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Soon: Israel PM Netanyahu To Speak Amid Rising Tensions In Middle East; Trump To Speak At Black Journalists Convention In Chicago; Harris Heads To Houston Amid Cross-County Swing; Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired July 31, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

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[13:00:39]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Tension and uncertainty in the Middle East now reaching a whole new level after the killing of Hamas political leader in Iran, who is a key figure in ceasefire negotiations with Israel. We are expecting to hear from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just minutes from now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Also this hour, former President Donald Trump set to speak at a convention for black journalists, his appearance in itself sparking controversy. Meantime, Vice President Kamala Harris heading to Texas after a high energy rally in the battleground state of Georgia last night where her campaign attacked Trump on immigration. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar alongside Boris Sanchez and we do begin with major developments in the Middle East and growing fears that chances of an all-out war in the region have dramatically increased. Hamas says its top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed inside of Iran. He was there as a guest of Iran's presidential inauguration and had met earlier in the day with Iran's president.

We're also watching Washington, where any moment now, we expect to hear reaction from both the State Department and the White House. Hamas and Iran are both blaming Israel for killing Haniyeh and both are vowing revenge. Iranian state media says a strike targeted Haniyeh at the location where he was staying in Tehran and he was a key player in Gaza. Ceasefire and hostage negotiations and his death could certainly complicate those talks.

SANCHEZ: It is important to point out so far Israel has not commented on what happened in Tehran. But just hours before that, Israel confirmed it was behind this attack, one that they claim killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, Lebanon, saying this was retaliation for a recent attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed twelve children.

Again, at any minute, we're set to hear from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We will bring you those remarks live. But right now, we want to take you live to Tel Aviv with CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward.

Clarissa, obviously, a lot of anxiety in the region and around the world. Let's take a step back and give us the context of these two incidents coming within 24 hours of each other.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I was just speaking, Boris, to a reservist, Brigadier General Assaf Orion, who said that there's a broad understanding here now that there will be consequences. There will be some kind of an attack in retaliation for these two major assassinations of very senior figures within Hezbollah and Hamas on Lebanese and Iranian soil. He was also pointing out that you could be looking at something quite different in terms of the types of weapons that would be used, particularly with a retaliation from Hezbollah.

They have much more precise weaponry. They have further-range weaponry. So really a number of different options on the table. That is in stark contrast to what you see kind of on the streets here in Israel, where the government has not told people to change their posture.

People are continuing to go about their normal lives, and yet there is a very real understanding that normal life, such as it is, may not continue for that much longer. We do expect to hear from Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He will not be talking live to journalists. He is just providing some kind of a statement, we believe, that should be coming out in the next seven or eight minutes or so. But certainly fair to say that the entire region now, Brianna, and Boris really on a knife edge.

This is a moment where it feels that the brink is so very close and not clear right now what potential off ramps could be given the significance of these two assassinations.

KEILAR: And, Clarissa, this obviously is something that is going to impact these talks. We certainly expect that. Israel certainly must have anticipated that. What was the calculus there and what are the expectations?

[13:05:00]

WARD: Well, for the 115 hostages inside Gaza and for the more than 2 million civilians trapped inside that hell escape, this is potentially a disastrous moment. Those talks, which despite all the setbacks, had been kind of soldiering on, are now very much in jeopardy. We have seen Secretary of State Antony Blinken furiously reaching out to all the different parties who are part of that. But we've also seen the cutaways who really are kind of a linchpin here, saying that they're outraged by this heinous act. And so now the question is, how can you keep the momentum going for those talks? Important for our viewers to understand that Ismael Haniyeh, the leader of the political faction of Hamas, whatever your feelings about him, he was the central interlocutor. And within the context of Hamas, he is seen as something of a moderate.

So the question becomes, who replaces him? Could it potentially be someone like Khaled Mashal? Will he have the same kind of leverage on the table? Will he have the same kind of power as Haniyeh did? Will we see Sinwar take more control over these negotiations? A lot of open questions, and the most sort of pressing of those is do these talks even still continue at this stage, or does everything just stop until there is more clarity around what happened, why it happened, and most pressingly, what the response will be.

