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Civilians steam into Hospital; Biden to Address Nation; Airstrikes Target Hamas; Third Vote for Speaker. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 19, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, President Biden, two wars and one primetime address to the nation. We will see the president this evening from the Oval Office making a direct appeal to the American people to essentially stand tough. This as he says he's also going to ask Congress for tens of billions of dollars to help support Ukraine and Israel.

Right now, in Gaza, new air strikes and explosions were seen this morning. In southern Gaza, where civilians, of course, as you know, have been told to flee for safety, this was the scene we saw over and over again this morning outside a hospital in Khan Younis. This was a few hours ago. It was a stream of people being rushed in for aid. Right now it is unclear what caused the explosion. The IDF says they are looking into it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, Kate, let me give you a sense of where some of these locations are. Khan Younis, where we saw those people injured, is right there. The Rafah crossing is right here. This is where President Biden says he has brokered a deal to allow some aid from Egypt to cross. We are waiting to see when and if that will happen. This, the line inside Gaza where Israel has told people to evacuate south of. You can see Khan Younis very much in that zone.

Some other important new information today. Two hundred and three hostages. The IDF now says they've contacted families of some 203 people who could be held hostage inside Gaza now. This would be their 13th day in captivity.

One other key thing the IDF says, the Hamas terrorists who infiltrated into Israel, killing some 1,400 people, largely in east kibbutz (INAUDIBLE), Israeli defense officials now say it's possible some of those terrorists might still be operating within Israel.

We'll get to all of this coming up.

I want to start, though, with the situation unfolding in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Let's get to Selma Abdelaziz for that.

Salma. SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the latest death toll we have is 13 people killed, that's according to a local hospital director in Gaza. But the fear is that that number could rise. The hospital director saying that an entire city block was levelled in this explosion.

I do want to bring you - I do want to play you those images that Kate was playing just earlier for us. They are disturbing. But there's something I want to point out, as you're looking at those people just streaming into that hospital. Many of those victims are children. You have 2 million people, about 2 million people trapped essentially in an urban war zone. Of that population of 2 million, half of them are children. And half of the population of Gaza, just in the last ten days of conflict, about 10 days of conflict, have been displaced, have been forced out of their homes, are desperately seeking a safe place, are looking for refuge. Rights groups say that doesn't exist in Gaza. There is no safe place.

As you mentioned, it is the south that many families were told to flee towards during that evacuation order by the Israeli military over the weekend. Well, this is the south. This is where they're supposed to find safety. Absolutely none of that there.

In the hospitals that they're streaming into, they are on the brink. There is a complete siege of Gaza that was imposed by Israel after that horrific terror attack left some 1,400 people dead. That siege means no food, no fuel, no water. That means, doctors tell us, that inside those hospitals they are performing surgeries without painkillers, they are treating people on the floors, they are running out of fuel to even run these hospitals. People are dying of preventable causes. And rights groups, when you look at these images, say the situation is spiraling out of control.

Israel's offensive on Gaza amounts to collective punishment again of these two million people trapped inside.

And you mentioned that aid coming in as well, John. We're talking about 20 trucks. That's what was agreed upon, 20 trucks. That is a drop in the ocean of need on the ground.

BERMAN: Salma Abdelaziz, thank you very much for keeping us up to speed on what is happening in southern Gaza. We'll come back with you in a second.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, also for the first time in this war, desperately needed aid, including the medical supplies that Salma was talking about, will soon be starting to enter Gaza from Egypt.

[09:05:07]

That's what we're told. We do know that was one of the goals of President Biden during his trip to Israel. And Biden told reporters last night he, quote, "got it done."

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Ashkelon, Israel.

Jeremy, first, let's talk about this, what can we expect to hear from President Biden with regard to all of his efforts within Israel and in Gaza from his trip when he speaks tonight?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, it sounds like this is going to be a big picture speech from President Biden this evening. Only his second ever primetime address from the Oval Office. And he's going to try and make the case, the case for American's role in the world, its response to both the war in Ukraine, as well as Israel's fight against Hamas, talking about the essential role that America plays in supporting both the Ukrainian people, as well as the Israeli people, as the president views it.

