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Hundreds Now Leaving Gaza; IDF Says It's at the Gates of Gaza City; Trump Jr. Wraps up Testimony; Trump's Sons Testify in Civil Trial; Live-Fire Exercise in Golan Heights. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 02, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:46]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Getting out of Gaza. Hundreds of people have now been able to evacuate Gaza. Americans are now getting out as well. On the list to get out today, possibly 400 names of U.S. nationals. There's a lot of action at the Rafah crossing. We'll take you there.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Israeli forces say they have broken through the front lines of Hamas fighters and are at the gates of Gaza City. What this could mean for efforts to free the hostages.

BOLDUAN: Don Junior back on the stand. The former president's son is heading into court soon. What he is and isn't saying about how much his family's worth.

I'm Kate Bolduan, with John Berman. Sara Sidner is off. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: All right, happening now, the first Americans are getting out of Gaza down here. Part of the stream of people we've seen moving through the Rafah crossing. We've seen ambulances lined up there, people on foot moving through the crossing itself. Ultimately, they end up on Saini, the Saini peninsula, and are processed through this makeshift hospital and warehouse here.

This is part of the deal to get maybe thousands of foreign nationals and some wounded out of Gaza. This deal was brokered between Qatar, Israel, Hamas and Egypt. Hamas had refused to let people out. Egypt had refused to let people in. But, to an extent, the doors are now open.

Let's get right to CNN's Melissa Bell, who is in Cairo with the latest on this.

Melissa.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, I think that framing is exactly right, everything was blocked at the Rafah crossing until it wasn't yesterday. And again today a great deal of activity up there at the southern border of Gaza with Egypt. As you mentioned a moment ago, this list has been published overnight

of some nearly 600 names of those who have been given clearance to get out. We understand - we've had confirmation now from Egyptian authorities that 7,000 people are to be leaving the Gaza Strip over the coming days and they're doing that, of course, in batches.

Six hundred more names of those have now been cleared to get out, including 400 Americans. And I think what's been one of the most interesting things over the last 24 hours or so as we've begun to see those foreign and duel nationals leave Gaza, is just to hear, John, some of their stories. Remember that no journalists can get into Gaza. The ones that are there were there before the 7th of October.

We keep trying with the Egyptian authorities, but they're not letting us through. So, the information that we're getting has come from the aid organizations that are still functioning there, the few journalists that are able to function, the stringers and producers with whom we work. But these first-hand accounts from foreign nationals who have been stuck there throughout the three and a half weeks of this conflict are very precious indeed. The first two Americans to make it out yesterday have been speaking. And in particular Dr. Barbara Zind, who comes from Colorado, she was one of the first two Americans to come out, and this is what she had to say about her ordeal.

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DR. BARBARA ZIND, AMERICAN RELEASED FROM GAZA: In the beginning we were in Gaza City and we were told to move south. There were going to be intensive bombing in Gaza City. And there was. That's when I had that initial interview. And -- but moving south, there was still a lot of bombing. And so there was -- there's really no safe place for the Gazan people.

We ended up, for about two and a half weeks, in basically a parking lot that was wardened (ph) off from the rest of the people in the - that were - the rest of the Gazans who were staying there. And we were relatively lucky, but were running out of food and water also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: Running out of food and water. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. And these are the kind of stories that we're likely to hear over the coming days from those who are finally getting out of there.

We've also been hearing this morning, John, from the U.N.'s children's agency, UNICEF, about what's been happening. It says that by its count 400 children have either been wounded or killed each day in the 25 days of this war so far. A situation that they say cannot continue, calling once again for an urgent humanitarian cease-fire to be able to get some aid in.

[09:05:02]

Remember that it's been just a trickle so far. And as you were hearing there from Dr. Zind, people don't have enough water, they don't have enough food and that is even before you consider the effects of the bombing campaign. UNICEF speaking also to what's been happening at the Jabalya camp this week, hit two days in a row by those massive Israeli strikes. Many hundreds are feared dead but it's very difficult to get a death toll precisely because of the difficulty of getting through the rubble and trying to get to those who may or may not have survived.

John.