KEILAR: All right, Clarissa, stay with us, if you could. Joining the conversation, we have a number of folks here, CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson. We have CNN National Security Analyst And Former Deputy Director Of National Intelligence, Beth Sanner, and also CNN Military Analyst And Retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Beth, to you first. Where does this leave us, this attack, the attack against Hezbollah as well? What does this mean for this moment in this conflict?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST:I think that the way we should look at these twin attacks is that they were both retaliation and also deterrence in its most bold and raw form by Israel. So the way that they struck both in the lair, the very lair of Hezbollah, and in Iran in Tehran, this is aimed, the Iranian strike against Hamas was aimed as much or more against Iran. And if you look back at Netanyahu's speech before the special, the joint session, this is what he said. I mean, he said Iran, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas. And then he hardly talked about hostages at all.

So this really shows the prioritization and the boldness of this also, you know, is designed to really deter that retaliatory response and limit it because they've shown they can go with precision strikes backed by exquisite intelligence, and they can blow up things in the middle of the heartland of these countries.

SANCHEZ: Nic, dovetailing off of Beth's point that this sends a message to Iran. And again, we're set to hear from Netanyahu at any moment. So this may change. But it strikes me that the IDF, Israel would take credit for the attack in Beirut, but they've yet to say anything about the one in Tehran. Why?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And typically they don't. I mean, when they've perpetrated assassinations in Tehran and more broadly across Iran in the past, they don't tend to take credit for it. But no one in the region, I think, is really left than any meaningful doubt about it. And the difficulty for the United States at the moment is that because of that, successful in his own terms visit and speech at Congress by Prime Minister Netanyahu, he's gone back to the region with, in the way it's interpreted in the region as with the imprimatur, if you will, of the United States. These actions come so quickly. And why do I say that?

Because over the weekend after the strike on the go land by Hezbollah, killing those Druze children, a source in the region was asking me what, you know, they were trying to figure out what's going on. What's the United States' real position vis a vis Netanyahu? What are they going to do? What are they going to support? Will they support, you know, increased conflict inside of Lebanon?

They're not asking those questions so strongly today because they think they understand. They think the two countries are keenly aligned on this. Yes, both targets the United States very happy to see removed from the playing field. But I think this makes Secretary of State Antony Blinken's efforts tone things down and all international mediators efforts tone things down get talk started again so woefully hard. And any meaningful progress, I think, on anything before the election, I mean, really, forget it.

[13:10:03]

KEILAR: Yes. You can see that from how he is reacting to this and just demurring from commenting on so much of what we've seen happening here. He doesn't want to weigh in. Cedric, give us your military analysis of the types of strikes that we have seen here. And also just to note that we are being told by state-run media that in the case of the Tehran strike on Haniyeh, it was an airborne guided projectile on his residence where he was staying in the capital city.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Yeah. So what this sounds like, Brianna, is in essence a very precise, as Beth was mentioning, very precise intelligence-based strike using probably drones that came either locally launched, which is possible, or all the way from Israel. Now, that takes a little bit of engineering to do and a lot of connectivity that has to be done in exactly the right way. But it is technically possible for the Israelis to do something like that.

So what they've done in the Iran case with Haniyeh, they have been able to go in and they found out exactly where he was living. They knew what his schedule was. They knew all of those precise details. And the fact that they knew that was, I think, critical in allowing them to execute this plan the way they did.

Then in the case of Beirut, you have a situation with the Hezbollah target. You have a situation where there was clearly retribution. But also, as you mentioned, this goes into that escalatory piece where you have that escalatory ladder that could go one way or the other. And in this particular case, the military options are such that they are warning. We have these capabilities, the Israelis are warning this, but they're waiting for the response from the other side.

SANCHEZ: Colonel, does it surprise you that, at least according to the reporting, Israel didn't notify the United States they were going to go into Tehran this way?

