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CNN International: Hamas Claims to Have Taken More Israeli Hostages Sunday; IDF Says It Is Fighting Hamas on the Ground in Israel; Desperate Search for Hostages Taken By Hamas. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 09, 2023 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is. CNN breaking news.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster joining you live from London. We're continuing our coverage of breaking news out of the Middle East, where Israeli troops are still fighting against Hamas on the ground inside Israel. Two days after the militant groups large scale surprise attack.

NOBILO: The Israeli military is also keeping up strikes on Gaza. And it says it has severely degraded the capabilities of Hamas. Palestinians in that area, say more than 430 people have been killed since the Israeli strikes began.

FOSTER: Meanwhile, Hamas is claiming to have launched a major missile attack on the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, with Israel saying an apartment building was hit. This comes as the militant group claims to now be holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli officers.

NOBILO: The death toll from Hamas's attack has climbed past 700 inside Israel. At least 260 were killed at a music festival near the Israel Gaza border. Journalist Elliot Gotkine is following these developments and joins us now. Elliot, there's so much to stay on top of, but there has been a lot of discussion about these hostages. We've been hearing the harrowing stories from their family members on our air. How much will that impact Israel's retaliation?

ELLIOT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: It certainly complicates matters, doesn't it? Because if there weren't hostages, I think you would probably already have seen the start of some kind of ground incursion by the Israelis to just try to completely devastate, in their words, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the other militant group there in the Gaza Strip.

But because of these hostages and because presumably they are spread out across the strip, how do you deal with that? Do you just go in with all guns blazing and never mind the fact that there's the danger, of course, for booby trapped roads, improvised explosive devices and further -- further, you know, Israeli soldiers being taken captive in addition to the soldiers and the civilians that are already being held by Hamas. Or do you stay back? And of course. There's also, I suppose, a demand for a response, a strong response from the Israeli public, which is completely shocked. This came out completely out of the blue.

And just to put this into context, we're talking about a death toll now, what -- of 700 so far, and that could climb further. And this is already round about the number of fatalities that Israel suffered during the six-day war in 1967. It's about quarter of the deaths that Israel suffered in the Yom Kippur War almost 50 years ago to the day. Everyone is completely shocked. They do not understand how this could have happened. And of course there's also the element of deterrence. You know, Israel's Armed Forces were seen to be not infallible, but certainly among, if not the strongest in the region. And something on the for something on this scale to have happened will be incredibly troubling. There are a huge number of questions to be answered.

For now, though, Israel very much focused on clearing up what's happening inside of Israel and it comes with the attacks that are still ongoing and the gun fights that are still ongoing and then going more on the offensive inside the Gaza Strip.

FOSTER: This probably got the biggest intelligence services in the region as well, hasn't it? Based on that and the massive failure, there is a distrust that they've got the intelligence to know where to go, if they did go inside Gaza to try to help the hostages.

GOTKINE: I think that Israel security services as we, you know, they're not perfect. They're not -- they're not infallible. And clearly there was whether they took their eye off the ball or whether they just didn't have the intelligence, there are some reports --

FOSTER: Or they didn't read the intelligence correctly.

GOTKINE: -- or they were duped and there are certainly reports out there -- Reuters posting a -- publishing a report citing a Hamas source talking about the how this was planned out for over the long term to try to dupe the Israelis into thinking that economic benefits, more work permits, for example, for Gazans to go work inside of Israel, but that would keep the peace.

Clearly, that wasn't the case. And this isn't a mistake Israel will again in future. But for now they are just trying to deal with this unprecedented attack, with the fallout, to try to get rid of the militants, to wipe them out inside -- the ones that are still inside of Israel, and the gunfights that are still ongoing in a number of places. And as I say, and then to really go on the offensive, more so inside the Gaza Strip. But as we've just been discussing.

That is an incredibly complicated undertaking at the best of times. The fact that there are, at the very least, dozens of hostages, Israel hostages being held by militants inside the Gaza Strip just makes this even more complicated.

NOBILO: And it will -- is of course, so densely populated and territory that Hamas knows so well. Elliot Gotkine, thank you so much for joining us.

FOSTER: One of the first attacks by Gaza militants on Saturday was a music festival in Israel. Hamas gunmen stormed the area, took civilians hostage and shot some of them at point blank range. The attack was captured on video. Which we want to warn you is -- you know, it's very hard to watch, isn't it? Dash Cam footage recovered from a car at the festival shows this man pointing his machine gun at a person before leading them away.

[04:05:04]

CNN has geolocated the video and confirmed its authenticity.

This next video shows gunman looting something off the body of a person lying behind a car. The videos also show what appears to be a militant shooting that person whilst they're still on the ground. We're not obviously airing that portion.

