Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Israeli Defense Minister Vows Ground War in Gaza; Israel: Civilians Brutally Butchered in Kfar Aza; Israel: At Least 1,200 Killed in Hamas Attacks; Palestinians; At Least 950 People Killed in Gaza; UN: Blockade on Gaza Violates Humanitarian Law. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 11, 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. Continuing our breaking news coverage of Israel at war. Israeli air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza seem to be getting more powerful by the day as the death toll on both sides of the border continues to climb. Israel now says more than 1,200 people were killed in the weekend attacks by Hamas.

NOBILO: Huge explosions have rocked Gaza this morning, where the Palestinian Health Ministry puts the death toll at 950, with more than 5,000 people wounded. Israel says it has destroyed Hamas systems that detect aircraft as well as an underground tunnel and a weapons storage facility.

FOSTER: Israeli military has called up more than 300,000 reservists and evacuated civilians from near the Gaza border, the Defense Minister says the offensive against Hamas may have started from the air, but it will also come on the ground. And President Isaac Herzog is warning Hamas against harming any hostages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISAAC HERZOG, ISRAELI PRESIDENT: Israel is committed to the security of its citizens, to their safety and well-being, both when they are attacked by murderous and cruel human monsters and when they are kidnapped and taken prisoners by them. I would like to emphasize the full responsibility rests on the barbaric murderers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And therefore, as to the well-being of those abducted and kidnapped, while it should be made clear, not a hair on their heads should be harmed. They should be unconditionally released and returned home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Each passing day brings another horrific example of the brutality of the Hamas attacks. Israel reports more than 100 bodies have been found in a kibbutz near Gaza. And CNN's Nic Robertson saw the carnage in another nearby village. A warning that this report contains graphic content.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): The drive into Kfar Aza is chilling. Evidence of Hamas's butchery everywhere. This Israel Defense Force general shocked at what he found.

MAJ. GEN. ITAI VERUV, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCE: I thought about General Eisenhower that come to the death camp in Europe at first thought physically said he brings to the press. Young children.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): He did the same, inviting about 50 journalists.

VERUV: You will see, it is a big massacre, a big disaster.

ROBERTSON: Have you ever seen anything like this in your career before?

VERUV: No, never.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Less than a mile from Gaza, 70 Hamas fighters stormed in here early Saturday. Some even flying.

ROBERTSON: They are telling us this is one of the paragliders that flew in here. You could see the engine here, the propellers here made a carbon fiber, the fuel tank up here and the frame of it and the seat at the front.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): The IDF in control now, after a two-day battle.

Hamas lie where they fell. Only now, the extremes of their barbarity becoming apparent. Seven hundred-plus civilians lived here. How many were killed, still unclear. How they died, brutally apparent. Some decapitated, they say.

VERUV: They killed babies in the front of their parents and thanking the parents. They killed parents and we found babies in between the dogs and the family that killed before them. They cut head of the people.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Each body bag, silent sentinel to the intelligence failure that allowed in Kfar Aza and other communities near Gaza to be overrun, and motivation for troops, too.

VERUV: We wait to switch -- to switch also from the defense to the attack, because you know, we defend our people and until now, we collect their bodies.

ROBERTSON: When you say you're going to attack, will you be going into Gaza? And so we can see it here. Look it's -- VERUV: You know, I look to the next 100 yard.

ROBERTSON: You take care of the next hundred yards?

VERUV: The next hundred yards, and I fight for the next hundred yards and then we keep forward.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Forward, to a possible showdown with Hamas. How and when, still to be determined.

Nick Robertson, CNN Kfar Aza, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:05:00]

FOSTER: And the response continues. This is a view across the skyline of Gaza. You can see how there are multiple missiles being fired into that area targeting Hamas infrastructure, according to the Israelis. But many people on the ground saying civilians very much being caught up in that and the hospitals are full. And it's an increasingly desperate situation when you consider that whole areas have the water, food, medicine all cut off by Israel. Elliot Gotkine is with us. I mean, the numbers of Israeli deaths going up by a frightening number every day. And you get a sense of it when you see those IDF soldiers still discovering bodies in the South.

ELLIOT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Right, I mean, just yesterday we were talking about 1,000 deaths inside of Israel. Now we're up to more than 1,200. And just to put this into context, this is around about half the number of casualties that Israel suffered in the Yom Kippur War, which began almost 50 years ago to the day, according to the Gregorian calendar.

