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Israeli PM Netanyahu Speaks Amid Expanding Ground Operation; Police Visited Maine Gunman's Home Weeks Before Shootings. Aired 1:30- 2p ET

Aired October 30, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translation): It begins with knowing the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong.

It means making a moral distinction between the deliberate murder of the innocent and the unintentional casualties that accompany every legitimate war, even the most just war.

It means holding Hamas responsible for the double war crime it commits every day by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians, while deliberately using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

It means making clear that the use of human shields is not only an immoral tactic of terror, but also an ineffective one.

Because as long as Hamas's use of Palestinian human shields result in the international community blaming Israel, Hamas will continue to use it as a tool of terror and so will others.

Hamas will continue to use the basements in Gaza's hospitals as the command posts of its vast terror tunnel network. It will continue to use mosques as fortified military positions and weapon depose. It will continue to steal fuel and humanitarian assistance from facilities.

While Israel is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm's way, Hamas is doing everything to keep the Palestinian civilians in harm's way.

Israel urge Palestinian civilians to leave the areas of armed conflict while Hamas prevents those civilians from leaving those areas at gunpoint.

Hamas is also preventing foreign nationals from leaving Gaza all together.

And most despicable, Hamas is holding over 200 Israeli hostages, including 33 children, holding them, terrorizing them, keeping them as hostages.

Every civilized nation should stand with Israel and demanding that these hostages be freed immediately and freed unconditionally. I want to make sure Israel's position regarding the ceasefire. Just as

the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or after the terror attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7th.

Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war. A war for our common future.

Today, we draw a line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism. It is a time for everyone to decide where they stand. Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory.

I hope and pray that civilized nations everywhere will back this fight. Because Israel's fight is your fight. Because if Hamas and Iran's axis of evil wins, you will be their next target. That's why Israel's victory will be your victory.

But make no mistake, regardless of who stands with Israel, Israel will fight until this battle is won and Israel will prevail.

May God bless Israel and may God bless all those who stand with Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the first question will go to News 18 India.

Take the microphone, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER, NEWS 18, INDIA: Good evening, sir.

NETANYAHU: Good evening.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Leaders from India I represent networking group in India.

My question to you is that how do you see the India's stand on U.N. resolution? India abstained because in resolution there was no condemnation of terrorism.

NETANYAHU: I think that resolution was deeply flawed. And I was sorry to see that even many of our friends did not insist that there would be a full and powerful condemnation of the horrors that were committed here.

That are horrors that no civilized country, including your country and so many others, would tolerate. So I hope that we don't see a repeat of these kinds of resolutions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will go now to ABC America, Matt Rivers.

MATT RIVERS, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, ABC NEWS: Thank you, sir.

It seems that the level of support that you have amongst the Israeli public has dropped considerably. So the question is, how can you continue to lead this country effectively during a very difficult time? And have you at all considered stepping down?

[13:34:59]

NETANYAHU: The only thing that I intend to have resign is Hamas. We're going to resign them to the dustbin of history. That's my goal. That's my responsibility. And that's what I'm leading the country to do.

This is my responsibility now. And it's something that I think unites the entire country. We're all supporting the soldiers, we're supporting our commanders, we're supporting the IDF, we're supporting, I think, the unbelievable efforts of our reservists and our security forces. We will continue to do that until victory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Germany, Michael.

MICHAEL REITER (ph), CHANNEL 2, GERMAN TELEVISION: Good evening, sir. Channel 2, German television.

I would like to ask you, there is a widespread discussion, especially among the relatives of the hostages, about the course of military action you have taken so far. And the question, if this is the only way to free the hostages.

Of course, you are successful in freeing one hostage on Sunday, but there's a widespread criticism that this doesn't allow a place for other negotiations.

What do you explain to the relatives of the hostages for this course relying mostly on military pressure?

NETANYAHU: I met twice with the families of the hostages. You felt their anguish. I felt their anguish. I know the sense of -- it's not only the sense of loss that bereaved parents have. It's a sense of not knowing, of continuous anguish. So I fully understand their concern.

But our common assessment of all of the -- not only the cabinet members but also all the security forces and the military is that the ground action actually creates the possibility, not the certainty, but the possibility of getting our hostages out.

Because Hamas will not do it unless they are under pressure. They simply will not do it. They only do it under pressure. This creates pressure.

And, again, we obviously greeted one hostage with open arms after yesterday's successful action by Shin Bet and the IDF, but we are committed to getting all the hostages back home.

We think that this method stands a chance. It is a goal that we are committed to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Channel 7 Australia, Chris.

CHRIS REISEN (ph), CORRESPONDENT, CHANNEL 7, AUSTRALIA: Chris Reisen (ph) from Channel 7, Australia.

I want to ask a question from my country. The people in my country are looking at this and wondering -- they agree with you. They want you to chase down Hamas and terrorism, destroy terrorism in this region, et cetera.

