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WH: We Believe There Are 20 Or More Americans Unaccounted For; WH: Surging Ammo And Material To Support Israel's Iron Dome Defense; Father Details Son's Final Moments Fighting Hamas. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 10, 2023 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I mean, obviously look, the Gaza Strip is small. Is there some other place to go outside of Gaza City?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Gaza, there's a there's Gaza City, there's Khan Yunis, there's the city of Rafah and the force far South. But all of these areas are being struck. Hamas has infrastructure in all of these areas. So really, we're not talking about a very large area. It's perhaps twice the size of Washington, DC. So you might be able to flee from northwest to southeast, but there's not really anywhere to go. It's a very small, cramped place and the Israelis believe they have targets in most of the Gaza Strip. So there's nowhere to go.

And in addition to that -- and I think this point has been made clear very vividly before. Unlike Israel, there are no bomb shelters in Gaza. There are shelters for Hamas and its leaders, but for ordinary people, the best they can do is perhaps hide in the basement. And as we've seen from some of the intense Israeli strikes, even those buildings aren't very solid -- Anderson.

COOPER: But to your point, Ben, that Hamas has built -- according to Israeli authorities -- Hamas has built a network of tunnels running underneath Gaza City. That's not for civilians to hide in. That is for Gaza fighters and others to move about. Is that correct?

WEDEMAN: That's correct. These are not sort of like the Kyiv subway system, where the population can go and take cover. These are secret tunnels and in fact, I was in Gaza -- when I'm trying to think -- in 2021 when there was a fairly intense round of attack and counterattack between Hamas and Israel. And what we saw in some of the areas that there were very suspicious sort of cracks in the roads where it would appear there were tunnels underneath. So there's a very intricate and extensive tunnel system under Gaza. But it's not for ordinary people -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yes, not for civilians to be able to hide for their lives.

Clarissa, President Biden said t tonight -- or today in the US, that the administration is sending aid, military equipment to Israel, particularly for Iron Dome. Just talk about how critical that resupply for Israeli Forces will be. CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely

critical, Anderson. I mean, it has been quite the afternoon and evening here in the city of Ashkelon, there has just been a very steady stream of volleys of rockets pounding into this city. Most of them, however, being intercepted by that Iron Dome. Some of them though, making impact.

We spoke to one woman whose home had taken a direct hit. She was in her shelter, which as Ben correctly and importantly points out, of people here on this side of the border, have them very different story on the Gaza side of the border.

But you know, it's not rockets are not the only threat that they're contending with here at the moment. And the reason I'm wearing my helmet again, even though it's a little quiet, is that we just had a situation. Hotel told everybody to get inside their rooms. Reports of a gunman potentially on the streets. There is a lot of police activity. We've been hearing helicopters in the sky as well -- Apache helicopter gun ships. We've heard some bursts from a machine gun.

Again, not clear at all, I want to stress, whether there is a gunman on the streets, whether there is in fact a significant incident taking place, it seems fairly quiet for the moment, but what it goes to show you is that when you're in this situation, when you're facing so many different kinds of threats, it very quickly can get chaotic and confused. And so, in that sense, you can understand -- we're hearing some more jets as well going overhead in the skies.

So in that sense you can understand that the Israelis are appealing to the Americans for all the help and coordination and cooperation that they can get as they go about plotting whatever these next steps may be. And as we talked about last hour, Anderson, with regards to President Biden's remarks. I think it was less about what he didn't say than what he did say. What he didn't say was calling for restraint. Again, raising the specter, or the possibility that we may be looking at a more significant escalation possibly in the form of a ground offensive as so many have been speculating in these last couple of days with all that troop and military hardware movement -- Anderson.

[15:35:00]

COOPER: Clarissa Ward, thank you, Ben Wiedeman as well. We'll continue to go to both of you throughout this evening.

