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Journalists Visit Kibbutz Where 120 Plus People Massacred; Hamas Official Claims Group Planned Attack For Two Years; Massive Israeli Military Buildup Underway Near Gaza. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired October 12, 2023 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[01:00:29]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. Welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. We continue our breaking news coverage of Israel at war. I'm John Vause. We begin with gruesome new details about the attacks carried out by Hamas over the weekend. Sick cruel acts of brutality on women and children which were beyond abhorrent. The subject matter and the video are graphic and disturbing.
Israeli government now says babies and toddlers were found with heads decapitated at a Kibbutz in southern Israel. Hamas denies beheading children, calling the allegations fabricated and baseless. Meantime, Israel's military is stepping up its airstrikes on Gaza as its forces mass near the border ahead of a likely ground incursion.
Palestinian officials say the only power station in Gaza has now stopped working. Hospitals are expected to run out of fuel for their private generators in the coming day. The weekend terror attacks by Hamas have brought together rival factions from across Israeli politics with the announcement of an emergency government and wartime cabinet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The people of Israel are united. Now the leadership is too. WE put aside our differences because of the fate of our country is on the line. We will work together shoulder to shoulder for the sake of our citizens of Israel.
BENNY GANTZ, NATIONAL UNITY PARTY LEADER (through translator): There is a time for war and a time for peace. This now, this is time for war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a top hostage negotiator are heading to Israel. Blinken says discussions are also ongoing about a humanitarian corridor with a food and medical supplies into Gaza and to allow civilians to leave safely. The farming community Kibbutz Be'eri was one of the first places attacked by Hamas early Saturday. Jihadi fighters went door to door massacring more than 120 people at will. It took the Israeli military hours to regain control. On Wednesday, journalists were allowed to see the carnage firsthand. CNN's Clarissa Ward has our report and a warning. The content of her report is disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 7:11am on Saturday morning when the militants arrived at Be'eri Kibbutz. Surveillance footage shows them lying and wait until the car arrives. They shoot the driver and enter the compound. More poured in on motorcycles eerily at ease and in no apparent hurry. Thomas Hand heard the gunshots and immediately thought of his eight-year-old daughter Emily, who was staying with a neighbor.
THOMAS HAND, KIBBUTZ BE'ERI RESIDENT: She doesn't do it very often. But unfortunately that night, that particular night, the Friday night she went to sleep at her friend's house.
WARD (voice-over): For 12 hours he says he was pinned down under heavy gunfire unable to reach his daughter as Hamas went door to door executing his neighbors.
HAND: Waiting, I'm thinking the army are going to be here so, you know, just hold on a bit longer and longer and longer.
WARD (voice-over): By the time the military gain control of Be'eri, this is what remained of the once tranquil community. Late Wednesday afternoon, Israeli forces let journalists in for the first time after days of pitched battles.
MAJ. GEN. ITAI VERUV, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES: I saw how the soldier fight here and I fight here myself, first, only to get inside of the Kibbutz, only to come from, you know, apartment to apartment. It's took a lot, a lot, a lot of time. It's so hard.
WARD (on camera): That's that weigh on your conscience to know how long it took?
VERUV: You know, we have a very difficult question to ask ourselves. Now, we look forward to defense the people to take this survival out to live and smooth ourselves from defense to offensive operation. I'm sure that we ask ourselves all the difficult questions of date.
WARD (voice-over): For now there are more pressing questions. The bodies of more than 100 residents have been recovered. But the army says that many more are still missing.
(on camera): You can see the amount of blood, this was a massacre.
(voice-over): And the full scale of the horrors that transpired here are just starting to come to light.
(on camera): Pictures, family photographs on the wall. [01:05:00]
(voice-over): Thomas waited two agonizing days before getting the news.
HAND: They just said we found Emily. She's dead. And I went, yes. Oh, yes and smiled because that is the best news of the possibilities that I knew. That was the best possibly, that I was hoping, she was either dead or in Gaza. And if you know anything about what they do to people in Gaza, that is worse than death, that is worse than death. The way they treat you, they'd have no food, they'd have no water, should be in a dark room filled with Christ knows how many people and terrified every minute, hour, day and possible years to come. So death was a blessing, an absolute blessing.