BERMAN: Melissa Bell, in Cairo, keep us posted. Thank you so much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: An IDF commander is now declaring Israeli troops are at the gates of Gaza City. According to photos and videos that CNN has obtained and verified, this is what the Israeli ground strategy has looked like so far. We will show you. Israeli troops moving into Gaza at three main locations. Two from the north of Gaza City and one looking like -- coming from the south under Gaza City. An IDF spokesman -- spokesperson now says Hamas' defense -- defensive lines are continuing to collapse.

Jeremy Diamond is in Sderot, in southern Israeli, joining us now with more on this.

Jeremy, what are you learning about what the IDF is coming up against as they are moving deeper into Gaza, kind of headed towards Gaza City?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, as you just mentioned, Kate, the IDF is moving towards Gaza City from three different axes, two from the north, one in the south. And they say that they are deep in the Gaza Strip. They have been spotted several miles inland. But even as they say that and even as the troops clearly are approaching Gaza City, there is still very much active fighting behind me, which is in the northeastern most city of Batanon (ph), in Gaza's - in the Gaza Strip.

Right behind me here you can see some of the smoke in the distance. And over the last hour or two, we have been hearing constant battles between IDF soldiers and Hamas militants. We've been hearing small arm fires. We've been hearing artillery and other explosions in the background.

And so it's clear that even as those forces move deeper into the Gaza Strip, they are still confronting Hamas fighters towards the -- closer to those entry points here in the north.

And part of that is also because of the tunnel system that Hamas has. The IDF said this morning that overnight they were ambushed by Hamas militants and that they engaged in a battle with Hamas fighters for several hours overnight. And so it's clear that this fighting is intense and it is ongoing. And Israeli military generals have been trying to prepare the Israeli public for a long, drawn-out battle and one that will be costly.

Already we have seen that at least 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed in these last six days of fighting. And that is also something that the Israeli politicians and the Israeli prime minister are taking into account as they look at the next steps of this battle.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And, Jeremy, what more are you hearing and what are you picking up about the aftermath and what's being learned after the strikes on the Jabalya refugee camp and the overall civilian casualty, the - kind of the scope of it and what you're hearing?

DIAMOND: Yes. Well, yesterday, Kate, for the second time in as many days, Israeli jets striking targets in the Jabalya refugee camp. Now, this is an extremely densely populated camp with more than 100,000 people living there. And the scenes of the destruction at that camp, after an Israeli jet struck it yesterday, as well as the scenes from the strike on Tuesday are just absolutely devastating. You can see entire apartment buildings just absolutely levelled to the ground. A massive crater remaining in their place.

Yesterday the director of the nearby Indonesian hospital told our colleague Aber Salman (ph) that at least 80 people were injured and - and, sorry, at least 80 people were killed and hundreds of people were injured. And you could see in the -- people being pulled from the rubble, women and children.

And this just comes as we have watched as the toll of this war on children has just absolutely mounted in devastating ways. UNICEF, Kate, is now saying that about 400 children have been killed or injured every single day since the start of this war on October 7th. Now, the IDF, they maintain that they struck a Hamas command and control center in the Jabalya refugee camp. Yesterday, on Tuesday, they said that they killed a senior commander who was responsible for the October 7th terrorist attacks and they maintain that Hamas is responsible for these civilian deaths because they embed in residential buildings and build their tunnels under residential neighborhoods. But, obviously, multiple international organizations, including the United Nations, now raising the specter of war crimes because of the high number of civilian casualties resulting from these strikes.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Jeremy Diamond, in southern Israel, thank you very much.

[09:10:01]

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN military analyst, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Cedric, great to see you.

This is sort of the diagram of the Israeli offensive, in so far as we understand it, with troops and tanks coming in from the northwest, from the northeast, and also from the south here. In a way surrounding Gaza City.

How would you access the success, the relative success of this operation so far?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, John, good morning.

Yes, at the moment it looks really good. But here's the problem. They are going to run into -- the IDF forces are going to run into active resistance throughout all of the urban areas that they're going after. So, what they will probably do is, there might be some kind of a siege, at the very least an encirclement of Gaza City. And then, as they move into these areas, they're going to have to clear every single one of the buildings that they encounter. And many of those buildings, as we see from all the videos that we've - that we've shown recently, many of those buildings are destroyed or at least partially damaged. And that, of course, will give snipers a chance to find a place to shoot from, it will make it very easy for them to in place things like IEDs and it's going to be really tough going for the Israeli infantry forces.

