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Israel Expands Gaza Ground Ops Amid Escalating Tensions; Hostage Talks Continue As Tensions; Hamas Resilience Despite Heavy Barrage; Qatar Mediation For 229 Hostages; Fluid Situation as IDF Signals Ground Operation Expansion Rise. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 27, 2023 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. We're following the breaking news. New intensity in the war between Israel and Hamas. We are seeing an increase in explosions over Gaza, more than we have seen in recent days. The IDF just said that their ground operation is, in their words, expanding. You're looking at live images right now. We're also learning from US officials that hostage talks are ongoing. I wanna go to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is very close to the Gaza border in Sderot, Israel. Nic, what are we seeing right now? It looks like we've been watching interceptors during the commercial break. What are you seeing?

NIC ROBERSTON, CNN INTERNATION DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, John's just pointing the camera up at the sky where we were seeing interceptions of rockets that were firing towards central Israel, I believe. Those intercepts are over. Seconds before that, there was a barrage, a salvo of rockets from Gaza fired on this location here. The sirens went off. We ducked for cover. We could see the Iron Dome firing up over our head and intercepting the missiles coming here. And right after that, to the south of where we are, again, we can see Iron Dome intercepting missiles coming out of Gaza a little bit to our south.

So, I think the picture that emerges from here in the last 10 minutes are missiles fired into central Israel, missiles fired out here right at the northern end of Gaza, and then missiles fired a little further south of where we are. So at least 3 salvos in three different directions from the same area of Gaza. I think if there's, you know -- if this is a response to that very heavy barrage of fire that we saw before outgoing from here, then I think the message coming back from Hamas would appear to be that despite that very heavy barrage onto them, they're able to come out of their bunkers and out of their tunnels and continue to-- continue to fire back.

This evening has really been very much a case of up and down, of a lot of outgoing fire, then pauses, then incoming rounds, then the intercepts, and now perhaps a slight lull. And Anderson, I just say, I won't be able to hear you at the moment. I'm just trying to reconnect to you now.

COOPER: Okay. So, Nic Robertson is in Sderot. You're looking at two different vantage points from around Nik's location. There's both Nik's camera on the left, and that's an AFP camera looking at images over Gaza as well. Colonel Cedric Layden is also joining us as we continue to stay on these images. Colonel Layden, the fact that Hamas and other groups, -- Kim Dozier, global affairs analyst, -- the fact that Hamas is still, after almost 3 weeks now of incredibly heavy bombardment by Israel, is still able to fire rockets. There were a number of sirens here in Tel Aviv throughout the day, more so than we've heard in many days, and respond even now at this late hour. What does that tell you?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Israeli and U.S. officials have told us that Hamas had spent at least a year planning this. That means at least a year stockpiling the kind of weapons they would need for a sustained response to whatever they triggered Israel into doing. And you see what Israel's doing in response is not, at least initially, the blitz charge into Gaza that we all expected, but rather what seems like an inkblot approach.

[14:05:29]

They're taking a bit of territory at a time. They're choosing a few targets at a time. And then what we find out from the Israeli Defense Forces the next day is they list a number of different targets. No one overnight operation is aimed at 1 thing. So, right now they could be going after some hostage targets, but there has been, as you and Jake both mentioned, a real barrage of rockets aimed especially at Tel Aviv. So, they could be going after that.

COOPER: Kim, let me -- quickly. I wanna go quickly to Nic Robertson. Nic, you're back. What are you seeing?

COOPER: Anderson, that was a strange, strange set of events. I mean, we were talking about the intercepted missiles and the Iron Dome fired up from here, from further south, from just to the north of us as well. And as I was standing here, I was listening to a tinkling sound like somebody was sweeping the street. This street is deserted. No one lives here. And the tinkling was getting louder and it was coming up the street. And we suddenly realized that this is in all likelihood shrapnel that is raining down a minute after those intercepts in the sky above. The only thing that makes logical sense was that this was shrapnel raining down in the streets here. So, of course we took cover, put the helmets on and took cover. It's stopped now.

But again, we've talked this evening quite a lot about things that we haven't seen over previous evenings that make the events tonight different. The expanding operational activities going into Gaza, the more forceful push that the IDF is speaking about and these intercepts, the shrapnel coming down off the intercepts are just indicative, I think, of the, the dangers of this situation, frankly, for anyone left living in this town. And we heard the IDF be very specific in their most recent briefing to the citizens of Israel saying, look, you need to know where your shelter is. You need to know that you can hear the warnings about incoming missiles and intercepts.

There are audible warnings. There are apps that you can use and you can also hear the intercepts of the missiles as well. So, I think that just reinforces what the IDF have been warning the citizens here to be careful about, to stay close to their shelters. And it's indicative of the fact that the tempo of operations here is perhaps picking up.

