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Hostage Release to Begin Tomorrow; Explosions Seen Over Gaza; Christopher O'Leary is Interviewed about the Hostage Release Deal; Biden Personally Engaged in Hostage Negotiations; Abbey Onn is Interviewed about Family Held Hostage. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 22, 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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[09:00:38]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: There is now a date and time certain of when the Israeli hostage deal should be set into motion. Israel and Hamas, hours from now, agrees to hit pause in order to get hostages out. We're going to speak to one of the families now holding their collective breath while waiting for word on their loved ones.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Top U.S. officials have been working furiously for weeks to secure this truce as ten Americans remain unaccounted for. President Biden is calling the deal a, quote, testament to tireless diplomacy.

BOLDUAN: Storms are hitting major travel hubs along the East Coast today. Already this morning we're seeing long lines at airports as Thanksgiving travel really is kicking into high gear. What it means for you and this Thanksgiving holiday.

I'm Kate Bolduan, with Omar Jimenez. John and Sara are off today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Eighteen hours from now a truce between Israel and Hamas is expected to begin. And with that truce, a pause in fighting and a significant number of hostages who have now been held in Gaza for nearly 50 days are expected to be released. It also marks the first major de- escalation, if you want to call it, in this war since the Hamas terror attacks started it all on October 7th.

Here's more on this deal.

Hamas will release 50 women and children held captive in Gaza. In return, Hamas says 150 Palestinian prisoners currently in Israeli jails will be released.

And with this, fighting will pause for four days. With the pause, hundreds more aid trucks with food, medical supplies and fuel will head into Gaza.

JIMENEZ: And right now we don't know which hostages will be freed, but President Biden says the deal should bring home Americans. And before the truce begins tomorrow morning, the IDF says it's

continuing to target Hamas infrastructure. Just moments ago this was the scene over northern Gaza. You see the huge smoke plumes there.

We've got team coverage standing by in Israel. CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins leads us off.

Kaitlan, I mean what an incredibly important morning coming where you are over, of course, the next 18 hours.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And we are counting down the hours until this is slated to begin.

What we are hearing now - and this is just preliminary information, of course. It remains to be seen if it shifts or changes or slides over the next few hours, though, Omar and Kate, is that at 10:00 a.m. local tomorrow is when this is set to begin. That's about 3:00 a.m. Eastern. And what we are hearing is going to happen then is that is when the hostages will start being released and that is when the fighting is slated to stop. Right now it has not stopped. So far we are told it has continued, but everyone is looking ahead until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

And then the question from there is logistically, what does this look like as these hostages do start being released because what we've heard so far is that ten hostages per day is how this would start. It's expected to go over the next four to five days is what has been agreed to so far.

And what I have been told by a senior Israeli official is that the time for the facilitation of the release of those hostages is slated to go from about 10:00 a.m. local to about 4:00 p.m. local. You can see it's 4:00 p.m. local here behind me. The sun is starting to set. That's when it starts to get dark here. And so that's a question of whether or not that's a factor into that time window that they have provided of when those hostages could be released.

A big question, of course, is still which hostages are going to be released. We know that we've heard from families here on the ground. They've been telling Clarissa Ward that they have not heard anything from the government. At least some of them have. They have said that they've instead been learning a lot about this deal from the media.

And the other thing that I've heard from Israeli officials is that this pause is potentially prepared to go on for ten days. That's an option that we have heard. But there's deep skepticism from Israeli officials that it would actually go on for that long.

What the prime minister here, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said is that for every additional ten hostages that are released by Hamas outside that initial group of 50, there would be another day in the pause in the fighting. And so that really remains to be seen of what exactly that looks like.

Of course, Omar and Kate, you still see the fighting continue here. We have seen rocket fire happening in Gaza throughout the day already. You can see the smoke and the images that we have.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is also tracking all of this.

Oren Liebermann, you are here in Tel Aviv with us.

