The U.S. is sending some of its most advanced military assets to the Middle East, including its newest aircraft carrier, also its heavily armed strike group. Squadrons of U.S. fighter jets are also being deployed to the region.

Joining me now is retired U.S. Army Maj. Mike Lyons.

Maj. Lyons, talk a little bit about what kind of capabilities those assets have and the role they will play here.

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ARMY MAJ. MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): I think first and foremost, the Navy is going to project power, provide a platform for the potential - for Americans to get out of that country and be the place that, as they've released or as we - they've come about, they'll go there. There have to be a way also to threaten and deter from proxy forces that the Iranians still support any kind of way to try to reinforce Hamas with naval assets, so I think they'll do that as well.

They have to steer clear because Hamas does have potentially missiles that could hit those ships, so they'll be on - well, forward on alert. On the air assets, again, they're providing second and third tier kind of overall air support. The Israeli IDF has enough capability to start this air war, which they've done right now, as they position those ground forces in place.

I think all of warfare remains deception, so they're going to choose, pick and choose the time when they want to mount that offense, ground operation into the Gaza.

COOPER: The capabilities of Hamas have certainly surprised, gotten the attention of a lot of governments around the world. In terms of a - of the Israeli operation inside Gaza, what should Israeli forces expect if there was to be a ground incursion? Because certainly there are very few people who were not caught by surprise with the coordination abilities, the planning abilities, and just the projection of force that Hamas was able to do Saturday morning completely without, it seems, any warning to Israeli intelligence, U.S. intelligence or other intelligence agencies.

LYONS: That's right, but it was still fundamentally what we call in the armed forces light. It was not any kind of tanks. It was small arms, hang gliders, a quick effect. It was really more of a terrorist attack. But what the IDF will bring to the battlefield will be shock effect. They'll bring tanks. They'll bring deception. They'll bring things that, once they isolate targets, they will be killed very quickly.

I think right now, again, their ground forces are staying out as the Special Forces are making sure that they've got any chance of capturing hostages from intel that they know. I think you're going to see a lot of stories come out of the rescue of some of those hostages by some very brave Israeli forces that are going to go in quickly in the night, middle of the night right now and rescue them, and then try to do that, because it's so close to when those kidnappings took place.

COOPER: Any kind of, though, operation in Gaza City, I mean, I've spent time in Gaza City, it is a warren of streets, densely packed blocks. There's a lot of people living in a very small amount of space and there is a terrorist group which runs the place, and is very well entrenched, and very well prepared for any kind of incursion.

I mean, everybody knows the difficulty of street to street, house to house clearing. We've seen it time and time again. In Gaza City, everybody in Israel knows that that would be an extremely difficult, difficult fight.

LYONS: Well, and that's why they've called up the 300,000 reservists that they have, based on what the Prime Minister said, it looks like that's what they're going to target, what they're going to go after. It'll be exactly that, house to house, street to street and hitting each one of those specific buildings.

But - and I think you're unfortunately going to see collateral damage that we haven't seen in combat and in conflict, that we've not seen this century, perhaps going back to what happened during the Second World War. I know there's, right now, projecting 10s of thousands, it might even be low, it could be hundreds of thousands. There's going to be significant collateral damage.

Hamas is making a bet that the Israeli government and the IDF won't be able to get away with that as they try to show that on social media. But again, just when the Prime Minister said, they're not going to stop, they're just going to do whatever they can. They're not going to have a military presence and they're not going to have a government presence when this is over.

COOPER: Yes. Well, there's a lot still to be learned. Again, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not surprising some today by not specifically talking about whether there would be a ground incursion, perhaps not wanting to tip off their hand or perhaps that decision hasn't yet been made. But certainly he did not specifically mention that in his remarks this evening.

Stay with CNN for special live coverage from this region. We'll be right back.

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[15:18:39] COOPER: There are certainly a lot of questions and concerns about whether Iran had anything to do with Hamas' terror attack on Israel in terms of planning and funding and coordination. U.S. Intelligence officials are actively trying to determine exactly what, if any, role Iran played.

