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Israeli Troops Amassing Near Gaza Border as Window for Safe Passage of Palestinians Out of Northern Gaza Closes; Egypt Closes Border with Gaza Preventing Palestinians from Leaving Region; Hezbollah Reports Attacks on Israeli Military Targets Near Lebanese Border; Intelligence Agencies Examining Reasons for Failures to Predict and Prepare for Hamas Incursion into Israel. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired October 14, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:43]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thank you for joining us. It's Saturday, October 14th. I'm Victor Blackwell.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Amara Walker. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

As the six-hour window safe passage out of northern Gaza expired last hour, Israeli troops were seen amassing near the Gaza border. We want to show you video taken in the last hour showing heavy weaponry arriving in southern Israel.

BLACKWELL: Inside Gaza, tens of thousands of people have left, but Israel has urged 1.1 million civilians in Gaza to relocate. IDF claims Hamas is stopping people from leaving. Hospitals have said that they cannot and will not leave because if they were to leave, a death sentence would then be on their patients. And now the U.N. is warning that many people who are pregnant, are elderly or have a disability, also will not be able to leave.

This is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The U.N. is warning that the situation in Gaza is a matter of life and death, and not just for those who are evacuating but also for the 2 million people who risk running out of clean water. The U.N. says they need aid sent to Gaza now or people will start dying.

WALKER: There definitely is an urgency to this. The U.S. says its support for Israel is ironclad, reiterating that Israel has a right to defend itself. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is now on the way to Abu Dhabi. Over the past couple of days, he has met with several top leaders in the region, urging them to use their leverage with Hamas to free the more than 100 hostages taken to Gaza. On Friday, President Biden spoke with family members of some of the American hostages being held in Gaza, 14 Americans are still unaccounted for after last week's attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to do everything in our power to find them, everything in our power. And I'm not going to go into detail of that, but there's -- we're working like hell on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: We're joined now by CNN Salma Abdelaziz. So the six-hour window for safe passage has expired. What are you learning that happens now?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: Quite simply, there are still countless civilians, countless innocents that remain in the crosshairs of this conflict even after what the Israeli military calls a safe passage, of course. But the United Nations does not, did not consider this a humanitarian corridor at all. In fact, they were saying it was a violation of the rules of war, said that it defied basic humanity and called it impossible.

Just break this down here, 1.1 million people. That is nearly half of the Gaza Strip asked in a matter of hours to move southwards regardless of whether they were able-bodied or not. And already, you had hundreds of people wounded, injured in hospitals, again, unable to move.

And they're being asked to evacuate to where? That's the question. The south of the Gaza Strip has also been bombarded and struck by Israeli airstrikes in recent days. There is utter carnage there as well. Rights groups, the United Nations, have already said we simply cannot set up a humanitarian system, humanitarian infrastructure, to catch all of those people in a matter of just hours.

And then those evacuation corridors we're speaking of, the very designated routes given by the IDF, we have images to show you, I believe here, social media material that was geolocated by CNN, verified by CNN, showing on these routes. And I warn you, this is graphic material, if we can show it. And it shows a scene of utter carnage, utter chaos. Palestinian health officials saying that one of the routed, again, on Friday that was supposed to be designated for safe passage was struck by artillery, struck by shelling, and that dozens of people were killed and wounded, bombed, quite literally, as they tried to flee their homes.

It's important to remember here that Prime Minister Netanyahu says all of this, this unfolding humanitarian crisis, is only the beginning. As you mentioned, hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops are on the border expected potentially to start a ground invasion.

[10:05:03]

BLACKWELL: Salma Abdelaziz for us, thank you very much.

Let's talk about these crossings into and out of Gaza. There are two. There's one at Israel's border and there's one at Egypt's border. Well, as we know, the Gaza crossing at Israel is locked down. And as we talk and Rafah, there are Palestinian Americans who are waiting there hoping to leave, but they have not been allowed to. A Palestinian border official tells CNN that concrete slabs are being put in place to block the gates from the Egyptian side.

