Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Hostage Deal To Include Red Cross Visits to Hostages Still In Gaza; Sources: Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal Imminent; Pentagon: Iranian- Backed Militants Used "Close-Range Ballistic Missile" To Attack Iraq Air Base. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 21, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:01:45]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. I'm Boris Sanchez alongside Jim Sciutto.

After 45 grueling days in captivity, the nightmare could soon be over for some 50 hostages being held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza. And as we speak, top officials in the Israeli government are meeting to consider a deal that would see roughly 50 hostages released from Gaza in exchange for about 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel and a temporary pause in the fighting.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: We should note that would still leave close to 200 hostages behind. We have just learned one more key piece of this potential agreement. Those who are not released will be visited by the Red Cross in Gaza. This has been a demand for some time from the families. They want to know if they're safe and well, what their health is like. The deal still must get an up or down vote in the full Israeli cabinet. That vote could happen at any minute. They've been meeting now.

We want to bring you our team of reporters across the globe now. Oren Liebermann, he's in Tel Aviv.

So you've described, Oren, how there are multiple steps to this process. You had the war cabinet meeting. Now you have the full cabinet meeting. How soon do we expect them to come to a final decision?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Effectively, it depends on how long the debate inside the full cabinet meeting goes, but that is expected sometime in the next few hours and perhaps even sooner than that. We are at the final stage of this process from the Israeli legal and political perspective. We're through the very small war cabinet meeting. We're through the larger security cabinet meeting and now we're at the full cabinet meeting, which includes all the ministers and the other members that have to make a decision here.

It doesn't have to be unanimous, if I'm not mistaken. It simply needs to be a majority there. And from everything we're seeing, from everything we're hearing, it will have a majority vote. There are some far-right parties within the coalition who have come out against it. But from what we understand, they don't have the numbers to sink this agreement.

We just saw a video released from the Israeli prime minister's office from within the cabinet meeting, in which Netanyahu made a strong case for this to be approved. He acknowledged it includes a pause in the fighting. He called that a difficult decision. But he also said it's the right decision. And all of the security bodies within Israel, so for example, the Shin Bet, which is Israel's FBI, the military and other security bodies have all approved this step, and they support it, even though it involves a pause in the fighting.

As you pointed out, we also learned from inside the cabinet meeting that Netanyahu told the other members of the cabinet that the Red Cross will be able to visit the 190 or so hostages who will not be released. And that has been a key demand here from the very beginning, since international law requires the ability for Red Cross visits.

So we expect a vote soon. We expect the results soon. And it looks like this is moving forward.

SANCHEZ: Oren, please stand by. We have CNN's Alex Marquardt with us as well.

Alex, you've been reporting on the contours of this deal. What are some of the specifics?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, we should note, guys, that this deal will not be finalized, essentially, until Israel agrees to it and Oren just laid that out perfectly. So the - we are waiting for Israel to officially confirm that they are going ahead with this. We have a statement from the Qatari government that was given to our Becky Anderson saying that the proposal, the outline was given to the Israelis in the early hours of the evening.

[15:05:07]

And they are awaiting the results of the Israeli government's vote on the proposal. So when this is agreed to, we will expect an announcement from both the Israelis and the Qataris, who, of course, have been the main mediators when it comes to these weeks of hostage negotiations.

So what do we expect next? There will be, if this plan goes ahead, four to five days of a pause in the fighting. That will give time to Hamas to round up this group of, we believe, 50 hostages that they've been holding for more than a month now and release them. So this will probably be taking place on a rolling basis, say, 10 to a dozen per day.

There is also a chance that if things go according to plan, if things go well and there are no violations in this agreement, that the pause could be extended by several days, that more hostages could be released.

We have been given assurances. We have heard that there have been assurances given by Hamas that this group of 50 are all alive and that is a big question. Of the 236 who are being held by Hamas, we don't know who's alive and who's dead.