We've seen as well a couple of flares fired in the sky towards Gaza. We've seen those over recent nights, but again, you would expect flares to be fired close to or around troops in the field who want to get better visibility on what's the ground in front of them. It's illumination for troops in the field to see where the danger is, where the enemy may be hiding, Anderson.

COOPER: Yeah, Nic, I think it's important in situations like this to point out what we do not know. We heard from Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari of the IDF a short time ago saying that the ground operation in Gaza is expanding. We do not know to what extent is it expanding. As Nic said, flares over Gaza, in a certain part of Gaza, would perhaps indicate troops on the ground or movement on the ground in armored vehicles and tanks. We have seen over the last day or 2 some operations, some very limited incursions to, according to the IDF, eliminate any munitions that might be in border areas and also any reconnaissance posts and to sort of soften the ground and level the ground for the next phase.

General Wesley Clark is also joining us. General Clark, as you see those flares being fired into the air over parts of Gaza and what you're hearing from the IDF, what do you make of what's going on?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: I think what we have here is what we would call a reconnaissance in force, Anderson. That is to say, it's a large force. It's going in. It's looking to probe the enemy's defenses, find out its reaction, collect intelligence, maybe take prisoners, maybe get into the tunnel complex, and it may or may not stay in. If they find that this is advantageous approach and there's not much resistance and they're going to a strategic objective there inside Gaza, maybe they'll hold their ground. If there's heavy resistance, maybe they'll pull back.

I think this is one of those operations where the Israelis have multiple options. They can come out. They can come in from a different direction. They can hold. They can go underground and deceive the enemy using smoke and other things about where they are. So, this is a step up in sophistication --

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[14:10:29]

COOPERR: General Clark, I'm not sure if you're still with us. I was having trouble hearing your audio there but if you are we have seen in past operations the idea of sort of making faints to see what Hamas does in terms of movement of troops and responsing -- and a response, you're saying it's possible that is also what's going on here. Some of this could be smaller incursions to kind of see what dominoes fall.

CLARK: That's exactly right. This could be a faint. It could also be something that could, could expand into a hold operation If you were planning this operation militarily you'd be asking yourself what are the key objectives in Gaza that we have to control? It could be it could be infrastructure like a water treatment plant. It could be power plants. It could be communications facilities. And then the question is from there how do you work around it. So, this could be a reconnaissance directed in that specific direction--

(TECHNICAL DIFFICULUTY) (CROSSTALK)

COOPER: -- Global affairs analyst. There's no -- regardless of what is happening in this hour this operation is likely to go on for a very long period of time Kim. I mean there's -- it seems like Israel at this point believes it has time on its side although certainly as we've seen in past operations the international community's response to, to operations in Gaza does start to take a toll on the pressure that the IDF feels.

DOZIER: It does. Look there has been rancour inside of Israel. People want the hostages out they want payback. There's a lot of pressure on the Netanyahu government to do something. Now to a certain extent the targeted raids over the past few days have taken some of the air out of the balloon they have been doing something but with the negotiations going on for the hostages through Qatar there's also been another argument within Israel, is Hamas just trying to use the negotiations to stay Israel's hand and draw this out. Meanwhile each day the hostages stay in Hamas's hands is another day in danger or do we trust them enough to give this time to work.

Now U.S. officials believe that they were on the verge of something that CNN reported much earlier today many hours ago, they thought they were about to get several hostages out and that seem to fall apart and now we have this uptick in attacks. The other thing we could be seeing is Israel has now had time to question the 4 hostages who've been released. Possibly they were able to make some sort of map, an educated guess as to where the large hole is that a number of hostages are being held that one of the hostages described and maybe they've decided now is the time to try to break into the nearby tunnels under cover of darkness and with speed and try to get as many of them as they can out.

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[14:15:09]

COOPER: And welcome back to our continuing coverage. The IDF saying the ground operation in Gaza is expanding. We heard that in our last hour from Daniel Hagari the Rear Admiral from the IDF. Nic Robertson is in Sderot for us. We also have general Wesley Clark general Clark. I lost communications with you before. Just in terms of options the IDF has, there are a lot of ways they could proceed from here. If people are expecting some massive assault on Gaza across the entire length of the border from multi -- and from the sea and from the air. That may not be what Israel has planned. This could be a much slower more methodical movement.

CLARK: I think Anderson you're exactly right. It needs to be a slow methodical movement. Now we don't know whether this is the start of it or simply a reconnaissance in force. They've come in in different areas. This is the third night they've done this. This could be a series of probes to see how the Palestinians -- how the Hamas reacts. It could be an effort to sort of check their weapon systems. It could be an effort to draw communications up, so they get better intelligence or all of that. Or they could decide at this point If there's not that much resistance if they're headed toward a strategic objective inside Gaza like the power plant or the decel (ph) point. Then they may continue and pour more forces in on that corridor.