WALKER: So this is according to a local Egyptian news channel. Egyptian authorities say it won't open until that passage allows humanitarian aid for Gaza. We understand that there is an airplane that arrived from Jordan into Egypt with medical aid, and Jordanian and Egyptian officials have been pressing Israeli officials to open that border to allow aid in. So right now, things are at a standstill. Palestinian Americans say they have been waiting for hours at the border.

CNN's Jennifer Hansler is joining us now from Washington. Jennifer, so what's the confusion here, because the State Department was initially saying that they believed these Americans in Gaza would be able to cross through Rafah?

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTER: I think this is just a situation that's been incredibly fluid. We saw that notice from the State Department that went out to some of these Palestinian Americans who had requested assistance, and it said that it may be open this afternoon. Of course, officials we've spoken to have stressed that there was never no firm understanding in place yet. A senior State Department official said this morning that it was their intention for this crossing to be opened. But there's just so much we do not know at this point.

As you referenced, there is that local Egyptian reporting that Cairo is blocking this crossing until humanitarian aid is allowed to enter Gaza. Another U.S. official is pointing to Hamas and the fact that Hamas does control another side of that border, and it is unclear if they are letting civilians come in. So there are a lot of questions. But at the end of the day, we are hearing from people who have been waiting there for hours on the expectation that maybe they would get the chance to flee to safety in Egypt. And as of now, they have had no opportunities to do so.

BLACKWELL: Jennifer Hansler for us in Washington, thank you.

WALKER: So fighting is intensifying on Israel's north border with Lebanon. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says it launched an attack on Israeli military positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms this morning.

BLACKWELL: Shebaa Farms is a small strip of land that is highly disputed territory located in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights region and borders Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. The Israeli Defense Forces responded to the recent attacks with multiple air strikes, drone attacks against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is near the Lebanese Israeli border where they have been hearing these prolonged artillery fire over the past few hours. What are you hearing now?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It went on, it's been going on for about an hour and 45 minutes, Victor. And even though it's not quite as intense as it was before, it's still ongoing. Now, we received a statement from Hezbollah saying that at 3:15, their forces used guided missiles to make precise hits on Israeli positions in the so-called Shebaa Farms. The Israel military has responded saying that they initially were targeted by 30 mortar rounds by Lebanese territory, that they responded to the sources of that fire, and that in the course of these exchanges, the Israelis say that a group of individuals tried to infiltrate into Israeli territory, and they were struck. They were hit by an air strike.

Now, the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" is reporting that there have been casualties on the Israeli side, one seriously injured, two medium wounds. So this definitely represents a rather significant uptick in the amount of fire going back and forth between the two sides. It represents, however, in the grand scheme of things compared to what both sides, Hezbollah and Israel could be doing, it's relatively minor. But it certainly, since we've been in south Lebanon, it is most sustained and intense exchange of fire between the side, the two sides. Victor, Amara?

BLACKWELL: Ben Wedeman for us there in southern Lebanon, thanks so much.

[10:10:01]

Let's take that now to Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the political consultancy Eurasia Group. Ian, good morning to you. I want to pick up where Ben left off there and what we're seeing and hearing from Hezbollah. This is more urgent but is nowhere near what it could be, this exchange between Israel and Hezbollah. What's your assessment of the degree to which they are involved and why at this level?

IAN BREMMER, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP: Yes. I think it would be very clear to all of us if Hezbollah was trying to open up a second front. We are nowhere close to that. What I would best assess right now is lack of centralized control, and militants on the border engaging in skirmishing as well as some incursion over the border. But this is, again, what we have seen over the course of the last week is that overwhelmingly the fighting is Hamas. The fighting has been planned by Hamas. The fighting has been perpetrated by Hamas, and of course Gaza is where this war is.

BLACKWELL: And so your expectation is that the IDF is aware these four sites that are hit in Israel territory by Hezbollah is not coming from central leadership, so they are not responding with a non-proportional degree of force because they know this is not the intervention that it could be.