BERMAN: In so far as - you know, the Israelis, another way of looking at it from a satellite map here, and they've come in from this direction here, they've come in from the northwest, they've come in from the northeast, and they come from the south, what's worked and what hasn't worked?

LEIGHTON: So, as far as we can see, what has worked so far seems to be the movements -- actually all of the axes have worked up to an extent. They - one of the southeast has really, I think, moved forward quite a bit. So that may, at the moment, have achieved a greater degree of success in terms of distance but it's all relative at this point in time because the population centers are, of course, in the north and that also means the centers which Hamas is going to defend are also there.

So, when they move their line of defense -- and everybody's focusing on that right now -- when they move that line of defense, that is going to look like it's a victory for the Israeli forces. But we shouldn't look at that as being the final thing at the moment, the final statement of what's going on, because those forces, Hamas forces, are going to withdraw into the cavernous urban areas.

So, as far as success right now, probably the one from the southeast, but also the ones from the north are achieving a degree of success. And depending on how far they go, and what objectives -- localized objectives they have set for themselves, they may be able to sustain those operations for some time.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about what we've seen at the Jabalya refugee camp. And again, just so people understand, this isn't tents. I mean this is a city that has been built up since the 1940s with people who moved there in the 1940s. This is a very urban area.

This is some satellite imagery from before the air strikes and you can see after the air strikes here. You can see this area here simply gone.

Twofold here. Number one, given that Israel knew there were civilians here, they say they've taken out, they say they have eliminated key Hamas terror leaders, but there have been civilians killed as well. Is this the type of air strike that you, in the Air Force, that would have happened had the United States been running things?

LEIGHTON: Probably not. And the reason I say that is, we take a lot of precautionary measures when it comes to striking areas where there's a lot of - where there's large civilian populations. Now, of course, there have been civilian deaths in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and that's our most recent relative example to what's going in Gaza. But we would have probably waited to catch these leaders at a moment where they are isolated from -- or at least in relative isolation from the surrounding population. And so what that means is, there's a patient waiting game, in essence, it's not really a game, of course, but it's -- we wait for them to come out of their hiding places for whatever reason. And then that's when we go after them. That has been our modus operandi throughout the war on terror in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

And that is something that the Israelis probably don't have that - that tactical patience, if you will, because they're under pressure to move very fast and achieve goals very quickly. We are sometimes under that pressure as well. But it's very different for us because we look very carefully at the collateral damage impacts and the possibility of that collateral damage.

BERMAN: Yes, one of the reasons that the Israelis feel they have to move very fast is they say there are 240 hostages - 240 hostages still being held, and this is their 27th day in captivity.

Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, Donald Trump Jr. back on the stand this morning in the New York civil fraud trial against his family.

[09:15:04]

How much he says he did not know about his family's finances while helping to run the company.

Plus, Republicans in the Senate seemingly to have had enough with Senator Tommy Tuberville's months long block of military promotions. What his Republican colleagues are now saying as they call him out from the Senate floor and how he is responding as well.

We also have more developments coming out of Israel. CNN is at the Israeli border, the northern border with Lebanon, where IDF troops are training for potential battles with Hezbollah. The potential escalation that would be a nightmare scenario.

We'll be back.

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BOLDUAN: Donald Trump's eldest son will be back on the stand today in the civil fraud trial against him, his father and the Trump family business empire. During questioning yesterday, Don Junior denied any involvement in the alleged scheme to inflate his family's net worth, saying it wasn't on him to prepare or confirm any of the financial statements.

[09:20:05]

A reminder, the judge in this case has already found that Donald - found Donald Trump liable for fraud.

CNN's Kara Scannell is outside the courthouse in New York.

Kara, you know, Eric Trump, and Don Junior have entered the courthouse together. What are you expecting to happen then today?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, I mean these two are going to be the men of the day. They just entered the courthouse together just a few moments ago. Donald Trump will begin back on the stand testifying when court begins again at 10:00 a.m. And he will continue to answering questions posed by the attorney general's office.