Joining me now is former Israeli ambassador to the UN and Knesset member Danny Danon. Ambassador appreciate you being with us. You heard President Biden's speech, you probably heard Jake Sullivan as well. President Biden saying that the U.S. is offering assistance to Israel and to try to negotiate release of hostages.

First of all, what do you make of President Biden statements to support that the U.S. is now offering?

DANNY DANON, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Anderson, we are very grateful for the word of President Biden. It was remarkable and emotional speech, and I think it was needed. At the time where we are today, where we are still counting the number of the victims. We are burying our friends to see the love and the support. We appreciate that. And we believe that President Biden, he actually intends to stand behind these walls and to support Israel. We don't expect to see American troops on the ground, but to have the moral support, the moral clarity, the world, he said, were very strong and we appreciate that.

COOPER: President Biden did not -- as Clarissa pointed out -- urged restraint. He talked about operating under the rules of war, which is what democracy is supposed to do. He also warned other countries not to try to exploit the crisis. How concerned are you about the potential expansion of this as a regional conflict, the involvement of potentially of Hezbollah and others?

DANON: Our goal is to punish Hamas, to destroy Hamas, to eliminate Hamas. That is the goal of the war we declared. And you know, today we saw horrible pictures of babies that were handcuffed and they burned alive. You know, things we never saw since the days of the Holocaust.

So we are focused on punishing Hamas, period. We will hand them down. And they will pay a heavy price for what they did. We have no intention to start our cycle with Hezbollah in the north or anyone else, but if someone will try our resilience, we will react. We are ready for that. We call enough reserve troops in just in case somebody will try to test us again.

COOPER: Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser, was asked and talked about diplomatic efforts to try to figure out something for civilians in Gaza, someplace for them to be able to go to, escape to. Is that possible at all?

DANON: Well, first we never target the civilian population. Unlike Hamas, which commits a double war crime, they target civilians and then cowardly they go and hide behind civilians and use them as human shields. We don't want to have any civilian casualties. So what we do, we actually try to encourage the population to move out. And I heard your discussion earlier. Gaza is big enough to move out. If we're targeting a neighborhood where we know that you have headquarters of Hamas, we send the messages to the population to get out of this area, to move South to a different location. And we hope that they will do that.

And I will take this opportunity to call to the people in Gaza to move away from Hamas headquarters, from Hamas militants, because we are coming to get them, we will come from the sea, from the air, from the land. We will come, we will find them and we will kill them.

COOPER: Ambassador Danny Danon, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Our special coverage continues after a quick break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:42:37] BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Just a short time ago, President Biden insisted America stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel in the wake of Saturday's surprise attack by Hamas that killed at least 1,000 Israelis. Biden says with the terror group did was, quote, pure, unadulterated evil. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. We will make sure as who has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself and respond to this attack. There's no justification for terrorism. There's no excuse. Hamas does not stand for the Palestinians people's right to dignity and self determination. The stated purposes and annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss further with Barak Ravid, political reporter for Axios, who also writes for WALA News in Israel. And also with us is Yaakov Katz. He's a senior columnist for the Jerusalem Post. Yaakov was also a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and author of the Book "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power." Thank you both for being with us. Yakov, let's start with you. Your reflections on President Biden's comments. How do you think Israelis are receiving the response from the President of the United States?

YAAKOV KATZ, SENIOR COLUMNIST, JERUSALEM POST: Israelis, I think, were warmed, heart warmed, blown away, maybe even by the speech, which really was strong, made it clear that there is no daylight between the United States and Israel right now. Made it clear that the President of the United States is doing everything that he can to stand by Israel. Takes this situation as seriously as possible and made a shot across the bow by saying to Hamas that America will not tolerate this. But also to Hezbollah, don't you dare think of doing anything, and that is what Israel's really concerned about.

What was over this past week with that murderous rampage by Hamas with its invasion of Israel, that happened already. Israel is about to embark on an operation and offensive into Gaza. The president gave his support for that. That is also important. But what Israel is mostly concerned about is what will happen if there are going to be attacks from Lebanon. And the President said we're bolstering sending more forces here.