WARD (voice-over): Clarissa Ward, CNN, Be'eri Kibbutz, Israel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Live now to London where journalist Elliott Gotkine is following developments. Along with the horrific details of what took place in the Kibbutz and the beheading of children, we also have the formation of what is a wartime cabinet and an emergency government now bringing together a country which up until this point, has been deeply divided.
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: It's not just been deeply divided, John, it's probably been more divided than ever over the past nine months since the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu started trying to push forward with this judicial overhaul. But if there is one thing that Hamas succeeded in doing in addition to all of the carnage, and that we've seen over the past few days in the killing of at least 1,200 people inside of Israel, it is that it has succeeded in uniting not just the people of Israel, but also it's boring politicians.
And so we saw yesterday Benny Gantz, no friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he's a former defense minister, former Chief of the General Staff, taking his National Unity Party into government to form this emergency government. He went before the cameras yesterday to say why he had done this and what Hamas had in store.
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GANTZ: We will fight this war to indicate to our enemies very clearly, there will be hell to pay. And we promised to the people of Israel when we say never again, we mean it, never again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOTKINE: And to make good on his promise, of course, we've seen these airstrikes just in the last few hours, Israel said has been carrying out waves of strikes on the Nakba elite forces of Hamas and their operational command centers according to the IDF, the IDF saying that it was this division that participated with others in this mass terror attack on Israel in the early hour -- that began on the early hours of Saturday morning. Everyone now expects this ground invasion to be imminent from Israel. We don't know precisely when or how it will happen. A spokesperson for the IDF, Jonathan Conricus saying that, look, in his words, I think it's enough to show the pictures and paired up with what we've said. And that the end results we are responding to which is simply, John, to really just not just decimate but completely destroy Hamas's capabilities.
So that this organization which the U.K., U.S., European Union and Israel designate as a terrorist organization is never able to repeat what it did in the early hours of Saturday morning and the repercussions of which we are still seeing both in Israel and of course inside the Gaza Strip as well. John?
VAUSE: Elliott, thank you. Elliott Gotkine there in London with the very latest.
A senior Hamas official based in Lebanon has told CNN it took two years to prepare the attack on Israel, a complicated assault by air, sea and land. CNN's Sam Kiley has more now on the assault and the shadowy figure who may be behind it. And a warning, this report contains some graphic content.
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SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A brazen political move, Hamas demands that the U.S. negotiate the release of American hostages on Russian T.V.
ALI BARAKA, HAMAS NATIONAL RELATIONS ABROAD (voice-over): There are also prisoners in the U.S. We want them of course. There are Hamas members sentenced to life in the U.S. We demand that the U.S. frees our sons from their prisons. The U.S. conducts prisoner swaps only recently it did one with Iran. Why wouldn't it conduct one with us?
KILEY (voice-over): Confirmation of part of the intent behind the Hamas assaults in Israel. They were enabled by a failure of Israeli intelligence. But plotted by a shadowy Hamas officer they call al Deif, the guest. Only two photographs exist of Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri who's nearly 60. He's known as al Deif because he billets as a guest in a different location every night. He's the mastermind or monster behind the murder of more than 1,000 in Israel and the kidnapping of about 150 hostages.
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MIKHALMAR ABUSADA, CHAIRMAN, POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPT., AL-AZHAR UNIVERSITY: From the beginning of his life he was very much interested in fighting the Israeli occupation.
KILEY (voice-over): In the mid-1990s, he was believed to be behind a wave of atrocities in Israel. And in 2014, he is believed to have lost an arm and a leg in an Israeli airstrike aimed at him that killed his wife and daughter. For the last two years, though, Hamas has pretended to focus on welfare, not warfare.
BARAKA: All the while under the table, Hamas was preparing this big attack.
KILEY (voice-over): Israel, meanwhile, invested in automation and sensors, a high technology iron wall around Gaza and focus forces on the West Bank. On the Deif, Hamas encouraged Israeli complacency. Then last weekend, it hit hard, attacking communication towers and automated machine guns with drones over running command and control centers killing senior officers among them three colonels and unleashing terror on thousands of civilians.