He was on the stand for about 90 minutes yesterday. And during his testimony, as you say, he denied any involvement with these financial statements that are at the heart of this investigation. And he said that the accountants worked on them. That's what we paid them for. So, he's denying any connection to that.

They also asked him specifically about the financial statements in 2017, and that matters because that's the year he took over as trustee of the family business when his father became president. He also distanced himself then saying that had he known that he -- he may have provided some information to his internal accountants, but he didn't know how they were going to use it or that they used it for the financial statements.

Now, this line of questioning just really began. So, we're expecting to hear a lot more questions about the financial statements, about his roles at different properties and how they were valued in the statements as he continues to testify for we're expecting a couple of hours today.

Now, his lawyers are not expected to ask him any questions. So once the attorney general's office is done with him, they will call Eric Trump to the stand.

And he has actually sat through some days of testimony here. He will begin answering questions.

Now, he had a lot of involvement with the golf courses, with the family compound, Seven Springs, a couple of them at the center of this case. So, we expect him to be on the stand for longer than his brother, Don Junior. His testimony could potentially carry over even into tomorrow, Kate.

And then, of course, we're looking into next week when former President Donald Trump will be taking the stand on Monday. And then his daughter, Ivanka Trump, is currently scheduled to testify on Wednesday.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Kara, thank you so much.

BERMAN: All right, with us, defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Shan Wu, and CNN's senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Elie Honig.

Counselor, Mr. Honig, Don Junior back on the stand. Late yesterday he basically said, you know what, it wasn't my job to deal with the - you know, the financial records here. That was for the accountants. He is a witness for the state. The plaintiffs put him up there on the stand. What is it now today that they want to get from him?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, they're not going to get him to just collapse and admit he ordered the code red. He's not going to say, you know what, you've worn me down, you're right, I knew this was a fraud, I was behind it all. So, really you're trying to do two things now in this situation if you're the AG's office. First of all, if you have documents that contradict him, you confront him with that. If you have internal emails, memos, accounting statements, then you confront him with them and you say, didn't you say this, didn't you sign that?

The other thing you do is you lock him into his testimony, OK, this was for the accountants, not me, and then you attack it later through other witnesses. You may - you would hopefully, in the AG's case, have some witnesses to say, no, he knew what was going on. I explained it to him. He's told me to do it. Something along those lines. So, that's what I'm looking for today.

BOLDUAN: I think we also heard that his attorneys -- Don Junior's attorneys, or Trump's attorneys -- all of the attorneys that are working for the Trumps are not going to be questioning Don Junior. Why wouldn't you, Shan?

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, because you don't want to create an opportunity for further damage. He is basically distancing himself entirely from any knowledge, I'd say note to self, don't put him in charge of your business if he actually runs things that way. He's a graduate of Wharton, who says he really doesn't even understand basic accounting things besides the acronym. So, you don't want to put him up there and do any further damage.

I mean you just want to sort of isolate him the way he is. And, ideally, he's being presented as being irrelevant really to the case. And probably everyone is going to take that position. So, ultimately, you put the judge in an interesting spot, which is, they have already - the judge already determined there is liability here. The question is how much. But yet everyone's going to be saying that, you know, we don't know what was really going on, so who did know?

BERMAN: So, Don Junior and Eric today, tomorrow.

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: Donald Trump, former president, current presidential candidate, on the stand on Monday. How will that be similar or different to what we're seeing today?

HONIG: Well, so, Donald Trump, the former president, has a very interesting decision to make. Is he going to actually testify or is he going to take the Fifth? He has the option to take the Fifth. Don Junior and Eric had that option as well but clearly they're comfortable enough. They've made the decision.

BOLDUAN: But you have taught us that's important and that actually has impact in a civil trial.

HONIG: Yes. Absolutely. If you take the Fifth in a civil trial it could be used against you. The judge can say, OK, so and so has taken the Fifth. I'm going to - and I'm legally allowed to assume the worst about what their testimony may be.