LEIGHTON: Not at all, Boris, because the Israelis want to keep a lot of these types of actions secret. There's always in the intelligence world, Beth, and I know this quite well. There's this concept of plausible deniability, and that is what the Israelis were basically operating. And the reason they do that is they don't want to give the store away. They don't want to tell their secrets if they don't want them to be prevented. In other words, they don't want these operations to be stopped. So they don't tell us about them. And that's one of the reasons that this is key. KEILAR: Let's listen in to the prime minister of Israel.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translator): Dear citizens of Israel, good evening.

From the beginning of the war I clarified, we are in a struggle with Iran axis of evil. Missiles and -- that Iran is trying to put on us. I cited three Iranians, Houthis, Iran, and Hezbollah. We put real hit on them.

We took Mohammed Deif. Two weeks ago, we hit the Houthis. And yesterday, we got Fuad Shukur. And I would like to -- the appreciation for all the defense forces in three different arenas. We managed.

We hit Nasrallah, who was responsible for the murder of kids and citizens. He was responsible, the attacks of Israel throughout the war in the last few months.

The United States put $5 million on his head. He was involved -- he was involved in the murder of American citizens and 85 French soldiers -- the connection to the Iranian missiles arena.

In Majdal Shams, I saw the sorrow of the families. I said to our Druze brothers and sisters, we are brothers. We have covenant. And this is a tight covenant from grief to grief.

The innocent people, in addition to the suffering of the north citizens that are not able to live in their houses, we are not going to be silent.

We'll make everyone pay the price, everyone that murder us, anyone that take our children.

[13:15:05]

Citizens of Israel, these are challenging days. From Beirut, there are threats. We are ready for any scenario. We are prepared. We are going to take high price -- going to exact a high price from each arena.

Citizens of Israel, like the beginning of the war -- the first few days of the war, I asked everyone to have patience. For months, there's no (ph) -- people said to me, finish the war. We exhausted what we could do and we can't win.

I wasn't giving in for these voices. I'm not giving in then and not giving in today. If I was giving in, then we would not -- we will -- we will not get rid of all this infrastructure of Hamas. We won't be part of the -- we won't be take (ph) over the Philadelphi access. And we will not be close to the framework to bring the hostage deal and to -- to return our hostages and to conquer the aims of the war and make sure that Gaza is not going to be threat on (ph) Israel and have quiet in the north and south.

All these achievements in the last few months, we managed because we took brave decisions. And it wasn't easy. I had to make sure not to be under pressure from any (ph) places. And

we managed it because us (ph) -- our war is in the army, and the -- and the defense forces, and they are determined to win. And I back them up, with love, that we believe in our way.

We don't forget for a second the bereaved families, the hostage families that lost the -- the wounded, and those who are trying to rehabilitate their life. Together, we will fight. And with the help of God, we will win.

SANCHEZ: We've been listening to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sending a message not only to leaders in the Middle East, but across the world and to the Israeli population as well, saying that we are facing challenging days, but we are ready for anything, saying anyone that murders us or takes our children will pay. We will extract a high price also, notably asking the Israeli population for patience. There have been many calls for a deal to bring hostages home, but he's essentially saying that the fight will continue.

Also sending a tacit message to the United States, saying that their strategy on the war in Gaza will not bend to any pressure.

KEILAR: Yes. He said, I'm not giving -- I've not been giving in to the voices that say we have exhausted what we can do. And Clarissa, as you've been listening to this, he went through what he ticked off as a list of successes or positions that he says Israel is now in that should be seen as successes. And he said he had to make sure that he has not been under pressure from anyone. He's not naming names there. But what did you think of what you heard?

WARD: Well, definitely a defiant tone. And also, as was expected, he did not address the elephant in the room, which, of course, is the assassination in Tehran of Haniyeh. He was very focused on the so- called Axis of resistance. He says that Israel is engaged in a war against that Axis. Talked about the Houthis, talked about Iran, talked about Hezbollah. He thanked, obviously, the defense forces and talked about the attack on Shukr as retaliation for the children of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. He said, we won't be silent. These are challenging days from Beirut. There are threats, but we are ready.

So acknowledging there the very real possibility, indeed the anticipated possibility that there will be some kind of a retaliation, particularly from Hezbollah, he asked the Israeli people to have payroll patience and he said, to your point, Brianna, you know, people have said to me to finish this war. I wasn't giving up and I won't give in today. We've managed to come this far because we had to make sure not to be any pressure under any pressure from any places.