But people can't understand why so many people, civilians, have to die in this process. You argue that Hamas is putting them up as human shields. Is that a good enough excuse?

Are you inflicting here collective punishment on the people of Palestine?

NETANYAHU: Not a single civilian has to die. Hamas merely has to let them go to the safe zone that we created in southeastern Gaza Strip. There is a safe zone there.

Not a single civilian has to die. But Hamas is preventing them from leaving. Keeping them in the areas of conflict. So I think that you should direct your questions to Hamas.

But I can tell you one thing. We're going out of our way to prevent civilian casualties.

Not only by asking civilians to move, calling them to move, arranging a place for them to be, which is safe, also putting in humanitarian support, providing them with the means, with food, with water, with medicine and so on.

I think that this question should be placed on Hamas. And the more it's placed on Israel, the more you're going to see this repeated, again and again and again.

So other groups, other criminal states, other criminal organizations will use civilians as human shields.

We cannot give immunity to these terrorists. We cannot give immunity to these savages. We have to do everything we can to minimize civilian casualties.

But we cannot give up the fight because, then I think, this will have disastrous consequences not only for the future of my country but for the future of your country, your countries.

This is a battle of civilization against barbarians. The barbarians will do something that civilized countries will never do. And civilized countries will make every effort to prevent this.

And I will give you one example. And I will end with that, because I have to go to manage this war and lead it.

[13:40:03] In 1944, the Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. A perfectly legitimate target. But the British pilots missed. And instead of the gestapo headquarters, they hit a children's hospital nearby.

You didn't tell the allies don't stamp out Naziism because of such tragic consequences. They went to the end because they knew that the future of our civilization was at stake.

I'm telling you right now that the future of our civilization is at stake. We have to win this war. We will do it by minimizing civilian casualties and may we succeed.

Thank you.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right. That was the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with very, very forceful remarks.

This is a time for war, he said flatly, and totally as he has before rejected any ceasefire with Hamas. He says that would be surrender and Israel is not about to surrender.

I want to bring in CNN's Nic Robertson, who has been covering all of this for us. Along with the editor-in-chief of the "Jerusalem Post," Avi Mayer.

Let me start with you, Avi.

What do you make of these comments from Netanyahu, very strong comments, indeed, that the fighting will continue in a major way. At one point, he said that this is a battle against tyranny and terror.

AVI MAYER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "JERUSALEM POST": Wolf, I think that these comments had two audiences. The first is domestic and the second is international.

I think, on the one hand, he's trying to signal to the Israeli public that this is not a battle that will be done in a matter of days or even weeks but perhaps months.

This is a long-term campaign that could stretch into the next year and he's conditioning the Israeli public to understand that that may be what they're in for.

As for the international community, he's making very clear what the goal is here, to eradicate Hamas's ability to ever perpetrate a massacre like October 7th ever again.

He said this is a battle for humanity, a battle of civilization, and Israel is at the forefront of that battle. That is a message he has been trying to convey throughout, and he reiterated tonight.

BLITZER: It was interesting, Nic -- you've been covering this from the beginning -- that the defense minister spoke before the prime minister, Yoav Gallant. He was very forceful, too. He also predicted victory. He made it clear that Israel was going to fight until there was victory.

What was your major takeaway?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The prime minister, I think, one of the big takeaways I took from Prime Minister Netanyahu was that he tried to, for the international audience -- many of those journalists, the countries they come from have been very critical of Israel recently, critical of the high civilian casualties.

We know that a third of the casualties inside of Gaza are children. There's been so much pressure on Israel for the ceasefire, which he refuses.

But what he said is -- and I think this is very important as Israel tries to deal with this barrage of international criticism -- people need to make a moral distinction, a moral distinction between us, the IDF, and Hamas.

Hamas who go out with the intention of killing -- and he spoke very graphically about the killing of civilians -- and the IDF goes out of its way he says to avoid civilian casualties, dropping flyers, calling people's Houses in some specific cases.

But pointing out that Gaza has become a battlefield that's no longer safe. He said that civilians need to go to this humanitarian zone in the southeast of Gaza.

Of course, for those civilians in Gaza many of them feel that they can't get there, it isn't safe to get there, they don't know how to do it, they don't know which are the best and safest roads for it.

But this was a prime minister trying to lance that boil of growing international anger and pressure against Israel, saying that we have the moral high ground here. We're doing the right thing.

That, yes, unfortunately civilians do get killed in battle, but Hamas sets out to kill them intentionally. We don't.

I think that was a very strong point that he was really trying to land there -- Wolf?

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting, Avi, the Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was under his watch that this surprise Hamas attack on October 7th took place and he's getting a lot of criticism for that.

How much trouble is he in politically right now as a result of that? The other day, he blamed Israeli military intelligence, blamed the Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence service, but then withdrew that and said he was sorry for doing that.

[13:45:06]

He is in a lot of political trouble right now, isn't he?