But Anderson what we know about urban combat is it's easier to get in Initially than it is to stay in and hold your force and move to a larger holding. So the idea that they're gonna line up their forces around the periphery and sort of charge in there, absolutely not. They're gonna pick their strategic points. They're gonna go after those points and then they're gonna expand their control outward and downward from that.

COOPER: General CLARK, I mean, this has been one of the contentious points about any ground operation is the, the scale of it. Is it something like the US forces undertook in Fallujah or US and Iraqi forces undertook in in Mosul, you know house by house. There the -- there was not the large civilian population in Fallujah that there is in Gaza City and there was not the presence of some 200 plus hostages.

CLARK: That's exactly right. The hostages weren't there Fallujah was about the tenth the size of Gaza with about a tenth of population and the US planned the operation for about six months before we went in. We had a communications plan, information plan, deception plan, logistics plan, everything staged and it was still extremely difficult.

[14:20:09]

About 90% of the population left. But Anderson, there's one key difference between what the U.S. did in Fallujah and Mosul and what the Israelis may be intending to do here. We tried to free the city from the terrorists so, we wanted to get them out. They wanted to stay but we left an opening for them when it got too tough. They could flee, we could still accomplish the mission. Here the mission assigned by the Prime Minister is to destroy Hamas and that means -- Israel doesn't want them leaving to go somewhere else.

They want to pin them in there, hold them and eliminate them. So, this is a different mission, probably means tougher fighting and there's only one way to do it really and that's step by step. Going in fast, going in hasty, increases losses, doesn't assure the accomplishment of the mission.

COOPER: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the other day made a speech in which he said that there are 2 goals to Israel's operation. First of all, he characterized this as a fight for the existence of Israel. But he said that there were 2 main goals, the elimination of Hamas both militarily and politically and also doing everything possible to bring back the hostages, to rescue hostages. Are those 2 goals necessarily the same? The tactics to achieve both those goals, are they in some ways contradictory? CLARK: They might be contradictory but they're also complementary in some way because we don't know, -- Israel presumably doesn't know where the hostages are. So, as you advance into Gaza on the ground, you're intercepting enemy communications, cutting landlines, going into tunnels, capturing prisoners, getting information and you're always working to sort through where are the hostages. So yes, there's a risk of the hostages are held someplace and Israel strikes it with a bomb or cannon fire, yeah, you may lose hostages.

But it's in Hamas' interest to keep those hostages safe and alive. They're using the hostages in a public relations game against Israel and against the United States. And so, they don't want the hostages to be hurt. Now you can't count on that and if you're the parents of someone who's held hostage, your heart's going to be in your throat all the time. But for Israel, this is an existential threat. They have to go in, they have to go in on the ground, they have to eliminate Hamas. And in the process, hopefully they'll get the information they need, then to conduct the special operations raids or the other things that are necessary to get to those hostages.

COOPER: We're going to take a short break and our coverage continues.

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[14:25:45]

BOIRS SANCHEZ: We will get back to Anderson Cooper in the Middle East in just a moment, where we are tracking new activity in the Gaza Strip. The IDF confirming not long ago that they had expanded operations in Gaza.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Let's go now to Becky Anderson in Doha, Qatar. Becky, what are you tracking from there?

BECK ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yeah, it's interesting. Earlier on today, quite a positive note from diplomatic sources who are very familiar with these Qatar-led talks to try and elicit the release of these 229 hostages, and that number just out of the IDF's press conference about a couple of hours ago. So, we're talking about 229 abductees. Mediation efforts continue, led by the Qataris, in trying to elicit the release of some of those hostages. It does appear that these hostages are being sort of seen as civilians on the one side and military soldiers on the other. It's not clear how many are soldiers, how many are civilians. We do know there are foreign nationals and Israeli citizens. We also know that there are women, children, and the elderly.

One assumes that those, we have to assume, we haven't been told this specifically, those are the hostages who are being seen as and negotiated for as civilians. So, at this stage, earlier on today, and it's quite late in the evening here now, half past 10 in Qatar, we were told that these discussions were hopeful. There were still issues to be ironed out, but it did appear that there was some sense of a breakthrough at this point, and certainly some sense that there might be an announcement in the coming hours. Well, clearly with the news now of the expansion of Israeli operations, we may find out that this is now somewhat delayed. I haven't heard anything further from my diplomatic sources who are familiar with what is going on here, but we have heard from the IDF spokesman earlier on, who was very specific.