But really this is about the funding. A big funding request that he's about to put before Congress. He's expected to request north of $100 billion combined for both supporting Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, as well as resources for the U.S. border with Mexico. And so this is about driving up public support for these various causes and also trying to connect them. The connective tissue that the president is going to try and find between all of these events is really going to be a central focus of the president's speech this evening.

We heard from John Finer (ph), the president's deputy national security adviser, who said that the president is going to, quote, "lay out his view of this extraordinary moment that we're in, connecting all of these events and explaining why they matter to the American public."

BOLDUAN: And also, Jeremy, what is it like there? What's the very latest on the ground in Ashkelon, where you are?

DIAMON: Well, Kate, Ashkelon is the city in Israel that has received the most rockets of anywhere else. They have had more than 1,200 rockets rain down on this city in the last 12 days. About 200 of those have made direct hits on apartment buildings, on businesses and more inside the city here. That's 25 percent of all the rockets that have been fire on Israel have rained down here on the city of Ashkelon.

And behind me here, what you have is the city's command center where essentially they are coordinating a variety of emergency response in terms of when a rocket falls, they pinpoint the location of that rocket, sometimes before it even lands they can track it and know where to direct emergency services there.

But what they're also doing is they're coordinating the evacuation of people who are choosing to leave the city. About 25 to 30 percent of this city's 170,000 residents have made the decision to leave the city for a safer grounds.

The majority of the city remains, but it really has come to a standstill in many ways. About 90 percent of the city's businesses are estimated to have closed. And those that remain are essentially supermarkets, pharmacies, grocery stores, et cetera.

We spoke with a woman who was at the grocery store today making her weekly shopping trip. And she says that that is the only time that she leaves home. Even though the Iron Dome system intercepts the large majority of those rockets, you don't know where the rockets that actually do make impact are going to hit. And so people here, there's certainly a sense of resilience. They want to remain in their city. But some of them also taking precautions, like only leaving for essential reasons.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Jeremy, thanks for being there.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN military analyst, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling.

Let's start where Jeremy just left off here. He's in Ashkelon talking about so many of the rockets being fired from Gaza going there. There's a reason.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: There is a reason, John. And this is an expansion of the map where the -- Hamas can hit different targets from Gaza right here. What we're talking about is they have low yield weapons that don't go very far, about 17 to 20 kilometers, that's under Ashkelon.

Over the last several -- about the last decade, they've got better rockets that can go up to Ashdod, where some of the reporters have been.

But the interesting thing is, they also have long range rockets that can go 70 kilometers or more that can hit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Bethlehem. You're talking about this range right here in Israel - or the Israeli Defense Forces have given us this map to help it.

BERMAN: The range has increased but the bulk of their weaponry is still probably within that zone.

HERTLING: Still here. Yes.

BERMAN: All right, I want to talk about what we could see on the ground and in a way it explains perhaps what we're seeing in Khan Younis right now with these airstrikes on an area civilians are being caught in.

The IDF released this map in 2014, right?

HERTLING: Right.

BERMAN: This is from their effort inside Gaza in 2014.

HERTLING: Yes.

BERMAN: This is a neighborhood of Gaza City. All of these marks on this little neighborhood are what?

[09:10:03]

HERTLING: This - well, it depends on the legend. But, again, this is Gaza City. This is just northern Gaza. And you can see how many Hamas activities were going on here. From arms caches, to sniper positions, to defense positions. And these are all inside of buildings. That's what's tough. This is mounted warfare in an urban environment. The hardest thing that an infantry unit does.

BERMAN: The IDF, their point here, is look how much Hamas stuff there is here. How can we separate -

HERTLING: Well, interspersed with Palestinian civilians.

BERMAN: Absolutely. And civilians are being caught in the middle here. And that's just above ground.

Below ground.

HERTLING: Yes. This is, again, a tunnel map from 2014.

BERMAN: 2021 in this case, yes.

HERTLING: 2021 now, but this is what they knew out of 2014.