The Israel Defense Forces found Hamas anti-tank mines and other heavy weapons assigned they may have planned for a longer stay. This shock infantry attack is either deliberately brutal from the start or degenerated into a massacre as Israeli defenses collapsed. It shifted attention and power to Hamas.
ABUSADA: It has become like a god to some of the Palestinians because of what he has done.
KILEY (voice-over): Many Palestinians are dismayed by the massacre and the bloodshed that's followed. But with the lives of hostages in his hands, the guest now has an unwelcome place in America's mind.
Sam Kiley, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is the president of the Palestinian National Initiative and a member of the Palestinian parliament. He joins me now live from the West Bank city of Ramallah. Dr. Barghouti, it's good to see you.
DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, PALESTINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
VAUSE: So, you know, just obviously, all eyes are on Gaza right now. And this Israeli military operation and where it goes. But, you know, in the big picture, one of the biggest obstacles to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians has always been the extremists on both sides have been able to determine how this conflict plays out. And it seems right now we're seeing that writ large.
BARGHOUTI: Absolutely, as you said, we've been living under the pressure of extremism here. You mentioned Hamas. But it's good to mention that Israel has been run by a very extreme government, including Smotrich, who declared that Palestinians should have no hope, no state, and they should either emigrate or accept a life of subjugation or die.
This extremism is, of course, led to this explosion. But the main root cause that has never been dealt with by several Israeli governments is the continuation of Israeli illegal occupation of Palestinian land. The fact that this occupation which is 56 years old, the longest and modern history has transformed into a system of apartheid that suppresses every Palestinian.
Today, of course, the issue is not that Israel is attacking Hamas only, the Israeli airstrikes and the Israeli bombardment is attacking civilian Palestinian population in Gaza. They are dehumanizing Hamas, but in the process, they're dehumanizing all Palestinians. And when you attack a place, which is the largest open prison in the world, with 2.2 million people in living in less than one point -- 140 square miles, with 50 percent of the 2.2 million people are children. The result is drastic.
I mean, up until now 1,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, including 326 children and no less than 180 women. This will not lead to peace. The way out of this is to immediately have ceasefire, immediately deescalate, immediately have exchange of prisoners. So there's -- though that -- those Israelis who are held in Gaza will come back home safe in exchange of releasing some Palestinian prisoners who have been injured, some of whom have been in jail for 43 years.
VAUSE: No one's talking a ceasefire at this point. No one's talking really seriously about a prisoner exchange at the moment. And that's unfortunate that this will play out as this will play out. One thing which I think is important to mention here is that you know, the military group Hamas which controls Gaza is no friend to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah the Fatah political party of Mahmoud Abbas is often clashed with Hamas. How concerned are you right now that was this outpouring of sympathy and for Israel and this outpouring of condemnation for what Hamas did, which was abhorrent, that now Palestinians are basically all being swept up as being Hamas. And you're standing, which has many Palestinians have worked very hard, Hanash (ph), Saeb Erekat have worked incredibly difficult to establish Palestinians as a credible, viable alternative state that's now being swept away by the brutality of the weekend.
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BARGHOUTI: It shouldn't be. And just sending out Israeli propaganda, some of which is absolutely incorrect, will not solve the problem. Dehumanization of all Palestinians will not also solve the problem. Look, we've been under occupation for so many years, we haven't seen a day of freedom for 56 years, and many of us, especially the 70 percent of the people in Gaza are refugees who were displaced by Israel 75 years ago.
So Israel has already conducted five wars on Gaza. Did that end Hamas? Did that end violence? Did that end the situation? Of course not. And when they are planning now a huge ground operation, they are engaging in something that is totally inhuman, unacceptable, even according to Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, who said, you cannot impose a total blockade on Gaza.