BREMMER: Just as we saw in the first 24 hours when there were a few rockets that were sent by Hezbollah forces against an Israeli military encampment, not against Israeli civilians, and the Israelis responded in virtually direct size and scale against Hezbollah immediately. Again, this is again, very, very far from a two-front war.

The only time that anyone believed that that was changing was when the Israelis suddenly put out this massive amount of material that looked to be coming across the border of Israel, and it turned out that was a false alarm about an hour later. Everyone was panicked about it. It didn't actually happen. But there's no reason to believe at this point that Hezbollah is involving itself in a broader war.

BLACKWELL: Let's turn to the Egyptian border there with Gaza and the Rafah crossing, as we reported today that there's some Palestinian Americans who have been there waiting for hours. They received messages from the U.S. State Department that said maybe there would be an allowance of Palestinian Americans to cross into Egypt to escape Gaza. There are now these concrete slabs up. What options, what leverage does the U.S. have to pressure Egypt to allow the 500 to 600 Palestinian Americans to get out of Gaza?

BREMMER: Look, the Egyptian economy is performing incredibly badly, and they've got elections coming up. Clearly, the United States has been both a humanitarian and a direct financial supporter of the Egyptians, not to mention providing security support over the years. Secretary Blinken directly engaging with the Egyptian leadership, I feel quite confident that that will lead to support in getting those Americans out, assuming they can get safely to the border crossing.

Now, that's very different than the plight of the Palestinians who right now have no way to get out of Gaza, right. They can leave the area where they've been told to evacuate north in Gaza with a lot of difficulty and with Hamas in many cases forcing them to stay. But it's not like Gaza has open borders at all. And the Egyptian government is going to demand a lot of financial support. Some will come from the U.S., some can come from Qatar, from other countries in the Gulf. Gut if they're going to have significant numbers of Palestinian refugees from Gaza, that is certainly going to require much more than just a couple of moments with the secretary of state.

And what I've heard from the Egyptian government is that they are in principle prepared to accept up to 100,000 Palestinian refugees. That is their, in a sense, quiet red line. In return, they expect very significant support, very significant humanitarian and financial support. Now, I suspect those negotiations are going to play out over not just days, but weeks.

BLACKWELL: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on this, I believe it's seven country tour now in the region, left Saudi Arabia, headed to UAE if he's not there already, urging leaders in the region to place as much pressure as they can through their leverage on Hamas to release these hostages. Is there a point at which that becomes more of just an urging?

[10:15:01]

If the Qatari leaders do not force Hamas to shut down offices in Doha, that that becomes more than just a firm request, that there is some consequence for Hamas to continue to be able to operate these offices in the region?

BREMMER: I think it's hard to see that soon, especially because we are in an environment where you still have hostages that the Israelis are actively trying to go everything to get back. But I will say that there is very significant engagement between the Americans and all these countries to try to stabilize the situation, try to ensure it does not escalate beyond Gaza.

We're going to see absolute war in Gaza. There's not going to be any restraint coming from Israel given what they've experienced, and the Americans aren't willing to push them on it. And so the humanitarian crisis that's going to come as a consequences, and we'll all be seeing it, we'll all report it, that's going to limit what the Gulf states are willing to do in this conflict because of pressures domestically.

It doesn't mean the Americans aren't getting cooperation, cooperation to take care of Palestinians as they end up in Egypt, also, eventually in what happens in Gaza following an Israeli occupation. The Gulf states are going to be asked to play a role there in terms of governance and in terms of financial support. Qatar, you probably just saw in the last day, worked with the United States in refreezing the $6 billion of Iranian assets that the Americans had said that they were going to provide. That's been reneged. The Americans needed Qatar for that.

So there's definitely a lot of collaboration happening at the top levels, but you have to understand that the big issue here is not that the Gulf states don't want to work with Israel. The Golf states are very interested in working with Israel. And if they didn't have to worry about their populations, they wouldn't be saying anything about Hamas at this point. They wouldn't be saying anything about the Palestinians at this point. But that's not where they are.

BLACKWELL: Ian Bremmer, always good to have your insight. Thank you.