[15:45:00]

We're going to beef up and replenish your interceptors and all the weapons that you need and we will stand by you in warning, Hezbollah and Iran, that's important for Israel.

COOPER: Barak to you. Part of your new reporting in Axios details Prime Minister Netanyahu telling President Biden that Israel has no choice but to execute the ground operation that Yaakov just alluded to. Do you have any new details about the potential timing, whether it's imminent, when we can expect it?

BARAK RAVID, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: I think that the main element that we need to look at right now when it comes to the ground operation is what is happening politically in Israel. I think that as we speak, Prime Minister Netanyahu is meeting one of the leaders of the opposition in an attempt to form some sort of unity government. I find it hard to believe that we will see a ground operation before those efforts will be exhausted. Because if a ground operation means a lot of casualties, it's a big decision and it's the kind of a decision that the Israeli public -- although it's public supports such a decision -- I think people will accept it much more if it's -- if the unity government decides on it and not the current government in power now in Israel.

COOPER: Yaakov, there's an interesting angle to some of the political divisions that we've seen recently in Israel. And you actually wrote in September that Netanyahu's controversial judicial reforms were weakening the country. How much do you think the current political disagreements within Israel have to do with the timing of these attacks by Hamas.

KATZ: Look, it's tough to tell, Boris. You know the -- on the one hand, Israel was distracted, right, for the last nine months since the Netanyahu coalition brought forward this very controversial program of a judicial overhaul and to reshape the balance of power in Israel. Bringing out a quarter of a million Israelis every week to protest. That created rift within Israel, a rupture that was unprecedented within civil society. Israel was completely focused on that.

There were reservists, saying they weren't going to serve. There were the armed -- the government was attacking the army and back and forth. What this did was it created this division within the country that our enemies were able to take advantage of. The writing was on the wall. People were warning about this. And you know how we know? Because it's happened in the past in Jewish history.

This isn't the first time. It's happened thousands of years ago, during the time of the Second Temple. It's happened when Israelis and Jews are just not focused and don't come together. Our enemies find a way to wedge in, and they take advantage of that situation, and that's exactly, unfortunately, what happened now.

We had no intelligence of what Hamas was going to do. They took us completely by surprise. 1,000 Hamas fighters crossed into Israel and the exalted amazing Israeli intelligence agencies don't know a single thing. It's unimaginable. But it happened on Saturday. And one of the reasons I think it was, was because we were distracted.

SANCHEZ: Barak the attacks are also coming as there is this potential deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, something that the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said was still moving forward. He said it is not on hold, even though obviously over the last few days focus has been elsewhere for Israel. Are you reading these attacks potentially, as Hamas trying to sabotage progress on that front? RAVID: I'm sure that's, you know, one of the goals of Hamas in

general, but I don't think that this necessarily was the main reason. I agree with what Yaakov said. You know the big picture here is what happened to Israel in the last nine months when this judicial overhaul weakened Israeli society, Israeli economy, Israeli military. And you know, in a way Israeli Intelligence Services were not strategically surprised.

Because over the last nine months they warned again and again and again that the weakening of Israel and the rupture within the Israeli society makes Israel's enemies think about trying to challenge Israel and to attack Israel. The intelligence services said that publicly and the government disregarded those warnings.

So while there was an intelligence failure in the, you know, tactically, strategically, I think the Israeli intelligence was warning the government that because of the domestic and internal political crisis that was man made, OK, it was man made by the government because of that Israel is in a security danger.

SANCHEZ: Barak Ravid, Yaakov Katz, we have to leave the conversation there, but we very much appreciate your perspective and your time. Thank you so much.

RAVID: Thank you.

KATZ: Thank you.