Now Israel is preventing food, milk, water, electricity from the people of Gaza. I receive calls. I'm a medical doctor and I receive calls every day from patients in Gaza who are about to die because they don't have access to kidney dialysis, and children and incubators who could die because there is no electricity. Besieging a whole population is not a solution. Yet striking on children and women by terrible airstrike is not a solution. And let me warn you, a very important dangerous point here is what Israeli leaders are calling for which is evicting the 2.2 million people in Gaza to Egypt, creating a much very serious matter of ethnic cleansing one more time against the Palestinian people. This will not lead to peace. This will not lead to peace even if the United States is fully supportive of Israel.
VAUSE: The only thing that leads to lasting peace will be a negotiated settlement and --
BARGHOUTI: Yes. But who blocked negotiations, who blocked negotiations all these years, it was Netanyahu. Netanyahu aggravated the Israeli public against its hakarat. And because he signed a peace agreement with Palestinians, and Robin was assassinated by an Israeli extremists. And then Netanyahu blocked all negotiations with Palestinians.
VAUSE: I just want to sort of just finish up on maybe a positive note here, because the two state solution has been on the back burner and then at the deep freeze on life support. Now it seems almost a distant memory. It is always darkest before dawn, are you even the slightest bit hopeful that maybe once the worst is over, that there will be this realization that there can only be lasting peace through a negotiated settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis?
BARGHOUTI: Absolutely. And although it might sound strange at this time, let me tell you, we've struggled very hard all our lives to have a two state solution. Unfortunately, Netanyahu made his best to kill it by settling -- by sending settlers to the Palestinian occupied territories illegally. I say, and this might sound strange now, but I say the only way out of this is either immediate two state solution or we will have to exchange -- we will have to change the one apartheid state reality that Israel has created because it is one apartheid state reality with a democratic one state reality.
There is no way that Palestinians will give up their struggle for freedom. And there is no way I know to continue this inhuman situation. Either we have to state solution as soon as possible, or we will have to be together with equality. But Palestinians have to be treated equally. And that means full\ democratic, civil and national rights for both people.
VAUSE: Dr. Barghouti, thank you for being with us. Your time is very valuable and it's most appreciated. Thank you sir.
BARGHOUTI: Thank you.
[01:19:32]
VAUSE: Well, Israeli strikes have been pounding Gaza overnight. Coming up with the very latest update on Israel's war with Hamas from spokesperson with the Israeli Defense Forces.
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I became a Jain monk in 2008 after serving in the Iraq war. I was deployed and I experienced a lot of violence. And I experienced it emotionally and mentally when I came back going through PTSD. A couple of years ago, another monk and I were talking about sexual abuse. And we knew as monks, we wanted to raise awareness about the taboo subject. We didn't know about human trafficking yet.
And so when we decided to raise awareness, we wondered, what are we going to do, and we didn't have any film experience. But we knew by making films, we could educate many people. Surviving sex trafficking is my second film. And we wanted to follow the journey of healing of the survivors featured in the film. So we traveled around the world and also within the United States. And it was important to us to know their journey and to see if they can truly heal, is there hope.
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VAUSE: National services compulsory in Israel as students get to graduate high school. Almost all the young men serve three years, women two years it's a shared experience that binds the country, and now it's more than 300,000 are called back to duty. Many are driven by deep feelings of grief and sadness, but also unity. Here's CNN's Jeremy Diamond.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At a military base in southern Israel, columns of Israeli Merkava IV tanks stand at the ready, awaiting orders for an invasion of Gaza that everyone expects, but no one has yet commanded. This is a country on a war footing.
(on camera): The Israeli military has called up more than 300,000 reservists. It is one of the largest mobilization efforts in this country's history. And this right here behind me is that mobilization efforts in action. You are witnessing thousands of reservists, Israelis from all across the country coming to this military base in southern Israel to begin to prepare for the next phase of this military campaign.
(voice-over): But it's not just the scale that makes this mobilization different.
ALON KAMIL, IDF RESERVIST: I've been in all the campaigns in the last 30 years, never something like this.
DIAMOND (voice-over): For the soldiers converging on this base, the shocking brutality of Hamas is surprised terrorist attacks, is still reverberating.
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KAMIL: Every person in Israel has lost someone, every person.