WALKER: Still to come, U.S. intelligence warned of potential for violence days before the Hamas attack in Israel. We'll get you the details of what officials suspected after a quick break.

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[10:21:31]

BLACKWELL: We are learning more about U.S. intelligence assessments leading up to last week's attacks on Israel. Sources tell CNN that while there were warnings of increased activity by Hamas, they did not detail anything like what happened when the attacks happened.

WALKER: It's also unclear if any of the U.S. assessments were shared with Israel. Here's CNN's Alex Marquardt with more on what was shared and when.

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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Sources familiar with U.S. intelligence tell CNN that there were warnings and indications about possible attacks by Hamas from Gaza that could happen, but nothing on the level of what we ended up seeing last weekend. There were at least three intelligence reports, two American, one Israeli, in the days leading up to the horrific events of October 7th. On September 28th and October 5th, the U.S. intelligence community issued warnings of potential cross border strikes by Hamas with rocket fire, and then the growing possibility of violence around Gaza.

Then on October 6th, there was a third report from Israel, that was the day before the attacks, saying that there was unusual activity by Hamas. Sources are now telling CNN that these reports looked nothing like what ended up unfolding in terms of the scope and the barbarity. A Biden administration official tells CNN, quote, there was no information warning about the terrorist attack in advance. Instead, sources tell us that the sense was that if something happened that it would look more like it had an in the past, perhaps rocket fire from Gaza, interceptions then by the Israel Iron Dome and possible responses into Gaza by Israel.

But more profoundly, U.S. sources say, there was a general complacency that had taken hold in Israel, underestimating what Hamas could pull off. And given that Gaza and Hamas were in Israel's backyard, American sources say, the onus is primarily on Israeli intelligence to have detected the looming plot.

Still, with regular warnings from the U.S. intelligence community and Middle Eastern allies as well about a buildup of Hamas weapons and growing Palestinian anger, this is also raising questions about whether the Biden administration was taking the Hamas threat seriously enough.

Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALKER: Alex Marquardt, thank you.

Joining us now to break down those intel warnings is CNN national security analyst and former deputy director at the Office of National Intelligence Beth Sanner. Beth, appreciate your time. What is your take on all this?

BETH SANNER, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: There is no doubt that this was a huge intelligence failure, but I always say that these kinds of failures aren't just about intelligence, right. It's a political failure. It's a security failure. It's an intelligence failure. And it all usually gets back to the human element that people are behind, whatever information comes in, there's a human element in how you look at that information. And I think that there was a degree of hubris here, that people were just bucketing this information into the old paradigm and not recognizing that there was something really major afoot.

WALKER: In Alex Marquardt's report, I think he quoted a source saying that this was also a failure of imagination, which kind of reminds me of the commission report after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., because no one in America ever imagined that terror would come to our soil in that scope.

But how do you explain a failure of imagination in Israel when the threat is existential and constant, and we know that Hamas has been working to destroy Israel?

[10:25:09]

SANNER: Right. Well, I think part of this is just a complete separation of these societies. And they do not talk. They do not understand each other. And so the Israelis are putting everything into the same old box, and they didn't recognize that -- they were looking at Hamas more as a political organization, they were working with them. They thought that they had different goals, and they forgot that Hamas had a basic goal that had never changed of destroying Israel.

But at the same time, they just weren't watching because I think they had this mindset of Hamas is never going to do anything more than throw a few rockets at us and we can manage that, and our technology will protect us. And they just didn't recognize that Hamas was learning and getting better. So --

WALKER: Right. Sorry, go ahead.

SANNER: No, I just think that they got complacent. And there were a lot of assumptions made about who Hamas was and what their capabilities were. And they did not change those assumptions. One of the key things that intelligence analysts do is you have assumptions for any assessment that you make. And the best analysts lay out literally, explicitly, write out your assumptions. And over time, you have to go back and you have to challenge those and say, hey, is Hamas the same as it was last year, the year before, or actually are they better and learning? And instead, they put a big wall up with a lot of technology, and I think that they just weren't as dialed in to what was happening on the ground. If anyone wants to go back and look at Clarissa Ward's report on the training that was taking place and how Israel missed that training in clear, we will find out at a later stage. But it is sad and shocking.