So you know, future historians will be no doubt bracketing what's happened and what is happening right now alongside those wars such as the Yom Kippur War and the like. So yes, the death toll keeps rising. And of course, every day we're seeing more and more evidence of the brutality and savagery of the Hamas attack.

And we heard Prime Minister Netanyahu saying, you know, Hamas is ISIS and this is like ISIS. And I suppose as a skeptical journalist, your initial reaction is, well, this is a bit of hyperbole. But now we've seen the evidence on the ground, you know, Nic Robertson there in Kafr Aza, where IDF troops say women, children, toddlers, the elderly brutally butchered, in their words, in an ISIS way of action.

And even the Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, when he was meeting with troops yesterday, saying that some of those victims inside of Israel were beheaded. It's truly unfathomable.

And of course we've seeing these other stories, who we people we've spoken with who, for example, had to hide under corpses in bunkers for hours on end in order to stay alive, to not be killed by Hamas when they first attacked that trance party, that peace festival going on just next to Gaza. I mean, these are things you hear about, you know, in wars, whether

it's, you know from the Holocaust, or from the Bosnian Wars. People kind of hiding under kind of, you know, masses of bodies in order to stay alive. So really quite unimaginable things that have happened and more and more evidence of this, more and more videos and filming and our reporters on the ground there are seeing these things with their own eyes emerging every gay.

FOSTER: If there's any doubt that Hamas was a terrorist organization because obviously it's a government as well, isn't it, effectively in Gaza. That's gone away now, hasn't it, in the global consciousness? Because of the nature of the attack.

GOTKINE: You'd think, wouldn't you? But you only have to look at the scenes that we've seen in Australia and other places like that where you know, people are coming out onto the streets. Whether it was celebrating the initial attack on Israel or still, you know, applauding what what's been happening, you know, against --

FOSTER: But a lot of those are supporting Palestinians.

GOTKINE: Yes they are. But at the same time we, you know, and there's been a lot of things going on with people from student bodies such as particular bodies at Harvard, for example, who are, you know, putting out statements which are then kind of, you know, blowing up on social media as well. So still a very, you know, emotive subject and I'm sure that you would find many people out there who would say that but no, that's not the case. But you know, we have now seen the evidence that Hamas has been behaving in the same way that Islamic state ISIS was behaving when it was rampaging through Syria and Iraq.

FOSTER: OK, Elliot, thank you.

NOBILO: U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says the White House does not expect Israel to pursue a siege of Gaza. But he says the U.S. is working on contingency planning and consulting with allies in case the conflict in Israel escalates.

FOSTER: Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. carrier strike group led by the USS Gerald Ford has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Officials say it's meant to deter other nations or groups in the region from trying to widen the war from nuclear powered aircraft carriers, accompanied by guided missile destroyers and guided missile cruisers.

Now, in a speech from the White House, President Biden said he'll be calling on Congress to pass supplemental funding for Israel.

NOBILO: And he also shared details about his call with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Biden underscored the need for all countries to unequivocally condemn Hamas's brutal attack and compared it -- as Elliot was referring to earlier -- to the atrocities of ISIS from years ago. CNN's MJ Lee has more now from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: For the second time since the attacks on Israel began, President Biden delivering a speech trying to show the U.S.'s resounding support for Israel and condemning Hamas. The president saying in his remarks that Hamas's actions compared to some of the worst rampages of ISIS. He used words like sheer evil and abhorrent.

[04:10:00]

The president also confirmed that the death toll of Americans in Israel had climbed to 14 and confirmed for the first time that Americans were among the hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza. This is what he said.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We now know that American citizens are among those being held by Hamas. I'm directing my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government. To consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts. Because as president. I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world.

LEE: President Biden on Tuesday also spoke for the third time since the attacks, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that he had pledged to Netanyahu again that the U.S. would offer whatever resources the country needed to get through the next several weeks. But it is certainly unclear at this moment exactly how all of that would unfold legislatively.

MJ Lee, CNN the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Hamas is firmly rejecting U.S. President Joe Biden's remarks on Israel, calling it inflammatory. In a statement on Tuesday, the militant group said Biden's statement aims to escalate tension against the Palestinian people.

NOBILO: It also urged the American administration to reassess its position on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Biden has described Hamas's attack on Israel as an act of sheer evil. Joining us now is Michael Stephens, associate fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Royal United Services Institute. Thanks so much for being with us this morning, Sir.

MICHAEL STEPHENS, ASSOCIATE FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, RUSI: Thank you.

