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Israeli Reservists Prepare for Expected Ground War; Palestinians: 1,500 Killed in Gaza Including 500 Children; Hamas Trained for Years for Attack; American Victims Mourned by Families; Trump Lashes Out at Netanyahu, Compliments Hezbollah. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired October 13, 2023 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Vause with CNN's breaking news coverage of Israel at war.
[00:00:59]
It's just gone 7 a.m. in Gaza, and already thick plumes of smoke are rising above the city after yet another Israeli airstrike. And soon, Israel's war with Hamas could get dramatically worse.
According to U.N. officials, Israel wants more than a million Palestinians in Gaza to be relocated within the next 24 hours to the South of the enclave towards the border with Egypt. The clearest indication yet that a ground incursion could be imminent.
A U.N. spokesperson has described the request as impossible, warning an already tragic situation could easily become a calamity.
Israel's assault on Gaza is now into its seventh day. Six thousand airstrikes in six days, on average 1,000 a day. The IDF says all have have targeted Hamas, but according to Palestinian officials, more than 1,500 people have been killed, and the widespread devastation is pushing Gaza closer to a total humanitarian catastrophe.
Gaza's only powerplant is now off-line, and days earlier, supplies of electricity and water from Israel were cut off and will stay that way, according to Israeli officials, until Hamas frees all hostages being held in Gaza.
Doctors and aid agencies are warning Gaza's health system, already under-resourced and struggling in the best of times, is now on the brink of collapse.
The U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Israel Thursday and has been negotiating to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
After meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken is now in neighboring Jordan.
And Antony Blinken's visit to Tel Aviv may have been brief, but it was a very visual public show of support for Israel. Washington has also deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the region, a not too subtle message to Israel's enemies.
But the White House says there are no plans to send U.S. troops to Israel ahead of any expected military incursion into Gaza.
CNN's Nic Robertson has the very latest now, reporting in from Sderot in Southern Israel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Israel's newly emerging front line in the war with Hamas. Heavy Howitzers just dug in, firing on the terror group a few miles away in Gaza.
Part of Israel's massive military buildup since Hamas's attacks Saturday. Many of the 300,000 reservists called up already deployed ahead of a highly-anticipated ground offensive into Gaza.
ROBERTSON: These are exactly the same gun positions the Israeli Defense Forces used in their last major confrontation with Hamas back in 2021. The question now: will this confrontation be different? Will Israel actually be able to crush Hamas, as the prime minister says he wants to do?
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Military offensives have beaten them before, and won't be easy now. The Palestinian death toll, an unintended consequence of Israeli shelling and missile strikes, is climbing. Thursday, staunch ally the U.S. cautioning care.
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The prime minister and I discussed, how Israel does this matters. We democracies distinguish ourselves from terrorists by striving for a different standard, even when it's difficult.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): And it will be difficult. Israel is still reeling from the deadliest, most barbaric attack on its citizens since the state was founded. Anger at Hamas is high. So, too, pressure on the prime minister to act decisively. He's calling for more international support as he plans his offensive.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Hamas should be treated exactly the way ISIS was treated. They should be spit out from the community of nations. No leader should meet them. No country should harbor them. And those that do should be sanctioned.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): In the meantime, Hamas is still getting into Israel. This gun battle with them late Wednesday.
[00:05:00]
MAJ. DORON SPIELMAN, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES SPOKESPERSON: There were multiple incursions by Hamas terrorists yesterday. I drove right through Sderot during the time, and three terrorists were out. Again, looking for civilians to kill.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): The tempo of fire here far higher than in 2021. A drumbeat that seems to signal a ground offensive, all but inevitable. Even so, its outcome far from certain.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Sderot, Israel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Live now to London for the very latest. Journalist Elliott Gotkine is with us.
So Elliott, moving a million people in 24 hours seems to be a very tall order. And the timing, though, is clearly ominous right now.
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Well, very much. This is very much tied to what Nic Robertson was saying there, John, about the inevitability of this ground invasion.