[09:05:02]

We are also now learning about another Israeli believed to have been hostage but we have now learned has actually been found killed. What are we learning about that?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We don't have too many details at this point yet, but the IDF confirmed that Shani Gabi (ph), who was one of those who was presumed to have been a hostage in Gaza ever since October 7th, has been confirmed dead. Now, she joins the names of two others the IDF has confirmed were found dead inside of Gaza, 65-year-old grandmother Yehudit Weiss, and 19-year-old Corporal Noa Marciano. So, this would be the third - or first, rather, presumed hostage who was confirmed dead by the IDF. Still waiting for more details in terms of how they came about this information and whether this was inside of Gaza and, if so, if her body has been recovered.

Of course, these are critical and very difficult moments for the families who are waiting for news of their loved ones to find out if they're on that first batch of 50. And this is why many have said that even now, as they know a hostage release deal has been put into place, there are still very anxious, nervous and worried moments about whether - whether it mean their loved ones are coming out or whether it's more waiting and what happens from here.

Again that -- as you pointed out, that hostage deal, and the pause in fighting set to take place at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. Not a surprise. We're still seeing fighting. We have seen in multiple previous rounds of fighting that the continued fighting goes up until the pause goes into effect. So, even if there is rocket launches or Israeli strikes until 9:50, the critical moment is 10:00 tomorrow morning that we're watching. Fighting before that does not mean in any way that this has fallen apart.

COLLINS: And then from there, Oren, I mean, once that begins - and we're waiting to see if 10:00 a.m. is that hard and fast time. That means there will be no hostilities, no fighting whatsoever as this facilitation of the release of these hostages is happening, is that right?

LIEBERMANN: Correct. Almost bizarre to think that there will be thousands of Israeli troops in Gaza who simply take up defensive positions. We have been into Gaza and gotten the sense of the amount of forces Israel has put there. And that includes not only the fighting forces, but also all of the logistics to support the tremendous number of forces in Gaza. They will simply take up defensive positions and wait for the pause in the fighting to end, initially scheduled now for four days. But if Hamas keeps releasing Israeli hostages, then the pause could be even longer and the Israeli troops will simply wait there. Now, over the course of the past weeks now, Israel has had

surveillance drones flying over Gaza as a way of monitoring not only their own troops but threats to their own troops. Those will stop flying over northern Gaza for six-hour periods. And that too will - will essentially rob Israel of one of its critical assets during a pause in the fighting. But that's what they've agreed to, to secure the release of Israeli hostages.

Now, of course, it's then a question of when - when does the pause in fighting end and what does that look like? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war - the war very much continues as Israel tries to continue destroying Hamas.

COLLINS: Oren Liebermann, thank you.

And, Kate, I will say, you know, I just spoke to the former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett. He was saying that he kind of used this - and he wasn't critical at all. He said he made sure he was not going to criticize Israel. But he kind of viewed this - this pause as kind of allowing Hamas time to regroup. He compared it to, you know, being in a - in a fight with your opponent. And once you've knocked them down, giving them the time to get back up. So, some concerns here in Israel certainly among former officials about what that pause could allow, what it could mean for Hamas when it comes, tactically speaking, in terms of fighting.

BOLDUAN: Right. And on balance with the benefit of getting hostages out adding to the complicated nature of what is, at its core, complicated when you're trying to reach an agreement with a terrorist organization and Hamas.

Kaitlan, we're going to get back to you. Thank you so much for being there.

Joining us now to talk really about exactly what Kaitlan's mentioning here is Chris O'Leary. He's the former director of hostage recovery for the U.S. government, currently a senior vice president for global operations for the Soufan Group.

It's good to see you, Chris.

Coming -- take the deal and the agreement just first kind of on its face and the details that we're learning of it. Coming from your background, what do you think of this agreement, this deal?

CHRISTOPHER O'LEARY, SENIOR VP FOR GLOBAL OPERATIONS, SOUFAN GROUP: So, it's a success, but people shouldn't be high-fiving each other quite yet. It's 50 hostages that are not released yet. And as you just highlighted, your partner in this negotiation is a terrorist organization that just massacred 1,200 Israeli citizens a month and a half ago.

