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Israel Former Emergency Government and War Cabinet; IDF Says, Israel Massing 300,000 Reservists Near Gaza Border; U.S. Intel Casts Doubt on Direct Iranian Involvement in Hamas Attack. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 11, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: We know from the State Department that there are at least 20 possibly more Americans among the hostages, the death toll among American citizens, and Israel still stands at 14. State Department does expect that to rise.

Here's a little bit of what the State Department spokesman told CNN earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW MILLER, SPOKESMAN, STATE DEPARTMENT: There's a list of Americans who we have confirmed dead. They're Americans who remain unaccounted for. I do expect that, unfortunately, that the list of Americans who are confirmed dead will rise today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Miller went on to say that the U.S. is reaching out to any country it can with ties to Hamas to get them to release those hostages. We have reported, Kate, that one of those countries is Qatar.

There are also discussions, we're told, with the Israelis, with the Egyptians about a humanitarian corridor so that Palestinian civilians who are, of course, not involved in the fighting may be able to get out of the Gaza Strip if Israel decides to go in.

We do know -- we've heard from Israeli officials that they intend to exact a harsh response against Hamas for these awful attacks. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. Alex, we're going to bring those remarks from the secretary of state when and if, and when he does come to the cameras to speak. I know Alex is going to be there for us. Thank you so much, Alex.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. The breaking news right now, in the middle of a war, we just learned that Israel has formed what they're calling an emergency government in a war cabinet. This is significant. It is according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who made the announcement just moments ago. All of this as hundreds of thousands of Israeli reservists are staged outside Gaza.

Let's get right to seeing is Becky Anderson, who is in Tel Aviv, who can explain this shift with inside the government, Becky, and what it means. Becky?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, this is really important. What we understand is that these discussions have now been going on for some days. And I have to say, there was some speculation. We might actually get this news yesterday. But, clearly, these negotiations on who is in this unity government and particularly in what will be this war cabinet have been very, very difficult.

But as we understand it now, this is Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, in unity now, in a coalition government, in a war cabinet with Benny Gantz, who is the leader of the National Unity Party and opposition leader, former defense minister, of course, and the defense minister, Gallant. They will sit in this war cabinet.

This is an emergency situation, which is being addressed now by those who have experience of war in government here. What isn't clear is what the makeup of this kind of wider group will be and sources have been telling me that there has been much discussion and demands made by those in opposition that the right wing ministers, the finance and national security ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, would not be part of this.

I can't stand that up at present. All we know and we can report at this time is that Benjamin Netanyahu now in unity with Benny Gantz and the defense minister here, Gallant, to address what happens next.

And the sense is here that what you didn't have in the cabinet, in the government until Saturday morning, was experience. And what Israel now needs is experience and characters, you know, authoritative characters in position who reflect the unity of the Israelis.

So this, as I'm being told now, I'm just getting new reporting on this, this is an emergency cabinet, a war cabinet at this point.

BOLDUAN: And, Becky, for those who, I mean, aren't familiar maybe with, I'll call them the players within Israeli politics so much, just some background here of what a big deal this is as you describe it, because these are political parties and these are men who are before now deeply hostile to one another in terms of the politics of Israel.

And it really does underline the scale of the crisis, how much has changed in Israel since Saturday. Just the background if you can offer, kind of -- Earth-shattering is what Saturday was with the Hamas terror attack, and this as a response to it, just the perspective on that.

[10:05:06]

ANDERSON: Yes. Well, I think if we just step back and consider what is going on, been going on here for months and months, has been this deep, deep division, reflected on the streets of Tel Aviv and around this country by, you know, hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrating protesting against what has been Israel's most right wing government ever.

This sense now that there is an absolute need to bring -- you know, to bring those who are running this country together, you know, in a war cabinet that can now address the security concerns that Israel now faces with experience.

There has been, you know, much talk around the judicial reform of how Benjamin Netanyahu and his right wing have not been focused on what Israelis themselves believe is important for them.

And on Saturday morning, you know, that was revealed, security and protection. Where was -- why was there such a failure of intelligence? Why is it now that Israelis feel such a sense of insecurity, of vulnerability? And it was to -- you know, to the prime minister to organize around him, to ensure now that the fingers of blame aren't pointed to him squarely on what happens going forward.

And now, you know, the crucial nature of what is in play here, the complexity of what happens next with regard any incursion grounding. incursion into Gaza. The sense now that the decisions that are made here in Israel about what happens in the days and weeks ahead should not be left to a government that frankly didn't have the experience in Cabinet to address these issues.