MICHAEL, IDF RESERVIST: I've been in Amsterdam until Wednesday morning until Monday morning, I came here, you know, to release to the army to fight those bastards.
DIAMOND (on camera): It's a very emotional moment.
OR LEVI, IDF RESERVIST: A very emotional moment. Yes, when you see children die and kidnapping, it's like any mail, it's not.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Driving down roads east of the Gaza Strip, preparations for the next phase of Israel's military campaign are everywhere. Trucks loaded with ammunition, armored vehicles thousands of Israeli soldiers mobilizing, and just seven miles from the Gaza border, this formation of armored personnel carriers.
(on camera): We are about a dozen kilometers from the Gaza border about six or seven miles. And what we are seeing here are the preparations for what many people in Israel believe is going to happen next. And that is the possibility of a ground invasion, you can see here, armored personnel carriers, perhaps nearly two dozen of those, as well as trucks and you see soldiers all here preparing for the next phase of this war.
(voice-over): But amid the preparations for tomorrow's battle, today is still very much alive.
Jeremy Diamond, CNN in southern Israel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus is now with us from Tel Aviv. Again, it's good to see you thank you for taking the time.
LT. COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS, IDF SPOKESPERSON: Thank you for having me.
VAUSE: So as Israeli soldiers regain control of areas in the South as they go from, you know, community to community, it seems the atrocities go from bad to horrendous. Have those discoveries been ongoing? Is there an update to what we've already heard over the last 12 hours or so?
CONRICUS: Yes. The update is that yesterday, during the day, international media was allowed access together with Israeli soldiers, basically embedding with that operation. And they went into a community called Kibbutz Be'eri and found the more than 100 body bags of the Israeli civilians, men, women, children, elderly, many babies, and really saw the scope and magnitude of the atrocities, including mutilation of bodies, and people that were burned inside homes. Really horrendous, horrendous scenes that I am at loss of words, really to describe how cruel those scenes were.
VAUSE: In all the years of conflict between Israel and Hamas, has there ever been anything close to this level of brutality?
CONRICUS: Yes, not only in the many years of conflict between Israel and Hamas, but I can't recall anything in the all of the history of Israel, we have fought many wars against Arab militaries. And yes, of course, there have been many, many sad, vile reports of mutilations of bodies of dead Israeli soldiers that happened in as long before as the War of Independence in 1948.
But those were soldiers fighting, there's, of course, it cannot be understood and condone. But on the battlefield, here, we're talking about civilians. And that is what's so astounding in this event. And as every day goes by, and we see more and more bodies and the remains of bodies, you wonder why and how and what Hamas would think that they would gain from behaving like this.
VAUSE: Yes, it's a good question. One, which we don't have an answer for right now. But just to move on, what is the latest on possible safe passage out of Gaza, for foreign nationals? Where those negotiations stand right now?
CONRICUS: I hear reports about that. So concerning Egypt, and concerning the U.N., I understand. It's a topic that also Secretary Blinken will be dealing with. I think that the key here lies in reaching understandings with Egypt, and understanding what is possible and what they'll be willing to accommodate. And we'll see how that situation unfolds. Clearly, the humanitarian situation inside the Gaza Strip is of concern and needs to be dealt with.
Anybody who wants to put actions to words and really cares for the safety or the wellbeing of Palestinians should read be concerned with allowing a passage for the Palestinians.
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VAUSE: And with that in mind, what's the latest on allowing humanitarian supplies into Gaza, especially now that their only power station is no longer operational. It is out of fuel.
Is Israel willing to allow, you know, food, fuel and other medical essentials into the Gaza Strip?
CONRICUS: First of all, there is no way of getting anything in because most of the infrastructure that supports that kind of activity -- gas pipes and roads from Israel into Gaza, were severed by the terrorists.
Beyond that, I am not aware of any change in Israeli policy with regards to the issue of providing fuel, electricity, water, et cetera for the very same enemy that is fighting us. I'm not aware of any change in policy. If that happens then, of course, the IDF will execute it. But as of now the situation remains as it was before.
VAUSE: So essentially right now in Gaza and there is no differentiation between Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians. Are they all being sort of treated as the same?