Israel telling the United Nations to essentially evacuate the Gaza Strip, the Northern part of the Gaza Strip from Wadi Gaza Northwards.
Now, the U.N. says that accounts for about 1.1 million Palestinians. That's about half of the entire population of the Gaza Strip. There's specific distances around about ten kilometers South, although the Wadi kind of varies. It's not ten kilometers South of the North throughout.
But that is what Israel is saying. The U.N. saying that it's impossible to do so without, in its words, you know, devastating humanitarian consequences.
The response from Israel to the U.N.'s warning, from Israel's envoy to the U.N., is saying that that -- that response by the U.N. is itself shameful.
But clearly, what Israel is trying to do is to get the civilian population of the Gaza Strip to basically make way for the Israelis, for this expected ground incursion, to minimize civilian casualties.
But of course, moving that many people is no easy task.
At the same time, the Biden administration has been talking about trying to get safe passage for the civilian population of Gaza through the Southern crossing into Egypt. But of course, Egypt is not likely to want hundreds of thousands, potentially, of Palestinian refugees to come into the country. That Southern border has been sealed, of course, as well.
So it's a very difficult situation for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, where we've seen as you say, the death toll now, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, now rising above 1,500.
Of course, we know that more than 1,200 people inside of Israel have been killed since Hamas launched this attack against Israel in the early hours of Saturday morning. And that's a death toll that's also expected to rise -- John.
VAUSE: Elliott, thank you. Elliott Gotkine in London. Appreciate the update. Thank you. In all the conflicts between Israel and Hamas over the years, there's
been, and still is, one constant. Civilians in Gaza are always on the losing end of Israeli airstrikes.
And with the death toll surging once again, relief groups are calling for greater efforts to spare the men, women, and children in Gaza who are caught in the crossfire.
CNN's Nada Bashir has our report. And a warning: her report contains graphic content.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SCREAMING)
NADA BASHIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Gripped by grief and loss of unfathomable scale. Gaza's death toll, and the number of civilians wounded, is rising with each and every air strike.
In the Al-Shati refugee camp, men dig with their bare hands, desperate to rescue loved ones from beneath the rubble of what once were their homes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
BASHIR (voice-over): Sayed (ph) begins to list the names of the children killed in this latest strike. Among them, his niece. She was just a few months old. Now, she is one of more than 440 children Gaza's health ministry says has been killed by Israeli airstrikes so far.
Israel says it is striking Hamas targets. But authorities here say medical facilities, schools, and residential areas have been impacted.
"Our neighbor said that the Israelis had called and told them to evacuate the area around our home. So we came to stay with the relatives here in al-Shati," Nabil (ph) says. "But the next morning, when we woke up to pray at dawn, the air strike happened. There was no warning."
The densely populated Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli land, sea, and air blockade since 2007, is home to more than 2 million people. Around 40 percent of them are children.
So far at least 340,000 people have been displaced within Gaza. Many are now forced to take shelter in U.N.-run schools like this one. But civilians here are also now facing what the Israeli government has described as a complete siege on Gaza.
"There's no water for us to drink, no water for us to wash ourselves with so that we can pray," Maram (ph) says. "They've bombed our schools. Many people have been killed. It's not fair for children like us. Why is this happening to us?"
[00:10:11] Life under a blockade is all that the children of Gaza have ever known. For some, like 13-year-old Nadine, it is hard to imagine a future beyond this relentless conflict.
NADINE ABDUL LATIF, TEENAGER LIVING IN GAZA: The past couple of nights have been the worst couple of nights I've ever lived in my life. This is not living. This is existing. We're not -- we're planning our futures anymore. We're just trying to survive.
BASHIR (voice-over): But survival in Gaza is becoming more and more difficult by the day. The humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating.
And while the U.N. has condemned what it has described as Israel's unlawful blockade on Gaza, and the indiscriminate nature of Israel's airstrikes, there is little hope that the bloodshed will end here.
Nada Bashir, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Live now to Ramallah in the West Bank and Marwan Jilani, director-general of the Palestine Red Crescent. Thank you for being with us, sir. We appreciate your time.