NOBILO: CNN's Clarissa Ward visited the festival site and filed this report. And we caution you again that the images of the aftermath that we're about to show you are, of course, graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What happened just off this quiet border road was a massacre. The bodies of the perpetrators still remain, while the fate of many victims is unknown.

Organizers of the Supernova Music Festival say that thousands of young revelers had gathered to celebrate the end of the holidays. Just after 6:00 a.m. Hamas militants launched a bloody attack.

WARD: So we're just now on the approach to the kibbutz where that dance party was taking place. You can see there's vehicles all around here that have been shot up. We see the bodies of at least 1-2 Hamas fighters. I think there are more down this way.

WARD (voice-over): Many of the victims spent hours in hiding. Waiting to be rescued and calling their loved ones.

WARD: Many of them are still missing. Many of them are dead. It's been very difficult to try to get a precise number.

WARD (voice-over): Now, a volunteer group that handles human remains says that at least 260 bodies have been found at the festival site. The government here took a bold step, releasing an image of scores of body bags in a tent where investigators were tasked with identifying them.

WARD: So you can see over here the body of at least one other person. I don't think you want to get too close to it. It's pretty graphic.

WARD (voice-over): Active fighting continued along this stretch of the border throughout the day as Israeli military forces poured in. WARD: So we're seeing a bunch of tanks being brought down this way.

You can also be hearing a steady stream of booms, apparently rockets landing in the distance in that direction. And certainly a feeling that people are on high alert. We tried to push further down that way, we were told in no uncertain terms we needed to turn around.

WARD (voice-over): Clarissa Ward, CNN, Re'im, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Joining us from Tel Aviv, Israeli Colonel Miri Eisin, she's director of international -- the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichman University. She's also a Colonel in the Israeli Reserves. Thank you so much indeed for joining us today.

We are talking about the intelligence failures today, and I realize that the authorities are saying this isn't the right time to focus on that. It's something to consider further down the line. But there are obviously people within Israel who we've been speaking to very concerned how the country was completely caught off guard by this. And what's your analysis of what happened and what we can draw from what was clearly a big failure?

COL. (RES) MIRI EISIN, DIRECTOR INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR COUNTER- TERRORISM, REICHMAN UNIVERSITY: The issue at stake and in that sense it's both me as an Israeli, and I'll remind you, I'm not just a Colonel, I'm not just sitting in Tel Aviv, I'm also Israeli. I'm a mother and I have three children serving, my husband serving. So we ae in the middle of it, and that's one of the reasons we find it very difficult to address what's going on.

As somebody who now comes as a professional and from the Institute and as we look at it. What we're talking about is a colossal failure, but it is overwhelmingly a failure on two different levels of our own understanding of where Hamas was going. And I was listening before to what other expert was talking about. We actually thought, and we made an enormous mistake that Hamas was becoming more, -- oh my God, I can't believe I even think of it -- humane towards its own people. What we've seen in the last 48 hours has jerked us out of our dream stage.

So that's about a concept where you actually believe that when people are humane that when you go forward and different things that it changes where they're going to. Most definitely we were wrong.

The second aspect in that sense, is an overall one of deterrence. Where you think that you are deterring a force and you're not. And it's a combined intelligence strategic type of failure. One of the reasons that we're not really willing to talk about it as of yet, is that we're still in it. We will still deter Hamas and we right now have Hezbollah breathing down our neck on the northern border and we're still within an arena where Hezbollah is telling everybody that they'll choose the time to join in.

And that's not where we are. We are the State of Israel and our capabilities are there. One of the biggest challenges is that when you do this response right now, in this overall horrific surprise attack, it isn't over immediately.

[04:10:04]

We're 48 hours in, it's going to take 72 hours. We will prevail. But in that time period there are other forces here in the Middle East. Certainly, Hezbollah, all of the different backing beyond that, that may act. And if we talk about the intelligence failure, that will be food for them that I'm not willing to give right now.

NOBILO: The IDF are necessarily being circumspect when it comes to any potential plans for a ground incursion. But what do you think are and should be the IDF's priorities today and over the next few days?

EISIN: Well, the IDF first and foremost has to stabilize the situation inside Israel. Words I never really thought that I'd be saying on air to CNN, even if the scenarios existed. We saw them more as coming from the north. We now need to stabilize. And we understand and we know how to move forward.

The next stage will be some kind of ground incursion into the Gaza Strip. As we all understand, there are dozens, hundreds -- nobody knows the exact number -- of Israeli citizens, of children, of a six- month baby, of a three-year old, of an 85-year-old grandmother, of soldiers, of all sorts who are being held both by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Not that they've really put out any real pictures about how they're doing. What they're trying to do is to taunt us in the most barbaric manner.