So, that now looks like the makeup that we have in what is this new war cabinet, I can describe it as such, with the current defense minister, the former defense minister, Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu, heading up the decision-making for the state of Israel to address, as I say, the complexities of what happens next.

And let's just consider those. They have a grounding incursion on the table. They have, as described by the IDF, saturated the southern border with troops now in anticipation, one assumes, of a ground incursion. We're not seeing that as of yet.

But the complexities we've been reporting now for hours, in that you have these hostages being held in various locations, as described by Hamas, around Gaza, and then the wider story here, which is the plight of the Palestinians. We know we already have who are in Gaza. We already have a thousand dead, a total siege of Gaza, hospitals being bombed, no fuel now to the power station there. I mean, Palestinians do work with generators in Gaza. So, there will be some generation of electricity or electricity provided by generators.

But considering what it is that Israel faces as decision-making now, it has been clear for some time that there was a need for -- I don't want to call it level headedness, but experience. And this will be demands from the outside, from the international community, from capitals around the world, particularly from Washington, demands that this war cabinet has the experience to make decisions at this time.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Becky Anderson, thank you for that context.

Just to remind people what you're looking at on your screen there, that is Gaza. It is just after 5:00 yesterday we saw an extreme barrage of rockets coming from there, and then the response of lots and lots of airstrikes. Still, there is violence exploding there in Gaza at this hour.

I want to go now to CNN's Hadas Gold in Jerusalem for more context and what has just happened, potentially with the government.

Benny Gantz, the former defense minister, is known as the old guard. He is known as someone who believes in modesty, he's very well versed in how the military works, he has been at loggerheads with Netanyahu many times.

[10:10:00]

But in this past election, a lot of people were looking to his leadership, Netanyahu ended up winning and being able to form a government. Can you give us some sense of what this will mean between the two men, if they are able to come together, form this government for the relationship, not just with the Gaza Strip, but with the Palestinians in the West Bank? Is that relationship forever fractured, forever changed because of what we have seen this attack from Hamas?

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, in terms of the relationship between Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz had already been burned once before by Benjamin Netanyahu, joining in a different sort of government. This was more of a coalition government during the coronavirus pandemic, during that crisis.

And there had been pressured on him already prior to this war to potentially at some point maybe join a unity government to try and get the Saudi-Israeli normalization deal advanced. In fact, Benny Gantz had been at the White House within the last couple of weeks, which raised a lot of eyebrows about whether the White House was trying to discuss with him the possibility of some sort of coalition government.

Obviously, we're in an entirely different situation here. This is an emergency war cabinet, war government, the likes of which I don't think Israel has seen since the Six-Day War in 1967. This is something that Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to a couple of days ago. And it's going to be a separate cabinet from the current cabinet that runs the government.

It's going to be a small cabinet. It's not going to include, importantly, the more extremist right-wing members of the Israeli government, people like Itamar Ben-Gvir, people like Bezalel Smotrich. These are the people who have said the more controversial things we've heard them say about the Palestinians. And so there are going to be essentially two separate cabinets.

Now, this cabinet will only make decisions related to the war. They will not make other decisions related to other issues of government. Of course, this means that the very controversial judicial overhaul is obviously on pause while this war continues.

There is expected to be a seat in this cabinet reserved for Yair Lapid, who, as far as I know in the last -- as of the last few minutes, has not joined this war government, though. But what's important about this is just when you look at the names of the people who are sitting in this war cabinet is that these are people who have been former defense ministers. I think there's two former chiefs of staff of the IDF.

This is a message to the Israeli public. We are getting our grip on this. We have the right people in charge of this who will be making these decisions, essentially saying, don't worry about the other people in the cabinet. They're not the ones who are going to be making the decisions about this war. These are going to be very experienced hands, people who understand what the situation is.

But there is actually still a question here, how did it take this long for this war cabinet to be brought together? There have been calls from this within a few hours of Saturday after that started when Benjamin Netanyahu said, we are at war. It's amazing that it even took this long for it to come together. And that probably goes to show you how much divisiveness is still within Israeli politics.

SIDNER: Yes, Hadas Gold. You live there. You work there. You have been watching this, every single detail of how this has unfolded, and it is remarkable how long this has taken to a lot of Israelis who live there.

I do want to thank you and Becky Anderson. You have joined us from Jerusalem, Becky Anderson joining us from Tel Aviv on this new information.

And now I want to toss it back over there to John.

BERMAN: Yes. And, again, Sara, this is the area we're talking about right now, Gaza with some 300,000 reservists perhaps moving to that area. That is where we find CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Southern Israel.