MARWAN JILANI, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, PALESTINE RED CRESCENT: Thank you for having me.
VAUSE: I want to talk about Gaza here and the health services to start off with. Because the hospitals, the healthcare system in Gaza has always been strained at the best of times, but what is the situation right now as they try and treat literally thousands of wounded and also being under fire at the same time?
JILANI: Well, in the last few hours, there has been a development that has shocked everybody. Our teams, the medical doctors, the paramedics, et cetera. And we are, to be honest, we are just off-road (ph) and trying to -- to make sense of it.
And that is: the order to evacuate more than one -- one million people into the Southern Gaza. This as we have hospitals. In those hospitals, there are people who are sick, in intensive care. There are wounded. There are people with disabilities.
And I just don't know how the Israelis expect that this should be done when the roads -- when the roads are broken. I am telling you, I'm starting with this because this has been the recent development.
VAUSE: Yes.
JILANI: And we are shocked. We don't know how to deal, and we have appealed to the whole world to stop this madness.
VAUSE: Have you been told this directly by the United Nations, via -- from Israel via the United Nations? Did this come directly to the Palestinians now? So there are active discussions under way about how this could even be possible?
JILANI: We have been told that the U.N. is evacuating, that the International Committee of the Red Cross is evacuating. When we ask them, how do you expect one million people in this situation, when Gaza is -- has been turned into rubble, every infrastructure -- singular infrastructure is destroyed, when we have hospitals which are full of sick people and wounded and homeless, there is no answer.
VAUSE: Just in terms of logistics here --
JILANI: I think because -- There is no answer, because Israel has been emboldened and the world is silent, looking at the humanitarian catastrophe, and we don't hear any sane voice coming.
We just cannot deal with this. We are overwhelmed. I am on the phone from 1 a.m. this morning with our police, with our doctors, with our paramedics. They just don't know what to do.
VAUSE: So, just in terms of logistics, does this mean that Gaza has been cut in half, so from Khan Yunis down to the South will be essentially declared relatively safe for the population. Anything North of Khan Yunis would be declared a military zone? What have they told you?
JILANI: There is no safe zone in Gaza.
VAUSE: Yes.
JILANI: Gaza has no water, no food, no electricity. The roads are destroyed. All parts of Gaza have been bombarded heavily.
VAUSE: Sure.
JILANI: Barricaded. There is no safe zones here.
VAUSE: But in terms of the evacuation order, what are they looking at here? Where do they want people to go to? Is it South of Khan Yunis?
JILANI: They want people to go South of Gaza Valley. This is half of Gaza. There are people who are 20 kilometers away. They have no -- no means of transportation.
As I said, there are elderly people. There are children. There are sick people. We have hospitals in this area that they are asking us to evacuate.
How do we evacuate hospitals in the middle of this?
VAUSE: Can I ask you --
JILANI: And where to go? You know the area.
VAUSE: Yes.
JILANI: I mean, this is an overpopulated, people are on top of each other. So where do they go? [00:15:08]
VAUSE: So just tell me, though? Obviously, this is an imminent sign that a possible ground incursion, or some other major military offensive is on its way. If those people don't leave, then they're facing dangers, as well.
JILANI: Well, I think that is why the world has to intervene. I plead. Some sane voices. The world has to intervene and to stop this madness. You cannot right the wrong that happened with the massacre of people, where they're genocide. You cannot do that.
And the world is leaving Palestinian people helpless, and their fire. You kill children and women. Half of those killed are women and children. The world has to intervene, and they have to intervene now before the situation really gets worse.
VAUSE: Have you been -- have you been --
JILANI: Saying to the world to please intervene and stop this madness.
VAUSE: Have you been told what will happen if those evacuations do not take place?
JILANI: We have not been told anything. We have not been told anything. They told the U.N. They told ICSC (ph). We are hearing secondhand information. And even those international organizations, they are leaving without telling with us. They don't have any information. They -- they -- they themselves, they just received the order on the phone, shocked.
VAUSE: And just for context here, would this evacuation apply to Gaza City, as well?