You know, it looks like on this map just a bunch of squiggly lines. Also in the three main cities, north, central and south, but this is the same length as the New York subway system. So, you're talking about tunnels that take a right-hand turn or a dogleg or all that, and it's hard to fight inside of those things.

BERMAN: It's really complicated, above and below ground.

One other piece of information that developed overnight. On Iranian state television there was a segment talking about how Iranian proxies could hit Israel if they wanted to get into this war. And I just wanted you to illustrate on this map, the borders of Israel are a little hard to see on this version, but I'll put Israel is right there. So just point, let me know -- show us where Iranian proxies could hit Israel from.

HERTLING: Well, and this is not only that dialogue from last night, but the supreme leader of Iran said this about a week ago.

So, here's southern Lebanon right there. You have the Sinai in Egypt. You have Syria along the Golan Heights. You have PMCs, private military companies, mostly Shia, coming out of Iran in northeastern Iraq. You have Iranian PMCs, military companies. They sighted rockets from Yemen. You have certainly an Arab street in Saudi Arabia that is supporting the Palestinians. All of these other Arab countries can provide forces to counter Israel.

We've said this many times before, Israel is a nation that's 250 miles long at its widest point right here, it's 85 miles wide. They are surrounded on all sides by people who don't like them and, in some cases, people that just want to kill Jews.

BERMAN: And you can see, if there was a coordination here, all at once here, it would certainly be incredibly threatening for Israel.

General Mark Hertling, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, there's new video coming in this morning showing fresh strikes in Gaza. The IDF says it hit hundreds of Hamas structures overnight. The details on this next.

Plus, a horrifying level of detail. New CNN reporting of how much Hamas knew and how much they prepared before the October 7th terror attack. We'll have more on that.

And we're going to bring you back to Capitol Hill, where they still do not have a speaker. Will Jim Jordan try a third time?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:20]

BOLDUAN: This morning the IDF says it struck hundreds of Hamas structures in Gaza in the last 24 hours. The intensity of one overnight blast was captured on camera.

Take a look at this.

(VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which is an aid organization, says this happened in Gaza City near a hospital.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Sderot, Israel, which is just east of - east of northern Gaza.

And in the box, just so everyone's kind of acclimated, Nic, in the box left to you here we're seeing a view of the Gaza skyline just this morning from Sderot when an apparent blast happened. What are you learning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, well, right now there's just been a pickup in small arms fire, heavy machine gun fire coming from this (INAUDIBLE), which is where we know there are a lot of IDF forces placed. This is a direction that would bring them very close to the - the border fence with Gaza. It's impossible at this time (INAUDIBLE) about (INAUDIBLE) but it's -- it's not uncommon --

BOLDUAN: Nic, real quick, can you adjust your mic real quick? I think the wind is hitting up against it, maybe.

ROBERTSON: Yes. Yes, it's possible - it's possible that it is. They're telling me it's OK.

Yes, the small arms fire there, that's not uncommon, but that's pretty intense. And we've been getting bouts of that. Last night there was some very heavy machine gun fire in this area.

I think it's just indicative of the fact that there are more and more troops getting ready, waiting for the order to go into Gaza.

And just a few minutes ago, while we were standing here, there were incoming rockets here from Gaza. The sirens went off. We paused, took some cover for that.

But in terms of the number of strikes on Gaza, we know in the north here of Gaza behind us, perhaps it was a quieter night, less intense than we're seeing - we've seen at other times in the northern end of Gaza. But there have been two significant impacts we're aware of in the south of Gaza, one close to Rafah. That's very close to that border crossing with Egypt where we understand there are 20 trucks waiting to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A Palestinian news organization said that there were 30 people killed in that particular air strike. And in Khan Younis, which is in the -- roughly in the center of Gaza, a director of a hospital there said a number of people from a single family were killed when the apartment building they were in was struck by Israel missiles and that that hole building collapsed.