[15:50:00]

SANCHEZ: Of course. Our special coverage On CNN of The war in Israel continues after a quick break. Our special coverage on CNN of the war in Israel continues. After a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You know, we've talked a lot about victims of the terror attack that started on Saturday, but I want to talk to you right now about a hero who died in in this attack.

[15:55:00]

A 21-year-old American Israeli citizen, a soldier who stood the line with his band of brothers to try to help civilians survive. His name was Yaron. His father Izhar joins me now. It's our -- I am so sorry for your loss. You have just buried your son just a few hours ago. Could you talk to us about your heroic son?

IZHAR SHAY, SON YARON KILLED SATURDAY IN BATTLE WITH HAMAS: Yes, thank you, Anderson. We just returned back home from your funeral. I'm a very proud father of a hero whose actions of Saturday morning really saved the lives of probably dozens of civilians, if not more.

Yaron was a part of a special unit which was stationed in the area of Kerem Shalom, which is in the southern border of the Gaza Strip. Kerem Shalom is a kibbutz, a settlement of civilians not so far from the border. And Yaron was in charge of guarding the area and keeping peace around the borders.

On Saturday morning they were attacked by 100s, maybe more, maybe thousands of highly trained and equipped terrorists. Those people have been trained, have been part of the special Hamas unit whose training is to kill. And this is what they were targeting. Early morning on Saturday they were surrounded -- Yaron's unit -- by hundreds of terrorists. And they realized, you know, once people realized that they were standing at the last line of defense between those terrorists and civilians who were at that time still sleeping at their home. It was a Saturday morning in Israel.

The unit immediately mobilize in order to try to respond to this unexpected attack. That attack was also accompanied by rockets from air and all kinds of other high-tech, call this ammunition technologies that were used as part of this attack. They were highly outnumbered by this very significant effort of Hamas to conquer yet another Israeli goods and to slaughter the people who lived in that kibbutz, which is what they did in other areas.

You know, it's a long story, but focusing narrowing down on Yaron's own role. They eventually found themselves -- a team of three people -- which included the Deputy commanding officer of Yaron's unit. Yaron and another soldier they found themselves fiercely fighting against their enemy. At a certain point, they countered 50 to 70 people surrounding them, attacking them with automatic guns with, heavy machinery and other elements.

We know from the debrief we got now from a person who survived this attack that during this heavy exchange of the fire between the two sides. Again, one a team of three Israeli soldiers and the other side, dozens and dozens of terrorists. Their own team managed to kill probably 30 to 40 terrorists, but they got injured, they got attacked by an RPG rocket which heavily wounded one of the soldiers. Then the officer, the commanding officer was wounded by yet another rocket. An RPG rocket and then Yaron was wounded as well.

The three of them kept fighting and continued to fight. And when we asked the one soldier that we were able to talk to about this this event. We asked him yesterday evening, what did you have in mind? How come you were able to continue going? He said, look, we realized that there was nothing between these band of terrorists and the civilians, the children, the women, the old people that were just behind our back, a few 100 meters, maybe 1,000 feet behind them. They had civilians hiding in their homes fearing for the worst. Which by the way, indeed proved to be the case in many other people, team were Hamas terrorists were able to take on and slaughter children, babies, women and so on.

So eventually, somehow the other team connected to them.

[16:00:00]

And they were able to take Yaron and a team of three away. Their own was lifted by a helicopter and reached a hospital in Jerusalem and was pronounced dead on arrival. COOPER: It's our -- I'm so sorry for your loss. Your son sounds like

such an extraordinary young man. And there are so many people who will be glad to hear his story and know that that he helped save their lives as well. Izhar Shay you buried your son today and it's heartbreaking. Thank you for spending time with us on this awful day.

SHAY: Thank you for having me here and paying some further tributes to our family and to Yaron's memory.

COOPER: Izhar Shay, thank you.

Thank you for joining us. I'm Anderson Cooper in Tel Aviv alongside Boris Sanchez in Washington. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.