JILANI: Yes. Yes. That is the catastrophe. One million people with hospitals, with elderly, with children. How -- just how the world is silent about this, I just -- it bothers me. I'm just shocked, beyond shocked.
We're not hearing anything. We're still hearing people beating the drums of war. I think it's enough.
VAUSE: Is this --
JILANI: It's enough we have already suffered.
VAUSE: Is this a matter of being open for negotiation, or is it just a done deal? This is what they Israelis have said, end of story.
JILANI: Well, this is what the Israelis have said, and I don't hear any voice. I don't hear Secretary Blinken saying anything about this. He has been in Israel just yesterday. He must have been told about this.
So is the United States giving a greenlight to this massacre? To this humanitarian catastrophe? Is the West keeping quiet and giving greenlight to Israel to do that? This is the question. That -- this is the question that you have to ask the Western leaders, to the Israeli officials. They just cannot do that.
VAUSE: And just for our audience, just explain the geography here and how Gaza basically is built up. Because in the North, which is Gaza City and it's very urban. That's where the city is. A lot of people are there. It's built up.
To the South, there isn't a lot of infrastructure. It's mostly rural agriculture. There just isn't anywhere for people to go.
JILANI: Now, Gaza, the whole of Gaza is overpopulated. Many refugee camps with the most densely-populated areas in the world. In between there are certain, especially to the North, farming areas which has been destroyed in the past in previous -- in previous wars.
The whole of Gaza is like a big city. One small city overpopulated. So the South is the same. You have Khan Yunis. You have refugee camps. You have a number of refugee camps in the South.
The area itself is already -- the whole Gaza Strip is the most densely populated area in the world. So to move 1 million people in this half of this area, is going to be catastrophic, and there are going to be massacres. There are going to be -- the elderly is going to be left behind. Children will be lost. The sick will be left behind, because we have no means to transport them.
And Gaza has been -- has been turned -- the bombing was, as I was told by my colleagues, square by square. It's like a chessboard, and they were moving from one square to another, bombing and flattening the whole thing and moving to the next square, to the next square.
So, sir, please, there are no safe areas. There are no rural areas. There are no open areas in Gaza. It's all densely populated, and people are going to be on top of each other even more so.
VAUSE: Yes.
JILANI: And it's just impossible. It is a humanitarian catastrophe.
VAUSE: Marwan Jilani, director-general of the Palestine Red Crescent there in Ramallah. Sir, thank you for your time. Thank you for giving some context to our audience. And also putting this in perspective from your point of view, as well.
Yes, this is obviously an incredible undertaking which does seem to be impossible at this point. Thank you for being with us, sir. We appreciate your time.
Still to come here, hiding in plain sight. It seems Hamas jihadis trained for years and made little effort to hide, raising more questions about how Israel's intelligence never saw the mass attacks coming in the first place. Those details in a moment.
Also, more on the lives lost during the surprise Hamas attacks, including the 27 U.S. citizens now confirmed dead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:19:48]
VAUSE: Less than a week after Hamas militants carried out a well- planned, well-coordinated attack, the deadliest ever on Israeli civilians in one day.
And one simple but painful question keeps growing louder: How could Israeli intelligence have missed it?
CNN's chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, and her team located six training camps in Gaza. And now the Israeli military is taking a closer look.
According to our reporting, all of those sites are within two kilometers of the most heavily-patrolled section of the border with Israel. Here's Clarissa's report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Propaganda videos put out by Hamas reveal chilling details about the years of preparations that went into Saturday's bloody attacks right under Israel's nose.
[00:25:12]
Analyzing metadata from the videos, a CNN investigation can reveal the presence of at least six training sites inside Gaza, one just 720 meters from the most heavily fortified and patrolled part of Israel's border.
In that camp, Hamas recreated an Israeli compound, with elements of the nearby border crossing, including an insignia of the area's (ph) battalion.
The videos show they even practiced taking prisoners and zip-tying their hands at the camp. Satellite imagery indicates the camp was constructed within the last year and a half.