CONRICUS: What we are is we are at war. We are fighting against a terrorist army that uses all of the infrastructure, that infrastructure that is supposed to be there for the civilians, he use that infrastructure for military purposes in everything that he does. In the rockets that they fire, in the attacks that they launched against our communities, they hide underneath all of that infrastructure.
So from a military point of view, I'm not saying from a human point of view but from a military point of view, we are looking at Hamas as the governing entity of the Gaza Strip and we're not going to be providing electricity, water and fuel for them to be able to fight against us.
VAUSE: Good point to end on, Colonel. Thank you for being with us again. We appreciate your time, sir.
CONRICUS: Thank you.
VAUSE: Still to come here on CNN, with Hamas believed to be holding 150 hostages in Gaza, the families of those taken, desperately pleading for their release. Their fears growing their loved ones could now be used as human shields
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VAUSE: Israeli airstrikes are now into their fifth day with no letup including what the IDF says is a large-scale strike at this hour on Gaza. Israeli tanks and troops continue to amass along the border at what many are expecting to be a major ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.
And to the north, near the Israeli city Ashdod, CNN crews have reported seeing columns of tanks, personnel standing by.
Well, desperate families of the hostages taken by Hamas are pleading for their release with some telling CNN they want the public to see the videos of their loved ones being abducted in the hopes that they will be found. A warning, this report from Salma Abdelaziz contains some disturbing images.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are festival goers, little children, sons and daughters, old and young, now held hostage by Hamas.
Social media video of some of the abductions have gone viral. But the stories of these victims are still coming to light.
This is nine-month-old kefir and his brother three-year-old Ariel, believed abducted from their home in kibbutz Nowruz along with their mother Cheri, their dad and two other family members.
In this horrifying video of their capture, Cheri clearly terrified is the last time the family was seen alive.
Yifat Zailer, a relative, told our Anderson Cooper she is in agony.
YIFAT ZAILER, RELATIVE OF HOSTAGES: I want my family back. I want my family back.
ABDELAZIZ: Also among the hostages, several Americans. Hersch Polin Goldberg (ph), a 23-year-old Chicago native is being described as a hero for his actions inside a bomb shelter during Hamas' rampage.
JON POLIN, FATHER OF HERSCH POLIN-GOLDBERG: Several people independent of each other said your son and his friend Ahmer (ph) saved our lives. Everybody is alive because as grenades were being thrown in, they were tossing them back out.
ABDELAZIZ: His parents say he sustained a critical injury and was later kidnapped by Hamas militants.
Yoni Asher is pleading for the release of his family too after seeing this video showing a scarf placed on his wife's head by militants. She was believed abducted with their two daughters, ages 5 and 3.
YONI ASHER, WIFE AND DAUGHTERS KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS: When my wife with me on the phone, she told me that the terrorists of Hamas entered the house. Later on I managed to track her mobile phone and I saw that the location is in Gaza Strip.
ABDELAZIZ: Hamas says the hostages are spread out across the Gaza Strip, Israel fears, to be used as human shields. And in a chilling warning, the group threatened to execute hostages if Israel continues its assault of the enclave.
The hostage horror complicates Netanyahu's mission to obliterate Hamas. But on the Israel-Gaza border, the country's defense minister is refusing to hold back.
YOAV GALLANT, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): I released all restraints, we attack everything, the gloves are off. Hamas will no longer exist, we will destroy everything.
ABDELAZIZ: So far Israeli airstrikes have killed more than a thousand Palestinians, including children according to officials in Gaza. But for the hostages, no indication of rescue efforts yet. And as Israel intensifies its attacks on Gaza, prepares for a potential ground offensive, desperate families fear their loved ones could be caught in the cross fire.
Salma Abdelaziz, CNN -- London
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: If you'd like information about how you can help humanitarian efforts in Israel as well as in Gaza, please go to CNN.com/impact. We've gathered a list of vetted organizations now responding to the crisis.
Hezbollah raising the stakes in the ongoing conflict with Israel. Still ahead, could Israel be facing a second front in the north, as tensions escalate to their highest level in almost two decades.