Hamas is using this for tactical delay on their part. They're not doing this for humanitarian reasons. They're not doing it for any other reason because this is an asymmetric war and this gives them leverage to drag things out. And hopefully, for their point, erode international and domestic support for Israel's continued military operation in Gaza.

BOLDUAN: Do you think Hamas benefits the most from this deal? It's -- I say that with - you know, it's hard to - you're balancing, like, the life of children and other hostages who are getting out. But in terms of tactically, as Kaitlan was getting at, do you see that Hamas benefits greatly from this deal?

[09:10:02]

O'LEARY: Absolutely. I mean that's -- terrorist organizations take hostages because it gives them power and leverage. Israel is a superior force in so many ways. This gives them the opportunity to drag things out and hopefully survive. This -- the first 50, this is almost an ominous sign. It's great for those victims --

BOLDUAN: An ominous sign? Tell me.

O'LEARY: Yes. It's great for the victims that are being released. Every life matters. And for their families. But for the IDF soldiers, this is indicative of how difficult it's going to be to get them out. If it took this long to get 50 women and children out, only imagine how difficult it's going to be to release uniformed IDF soldiers. It could take years.

BOLDUAN: Years? So, a successful agreement, pause, truce, and hostage release does not necessarily beget that it's going to get any easier from here?

O'LEARY: It is not. And that's why Israel likely - and I am quite confident -- has a parallel line of effort to continue to eliminate the network, try to find where the captors are, find out who has been holding hostages, where their possible locations are, and seek military options in the future for hostage recovery.

BOLDUAN: What - that's -- one thing that we have that Hamas has said in terms of the negotiations is they don't know exactly where all the hostages are being held. We know that there are various groups linked with Hamas that are even criminal, just like criminal gangs in Gaza that are holding some of the hostages. What does that mean for any effort, if you're talking about a hostage rescue operation versus one of these agreements? What does that mean for them?

O'LEARY: So, it would be ideal if all the hostages were located together and if it was in a location that Israel could fully understand the pattern of life of the guards, you know, what the defenses were. In hostage rescue you want to know the details - the granular details of the structure of the building, which way the doors open, inward or outward. And you rehearse that before you do it because hostage rescue is like no other counterterrorism raid or anything else.

BOLDUAN: And maybe some information you could - you could get from the hostages who are released, though complicated, you're talking -- some of them are babies.

O'LEARY: So, that will happen. The first thing that will happen - and I've worked with Israel and it's kind of a standard that the U.S. has, and I know Israel has it as well. Their medical condition will be addressed first. Then their psychological condition will be assessed. Once they are ready, they will be debriefed. But children will be debriefed as well because every little detail will matter and it will help shape up that intelligence picture. And they will have victim services, people with the, you know, the shinbet (ph) agents who are doing the interviews.

BOLDUAN: And in all of this, you know, families of 240 plus hostages all collectively holding their breath to see who actually is released and what this all means and how they are when they get out.

Chris, it's good to have you here. Thank you.

O'LEARY: Good to be here.

BOLDUAN: Thanks.

JIMENEZ: Now, coming up for us, as families wait to hear if their loved ones will be among the 50 hostages released tomorrow, we're going to speak to a woman whose three family members, including a 12- year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th.

Also breaking overnight, the ousted CEO of OpenAI is back just days after being fired by the company's board. The wild turn of events that put him back in charge.

And it's a potentially record-breaking day for holiday travel, but severe storms across the U.S. could make that complicated. What to look out for, next.

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[09:17:48]

JIMENEZ: This morning we're learning much more about how the deal to secure the release of 50 of the hostages being held by Hamas right now came together. It involved weeks of painstaking negotiations between Israel, the U.S., Qatar, Hamas. The White House saying President Biden has been personally engaged in the negotiation process as well. The effort began just days after the October 7th terror attacks by Hamas.

CNN's senior White House correspondent MJ Lee joins us now.