The other major component of this is this is an exchange, a prisoner exchange. So if 50 come out, around 150, we understand, Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel in Israeli prisons will be released at the same time, a three-to-one ratio. We've seen previous Israeli prisoner swaps with Hamas that were far bigger than that, Gilad Shalit, one person for more than a thousand.

So if more hostages get released beyond these 50, then you can imagine that more Palestinians in Israeli prisons will also be released. There's also a major question about aid going into Gaza. Hamas has asked for hundreds of trucks of aid per day. It sounds like the various authorities are still trying to figure out the implementation, the mechanism of how that would work.

SCIUTTO: And you mentioned the Gilad Shalit trade, a thousand prisoners among them was one of the architects of the October 7th attack, so an enormous amount of concern inside Israel. Who you release and what they do later.

Our Matthew Chance, he's in Tel Aviv. And Matthew, as you know, there's been an enormous amount of pressure, public pressure, not just from families of hostages but from others in Israel to get them their freedom, get them to safety. You travel around Israel. You see their faces everywhere you go. You've been speaking with family members of this potential deal. I wonder, what's their response been?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can see I'm right in the middle of Tel Aviv right now outside the Museum of Art where there is a (inaudible) virtually what's become a permanent kind of protest if you like or memorial to the 236 people that are still hostage inside of Gaza. You can see this big table that's laid out behind me. There are some children's places and adult places as well, every place representing one of the people that is held still inside Gaza and it's a place of pilgrimage as well where the families of those hostages, their friends, just supporters from Israel come to pay their respects and to put pressure as much as possible on the government to do what it can to secure the release of those people.

You can imagine there are very mixed feelings here tonight because and although people are, to some extent, excited that there could be a release of 50 or more hostages if this deal goes through as it looks - as looks likely. There's also a sort of bit of sweetness to it because everybody here knows that even though 50 plus may be released, there's still going to be a lot more, many more Israelis, many more others that are still going to be held hostage inside Gaza as well.

And so people are very disturbed by that ongoing trauma that has really deeply affected people in this country and particularly here in Central Tel Aviv where people, as I say, are paying their respects and sort of making pilgrimage to pay their respects to this location.

There's a lot of criticism as well, Jim, about the way Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted this operation, prioritize the rescue or the release of this hostage. Many people here I've spoken to saying look, the emphasis has been on destroying Hamas, not on freeing the Israelis, it should have been the other way around. It should have gone at people at first and then sort of (inaudible) with Hamas is what people are saying to me here tonight.

But nevertheless, some people, again, obviously, many people here, everybody, are very happy that some people soon could see freedom.

SCIUTTO: It's the brutal arithmetic of all this, that some people will get relief, let's hope, in the next several hours and days, and many more will not. Matthew Chance in Tel Aviv, thanks so much.

SANCHEZ: We want to dig deeper now with a former hostage negotiator and the Middle East director for the International Communities Organisation. Joining us now is Gershon Baskin.

Gershon, we were just discussing the release of Gilad Shalit.

[15:10:01]

You actually helped negotiate that deal. Is there any doubt in your mind that this is going to get through the full cabinet? And potentially, how soon can we see hostages released?

GERSHON BASKIN, DIRECTOR MIDDLE EAST, INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES ORGANIZATION: It will definitely get through the cabinet. There will be a majority vote. It won't be unanimous but (inaudible) supporting it and the head of the intelligence authorities in Israel is supporting it.

So, we'll get through the cabinet. It will take another couple of days of logistics to get it done. There's a legal procedure in Israel that has to happen when the names of prisoners will appear on a website, and people can submit objections to it. There will undoubtedly be a petition to the Supreme Court in Israel against the deal. The Supreme Court never intervenes in these kind of cases.

So, we just need to see the logistics on the ground with the Red Cross and the Egyptians helping to facilitate the release of the hostages and eventually the release of the prisoners, who I imagine will be released to the West Bank and not to Gaza.

SANCHEZ: Gershon, it strikes me that you told CNN this morning that this is essentially the same deal that you proposed during the first week of the war. Why do you think it's moving forward now? How much of it has to do with that internal political pressure that Matthew Chance was just describing by the hostage families.