NOBILO: What do you think some of the contingencies that the U.S. administration would be exploring in the event that this conflict spills over or there's any intelligence suggestion of greater involvement from other regional players? What might they be looking at?

STEPHENS: Well, certainly they've already been building on those contingencies. They've been talking to the Saudis. They've been talking to a number of European countries who themselves have good access to the Palestinian Authority and to the Israelis on the ground.

So at the moment what we're seeing is a set of plans being put in place for an escalation, trying to understand that actually things might get a bit worse before they get better. But ultimately, as your piece just said, there are hostages on the ground. There are Italian hostages, German hostages, British hostages, American hostages. There is a limit to how far this can go. The question is, when do people start to talk? And of course, the sad thing is that time has not yet now.

FOSTER: Can I just ask you obviously a big sort of factor in the background here is Iran. And concerned that if this isn't contained and Iran gets folded in, that's a much bigger global issue, isn't it? Can I also ask you about Russia and where they're sitting on this. Because we haven't heard much from them. Obviously, relationship with Iran, but also a relationship with Israel.

STEPHENS: Sure. Well, I mean the Russians are a bit distracted right now as you well know. I don't see any military role for them in the conflict. Not only that, but the U.S. has first mover advantage, right? They've moved a lot of personnel and armored warfare into the region and basically saying everybody else stay out. So of course, the Russians aren't going to mess with that. They have a strong relationship with Bashar al-Assad in Syria. But that's about as far as it goes.

And if we've seen the way that the Russians have coordinated with Israel over the last few years, there's been a kind of cold peace between the two. They do coordinate in Syria. They accept sometimes that the Israelis will go into target, Iranian backed militias, like Hezbollah, that are operating close to the Israeli border. And there's sort of a tacit understanding that Russia has its interests. Israel has its interests. But on the Palestinian conflict, I don't think the Russians have ever really been a major player. So I don't see them stepping into this at the moment.

NOBILO: Michael, this is a sort of difficult question to frame correctly. Obviously, Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the UK, the EU. But there is a large amount of sympathy globally for what Hamas might be trying to achieve, or how they might be trying to protect the Palestinian people. Given that this unprecedented and surprise attack was clearly very sophisticated and well planned, what do you think that the strategy was if there was one in terms of the barbarism and brutality that we're hearing reports of from the Israeli soldiers. The hostage taking of children of the elderly, we're hearing reports of, you know, babies being murdered. Why? Why this lack of discipline?

STEPHENS: Well, that's it's not a strategy, right? I mean this is an attempt to hit back in any way possible, but clearly was tactically very well planned, as you alluded to. I don't see much strategy there.

[04:15:00]

And you know, some Hamas sympathizers have implied that this is because, you know this is a form of resistance to Israeli occupation. I think all of us can agree, that's difficult to understand how killing babies is a form of resistance. Nevertheless, I think what there is, and I've picked some of this up, this notion that what has happened is so shocking, but it's woken the world up to talking about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. And I'm pretty sure that for the last six months to a year, the focus of your TV show has been on Ukraine. The Palestinian issue has not been top of the agenda. Now it's top of the agenda. We're talking about it on breakfast news, right.

So in a way, Hamas have done a barbaric act, but we're talking about the Palestinian situation. People are once again acknowledging that there is a problem between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that needs to be solved, that it probably cannot be solved militarily. And that there needs to be a political solution. The question to my mind is not about Hamas, who clearly have signed their own extermination by the Israelis. And I think we have to accept that's going to be pretty bloody and brutal and it's going to be a very, very bad time coming ahead.

But there is also the Palestinian Authority. There are Palestinian actors on the ground who are not Hamas and who do need to be engaged, and we do need to start thinking strategically about how Palestinians talk to Israelis in the future. Because let's be honest, they haven't been talking and the situation has been getting worse.

FOSTER: You're right about Ukraine. Let's talk about Ukraine briefly. Because what does this attention on the Middle East have on the Ukraine war? Does Russia capitalize on it? But also, what does it mean for the U.S. funding, which is already drying up, going to Ukraine and some of that funding now will be focused on the Middle East presumably. So it makes that funding even less likely to Ukraine.

STEPHENS: Yes, so I think in in terms of funding, I don't see a huge shift. Because you know, Israel has a strong relationship with the United States that's signed off every year and has, you know, bipartisan support in the Congress. So the funding streams that that support Israel, I don't think will be unduly change. The types of weapon systems the Israelis use, which are extremely advanced, are very different from the weapon systems that the Ukrainians use. Obviously, the Ministry of Defense in the UK, the Department of Defense in the U.S., have a set strategy for Ukraine. Winter is coming in that country and there are plans afoot to try and resist the Russian defensive push and to push back in that way.