So, MJ, you've got some really interesting info on just how involved President Biden and top administration officials were in getting to this point. What have you learned?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Omar, we have a much clearer picture now of the weeks and weeks of intensive negotiations that went on behind the scenes that really got us to this point. What we have learned is that very soon after October 7th, basically a top-secret channel of communication was established between a small group of White House officials and Israeli and Qatari officials so that they could focus on the hostage negotiations and negotiate essentially with Hamas.

Last month you saw the two American citizens that were released. This was Judith and Natalie Raanan, when that was successfully executed. We are told it sent a signal to U.S. officials that there was at least a proven and effective way of getting at least some of the hostages out. And that is when they began and set out to try to get a larger group of hostages out.

But as our reporting has shown, they faced an incredible amount of just challenges and complications in trying to negotiate with Hamas. We learned, for example, that for weeks and weeks Hamas simply refused to offer any identifying information about the hostages, their age, their gender, their nationality. And that ended up becoming a major sticking point. So much so that at one point the parties felt like they were pretty close to a deal and U.S. and Israeli officials even discussed whether Israel should delay its ground operations, but they decided not to do that because even at that point they didn't have any identifying information about the hostages. So, of course, Israel continued on with its ground invasion on October 27th.

[09:20:01]

And then, just in recent days, we are told, Hamas actually went dark for a little bit. They were just completely unresponsive to overtures. And when they finally resurfaced, they expressed, I guess, their displeasure about the Israeli raid into al-Shifa Hospital, demanded that the IDF leave the grounds of the hospital. This, of course, didn't happen. But the talks did eventually resume.

So, this just goes to show you how intensive and sort of touch and go these talks have been. And this is not including, of course, the many, many conversations that took place behind closed doors between President Biden, but also some of his other top officials as well, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Brett McGurk, who was sort of delegated to take lead on this issue, CIA Director Bill Burns was also intimately involved. Some of these phone calls, we're actually told, were so sensitive at the time that we didn't even get a readout of those calls in real time.

So, I think we are beginning to see a better picture of why all along, all throughout this process, officials have been so emphatic that they really just were not even willing to get their hopes up because they did think that things could break down at any moment.

JIMENEZ: And it gives you the sense of just how many pieces were involved here. Even just on the U.S. Side, before you even get to the multiple countries here.

LEE: Yes.

JIMENEZ: MJ Lee, thank you so much, as always.

BOLDUAN: So many families are holding their collective breath right now to see if their loved ones are among those who will be released, especially families of the youngest victims here, the 30 plus children believed kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas. Among them is three- year-old Abigail Edan, the youngest American hostage. Her great aunt and cousin spoke to "CNN THIS MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH HIRSH NAFTALI, GREAT AUNT OF THREE-YEAR-OLD HAMAS HOSTAGE ABIGAIL MOR EDAN: Abigail is like a symbol of this. We talk about it. It's easy - it's so easy to understand what a three-year-old - they're little - and what she has been enduring and the life. And there's 230 more that are all different ages. There's a nine-month-old child that turned ten months. There are so many children.

NOA NAFTALI, COUSIN OF THREE-YEAR-OLD HAMAS HOSTAGE ABIGAIL MOR EDAN: There are women and men in their 80s. These are our grandparents. These are our aunts and uncles. These are our parents. These are our children. And we need them back with their family after everything we've gone through.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: There are so many other children being held hostage as well, including -- look at these faces on your screen right now -- 12-year- old Erez, his sister, 16-year-old Sahar, and their father, Ofer Kalderon, are also being held by Hamas in Gaza right now. They are family of Abbey Onn, and she joins us now from Israel.

Abbey, thank you for being here.

ABBEY ONN, AMERICAN IN ISRAEL, THREE RELATIVES HELD HOSTAGE BY HAMAS: Thank you for having me.

BOLDUAN: What does this moment feel like for you, hope, fear, something in between?

ONN: All of it. It's really complex because as - as Liz and Noa were saying in that segment, we want everyone home, right? We have - in just my family, two of them that would be considered in this deal, but Ofer wouldn't. But I think the thing that we all agree on is that children are not part of war. And so if there is a deal where they can bring the babies and the children home, then it gives us hope.