WALKER: That is the other big question, isn't it, about what Israel missed in terms of the training, and also the number of weapons and rockets that were amassed. This is the most heavily surveilled part of the world. So again, does this go to complacency, is it negligence? Where do you place that?

SANNER: It's never one thing. It's a lot of things. And so it happened over a long period of time. They amassed weapons. They bring in components. And let's not forget that the political aspect of this forced the IDF to make choices. And so Israeli Defense Forces, the people looking at this and a lot of the collection, while they maintained things I'm sure, because all of us recognize Hamas as a threat, they had to shift a lot of this to the West Bank as this very rightwing aspect of the Netanyahu government really allowed and pushed settler movements into the West Bank, and that created a lot of distraction.

And so we really have to think that this is not just a one thing. This is a systemic thing. And also the IDF and Shin Bet and Mossad are still amazing organizations, and their resilient, and we have to look at their failure with some humility. We've had failures, too.

WALKER: Yes, we have. And there are going to be a lot -- there's going to be a lot of lessons to be learned. Beth Sanner, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: The president says the White House is working like hell to free American hostages held by Hamas. Ahead, details of President Biden's call with families of Americans unaccounted for.

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[10:33:08]

BLACKWELL: President Biden is reaffirming his commitment to the 14 Americans who are unaccounted for in Israel. He spoke to their families via Zoom yesterday, and later he shared some of the details of the call during a speech in Philadelphia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're going through agony not knowing what the status of their sons, daughter, husbands, wives, children are. It's gut-wrenching. I assured them my personal commitment to do everything possible, everything possible to return every missing American to their families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: It is gut-wrenching, and knowing what Hamas is capable of, that must be just agonizing for families. CNN's Jasmine Wright is live at the White House with more. What more can you tell us about that call, Jasmine, and what the Biden administration is doing to find those who are still unaccounted for?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Amara, President Biden really promised to use the full might of the American government to return loved ones back to their family. We spoke to several who were on the call, who were familiar with the call, and they described the call as one taking about 45 minutes. And in it, President Biden was mostly listening, they said. They said that he listened to families talk about personal stories of their members who were unaccounted for. Also talk about what they want the government to do in terms of their release. Really President Biden in that arena adopting that empathizer in chief role that we've seen him adopt multiple times over the course of his presidency.

Now, they also described kind of a gut-wrenching call, emotional, one source put it to CNN, talking about just how large the call was. There were folks from both the U.S. and Israel on it. About 20 representatives of the families who are unaccounted for really trying to talk to President Biden and hear his perspective. But on the call, the president said that he reaffirmed his commitment to doing everything in his own power to get them home, something that he also talked about in the "60 Minutes" interview on Thursday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:35:06]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I say we're going to do everything in our power to find them, everything in our power. And I'm not going to go into detail of that, but we're working like hell on it.

Because I think they have to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about what's happening to them, deeply. We have to communicate to the world this is critical. This is not even human behavior. It's pure barbarism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: So that was a message that the folks on the call said they got from the president. Now, in terms of those details that he didn't want to talk about. Diplomatically, the White House and the wider administration said that they believe about 14 Americans remain unaccounted for, less than a handful. NSC's John Kirby told us on Friday they are believed to be hostages with Hamas. So of course, over the last few days, we've saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the ground in Israel and Qatar and other countries that we know are engaged in this diplomatic effort, trying to get Hamas to release some of those hostages.

As well as we know that the FBI and other U.S. officials are on the ground in Israel trying to work that as well really trying to show that America is putting on, basically, a full court press trying to get hostages and other of those Americans on ground who are unaccounted for really back to their families, showing that this is a number one priority for this administration. But of course, only time will tell how this all unfolds. Amara, Victor?

WALKER: It's a very difficult situation. Jasmine Wright, thank you.