BASKIN: I think that's part of it, but it's also a realization that Israel is really in the hands of Hamas here. Hamas is the deciding body in this deal. They decided how many they will release and under what terms. The Israelis could either say yes or no. The Israelis were hesitating over most of this past week because they didn't like some aspects of the deal, in particular aspects of the ceasefire or the pause, and the fighting, the requirements to stop drone surveillance over Gaza, some other aspects of the deal. And they pushed back, and the Americans pushed hard on the Qataris, and the Egyptians were working also behind the scenes.

So these kind of deals, they just take time until the sides are ready to make it. Even, I mean, Gilad Shalit was - the deal for his release was six months after he was abducted and it took another five years before the sides were ready to sign the deal and get it done.

SANCHEZ: Gershon, you mentioned the interruption in the intelligence gathering by the IDF. How seriously do you think that can have an impact on Israel's goal of eradicating Hamas?

BASKIN: I don't think it'll have much of an impact. What its aim is for Hamas to be able to move the hostages out without having their places of hiding be known to the Israelis. This does not mean that the Israelis won't still be watching and collecting intelligence information. There is a necessary redeployment of Israeli forces during the pause or the ceasefire in any event. The Israelis are going to have to pull back from some of the places they've already taken.

I'm sure it's not that big a deal. There's a massive amount of Israeli soldiers and army materials in the Gaza Strip. And after this is done and as many hostages are out as possible in this deal, the Israelis will proceed further south to attack the main areas where the Hamas leadership and military commands are hiding.

SANCHEZ: Gershon, there is concern. You mentioned the release of Gilad Shalit in 2011. Some of those Palestinian prisoners that were released wound up carrying out terrorist attacks, including on October 7th against Israel. How closely do you think Israel is going to monitor those prisoners, 150 or so Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and people under the age of 18, how closely are they going to be watched by the Israelis?

BASKIN: Well, I think a number of them will be watched very carefully. Amongst them, they're all from the West Bank. They're all really important Hamas people. There are none of them who have killed Israelis, although several of them have tried. And I think those people will be watched very carefully. And let's realize that there's nothing to prevent Israel from re-arresting them once this deal is done or once all the hostages are out that Israel can negotiate their release.

There's also, should they engage in terrorism, there's no problem for Israel to actually take care of them permanently.

SANCHEZ: Sure. I'm also wondering whether you think this potential ceasefire from four to five days, according to our reporting, how likely do you think it is to hold and how much does Iran's influence on Hamas decide that ultimately?

BASKIN: I think that Iran is not having direct influence on Hamas on this deal. No doubt Iran supported Hamas over the last years and trained them and provided money and weapons. But Hamas is not a push- button operation that Iran tells them what to do. They're really independent in their actions and what they will do. Whether they will keep to the ceasefire, this is a very big question, Israel has to be on guard.

[15:15:05]

The army will be sitting inside of Gaza in very vulnerable positions and they need to be careful because there's no trust between the two sides. Israel doesn't trust Hamas, Hamas doesn't trust Israel. There are no third-party peacekeepers on the ground to keep these parties separate and to protect them, so everyone's going to be watching.

And there's an interest here in getting this deal done. Hamas wants prisoners freed and they want to get to a bigger deal once they negotiate the release of Israeli soldiers who were held by them. And they'll demand much, much more from Israel in terms of prisoner release at that time.

SANCHEZ: Gershon Baskin, we have to leave the conversation there. We very much appreciate your perspective.

BASKIN: `Thank you.

SANCHEZ: We have much more on this potentially imminent hostage deal after a quick break, stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:20:05]

SANCHEZ: As we're watching what's happening in the Middle East, CNN has learned that the U.S. has fired on and killed hostile forces in Iraq. A U.S. official telling CNN the strike followed an attack Monday night on U.S. and coalition forces at an airbase in Iraq.

SCIUTTO: And it's not the first of those attacks.