BOLDUAN: And your family is dealing with so much. I mean two of your family members were murdered, Carmela Dan and Noya Dan. We've - we've sadly reported on their bodies being found previously.

Three - and now we've got three of your family members kidnapped by Hamas. And I heard you talk about just the situation that your family has found itself in as everyone's greatest nightmare.

ONN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: How has this nightmare evolved over the last seven weeks since this terror attack?

ONN: I think there's the kind of personal trauma, but there's also the communal and national trauma. I don't know one person that this hasn't touched, whether if it's my babysitter who survived, Nova (ph), whether it's one of my friends who was shot in Gaza last week and is recovering right now. And it turned our lives upside down. I barely work. This is a full-time, 24/7 job where you're not eating, you're not sleeping. This is what you think about if your eyes close at night and when you wake up in the morning. And it's all consuming. It is something that we are not processing, we're just living through until every one of these hostages are home and our soldiers are safe.

BOLDUAN: I mean we are talking, in terms of your family, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. I mean the trauma here is something that none of us can imagine. I mean have you considered - well, first and foremost, what you want to say, what you will do if and when you get to see them and they are - and they are released hopefully in this first group?

ONN: Look, I think the trauma will be immense. The first thing that I can hope for them, after the medical attention, is just to be with their mother, right?

[09:25:01]

It's what I would want if this was my son who is 12. I would want him in my arms and I would want to know that he's safe. And so that is what I wish for Hadas, for my cousin. And, beyond that, you know, one day down the road, my deep belief is that our children will play together and that there will be lightness and that this will be something that we experienced and not something that we continue to experience. But I think that they just need the feeling of safety and security right now.

BOLDUAN: And have you considered what it will be like and feel like if - if one of them, but not all of them, in terms of your family, is released?

ONN: Yes. Look, I think we are dealing with a terror organization and I think that that's a great possibility, right? That - that would bring us even more terror, that one of them comes out instead of two or three of them. And, at the same time, I'm holding in my heart the families whose hostages are not children and know that they will most likely not be on this list.

So, you asked me in the beginning how I feel. My heart is heavy and it's hopeful. And I think every single person that gets released is a reason for us to rejoice. I truly hope my family is among them. But I will be happy for every single person that gets to see one of their family members.

BOLDUAN: This agreement -- you talked about how complex this whole thing is. The agreement also, I'm sure, brings up complex feelings as well. The idea that, you know, 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel will be released as part of this. And if it also means an opportunity for Hamas, this terrorist organization, to be given time to regroup and reset in the pause -

ONN: Right.

BOLDUAN: How do you feel about that possibility? ONN: I feel torn about it, honestly, because our hostages are innocent

civilians. And so to know that we have to trade them for people that have endangered Israelis is hard to know that Hamas has time to regroup knowing that they want to recommit October 7th over and over again and knowing that our soldiers, many of whom are my friends and my neighbors, would be put even more in harm's way, it's extremely complex. But I believe that it is the government of Israel's first responsibility to protect its citizens. And that didn't happen on October 7th. And so they need to bring them home now. And so that remains our first priority.

BOLDUAN: Is there an element of disbelief kind of in this moment as you're kind of in this like inter-world of 18 hours to go before you may --

ONN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- find out news?

ONN: Yes, it feels like you're waiting for something that you have been wishing for every second of every minute of every day for 47 days. And at the same time, they're the longest hours we're - we're ever experiencing in our lives.

BOLDUAN: Abbey, thank you for coming on. We hold your family in our hearts and -

ONN: Thank you. Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: We'll see what happens - we will see what comes in the next day. Thank you so much.

ONN: Thanks.

JIMENEZ: And even as so many families, like hers, deal with the reality here, we're following so many headlines stemming from this new deal, including new U.S. intel suggesting the Russian mercenary group - Russian mercenary Wagner Group is preparing to provide air defense capability to Hezbollah or Iran. So, what this would mean for the Israeli/Hamas war. We'll discuss, next.

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