Amid the horror of the war, we are hearing stories of heroism and survival. Coming up, how a 72-year-old former paratrooper protected his kibbutz from Hamas.

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[10:40:50]

BLACKWELL: There are so many stories of heroism, and we're learning them, about how Israeli citizens put up fierce resistance against Hamas militants who invaded their homes.

WALKER: And in one such story, a 72-year-old paratrooper led local residents in a revolt when invaders approached their kibbutz near Gaza last weekend. CNN's Matthew Chance has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): The attacks by Hamas were a bloodbath, Israelis slaughtered or taken hostage. At the kibbutz Magen near Gaza, the militants met their match.

BARUCH COHEN, SURVIVED HAMAS TERROR ATTACK: I don't what to think but I always was told you should never catch me with my underwear in my end. CHANCE: Never catch you with your pants down?

B. COHEN: Never.

CHANCE: He suffered shrapnel wounds and an amputated leg. When dozens of Hamas fighters tried to breach his kibbutz fence last weekend, this 72-year-old former paratrooper and war veteran swung into action.

B. COHEN: I decided to take my car. I take a few magazines with me. And I decided to enter as much as soon as I can, let's go to shoot them over the window of my car.

CHANCE: So you drove towards the attackers and you started shooting at them?

B. COHEN: I try -- I shoot them.

CHANCE: Before they came through the fence?

B. COHEN: Before. In my head, that was the only way to stop them.

CHANCE: In nearby Jewish communities, or kibbutzim, Hamas attackers ran amok in a vile killing and kidnapping spree. But in kibbutz Magen, home to more than 400 Israelis, the small team of armed volunteers trained and led by Baruch, kept the militants at bay.

His wife, Mina, at his bedside, told me she has no doubt why.

MINA COHEN, SURVIVED HAMAS TERROR ATTACK: The difference is Baruch because --

CHANCE: Your husband?

M. COHEN: My husband, Baruch, 20 years that he's in this position, and every time that the lot of young people coming have made the same position that Baruch in the other kibbutzim, they laugh at him. They said that he's crazy. They said that he's speaking nonsense. Nobody will come. And Baruch defended the kibbutz year by year. And all the people laugh at him.

CHANCE: They laughed at him, they said he was paranoid.

M. COHEN: Yes. He's paranoid.

CHANCE: They said it's not going to happen.

M. COHEN: It's not, it never will happen, because we have the army.

CHANCE: In fact, the Israeli army came under attack by Hamas, too, leaving Baruch and his team to fight alone for more than six hours, way longer than expected.

B. COHEN: Where is the army? They teach us that if something happens, I always say to my friends, that we've got 35 minutes that belong to us. After 35 minutes, the army should be here, the best units should be here, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. CHANCE: But they didn't come.

B. COHEN: The watch didn't work.

CHANCE: As Israelis elsewhere were taken hostage, the communities overrun, Baruch fought on, severely injured and out of ammo, armed with just a blade.

B. COHEN: I take it in my hand and I said, if you should come, you should find me with a knife.

CHANCE: A stubborn determination his friends and neighbors say helped save them from the grim fate of others nearby.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WALKER: An extraordinary story. Matthew Chance, thank you.

[10:45:00]

The Israeli military says it has notified the families of all of the more than 100 hostages taken by Hamas as an international diplomatic and military effort is underway to find them and bring them home.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Laura Coates interviewed Udi Goren who shared his concerns about his missing cousin after the attack on his family near the Gaza Strip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UDI GOREN, COUSIN HELD HOSTAGE IN GAZA: I'm terrified because, for example, the last time his phone was located was in southern Gaza. So maybe he was moved to the north and then they're going to find them. Maybe he's going to be the first guy to be found in the first house they go into, but maybe, as his captives see the army is coming, they're going to execute him and run away. That's also very plausible.

LAURA COATES, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: This must be just the thought of that and having to think about those possibilities, it's unimaginable to so many people to think that that has to be anticipated. There must have been such an emotional evolution and toll this is taking on you and your family. What has this been like?