We have CNN National Security Reporter Natasha Bertrand is firing - Natasha, first of all, these attacks have been racking up, I believe, 64 to date on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. But in this one, our understanding is that these forces used a close-range ballistic missile. Exactly how big of a munition are we talking about here?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, a pretty large escalation here, Jim. We don't know exactly how big the munition was. But the U.S. says that it didn't cause much damage and that there were not any significant injuries from it. But previously, just to put this into context, these Iran-backed militias had been using small rockets and drones to launch attacks on these U.S. and coalition bases across Iraq and Syria. So using a short-range ballistic missile, a close- range missile, is certainly an escalation here.

And the U.S. has been responding to these attacks. And we were told by Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary, Sabrina Singh, earlier today that the attack that the U.S. launched on a vehicle in Iraq was in direct response to that ballistic missile attack yesterday. And they launched this attack on a vehicle that is believed to have been used to carry out that attack and it killed a number of these militants that were inside the car. However, it is unclear just how many of those militants were killed. And it really follows a series of strikes that the U.S. has conducted in the region in Syria as well to try to deter these groups from attacking U.S. forces again. But clearly, it hasn't worked.

Because as you mentioned, Jim, these Iran-backed militias, they have carried out 64 attacks to date against U.S. and coalition bases in the region. And it has resulted in scores of injuries among U.S. personnel, including more than two dozen traumatic brain injuries. So the question now that the U.S. continues to face is whether its approach is working in terms of striking these Iran-backed groups in an effort to deter them from launching future attacks, in an effort to degrade their infrastructure and their military capabilities. It does not appear like they are backing down at this point.

And the U.S. has, of course, repeatedly warned Iran that it expects Iran to rein in their proxy groups. But clearly, either Iran is not getting the message or these proxy groups are simply continuing their attacks, thinking that they will be unable to be deterred because they still have, of course, these capabilities, Jim.

SANCHEZ: Yes, a serious risk of escalation by these groups in the region.

SCIUTTO: Right, yes.

SANCHEZ: Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for the reporting.

We still have much more on our breaking news ahead. The Israeli government meeting now to consider a hostage deal with Hamas. As fighting continues in northern Gaza, we're going to bring you the latest straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:36]

SCIUTTO: A Hamas official is describing this time as "critical moments." This as the terror group is potentially on the verge, with Israel, of a deal to exchange dozens of survivors kidnapped on October 7th back to Israel. The full Israeli cabinet has been meeting for more than an hour discussing this possible exchange. Of course, Hamas is not doing this for free. They want something in return.

SANCHEZ: And during this delicate period, explosions were felt today in northern Gaza.

We have CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Sderot for us. And, Jeremy, we just learned new details about what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to the full Israeli cabinet, which included saying that the war will continue.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris. As the Israeli Prime Minister made the case to his cabinet at the beginning of this meeting to support this deal that could potentially see 50 hostages freed from Gaza in exchange for a four- to five-day pause in the fighting and also the release of three Palestinian prisoners for every one civilian hostage, the Israeli Prime Minister also making very clear to his cabinet, which includes a lot of right- wing elements, that this war, which is still ongoing, will continue after the pause in the fighting ends.

The Israeli Prime Minister making clear that the war will continue so long - until, rather - until every single Israeli hostage is returned to Israel and until Israel meets its goals to destroy Hamas inside the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Prime Minister is also arguing that this is a difficult decision for the cabinet, but he says that it is the right decision and he said that all of the security establishments in Israel supports this.

He also talked about his conversations in recent days with U.S. President Joe Biden saying that he spoke to President Biden and asked him to help improve the terms of the deal, and Bibi Netanyahu arguing that that was successful and that this deal comes at a lower price than the one that was being contemplated nearly just days ago.

What is also clear is that if the war will continue after this truce is over, then it is also continuing right now. Throughout the day today, we have been hearing explosions. We have seen smoke screens being deployed, indicating very active fighting still ongoing in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

SCIUTTO: Of course, you've been speaking with families as Boris has. Any time you speak to families of hostages, it's just a gutting, difficult, frightful several weeks they've been through now.