[09:25:02]

It's worth remembering, Donald Trump, the former president, was deposed in this case, under oath, and he took the Fifth 400 plus times. The only question he would answer was his name basically. So, when Donald Trump gets into court on Monday, he will have to take the stand. Will he change course and say, OK, now I'm going to answer questions. He can do that. Or will he stick by that Fifth Amendment invocation (ph). But as Kate pointed out, there's some risk to that as well.

BERMAN: Do you think he'd be as disciplined a witness as Don Junior has been so far?

HONIG: No way. I mean Donald Trump Junior has been fairly responsive. He's not giving answers the AG wants, but he's not going on rants and soliloquies. I'm expecting a little bit of a different environment on Monday.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, Elie Honig.

Shan, thank you so much.

I want to get back over to Israel right now and to our colleague Jim Sciutto, live in the Golan Heights.

Jim, we've been told that you - there's live fire going on behind you. Talk to us.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: To be clear - and you can hear it - this is a life fire exercise to be clear, but a serious exercise. These are Israeli IDF special forces taking part in a live fire exercise in combination with tanks, what's known as combined arms operations. They are part of the 70,000 Israeli soldiers that have been deployed to the northern part of Israel, as well as here in the Golan Heights.

To be clear, Golan Heights borders Syria. In fact, you can see Syria just over my right shoulder. And then, up in this direction, due north is where Lebanon is. And the concern is -- and the reason you have both the training and, frankly, a show of force here is that this war might expand. That Iranian proxies inside Lebanon and inside Syria might be ordered to by Iran and by others that control them locally and from afar to enter this war in a more proactive way.

Here comes some of the special forces soldiers right by me here. Let me just make way for them. Here they come. These are the IDF's most elite troops, comparable to U.S. special forces. Try not to get in the way here as they do this because, of course, they're taking this very seriously.

There you go, again, this is an exercise for folks at home who are watching this, but it's an exercise meant to make sure their skills are sharp if this war expands from the north, but also given the proximity - our proximity here to the Syrian and Lebanon borders, I think you can reasonably say this is a show of force as well to show they 'ready, Kate.

BERMAN: And again - yes.

SCIUTTO: And a lot of attention to what's going to happen tomorrow because the head of Hezbollah, the leader of Hezbollah, is going to give a speech tomorrow afternoon. A lot of concern in this country that he's going to order Hezbollah forces into this war.

BERMAN: We just want to make sure people understand, as Jim has been saying repeatedly, this is an exercise. This is a live-fire exercise. You're seeing the Israeli special forces in a training operation in Golan, the Golan Heights. And as Jim again points out so correctly, one of the stunning things about Golan, if you go there you can see Syria, you can see Lebanon, you can see these threats that Israel perceives from anywhere that you stand. It's right over Jim's shoulder.

BOLDUAN: The - and bigger, broader threat that could be coming.

BERMAN: And, Jim, talk a little more about the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and we're seeing Israeli tanks in this training exercise right behind you. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, will speak tomorrow. Is Israel -- the IDF, the people you're with, are they going on any kind of high alert? How are they approaching that moment?

SCIUTTO: Well, you see, one of Israel -- Israel's - Israel (INAUDIBLE) tanks, they're participated in this live fire exercise. They are taking this very seriously. And that's why we're seeing operations such as this one, again, a reminder, if you're just joining the broadcast, this is an exercise but a live-fire exercise involving Israeli special forces and tanks in the Golan bordering Syria.

We don't know what Hezbollah is going to do in this war.

I'm going to let them do their work here.

We don't know, Israel doesn't know, U.S. intelligence doesn't know if Nasrallah is going to order his forces into this war in numbers. But the reason you're seeing this is they're taking that threat very seriously.

BOLDUAN: And, Jim, it's a - I mean you - we could -- we could assume this is also, you know, as a show of force and also an attempted deterrent because if Hezbollah enters this war, that is a nightmare scenario for Israel, and that also has big implications for U.S. support and involvement in what this would expand into.

SCIUTTO: It does. Listen, Hezbollah has a lot of ways it could strike Israel. It could strike via ground operations. And they've been trying, over the last couple of weeks, since October 7th, in small numbers. They can do it via ground operations, which they've tried before, but they can also do it.

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