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CNN International: Netanyahu Invited Biden to Visit Israel Soon; Gaza Residents Flee as IDF Readies for Next Stage of War; Water, Fuel Shortages Plague Gaza Amid Destruction; China's Top Diplomat: Israel Has Gone Beyond Self-Defense; Republicans Reportedly Ready to Block Jim Jordan Vote; Rallies Held Globally for Both Palestinians and Israelis. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 16, 2023 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster. There are discussions taking place for a possible visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to Israel in the near future we're hearing. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Prime Minister Netanyahu invited President Biden to visit Israel soon and sources tell CNN that both countries are discussing the possibility. Now it's unclear how advance these conversations are and if this will happen when it would happen. But in a statement to CNN, the White House said that there are no new travel plans to announce.

Now the two leaders did talk over the weekend to talk about ongoing military support by the U.S. and the conflict at large. And if this visit were to happen by President Biden, it would come on the heels of high stakes diplomacy by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Who has been meeting with regional partners and his counterparts in diplomacy to avoid this conflict from spreading or widening any further.

And in an interview with 60 Minutes, President Biden said that while Israel needs to respond, it would be, quote, a big mistake for there to be an occupation of Gaza. Take a listen.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What happened in Gaza in my view is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don't represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again, but to going in and taking out the extremists, the Hezbollah is up north, but Hamas down south is a necessary requirement.

ALVAREZ: Now all of this is top of mind as the White House goes into the week. On Sunday, President Biden was briefed regularly by his senior officials about the ongoing situation in Israel and Gaza.

Priscilla Alvarez, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Join us now is CNN's Scott McLean, because who've been trying makes sense of the military movements within Gaza. It's so difficult to figure out, isn't it? But they are -- there have been attacks below the line at which the Israelis were evacuating people.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so it might be helpful just to take a quick look at the map. So basically, Israel has said that basically the top third of the Gaza Strip should be evacuated. It's about 1.1 million people they've told to move south. And the difficulty though, is that the air strikes that we saw over the weekend, the IDF says that there were 250 of them yesterday alone on military targets they say. They say that most of them were in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but some of them were also south. So remember, these are places that people have evacuated to.

And we've got video in from a place called Deir al-Balah. Again, sort of in the central part of Gaza, where there were at least two air strikes over the weekend and there was horrifying video of the aftermath of people sort of scrambling around wondering what to do. Obviously, people looking through the rubble and also children showing up at hospitals as well.

And then even just this morning -- we don't have video from this -- but there was another air strike in Khan Younis, which is even further south -- even farther south, where the local hospital -- a doctor at the local hospital, says that 10 people were killed, 23 people injured. So again, no where it seems, is really safe in Gaza, obviously safer in the south, but still far from a place that you'd want to be.

FOSTER: And in terms of you know this preparation for getting humanitarian aid in. Once they're in, I mean, this is the challenge that the Egyptians have face -- are facing, isn't it?

[04:35:00]

That they're concerned that once those trucks and those convoys go in there, they've got to make their way through without being here as well.

MCLEAN: And I was listening intently to the question that you asked the IDF spokesperson about, you know, can you give some assurances that these trucks won't be targeted? And he said, look, we're going to leave the diplomacy to the diplomats and that you know, if we're told to cease-fire, then then we can cease-fire.

But obviously there's still a lot of danger there. There's obviously pockmarked roads, making it difficult for things to get around. And you know, the U.N., other aid groups have been basically shouting as loud as they can to whoever will listen just about how dire the situation is. And basically, it's, you know, it's life or death. You had the World Food Program saying that if they cannot help people and they are running out of food, that people will die. You know, the U.N. saying that you're looking at a potentially thousands of people dying as a result of the situation, MSF, Doctors Without Borders, they have been perhaps the starkest of all of them, about the situation. They've called the Israeli strikes indiscriminate. They say that hospitals, ambulances have also been caught in the crossfire. And they say that look, they are struggling to find water. Food obviously is in short supply.

And the Director in France said this, quote: Hospitals are overwhelmed. There are no more painkillers now. Our staff tells us about the wounded screaming in pain. The injured, the sick who cannot get to the hospital.

And also keep in mind as well, that look, this evacuation order coming from Israel also impacts about 22 healthcare facilities north of the line. But one of those hospitals -- at least one of those hospitals, put out a video yesterday trying to explain why this wasn't possible. And in that video, you see, you know, newborn babies in incubators. You see children on ventilators, and obviously they can't go anywhere because where on Earth would they go?

And the other difficulty that the MSF -- or that the aid organizations say that that they're running into in some cases is, people turning up to the hospital, not necessarily because they're hurt or need medical attention, but because they need shelter. And they figure that in all of the chaos happening in Gaza, that hospitals are still probably one of the safest bets.

NOBILO: Actually, over the weekend as well, just to add to what Scott saying, The WHO said that evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza, are death sentence for the sick and the injured.

FOSTER: It's just the idea that they'd even have an ambulance to take them.

MCLEAN: What do you mean?

FOSTER: You know, to evacuate a lot of -- the pictures you were just showing there --

MCLEAN: Right.

FOSTER: They need ambulances to evacuate.

MCLEAN: Precisely and you need roads to be able to get there. And we've already seen, you know, some of the evacuation routes getting hit by bombs. Israel denies that it was their strikes. That's a different story. But the bottom line is, it is simply not safe. And if you were a child on a ventilator, if you're a newborn baby or parent of a newborn baby, the last thing you want to do is try to attempt to take your child somewhere south knowing just how overwhelmed the hospitals are right now in the southern part of Gaza.