I'm very appalled that you even call them militants. I think we're allowed to call them terrorists. Am I allowed to be cynical on the air? The barbaric actions of just killing endless families, not just at the party that you showed before, but in dozens of Israeli communities inside Israel, people waking up.

So in an incursion it's going in, in both conquering and then trying to eliminate as much of the terrorist group Hamas that we can. You cannot do that just from the air. It means going in. Going in is the worst type of military operation there is. It's both 2.2 million people and I acknowledge there are people there and within them are 10s of thousands of murderous terrorists. Who some of them came into Israel over the last 48 hours. Not all of them. And in that sense, it's to go in. It's to clean that out. It's to try and get to the hostages. It's to try to do so in a way that we can continue as the state of Israel tomorrow morning too, as an idea, not tomorrow, figurative in our exact sense.

FOSTER: Miri Eisin really, really appreciate your thoughts and insight on that today. Thank you.

EISIN: Thank you all.

NOBILO: Israeli festival goers, soldiers and even children have been captured by Hamas during its attack on Israel. Just ahead we'll speak with a woman desperately looking for her daughter.

[04:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Hamas says it's holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli officers. Families of those captives say they're desperate and are pleading for their safe return. Becky Anderson spoke with some of them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR (voiceover): The unspeakable anguish of a father, describing the moment he saw a video posted on social media of his daughter pleading for her life.

It was Noah, frightened and threatened, he says.

ANDERSON: I'm so sorry.

YAKOV ARGAMANI, FATHER OF KIDNAPPED DAUGHTER: It's OK.

ANDERSON: I'm so, so sorry.

ARGAMANI: Thank you. It's OK.

ANDERSON: I'm so sorry.

ANDERSON (voiceover): You don't want to believe it, even though you can clearly see it's your daughter. He now wants this video to be seen widely.

25-year-old Noah Argamani seen here on the back of a motorcycle being driven away. Her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, is seen here with two men holding his hands behind his back. A dark plume of smoke can be seen in the background. They'd been among the more than 1,000 people partying at an all-night music festival in Southern Israel near the Gaza border when it was raided by armed mass militants early on Saturday morning.

Her father says Noah and Avinatan were kidnapped. Their whereabouts unknown. They're assumed to be held in Gaza.

I'm so sad at this moment. She's my only daughter.

And Yakov's pain mirrored by so many others, parents, family members, wives, husbands, filled with horror and despair thinking about the fate of their loved ones.

In this video that's been circulating widely online, a woman is seen in the back of the truck as a militant puts a scarf over her head. CNN has not been able to independently verify it.

But Yoni Asher, a resident of the Sharon Region told CNN his wife and two daughters, age five and three, were visiting their grandmother near the Gaza border. He lost contact with them on Saturday morning and suspected they may have been abducted. Later that day, his suspicions confirmed when he saw the video. The woman was his wife. He told CNN he wants the video to be shown in the hopes of getting them home safely.

YONI ASHER, WIFE AND TWO DAUGHTERS TAKEN HOSTAGE BY HAMAS MILITANTS: There was no doubt in my mind I recognized them surely. My wife, my two daughters, my two little daughters that were on this cart. So, I know for sure that they were taken.

ANDERSON (voiceover): The Israel Defense Forces told CNN it's taking pains to establish the exact number of hostages taken, emphasizing the complicated nature of the situation. So far, they estimate there are dozens, possibly more, in captivity.

Yakov has a message to whoever is holding his daughter.

You have casualties, just like we do. This is an opportunity to connect between the two nations, to reach an honest peace.

[04:20:00]

For now, Yakov sits at home and waits for news, taking comfort from his family and Noah's friends.

She is a very special kid, so loving, so giving. I miss her so much. It's only been two and a half days. I cannot believe she is gone, he says. She made this house so alive. I feel like this house is empty without her.

Becky Anderson, CNN, Tel Aviv.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Joining us now live is a Ahuva Mayzel. Her 21-year-old daughter was kidnapped by Hamas militants on Saturday. Thank you so much for being with us. I honestly don't know what to say or how you're even functioning minute to minute here. Have you heard anything else about your daughter and her well-being?

AHUVA MAYZEL, DAUGHTER TAKEN HOSTAGE BY HAMAS MILITANTS: Not yet. I haven't heard anything yet since last Saturday at 7:40 a.m. She called me. She was in her car with her best friend that she went to this party with. And we received -- since then we received so many messages and calls. And things that really, I heard what the previous interview. This father, there is no words to me can describe -- that I can describe what I feel right now. There are no words because it's non human to do such things and to cope with such things.