At two other locations in the Southern part of Gaza, Hamas trained for their audacious paraglider assault, rehearsing takeoffs and landings.
At all six sites, two years of satellite imagery reviewed by CNN shows no indication of offensive Israeli military action. The imagery, instead, shows that in the last two years, some camps even expanded into surrounding farmland, and that there was activity in the last several months at the camps.
The stunning revelations raise questions as to how Hamas was able to train so openly, so close to the border for so long, and why Israeli officials were unable to pick up on and prevent the October 7th attack.
Clarissa Ward, CNN. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Washington has confirmed 27 Americans were killed in the brutal weekend attack by Hamas. Fourteen remain unaccounted for. And we're learning the names and stories of some of those victims. Here's CNN's Erica Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Beaming smiles, everyday joy. Now forever frozen in time.
EYAL WALDMAN, FATHER OF DANIELLE, KILLED IN HAMAS ATTACKS: She's an amazing person. And each and everyone that met her have loved her. She's done nothing wrong. And nothing bad to anyone.
HILL (voice-over): Eyal Waldman's 25-year-old daughter, Danielle, was born in California. She and her boyfriend, Noam, recently moved into a new apartment. They adopted a dog and were building a life together.
WALDMAN: They went to a party to celebrate peace and love.
HILL (voice-over): Danielle and Noam never made it home from the Nova music festival.
WALDMAN: She told me in the last meeting that she and Noam have decided that they would get married. Unfortunately, we will bury them together.
HILL (voice-over): Aryeh Shlomo Ziering was a captain in the IDF's dog-handling unit. The dual citizen spent his summers at camp in the U.S. His aunt Debbie describes Ari as a fun-loving athletic kid, who's passionate about protecting his country.
Captain Ziering was 27.
Igal Wachs' ex-wife says he moved back to Israel two years ago, to care for his mother. On Saturday, Hamas attacked their village where they lived.
LIAT WACHS, EX-HUSBAND AND HIS BROTHER KILLED IN HAMAS ATTACK: Igal and his brother were part of the security team, the perpetual (ph) team in the -- in the village.
HILL (voice-over): Igal and his brother, Amit, both Israeli-Americans, were killed.
RANAE BUTLER, SIX FAMILY MEMBERS KILLED IN HAMAS ATTACKS: My brother was Yonatan (ph), Johnny. We all called him Johnny. Tamari (ph) is my sister-in-law. She was running for council of the area, a bunch of villages. She was such an uplifting, such a quality human being.
HILL (voice-over): Ranae Butler's brother Johnny, and his young family, along with the mother, Carol Siman Tov, were murdered at the Nir Oz kibbutz on Saturday. BUTLER: A great loss. Such a big, beautiful tribe we had. Half of our
family is gone. This is our life. This is our love. I had 14 nieces and nephews. I have 11 now.
HILL (voice-over): A family shattered as countless more wait for word on their loved ones and wonder whether they will ever be whole again.
Erica Hill, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Intense U.S. shuttle diplomacy underway in the Middle East, aimed at ending the carnage, with America's top diplomat holding talks with leaders of Israel, Jordan, and others. We'll have a report from Tel Aviv in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:32:50]
VAUSE: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. It's just gone 32 minutes past the hour.
Israel has asked the U.N. to relocate a million Palestinians in Gaza, including all of Gaza City, according to some reports, to the South of the enclave, a move which could be the prelude to a major escalation in Israel's military offensive, possibly even a ground incursion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(ARTILLERY FIRE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Three hundred thousand Israeli troops are now amassing near Gaza's border. Artillery and airstrikes against Hamas targets inside Gaza have continued almost nonstop. But with nowhere safe to escape, civilian casualties are climbing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No one cries over us. There's no chivalry, no feelings. Hearts are dead. Only shocks and body parts remain. People are blind to this. People can't find food in their homes, and there is an extremely tough social condition in Gaza. Siege above the siege.