So these things can be separated defensively. In terms of political time, Biden's time, Sunak's time, Macron's time, that's a different story, right? They're going to have to focus heavily on trying to solve this problem that's broken out between Israel and the Palestinians. They're going to have to try come to some kind of negotiated solution. Not now, but in the future. And that does divert attention away from Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian cause, there's no doubt about it.

And I was even just talking to somebody in the region, you know, today, about an hour ago, who said, isn't it interesting that we've stopped talking about Ukraine? I think in terms of political attention, yes, we probably have. And this conflict in Palestine and Israel is going to take all the news headlines for a while. But strategically the position on Ukraine stands. I think the big challenge there is about, you know, the U.S. presidential election and what will happen if Donald Trump becomes president.

FOSTER: OK, Michael, really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Coming up chaos in Gaza, Palestinian civilians are scrambling to find food, water and shelter amid those air strikes. How the international community is responding, next.

NOBILO: Plus, top European Union officials are responding to the crisis as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas. The latest international reactions to the fighting, next.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: The UN Human Rights Office is warning Israel that keeping essential goods out of Gaza is prohibited by international humanitarian law. Israeli authorities have also ordered a complete siege of the enclave, blocking the supply of electricity, water, food and fuel.

NOBILO: The UN says that this will only compound the misery of hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza. They say the siege will disrupt the operations of critical facilities like hospitals, which are filling up as Israeli air strikes bombard the region.

MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, says hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed. Officials say they're already seeing shortages of medicines, water, electricity and fuel, which hospitals rely on for their generators.

FOSTER: And the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is urging Israel against punishing all Palestinians over the Hamas attack.

NOBILO: Nada Bashir is joining us now for more on this international response. What's happening in terms of diplomatic channels at the moment to try and deescalate this conflict?

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, look, we know that on the regional front, there have been intense efforts and tense talks between regional leaders trying to not only deescalate the tensions that are ongoing and escalating. Of course, as we've seen across between Israel and the Palestinians, but also crucially focusing on ways to get aid to Gaza now.

As you mentioned there, Gaza is now under siege. No water, no food, no electricity, no fuel getting in to the Gaza Strip, which is of course, under blockade. It has been since 2007 as, of course, by Israel. And this has really sparked concern and we've heard from the EU's Foreign Affairs Chief, Joseph Burrell. He has spoken about the issues around inflicting what he's described as collective punishment. Of course. Israel says it is targeting Hamas positions in order to

break down Hamas's military capabilities and ability to pose a threat to Israel. But as we have seen, because Gaza is under a blockade, because there is simply nowhere for Palestinians in Gaza to run or take shelter, this has become an issue and it has long been an issue of collective punishment. Take a listen to what he had to say on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:25:00]

JOSEP BORRELL, EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: Israel has the right to defend, but it has to be done accordingly with international law, humanitarian law. And some decisions are counter this international law. And not all the Palestinian people are terrorists. So a collective punishment against all Palestinians will be unfair and unproductive. Will be against our interest and again, the interest of the peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASHIR: Now of course, these are the comments from the EU's foreign press. We spoke yesterday briefly about how there has been some questions around the EU's funding for Palestinians. He has reiterated that funding will go ahead. They will keep up support on the humanitarian front for Palestinians as long as that is needed.

And you heard there from the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, really raising concern over the imposition of this siege on civilians. Of course we have seen air strikes continuing overnight in Gaza, as we have seen rockets continuously being fired from Gaza into Israeli territory as well.

We know that this has raised concern on the regional front. President Erdogan in Turkey that has been speaking with the UN Secretary- General, Antonio Guterres. They have been focused on ways to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, but also ways to deescalate the tensions that we've seen. And also of course, as we've heard from U.S. officials in Qatar, they are said to be in talks with Hamas leaders as well, focused specifically -- according to U.S. officials -- on the hostage situation. Ways in which they may be able to mediate some sort of agreement when it comes to rescuing these hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

NOBILO: Nada Bashir, thank you.

FOSTER: Still to come, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced internally and in neighborhoods reduced to rubble as Israel continues to hammer Gaza.

Plus, we'll speak with the Director General of Gaza's health ministry on how the area is managing the overwhelming burden of care amid Israeli air strikes.