GOREN: I can only describe it as sitting on the edge of an abyss full of sorrow and grief. That's really what it feels like for most of the time.

COATES: Your mother's whole family, I understand, was living in the kibbutz and you were texting with them as the attack unfolded. Can you describe what that moment was like?

GOREN: These people have been living there their entire lives. They've been through all the assaults from Gaza, all the incursions, everything. They are very tough people. And as we were texting with them, you couldn't tell what they were going through at those very moments. Only later did we find out that my mom's cousins, people in their 60s, were locked in their bomb shelters fighting with terrorists on the outside. Inside their homes, fighting with terrorists to hold the door locked literally holding the door locked for their lives because had people gone in, well, we know how that ended for other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Udi, his wife and young daughter left Israel Sunday, a day after Hamas attacked Israel. They're right now being hosted by an Israeli family in Cyprus.

For information about how you can help, humanitarian efforts in Israel and in Gaza, go to CNN.com/Impact, or use your mobile device to scan the QR code on your screen.

WALKER: Turning to politics now, Republicans are ending the week no closer to electing a new speaker. Coming up, a look at the deep internal divisions within the party. And can Jim Jordan get enough votes to get the job?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:31]

WALKER: With future aid to Israel on the line, the House of Representatives has now gone more than 10 days without a speaker. The Republicans did pick a new nominee for the job, Jim Jordan, but they still have the same numbers problem.

BLACKWELL: More than 50 Republicans voted against supporting Jordan on the House floor, so the congressman does not seem to have the votes to get the gavel.

Let's bring in our chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. Manu?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Victor and Amara. The Republicans are still in a state of disarray in the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster, which is coming up upon two weeks when the Republicans, eight Republicans joined Democrats, the first time in history a speaker being voted out of his position.

Since then, nothing has happened. In fact, no legislation can actually move, whether it's significant issues, foreign policy issues like aide to Israel or keeping the government open, which they need to do by mid-November. None of that can actually passed. No legislation at all until they elect a speaker of the House. But Republicans have been so badly divided that they have not been able to figure out their way forward. First, they nominated Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, to replace Kevin McCarthy, but he backed out. He dropped out of this all together because of opposition within the ranks.

Then Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, was nominated on Friday to be the next speaker of the House. But when he put the question to his conference behind closed doors and asked them, how many of you would vote against me if I went to the floor for a House floor for a vote, 55 Republicans voted against Jordan. He can only afford to lose four Republicans in that vote on the floor.

Over the weekend, he's going to try to flip 51 Republicans to his side. That is a very tall order. This all comes as there is growing concerns about how this is impacting the GOP, how this is impacting Congress and the ability to act on any of these key issues, including from the speaker, former Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Why do you think members have so many reservations, 55 members have so many reservations on Jim Jordan right now.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: I don't know so much of it is Jim Jordan as it is maybe with the eight who, four percent, caused this whole problem and all the Democrats. I think that's more the reservation.

RAJU: People just don't feel like they should have new leadership, that's why?

MCCARTHY: I don't think about new leadership. I just think they saw eight people work with all the Democrats and disrupt the country. I think that's a real problem.

RAJU: How do you get past that?

MCCARTHY: It's not easy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:55:01]

RAJU: Now, Republicans have scheduled a vote for as early as Tuesday to try to figure out if they can actually elect a new speaker. Big question if they can actually get there with Jim Jordan as their candidate. If Jordan decides to bow out, who's the alternative? Several names have been floated, but can they actually get the votes? Another huge question. Or will they try to prop up the powers of the interim speaker, Patrick McHenry. That is also a big question. The Republicans are still divided over that question as well. So, so many things are looming over Republicans right now as their internal struggles and battles have left the legislative branch essentially paralyzed. The Senate can act, but the House cannot. But can they actually become unstuck. That is the big question as Republicans try to take the weekend off and try to regroup again when they come back into session on Monday. Victor and Amara?

BLACKWELL: All right, Manu Raju, thank you.

WALKER: Thank you for watching.

BLACKWELL: And stay with us for CNN Newsroom starts in just a few minutes.

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