And all of this is happening because of the siege. Where should our people go? We've been besieged for 18 years. Where should we go?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: According to the U.N., more than 340,000 civilians in Gaza have been displaced, prompting this note of caution from the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLINKEN: The prime minister and I discussed how Israel does this matters. We democracies distinguish ourselves from terrorists by ascribing for a different standard, even when it's difficult, and holding ourselves to account when we fall short. Our humanity, the value that we place on human life, and human dignity, that's what makes us who we are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The U.S. in Qatar have temporarily withheld $6 billion from Iran, which was part of a prisoner exchange deal. The money is on hold as Washington investigates if Tehran was directly involved in the weekend attack by Hamas.
The funds were transferred to Qatar last month. A demand by Iran for the release of five Americans who Washington says were wrongfully detained.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Not a dime has been accessed, and we are watching it very, very closely. And even if they had accessed it, it wouldn't go to the regime. It would go to approved vendors that we approved to go buy food, medicine, and medical equipment, agricultural products, and ship it into Iran directly to the benefit of the Iranian people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[00:35:15]
VAUSE: U.S. officials concede so far there is no direct evidence of Iran's involvement in the Hamas attack, but they say the country is complicit because of ongoing support for terrorist groups like Hamas.
America's most senior diplomat is now in Jordan after spending Thursday in Israel. Antony Blinken is now trying to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from spreading beyond Israel's borders, now hoping to secure the release of hostages being held in Gaza.
CNN's Becky Anderson has more now, reporting in from Tel Aviv.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The war between Israel and Hamas kicking off a flurry of diplomatic activity across the Middle East.
BLINKEN: Sorry it's under these circumstances.
ANDERSON (voice-over): U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday to show Washington's solidarity with Israel.
BLINKEN: The message that I bring to Israel is this: you may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never ever have to. We will always be there by your side.
ANDERSON (voice-over): The secretary of state also tried to secure the release of hostages, taken by Hamas. Working with allies such as Qatar to strike a deal for the release of Israeli women and children, for Palestinian women and teenagers according to a diplomatic source.
But Hamas says it will not negotiate as long as it remains under attack from Israel. And Israel says it has cut off water, electricity, and fuel as long as those hostages are held in Gaza.
With a worsening humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave, the U.S. has warned Israel. It must follow the laws of rule, amid talk of a massive ground assault.
Elsewhere, talks underway with Egypt to allow civilians to exit Gaza via the Rafah border crossing. So far, no concrete deal there.
Meanwhile, the crisis paving the way for the first ever phone call between Iran's president and Saudi Arabia's crown prince.
Mohammed bin Salman stressing Saudi Arabia's efforts to hold any escalation and civilian targeting, as well as support for the Palestinian cause.
And that risks Riyadh's much awaited normalization deal with Israel. Jordan's King Abdullah, one of the first Arab states to strike a peace deal with Israel, renewing calls to establish a Palestinian state.
KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN (through translator): What the Palestinian territories are witnessing currently is evidence that again emphasizes that our area will not obtain peace and stability without achieving a comprehensive and just peace on the basis of the two-state solution so that the Palestinian people can receive its independent country with sovereignty.
ANDERSON (voice-over): While Blinken is in region, he'll reportedly meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday. But despite the diplomatic pressure, peace in the region seems further away than ever.
Becky Anderson, CNN, Tel Aviv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Coming up here on CNN, one U.S. president has shown real leadership, offering support and comfort to Israel, while a former U.S. president used the Hamas attack to trash-talk the Israeli prime minister. No prizes for guessing who.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:41:40]
VAUSE: This major international crisis has revealed some very big differences in both policy and temperament between U.S. President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump. Biden was both measured and empathetic while offering Israel full
support. He went on to slam Hamas and telling foreign actors to stay out of the conflict.
This all feeds into his reelection narrative as a confident, steady leader when it comes to world affairs. Donald Trump, though, the likely Republican presidential nominee, gave the kind of speech that his critics say makes him unreliable in a crisis.
On Wednesday, he complimented Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group to the North in Lebanon, and attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not taking part in the U.S. strike on a top Iranian general back in 2020.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing, I will say that.
When I see sometimes the intelligence, you talk about the intelligence, or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week. They've got to straighten it out, because they're fighting, potentially, a very big force.