MAYER: He absolutely is. There is a great deal of frustration in Israel that the one leader who hasn't taken personal responsibility for the failures that led to October the 7th has been the prime minister.

Leaders of Israel's military and intelligence communities have all stood up and said we share responsibility for what took place. The prime minister has yet to do so. We don't know exactly when he's going to take that responsibility.

In the press conference he had the other night, he said the time for taking responsibility will happen after the war. But there are many Israelis who feel that isn't good enough.

It's almost certain there will be a reckoning once this war is over. I think his political future is very much in question.

BLITZER: Nic, as you and I can testify, everyone who is here in Israel right now can testify, the country is very, very nervous.

No one really anticipated that Hamas would have this capability to cross the border from Gaza into Israel and slaughter and kill all these people and take all these hostages.

People are really nervous right now and they're wondering what is going on. What's your sense?

ROBERTSON: I think they are. And Hamas tries to play on that. You know, the message that -- from the three hostages who spoke today in a video released by Hamas -- that we are not going to air, but we've listened to -- was very clearly a message trying to blame the prime minister for these security failures.

To try to sow that seed amongst Israelis, to try to grow the anger against the government and divide the Israeli population. But they are very united in their concern about those security failures.

Hamas played on that again today in a different way, when there were these already upscaled ground forces inside of Gaza, actively taking out Hamas cells and groups there, according to the IDF.

Hamas was able to fire rockets towards Jerusalem. They haven't fired them towards Jerusalem recently.

And that really, from Hamas's perspective, signals that they still have their longest-range rockets that they can bring down on perhaps the most sensitive of cities for the Israeli government.

They've been firing at Tel Aviv. But Jerusalem sends another additional message.

I think, you know, from Hamas's perspective, they are trying to inflict that fear and terror. And the government says it's doing everything it can to squash it down.

But of course, those failures on October 7th, that's going to be -- that is a very big deal for the government to have to answer there.

KEILAR: Certainly is.

Nic and Avi, guys, thank you very much.

To our viewers, stay with CNN. Much more coverage of Israel at war. That's straight ahead.

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[13:52:32]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: After days of being locked down in terror, Maine's Lewiston community is seeking answers following the manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed 18 people at a local bar and bowling alley.

Officials later found his body on Friday along a river, dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Now there's a lot of questions surfacing about Card's mental state and whether authorities knew about red flags that were obvious well before last week's massacre.

An Army spokesperson telling CNN, in September, the shooter's unit had requested a health and welfare check from the county sheriff's office saying that they were concerned for his safety.

CNN reviewed a National Guard statement to the sheriff's department that explains the reason for the check. And it states that Card spent 14 days at a psychiatric hospital in July following an altercation that he got into with some fellow guardsmen.

And after his release, he reportedly told another guardsman that he was going to shoot up a military base and other locations as well.

The statement going on to say that that same friend feared Card was going to snap and commit a mass shooting.

Joining us now is CNN law enforcement analyst, Jonathan Wackrow.

Jonathan, you know, sometimes there are these shootings and we look back and we wonder, you know, what did they miss?

It's obvious here. But take us through this because you had someone who knew this man saying they were afraid he was going to do this very thing that he did.

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes. Good afternoon.

Listen, while we know that these warnings were raised by individuals and other government entities, how these warnings were actually acted upon really is the question right now.

What we need to look at is, when a verified source, such as the Maine National Guard, states that an individual could snap and actually commit a mass shooting, that warning should have been escalated immediately to the highest levels of Maine law enforcement.

Both at the state level and at the local level and fully adjudicated, and not let linger at all.

You know, the second point here is we know that statements were actually made to law enforcement regarding the threat that this individual had posed.

We had people state that he oftentimes answers his door of his trailer with a handgun in his hand, just out of sight.

[13:55:05]

All of these are behavioral red flags that law enforcement should not only have picked up on but acted upon.

SANCHEZ: On that question, Jonathan, so Maine has Yellow Flag Laws. It essentially means that if someone says troubling statements, if there's concern that they might carry out an attack like this, law enforcement legally has to go find them, get them in custody.

Then have a medical professional evaluate them. And if that person deems them dangerous, a judge has to approve a temporary order to hold onto their weapons until they're eventually cleared.

Given what you've seen about this case, it sounds like this person was exactly who this was intended to stop.

WACKROW: Exactly. Right. But you highlighted the three main points there.

First of all, law enforcement has to locate the individual, take them into protective custody, and then a medical professional has to make the evaluation.

So just because you're raising a warning, raising a red flag, doesn't end the issue. You have -- you actually have to proceed with those following three steps to have that law really effectively prevent, you know, this individual from obtaining a firearm.

So, again, while there's great intention behind this law, how it's -- how law enforcement engages with it and fully adjudicates any type of red flag that is raised is really the central question that investigators need to look at right now.

KEILAR: The "what if's" here are just glaring.

Jonathan Wackrow, thank you so much.

WACKROW: Thank you.

KEILAR: And we will be right back. Stay with CNN.

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