Jeremy, why don't you tell us what you're seeing all around you?

All right, we have apparently lost Jeremy's audio. But one interesting thing I wanted to point out what you saw behind him were cars. Those are the cars of the reservists who have moved to what is largely the frontline right now. Israel's military largely made up of reservists who drive to get on site when there is a situation like this.

So, it's remarkable to see what amounts to a parking lot of cars behind him. Once they get out of their cars, they're on duty and they very much could be involved in what could be an invasion or, a minimum, a siege of Gaza.

With us now is David Makovsky. He is a fellow and director of the Washington Institute Project on the Middle East Peace. Sir, great to have you with us.

I want to ask you about something that Thomas Friedman wrote this morning. He was talking about what Israel intends to do now in Gaza, whether they intend to launch a few invasion. And Friedman says what Hamas wants is to trigger an Israeli overreaction. Hamas wants Israel to be brutal in Gaza. What do you think of that?

DAVID MAKOVSKY, DIRECTOR OF KORET PROJECT ON ARAB-ISRAEL RELATIONS, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE: Well, I know Tom very well for many decades and it was my first reaction too that they see a U.S.-Saudi-Israel mega deal as a victory that the victory for a pragmatic bloc in the Middle East, that would be at their expense.

[10:15:05]

And if they do these atrocities, they could trigger a very tough retaliation in a way that might make that diplomatic breakthrough being engineered behind closed doors by the Biden White House not viable in Saudi circles.

So, it's possible, and just one more reason why Israel has to find the right balancing act between obviously protecting its citizens and going after the Hamas elements who perpetrated this barbaric attack, and at the same time, making that distinction to the extent possible. It's very hard in a ground operation between Hamas and the other parts of the Palestinian people. It's a tough balancing act for Israel, and it's been said by others, I know, in your program, this is the worst terror attacks since the Holocaust.

Israel is operating in a wider network of calculations, and it will have to see how it navigates in the coming weeks.

BERMAN: Indeed, we will. David, will you stand by for one moment? I want to come back to you, but, first, I want to go to the border right now, or close to the border between Israel and Gaza. Our Jeremy Diamond is now there. We have our communications back up, Jeremy, and explain to me what you're seeing.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Listen, John, this is one of the largest military mobilizations in Israel's history. And what we have been watching along the side of this road right next to an Israeli base in Southern Israel is that mobilization in action.

We have been watching thousands upon thousands of military reservists coming to this base to begin the next phase of this military operation. They are coming here, answering the call, some of them are coming before even getting their orders.

And I can tell you, in speaking with some of these reservists, what is really striking is how emotional this is for them, how emotional this particular mobilization is compared to the ones that we have seen in the past. And that is a result of those surprise Hamas terrorist attacks that took place in Israel over this past weekend, the brutality that we have since learned about with which these Hamas terrorists gunned down civilians.

There are reports of beheadings. There are reports of babies and children and women having been killed. And that was on the minds of all of these reservists who were here. You can still see so many of these vehicles that are parked here. These all belong to reservists who have shown up, who have answered the call, some of them showing up in civilian clothes, some of them showing up in uniforms and then packing into vehicles and heading to their next rendezvous point.

But, really, this whole area at one point turned into a large parking lot, effectively. There was a huge traffic jam and it just gives you a sense of the scale of this effort and also the extent to which everyone here in Israel has really been shaken by what took place over the weekend, shaken to their core. And some of them, those of fighting age, you know, moved to mobilize.

BERMAN: And, Jeremy, you were speaking about something that I think is a dynamic which hasn't been focused on yet, which is the notion that if Hamas was able to prepare for the scope of the terrorist attack, which they carried out, they may very also -- may very well be prepared for an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza. What are the concerns you're hearing from the Israeli side on that?

DIAMOND: Yes, it's exactly that, John, that the sophistication, the planning of this Hamas operation over the weekends, not only the fact that they were able to catch the Israelis by surprise, but that they were able to cut multiple points in that border fence between Gaza and Israel and get miles into Israeli territory really to carry out some of the brutal murders of civilians that they did carry out. It has really shaken people. And the sophistication of that indicates that Hamas likely is planning for the Israeli response.

And given the number of Israelis who were killed in those attacks, as we have heard from the Israeli prime minister, what is going to come next in terms of the military response he has said is going to be unlike any military response to Hamas attacks in the past, beyond the scale of 2014, beyond the scale of 2021.