[09:20:16]

Now, I have to say, that small arms fire is continuing. It is pretty intense. And it sounds as if it's going two ways. So, it sounds like it's an exchange of fire. Again, from where we're located. I can't say what it is or precisely where it's located, but we have heard that sort of thing before when, and this was perhaps looking back to last week, when the IDF was coming in contact with Hamas operatives still inside Israel. I'm sure we'll get details on that -- this incident later. We don't have those right now.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: And that's an interesting point, Nic, especially the perspective from last week, I mean because the attack on -- since the attack on October 7th, we even heard from the IDF that they are - they - I think even just yesterday encountered what they say was Hamas terrorists in Israel still. It's just some perspective on even after the attack how big the push was of terrorists coming in from Gaza and how infiltrated they became in the kibbutz (INAUDIBLE) because they're still finding them.

ROBERTSON: They're still finding them. And it's because they believe that some of them literally went to ground when they came across. They -- maybe that was their instructions, their orders, to go to ground, that they had supplies, that they could last and hold out for a long time because they would have been fully aware that the IDF would be moving into this border region and a single or a couple of Hamas operatives would be able to take on quite a concentrated number, potentially, of Israeli defense force troops. And - and that is potentially what we're listening to at the moment here.

There are big gun positions not far from here. Heavy howitzer positions. There are IDF forces out there to protect them. There are IDF forces based in some of - in some of the neighborhoods around here. And they're also projecting force towards the border fence with Gaza. So, it can be any one of these situations that could be unfolding right now.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. It's great to see you, Nic. Thanks for being there. We'll check back in.

John.

BERMAN: All right, Kate, just to remind everyone, Nic Robertson is right here in Sderot. He is looking right into Gaza from where he is. It's just a mile. So, he can see and hear so much of the back and forth in terms of what's being fired into Gaza and from Gaza.

There is other major news this morning. Will there even be a vote to figure out who the next speaker of the House will be? Jim Jordan appears to be hemorrhaging support. We are getting some new reporting on what the plan is now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:27:22]

BERMAN: So, any minute now we could learn whether Jim Jordan will try once again to become speaker of the House. He has been moving in the wrong direction. Jordan lost 20 Republican votes on Tuesday, 22 Republican votes on Wednesday. The earliest we could see the beginnings of a vote would be around noon today, but we're not even sure it's going to happen.

CNN's Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill with the very latest.

Lauren, what are you picking up?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, there's so much right now that is very fluid as we await whether or not Jim Jordan is going to go to the floor again. I did speak to Jordan this morning. He said that his expectation was they would still vote, but he signaled that they would likely have a Republican conference meeting ahead of that vote. And a lot can change when Republicans go in a room behind closed doors and have a conversation about the next steps.

I also talked to a close ally of Jim Jordan, Warren Davidson, who said that there is some discussion about how you could give Jim Jordan more time to try to win over those skeptical Republicans, more than 20 of them at this moment. Obviously, far more than he can afford to lose if he wants the speakership.

One of those ideas that has been floated over the last several days is the idea of empowering Patrick McHenry to be a temporary speaker pro- tem. That would empower him to put legislation on the floor, to deal with urgent issues, like funding the government, making sure that there was more U.S. aid directed to Ukraine and Israel. Both issues, by the way, that would be very messy for any new speaker to try to handle as they just got into the job.

So, there is some warning, some openness from some Jordan allies that that could be one way to give Jordan more time to try to win over skeptical votes. But, again, even if you got McHenry into a position where for a few months he was the interim speaker, it's not clear that Jim Jordan would ever change the minds of some of those members who had been voting repeatedly against him on the floor.

Again, timing of a vote today is very fluid. It's very unclear what is going to happen on the floor of the House. Because if Jim Jordan goes to the floor and loses even more votes, it makes it very hard for him to have an argument that he's the best guy for this job.

John.

BERMAN: Might be looking for some off-ramps in the next hour and a half or so.

Lauren Fox, we will let you keep chasing people. Let us know when you find out more information. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is Republican congressman from New York, Nick LaLota.

It's good to see you, Congressman. Thanks for jumping on.

REP. NICK LALOTA (R-NY): Good morning to you.

BOLDUAN: So, you -- just for everyone - just a refresher, if you will, you voted against Jim Jordan.

[09:30:02]

You voted -- twice now you voted for former congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin.

What do you think is going to happen today?