And they said, Gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn't attack from the North. Because that's the most vulnerable spot.
I said, Wait a minute. You know, Hezbollah is very smart. They're all very smart. The press doesn't like when I say it, but --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Joining us now from Washington is Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic."
Ron, it's good to see you.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, John.
VAUSE: "The Washington Post" editorial board described the contrast between the current president and the former president like this: "Biden rises to the occasion on Israel and Hamas. Trump sinks to a new low."
We'll get to the politics of all those in a moment, but just take a step backwards and explain why this stuff matters. Why is it especially true in moments of crisis that what our leaders or wannabe leaders say and how they act is just so important.
BROWNSTEIN: Now, you know, the personal, the contrast in personal demeanor and behavior from President Biden and former President Trump really has been underscored by the last few days.
You know, Biden's argument, when he ran in 2020, was that he would be a steady hand on the tiller, that he would manage -- restore America's relations with its allies around the world, and he would react strongly, but steadily, through crises.
And by and large, I think, so far, most observers in both Israel and the U.S. believe that he has been both firm and unyielding in his support of Israel, but also modulated in his comments, for example, by noting that democracies are always stronger when they adhere to the rule of law, a subtle warning to Netanyahu about how far he can go, perhaps, in instilling civilian casualties.
Compared to Trump, you know, who is probably, certainly, closer ideologically to Netanyahu than Biden is, but Trump instantly makes it about him, about his personal grievances with Netanyahu, for not giving him enough credit for the 2020 assassination of an Iranian general. Or his other assorted grievances.
And his habit of praising autocratic or strongman leaders, talking about, you know, kind of strategic brilliance of Hezbollah and Hamas. The personal contrast in these, you know, very difficult hours could not be more stern.
[00:45:10]
VAUSE: And whatever happens politically as a result of this Hamas attack in Israel will be for Israelis to decide. But according to "Rolling Stone" magazine, in recent days, Trump has been speaking with pro-Israel donors, and reportedly, Trump has spent an inordinate amount of time aggressively trashing Netanyahu, saying he should be impeached by the Israeli parliament because the assault occurred on his watch."
Never mind the fact that Israel's parliament can't impeach a prime minister.
But this story has been picked up and reported in the mainstream media in Israel. You mentioned that President Trump was, you know, very popular at some time. What seems to take this to a new low, though, is the reported motivation here for Trump to attack the Israeli prime minister.
You touched on it. It's all personal, and it's all transactional.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes, well, look, I mean, as I said, ideologically, Netanyahu is more closely in line with Trump than with Biden.
Netanyahu has identified with the Republican Party over the last at least 20 years. I think more overtly than any foreign leader has ever identified within American party. And he repeatedly spoke before Congress at the invitation of Republicans to oppose Obama's efforts to -- to make a nuclear deal with Iran.
Despite all of that, despite the ideological sympathy and Netanyahu's general support for Trump's direction of trying to normalize relations between Israel and its Sunni neighbors, rather than focusing on the Palestinian peace talks.
Despite all that, you know, I think what you're seeing over these last few days is a view in Israel that Biden is still the more reliable partner, because he is the more reliable person. And Trump kind of exploding in a fit of pique at not getting enough credit from Netanyahu in the immediate aftermath of 1,200 Israelis or more being killed on the -- probably the worst day in the country's history is just a reminder of how much his politics is about him.
VAUSE: Yes, and that's prolonged headlines, a lot of criticism. Headlines like these. Trump somehow manages to make the Israeli Hamas conflict all about him. And a few challengers in the Republican presidential primary have spoken out, criticizing Trump. One being Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON DESANTIS, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now is not the time to be doing what Donald Trump did, by attacking Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, attacking Israel's defense minister, saying somehow that Hezbollah were very smart.
We need to all be on the same page. Now is not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The reality is it seems that whatever Trump does doesn't ever have any impact on him politically, but has he hurt himself here, politically? Or is it the case that he's actually helped Joe Biden?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, I do think that this kind of crisis is exactly what Biden advertised himself as being more fit to handle than Trump would be.