And so everyone here seems to think the next logical step is a ground invasion. But as of yet, that has not been confirmed. Perhaps now, with this emergency cabinet, this emergency government, more decisions will be made.

BERMAN: All right. Jeremy Diamond, in Southern Israel watching this, Jeremy, keep us posted when you see more things moving there.

[10:20:01]

I want to go back now to David Makovsky. Thank you for your patience. And it's interesting to hear what Jeremy says as those forces move there. And as you talk about this balancing act for Israel, the need, as they say, to crush Hamas in a much different way than they have in the past, they're talking about crushing Hamas. How can you do that without perhaps ruining your relationships with others in the world?

MAKOVSKY: Look, it's incredibly hard. Remember, they embed themselves in civilian populations. They do not wear uniforms. By their own admission, they hide things in mosques and hospitals. Israel didn't go after them because they didn't want to hurt a hospital in one of the previous rounds. And now you've got the added complexity of the hostage situation, unprecedented. You have a whole Israeli ethos of leaving no one behind. And suddenly, there might be 150 hostages there. That's another point of very difficult navigation.

So, it's not going to be easy. I'm hoping with Secretary Blinken coming to the region. Now, I know he's going just to Israel and Jordan, but I'm sure he's going to be working the phones with the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

And I think here it's very important for the region to really kind of step up in a certain way. There're only certain things they can say in public because of their own street, but it's very important to bring these regional players who have their own relationships with Israel, and all of them hate Hamas, all of them.

And to somehow leverage them in a way that would isolate Hamas here and hopefully mitigate the promise for civilians, like having a humanitarian corridor for those who want to leave to Egypt or civilians, I think this is something U.S. diplomacy could be helpful behind the scenes that I hope will mitigate some of their damage to civilians and yet make Hamas open really to the brunt of reprisal in the aftermath of these atrocities.

BERMAN: Try to isolate Hamas as best you can within this region.

David Makovsky, thank you so much for lending your expertise this morning. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yes, Important stuff.

Coming up for us, we're going to be staying in Israel watching all of this stuff as because there's a lot of developments coming in pretty quickly.

We're also tracking some other big news. The impact of it also in the United States, it impacts Israel, impacts how the United States is going to be able to assist Israel going forward and also so much more. House Republicans headed behind closed doors to pick a new House speaker. We're going to take you back to Capitol Hill where it is all unfolding, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

BOLDUAN: We do have some breaking news coming in, new reporting into CNN about the latest U.S. intelligence assessment on the key question of Iran's involvement in the Hamas terror attack on Israel.

Let's get straight over to CNN's Natasha Bertrand, who has this. This is some great reporting, Natasha. What do you have?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Kate. So, this marks a pretty significant shift in what the U.S. intelligence community has come to learn about Iran's involvement or lack thereof. We are told that initial U.S. intelligence assessments say that Iran does not appear to have had a hand in specifically carrying out or plotting this specific attack.

Now, this is initial intelligence, and it's a shift because, previously, the U.S. had been saying that they simply did not know and did not have intelligence to support the idea that Iran was directly involved in this Hamas attack on Israel. But now we are learning that the U.S. has since collected intelligence that directly suggests that Iran was not involved.

And so what we are hearing is that this is preliminary, this is not conclusive, and the U.S. intelligence community is continuing to gather information about what role Iran may have played. But as of right now, the signs are pointing to the notion, according to U.S. analysts and people briefed on the information, that Iran did not provide explicit support and planning for this particular attack.

Now, of course, U.S. officials have continued to point to Iran's longstanding support for Hamas, including the provision of weapons and financing. And they say that that, of course, is a significant factor in terms of what Hamas was able to pull off broadly. But when it comes to this specific attack, again, we are told that preliminary U.S. intelligence suggests that Iran did not play a direct role and that the Iranian government was not involved as such, Kate.

BOLDUAN: And talk more about what -- and again, with the caveats, which are important, which is intelligence is more of an art, it is not perfect, and that this is preliminary and continuing to gather. But this is not -- this is very important, in addition, because there has been other suggestions from other sources to other nations about what -- about Iran's direct involvement. I've seen, you know, more sources not named, but diplomats and other intel sources telling other nations that Iran has a more direct involvement, the intel that they are seeing. So, this is important that we're hearing this from U.S. intel.

BERTRAND: Yes, Kate. And, look, I think that it is murky in the sense that U.S. officials have said publicly that Iran has provided support to Hamas and has provided weaponry and funding to Hamas in recent years. And so the notion, you know, that Iran may not have directly participated in these attacks by Hamas is -- it is complicated.

[10:30:05]