[01:39:38]
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VAUSE: Israel has deployed tens of thousands of extra troops to their northern border with Lebanon, as well as the Golan Heights, concerns are growing Israel may soon be facing a second front as tensions escalate with the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah.
For days now, Israeli forces and Hezbollah have exchanged cross-border fire. The White House says it sent a message, a clear message to Hezbollah to sit out this conflict not just through political back channels, but also with the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford in the eastern Mediterranean.
Rami Khouri is a distinguished public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. He's also a well-published author and political columnist. It's good to have you with us. It's been a long time.
RAMI KHOURI, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT: Thank you.
VAUSE: There has been a constant exchange, no let-up in this cross- border clashes in Israel's north over the past, you know, five days. Right now there seems to be no agreement on, you know, what Hezbollah will do. But there seems to be sort of limited confrontations, if you like. Hezbollah is sort of keeping its power dry in many ways. Is it now the point that whatever Hezbollah decides to do, how big of a role will that have in determining the direction of the war (INAUDIBLE)?
M1: It's not just Hezbollah but it's the confrontation with Israel and Hezbollah for both sides have to make a decision whether to get involved in an act of war or just do tit-for-tat symbolic actions.
The reality is that Hezbollah and Israel have been actively at war on and off for about 20 years or so. And they both have immense capabilities -- technical and firepower and deterrent determination. And they realize that they are pretty evenly matched in many ways.
Israel is still a bigger army but Hezbollah has become truly sophisticated. So they both know that if the war starts it's going to be massively destructive for civilians -- for civilians and for infrastructure both in Lebanon and Israel.
[01:44:46]
KHOURI: Therefore, for about ten years or so now they've had a detente -- not a detente -- a deterrent relationship. There's a truce essentially on the Lebanese-Israel border. And if somebody shoots across, the other person shoots back. If they kill a goat, they kill a goat. If they kill three people as happened today, the other side kills three people. And that is where I think it's going to stay.
VAUSE: So I guess it comes down to the question now of you know, the relationship between these groups. How closely is Hezbollah working with Hamas. There's a report in "Foreign Affairs" which says officials from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran's Quds Force have been meeting regularly in Iran and Lebanon for years. Following the May 2021 rocket war between Hamas and Israel, the editor of a Lebanese newspaper affiliated with Hezbollah reported that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran coordinated the fighting from a joint war room in Beirut.
So how would you describe the relationship between Hezbollah and Hamas. Is Hamas a junior partner. Is it a friendship of convenience? How does it work?
KHOURI: They both have very really strong ties with Iran. Hezbollah more because Hezbollah is Shiite and Iran is more for Shiite. Hamas is Sunni Muslim. They are very close ideologically and they realize that if they work together, they have much more impact.
It's obvious to anybody that after Hezbollah developed tremendous technical capabilities with Iranian support and maybe other people, those capabilities have been shared with Hamas either directly between Hamas and Hezbollah or through Iran or through third parties like the Houthi's in Yemen or who knows where.
How they do their coordination we don't know. They're very secretive and they are very good now at keeping secrets. But they clearly formed a what they call, strategic deterrent front. And they have one or two other partners in the region like the Houthis in Yemen and smaller groups. And they see themselves as fighting for the same cause.
VAUSE: The U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, on Wednesday once again had this warning to Israel's enemies. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, SPOKESMAN, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Bottom line is, as we said, we are sending a loud and clear message. The United States is ready to take action today (INAUDIBLE) hostile to Israel considered trying to escalate or widen this war.
VAUSE: So for groups like Hezbollah how much weight does that threat actually carry. Is it likely to have any impact on the decision-making process, and you know, when Iran hears that what do they hear?
KHOURI: The United State4s is good at many things but it's not very good at either diplomacy or warfare in the global south. So the U.S. acts tough to support Israel, it's always done that. But I don't think these kinds of statements influence very many people in the region.
If Iran or Hezbollah wanted to do something, and American threats probably would not stop them from doing it, but I think the reality is that neither Iran nor Hezbollah want to start a bigger war. The United States is hysterically obsessed with Iran for some reason. The U.S. always has to have an evil bad guy menace in the region. It used to be Iraq. It used to be the Russians. It used to be (INAUDIBLE) all kinds of other groups. Now it's Iran.