I can tell you that whole settlements are vanished in the South. It's a situation which in at least I think, I think thousands of armed terrorists came in Israel, came through the South to in inside Israel and started to massacre people, unarmed people, civilians, unarmed people, youth, children, babies, elderly, all people, sick people. They took almost 100 and 200 people kept -- they took it in captivity. I think I'm ashamed to be called human.

I'm a mother who has -- who is looking for her daughter. She's missing. I think I believe she's hurt. She's bleeding somewhere. And like me, there are more hundreds families that are looking for their beloved. My daughter is 25 -- 21-years-old. She's a great kid, a beautiful kid. She wasn't supposed -- I don't know what happened to her. I don't know if she's alive, if she's dead. If she's somewhere bleeding and no one can help her. She's alone.

You know this is really something that I cannot describe for me. I'm just in a robot mode and I'm trying to find my daughter and I'm doing this because if she hears me or see me. I want her to know that she's not alone and we are all trying to find and rescue everyone that is still in the field, but it's still a battlefield. So I cannot go there and look for her.

OK. Only this morning, two terrorist armed terrorists got in a house, a private house, home of a family, and they murdered two parents and 10-year-old boy. I mean, is this human? Is this human to call me now because they see all my, my, my phone number all over and they're calling me like Hamas in Arabic and they tell me that my daughter is with them and I hear screams. Screaming all over in the background.

I don't know. I don't know which creature can do this. I don't know who can get in civilian area where is nobody armed? There are 3,000 kids, kids, youth in this party. They surrounded them and they just -- they shot them like they were ducks. OK. And I have nothing I can tell. I can I have no words to describe what we feel.

FOSTER: Of course, and I think the world, everyone watching this, their hearts will be going out to you. I mean, it's unimaginable, as Bianca was saying. If your suspicions are right, that if.

[04:25:00]

MAYZEL: Yeah, how can it be? How can it be that in 2023 this horror and the mind cannot accept this. The human mind cannot accept these actions.

FOSTER: What -- there might be a chance, obviously, that they're --

MAYZEL: I don't what --

FOSTER: -- you know, if your suspicions are right and that she's been taken hostage, there might be a chance that people involved in that are watching this program. I mean, what would you say to them?

MAYZEL: I want you to know that I'm not a politician. I have no interest in nothing beside my daughter. And as me there are hundreds of families. OK. There are many lessons that we should take from this thing. It took us -- it took us by surprise. Completely surprised. Maybe there are mistakes. Probably mistakes on every level. OK.

But I'm not -- I don't want to deal with this now. It's not mine to deal with. I'm a mother who's looking for her daughter. Every minute that passes by the chance to find her alive, you know, are reducing. And there's nothing, nothing anyone can do. So I'm asking you if you have my daughter. OK. I'm asking you to remember what it's like to be human. We are not animals. You can think, you can regret. You can fix what you did. You have to bring back everyone who is not armed. Who's a civilian. All people, sick people, children, babies and women. You are not going to accomplish what you wanted to accomplish by this

way. Violence will get you nowhere. Nowhere, and what you are going to cause is that on your side there will be so many mothers like me that will tell you the same thing. I'm a mother. I want to protect my kids. That's all I want to do -- and I'm sure that all mothers in the other side, in Gaza, in everywhere that they are not me, are thinking the same thing. Please, Please remember we are human. We are people. Where we have the same DNA. Please, please, please release those people. They did nothing to you.

Please, I'm asking you if my daughter sees this. If you see this at least, at least, Maadi, please remember that you are not alone and everyone is trying to do everything to save you and rescue. You or whatever remains from you, OK? This is all I wanted to say. Please politician international conflict, international relations please put all of this aside. We are human beings, everybody, all of us, we are human beings. We are the same. We want the same. Please, please if you have them. If you capture them, please release them, please.

NOBILO: Ahuva Mayzel, I know nothing --

MAYZEL: If anyone has any information about my daughter, please call me and tell me she's OK, please. And please don't send anyone to call me in Arab to talk to me in Arabic and to tell me that my daughter, they have my daughter. Please, this is an human thing to do. Don't do it. Stop it now. Stop killing innocent people. You are not going to gain anything from this. They're going to be our only casualties, only more mothers that cries about their children. Don't do it. Please stop doing it.

NOBILO: I hope that anyone who has the power to change the situation has heard that and I know that there's absolutely nothing that's a consolation right now. But thank you so much for your strength and your coherence to share that with everybody watching and obviously we'll be thinking of you. Thank you so much for joining us.

MAYZEL: Thank you. And I. Wish all the families to have peace, to have peace just to get the loved ones. That's it.

NOBILO: Thank you, and as if a reminder was even needed about the humanity and the people that are, are at the heart of this, despite the politics and the ideology and the years of violent history. We'll be right back.