[13:20:10]

That's seemingly, potentially a reference to the U.S., which has been putting a lot of pressure on Netanyahu to find an exit strategy or an exit ramp to the hostilities as they have now been going on for nearly ten months. But nothing in that speech that indicates what this means for the hostages, what this means for ceasefire and hostage negotiations, and what the broader implications are regionally, given the seriousness of this moment, not just with the assassination of Shukr, which Israel is talking about publicly, but with the looming large possibility of a response from Iran after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

SANCHEZ: Beth, to you, as Clarissa said, he didn't address the elephant in the room, which is a looming Iranian response following this assassination. From Iranian, the Iranian perspective, what do you imagine a response would be? It has to be something to assert themselves in the region, right?

SANNER: Yes. I mean, it could range, you know, from what we saw before, 350 missiles flying in April, right, where the United States played this key role. But I actually, the signals coming out suggest that maybe they don't want to do that. I mean, you have to think about how weak they look, how weak they were perceived by some of their own internal people about how that didn't go as planned. And, you know, so I think that this and this strike inside of Tehran means that there could be more punishment just like that.

So, yes, we're in a new normal where we are now seeing strikes between these states that we never saw before directly on territory. But the UN mission from Iran, the Iranian mission at the UN, did put out a statement saying that they would respond with special operations. And so one of the things I would want our viewers to really know and think about is that the risk of assassination, blowing up an embassy, that kind of terrorism as a response, is ratcheting up, and especially in Europe, where they have much more range of activity.

KEILAR: It's a very scary thought. What does this do to hostage negotiations, Nic?

ROBERTSON: I don't think there will be meaningful hostage negotiations. The source I was speaking to said that this is, the talks are over for now, months away. And I think this is what Prime Minister Netanyahu is very clearly signaling here, that the decisions he has made have been tough. They've not been easy, but he's been right. Look at me. This is what I've done. We've got it right. Trust me. Follow me. As everyone waits to see how in which ways Iran will respond.

And if Beth's assessment is correct that the response won't come raining onto Israel, then that will be a success. But let's also think about the domestic environment. It was just two days ago, I think, that were seeing right-wing politicians and supporters in Israel storming an IDF base because soldiers there were being questioned about the detention of Palestinians and their treatment there. And then they went on to storm a court building, which, by the impression created for Israeli reporters on the ground, the police, to a degree, stood back and stood by.

You're looking at creating the right-wing here, pressuring and creating tensions and divisions already existing in society, but also in the IDF and also in the police service. So Netanyahu's the feat. You know, we think of this as the international stage, but the feet that he stands on at home are also on shaky ground. So, again, this was, you sort of forget what you're seeing at home or

if you think about what you're seeing at home, we're still getting this right. The decisions are right. We're going ahead with this way. And that's what we should understand from this. It's his way.

SANCHEZ: Nic, Beth, Colonel Leighton and Clarissa Ward, thank you all very much.

Minutes from now, former President Donald Trump is set to speak at the National association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. His invitation sparking backlash and infighting among some members of that organization. We're going to take you there for his remarks when we come back.

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[13:28:55]

SANCHEZ: Any moment now, former President Donald Trump is set to appear at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Chicago, and he's expected to take part in a Q and A session at the annual convention, something that sparked major backlash among certain members who have questioned why he's been given this platform.

KEILAR: That's right. Vice President Kamala Harris was also invited, but she will not attend. She is instead heading to Texas for a number of events there. Let's go now to Sara Sidner, who is live in Chicago. Sara, what are you hearing there about former President Trump's appearance?

SARA SIDNER: Well, despite the controversy that you heard about, some members were annoyed with the fact that he was being given a platform. He is the nominee for the Republican Party for the presidential presidency. And if you take a look behind me, its room is packed. So everyone has shown up for this. There are more than a thousand people who are here, and there are still a huge line outside, people wanting to hear this conversation between three black journalists and Donald Trump himself, who is expected here in a short bit. But there has been a lot of back and forth.