And it's ironic that the U.S. negotiated an agreement -- a very good agreement with Iran on nuclear issues and sanctions, but Iran is seen in the U.S. public sphere and political elite and the media as a really terrible menace. Almost as bad as China is in the U.S. eyes.
And therefore they keep playing this -- overplaying this sense of we're going to stop Iran from doing this and doing that. And Iran shows no sign of wanting to be involved in the war.
So I don't take very seriously what the U.S. says about Middle East ideological and political and military movements. Neither do most people in the region.
VAUSE: Rami Khouri, it's great to have you with us. Your insights and your experience is very appreciated, sir. Thank you.
KHOURI: Thanks for having me.
VAUSE: Still to come here on CNN, in the U.S. Congress, Republicans go through the motions of choosing a nominee for speaker of the House but still can't seal the deal with the far-right party extremists.
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VAUSE: Welcome back.
Israel stepping up its defensive in Gaza and the Israel Defense Forces saying they're conducting large scale strikes on Hamas targets early Thursday morning.
The Palestinian health ministry says at least 51 people were killed and more than 280 wounded overnight. Gaza is now in near total darkness as its sole power station shutdown Wednesday after running out of fuel.
Meantime Israel says babies and toddlers were found decapitated following Hamas' attack on a kibbutz over the weekend. CNN has not independently verified the reports and Hamas denies the allegations.
The Biden administration says military aid for both Israel and Ukraine remain top priority. But Congress can't act until House Republicans elect a new speaker.
On Wednesday, Steve Scalise was picked as the GOP nominee for the top job over Jim Jordan. But Scalise's chance of winning a floor vote is already in doubt.
CNN's Manu Raju explains, now reporting in from Capitol Hill.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Republicans are going fearful that Steve Scalise's path to the speakership may be getting much smaller amid opposition from members of the hard right and others as well who are not yet sold on his nomination to be speaker of the House. The math simply is a challenge for him at the moment. With a narrowly divided House he needs to get 217 Republicans to support him for the speakership. To win the Republican nomination on Wednesday, he won 113 votes and
three of those votes were from nonvoting delegates. So he had essentially 110 members who vote on the House floor. He'll need a lot more. We do expect dozens of those people who voted against Scalise and voted for Congressman Jim Jordan to support Scalise on the floor.
But there are a number of others who say that they would vote for Jim Jordan on the House floor even though Jordan himself has urged his supporters to back Scalise and end this paralysis in the House in the aftermath of that unprecedented vote last week to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership.
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RAJU: But even despite those calls from Jim Jordan, a number of Republicans we have talked to are making clear they still plan to vote against Scalise on the floor making it incredibly difficult at the moment for him to win the speakership.
You're going to vote for Jordan on the floor on the first ballot. Are you going to still vote for Jordan --
Every single ballot?
REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): I mean it's hard to say but I think we'll have to go several rounds. I will (INAUDIBLE) at least initially. And I'm talking to different people in different camps, you know, figuring out where they are. That would be conservatives, that would be moderates, that would be Democrats -- figuring out what the next steps might be.
RAJU: Now, the timing of the vote is still uncertain. Republicans came out of the Wednesday meeting hoping to have a vote by Wednesday afternoon, maybe even the evening time to elect Scalise as Speaker that did not happen.
Thursday remains a possibility as well. But if Scalise does not have the votes, the question is does he go to the floor, does he dare Republicans to vote against him, try to sink the nomination or does he grind it out like he did -- like Kevin McCarthy did back in January when he got speakership at 15th ballot.
All key questions for Scalise as some worry that there's just no path for him to get the nomination, to get the speakership and believe that perhaps another candidate could emerge down the line.
All those key questions continue to loom over the GOP at this time when the House cannot act on any legislation until a speaker is elected.
Manu Raju CNN -- Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thank you for watching. I'm John Vause.
CNN NEWSROOM continues next with my friend and colleague Rosemary Church after a very short break.
Hope to see you right back here tomorrow.
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