Iran obviously backs Hamas and is right behind Islam Jihad as well, which operates in Gaza. Iran's president called the attack a victory. Its foreign ministry claims that Iran was - that any claims that Iran are involved are "accusations" made for what they call political motives.

Susan Glasser is a staff writer with The New Yorker. She joins me now. She just penned a piece about National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, taking on another crisis entitled "Jake Sullivan's Trial by Combat Inside the White House's battle to keep Ukraine in the fight."

Susan, I appreciate you being with us. Can you just talk about - I mean, obviously Iran is a major backer of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. What do you think about the possibilities of a direct link between Iran and the Hamas attacks?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, of course, we're going to learn a lot more in the coming days, both about what kind, if any, of warnings, even if they were quite general, the Israelis received, possibly that the U.S. did as well.

[15:20:01]

No one has said anything about any specific warnings. But in a big- picture sense, Anderson, you're absolutely right, this is a group that has been funded, supported and sustained in part by support from Iran.

So there is a nexus there. Also looking at Iran's longtime support for Hezbollah, which is involved in exchange of fire with Israel right now on the northern borders of Israel. So again, the real worry here, in addition to whatever reprisals we're now going to see in Gaza, is the threat of a wider, more regional war.

Obviously, this is also a moment when the Biden administration has been trying to broker peace talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel that might now be on hold as a result of that and would benefit Iran if that deal did not go through.

COOPER: We have seen fighting here, obviously, for a very, very long time, 2006, on the northern border, the fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, incursions into Gaza, the Israeli forces in Gaza and controlled the city until 2005 when they pulled out. There's a certain pattern to these things. It's usually an exchange of rocket fire between Israeli forces and Hamas forces in Gaza. Everybody seems to say this is going to be different. What do you think this looks like moving forward? I mean, there's a lot of unknowns, obviously. Does Hezbollah get more involved? What sort of incursion does take place in Gaza? And also, what the international response to it as people around the world watch Gaza City without electricity being pummeled? GLASSER: Well, that's the horror of this situation. What's different, first of all, it must be said, is the horrific scale and nature of this attack on unarmed civilians across a large number of Israeli communities. We're looking already at many, many hundreds dead. The final death toll isn't even known yet. There's an unknown number of captives in Gaza, what's going to happen to them as the scale of Israel's response becomes clear. That's all going to shape, I think, how the world looks upon this and what the international consequences are.

But right now, I think we can already say that this is going to be different than the previous exchanges of rocket fire and retaliation. That cycle has been broken by a dramatic terrorist attack. So I think that we are looking at what the Israeli government has already called a full-scale war. That's not a term that they have used in the previous rounds of this and I think that we're at a rupture point.

COOPER: What do you think the options are for Israel, short of a ground incursion, without - I mean, is it possible for them to retrieve the hostages? Is it possible for them to really effect - if the elimination of Hamas as a fighting force, as a threat to Israel, is the goal as stated by the Israeli government, can you do that without being on the ground in Gaza?

Yes. I mean, right now, it seems like people are almost expecting and bracing for a full-scale ground conflict in addition to the exchanges of missiles and rocket fire that we're seeing, that an air operation alone might not be sufficient. The question is if and when Israel regains physical control over Gaza, what then?

Remember, Israel's already occupied Gaza and didn't want to have anything more to do with that. Hamas has been, such as it is, the governing authority in Gaza. If that is not sustainable, then what authority will there be there? I just - I think we're facing a world of pain and unknown consequences from this. But it's hard to see how Israel avoids some form of ground offensive.

COOPER: Yes. Susan Glasser with The New Yorker, thank you.

Stay with us for our continuing special coverage from the region. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: Welcome back. You're watching CNN's special live coverage of Israel at War. Israel has been striking Gaza from the air today in response to the unprecedented mass attack by Hamas over the weekend that left more than 900 people dead in this country. The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 560 Palestinians have died since Israel launched its strikes in retaliation.

A warning now. The video that we're going to show you has some disturbing images of the aftermath from an attack against - an attack in Gaza City. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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[15:30:05]

COOPER: Hamas has announced that its members will start exiting ...