I mean, this is going to be -- you know, right now, the dominant impulse, really, across the civilized world is to rally to Israel's support, understandably.
But there is going -- there are going to be difficult diplomatic and military trade-offs as this moves forward that are going to require a lot of dexterity. To support Israel, but perhaps to restrain Netanyahu, to avoid a wider war, to keep on track the broader project that Biden has continued, admittedly, from where Trump started, of normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Sunni neighbors, largely around the idea of countering Iran.
It's going to take a lot of skill and dexterity. And, you know, that is really the issue for Trump, who -- who is so volatile, so unpredictable, he argues that that is an asset, that it makes, you know, adversaries uncertain, the mad men theory, updated version of that that Richard Nixon talked about.
But you see, even from his rivals in the Republican race, a reminder that, you know, that kind of behavior at this kind of moment is especially magnified.
And look, we know that foreign policy isn't top of the list for Americans when they vote, but one of Biden's core ideas in '24, as it was in '20, is going to be, do you want to return to the constant chaos of the Trump years? And what you have seen in the last 24 hours from the former president is about as stark a reminder of what that looks like as you could have.
VAUSE: Ron, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. Really appreciate your time. Ron Brownstein there in Washington. Thank you, sir.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
VAUSE: Coming up here on CNN, when the gunfire rang out in a music festival in Southern Israel, one woman was on the phone with her mother. This Israeli mother, it's hard to imagine a more agonizing phone call for any parent. Details in a moment.
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[00:54:00]
VAUSE: It's difficult to fully appreciate the anguish of Israeli families who have lost loved ones in such barbaric and senseless massacres.
One mother was on the phone with her daughter, who was trapped as that music festival with gunfire all around. She still doesn't know if her daughter's dead or if she's been taken hostage. Here she is, speaking earlier with CNN's Jake Tapper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELRAV LESHEM GONEN, DAUGHTER, ROMNI, MISSING SINCE MUSIC FESTIVAL: They finally went from the car and go to the bushes trying to hide, moving from bush to bush. And all the time, we talked with her and we heard the shooting going on around them, and they are hiding kids with no -- no weapons, no nothing.
At some point, just before 10 a.m., a very good friend of Guy (ph) came back. He was already out of this area, but he came back to take them, to rescue them. And he took, his name is Ben, Ben Shimoni (ph), and he was taking another boy with him, Afil Afati (ph).
The four of them tried to leave the area. They -- they didn't get much -- much further when I got the phone call from Romni at 10:15, crying, shouting, saying, "Mommy, we were shot. They shoot the car. We cannot move the car. It does not start. We cannot move. All of us are badly wounded, badly injured. Guy (ph) is not talking to me. Ben is not talking. Afil (ph) and I are wounded." Afil (ph) was telling me his name and gave me as mother's number so I can call her.
And Romni was so afraid. She was saying, "Mommy, I'm going to die."
And I said, "No, you're not going to die. You are coming back, and we will find a way to take you out of there."
And she was asking, "Mommy, how can you take me out of here? Please come and take us. Please tell somebody. Tell the army, tell the police, tell them to come." I tried to call the police. We tried to see how air force can -- can
maybe take a plane or a helicopter to -- to try and rescue them. And there was nothing to do. I was -- I could only lie to her and tell her that we are doing everything.
It's not a lie. We tried to do everything. But I knew we cannot -- we cannot help them.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Is that the last -- is that the last time you heard from her?
GONEN: Yes. The last thing I heard from them is -- is the shooting around them. We were talking, and it's likely she was fading away. And we heard the shooting around them, and then a lot of people talking in Arabic, shouting in Arabic. Somebody tried to start the engine but couldn't do it. And then somebody hangs the phone. And that's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: If you would like to help humanitarian efforts in Israel and Gaza, please go to CNN.com/impact. There, you'll find a list of vetted organizations responding to this crisis.
Thank you for watching this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. CNN NEWSROOM continues after a very short break with my friend and colleague, Michael Holmes. See you back here next week.
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