FOSTER: OK, Scott, thank you.

NOBILO: The U.N. says a rocket hit its peacekeeping headquarters in Lebanon during an intense exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah on Sunday. An increase in cross-border attacks is raising fears that the conflict could be spreading. CNN's Ben Wiedeman has more now from southern Lebanon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was another day of cross-border strike and counterstrike between Hezbollah and Israel, with the violence edging beyond isolated incidents and starting to veer toward this scenario so many hear fear.

Another full-on war between Hezbollah and Israel, one worse perhaps than the more than month-long battle they fought in 2006. Throughout the day, Hezbollah fighters targeted Israeli military positions on the border, firing guided missiles at communications, observation and surveillance equipment, and also hitting some Israeli towns, killing one Israeli civilian and wounding several others.

Israel fired artillery and launched airstrikes on what it called Hezbollah military infrastructure. As a result of the fighting, Israel declared a four-kilometer-deep closed military zone along the border to keep civilians away.

In the afternoon, a volley of rockets was fired into Israel, most intercepted by the Iron Dome. But it wasn't Hezbollah, but rather the military wing of Hamas that claimed responsibility.

At roughly the same time a rocket hit the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force just north of the border, slamming into the helipad there, no one was injured. The U.N. is trying to determine where the rocket was fired from. All of this doesn't amount to war yet, but it's getting dangerously close.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Southern Lebanon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:40:00]

FOSTER: China takes on the crisis in the Middle East, with top diplomats delivering some increasingly strong words for Israel. After the break, We'll take you to Beijing for the latest.

NOBILO: Plus, U.S. House Republicans returned to Capitol Hill today, first on the agenda, choosing their next speaker. Whether lawmakers can agree on a new leader remains to be seen. Details on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Right, China weighing in on the war between Israel and Hamas, the country's top diplomat, says Israel now has gone beyond self- defense with its actions since the Hamas attack.

NOBILO: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says that the right to self- defense should line up with international humanitarian law. He also told Iran's foreign minister in a phone call that statehood for the Palestinian people has long been put on hold.

CNN's Beijing Bureau chief Steven Jiang joins us now from the Chinese capital. We are seeing this narrative emerge, aren't we? A similar sort of language to what we heard from the Egyptians in fact.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, Max, you know, what, Wang Yi said about Israel that you just mentioned has gotten quite a bit of attention. Because some view it as a more hardened stance from Beijing towards Israel as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens.

But you know, in these statements, what's not being said sometimes is equally important as what's being said or if not more so. One thing that's been missing in all of China's official pronouncements is the word Hamas. They have not named Hamas in any of their condemnations. And that is something also reflected in their state media coverage on a story very much focused on the Palestinians suffering after the Israeli counterattacks. While barely mentioning Israeli casualties after that initial heinous attack launched by Hamas on October 7th. Now that, of course, has now gone unnoticed by Israel and its allies including the United States.

[04:45:00]

But of course, Beijing claims it's very much impartial and it's -- it has no self-interest in this conflict, other than being on the side of peace and justice. But you know in all that in all of their readouts, as you mentioned, after Wang Yi held all these calls with his counterparts in the region, did very much emphasized on the Palestinian cause.

Of course, this is not something new in terms of the two-state solution. They're not the only ones saying it, but they're messaging now, both domestically and internationally, have really made some analysts say they have -- the Chinese have made the conclusion that scoring points with the wider Arab world on this issue serves their overall interests better on the international stage, despite their close economic ties with Israel. That's still a country they view with suspicion and state media here, often portraying as a puppet state of the U.S. Which may also be the reason why there is not much sympathy and support for Israel on their tightly controlled social media, even after a Israeli diplomat was brutally stabbed here on the streets of Beijing last Friday.

But some experts also say this may be a reflection of China's lack of expertise and experience in this -- on this issue in this region, despite some recent inroads. So at the end of the day, they just tend to fall back to their default positions without offering much concrete solutions, at least in the short term -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Steven. Steven Jiang in Beijing, thank you.

NOBILO: The U.S. Senate is going to receive a classified briefing on Israel and Gaza on Wednesday afternoon. That is according to a Senate source. A bipartisan Senate delegation is already in Israel. The group is led by New York Senator and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. They met Sunday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and other officials. Wednesday's Senate briefing will include the U.S. Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, the Defense Secretary and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff.

FOSTER: When House Republicans gathered behind closed doors in Washington this evening, they'll be in their 13th day of operating without a leader. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan expected to force a floor vote on Tuesday as he tries to become the next Speaker of the house.

NOBILO: Jordan was nominated to replace Kevin McCarthy, who became the first speaker in U.S. history to be ousted by his own party. During Friday's nomination vote, Jordan seemed well short of the support that he will need to win that speaker's gavel. But he appeared optimistic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): I think, I think, I think we'll get -- I think we'll get 217 votes.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But you'll only keep running of you get 217 Votes?

JORDAN: I think we'll -- watch yourself, watch yourself -- I think we'll get 217 votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: One senior House member who opposes a Jordan speakership, tells CNN, he thinks there are roughly 40 votes against him. And at least 20 members who are willing to go to the floor on Tuesday to block Jordan's path if he tries to compel a roll call vote.

NOBILO: So it seems unlikely that Jim Jordan will be able to get through and be elected speaker. And where things might go from there is really anyone's guess. But many political observers agree that it doesn't look good for House Republicans moving forward. Professor Jessica Levinson spoke with CNN earlier on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSICA LEVINSON, PROFESSOR OF LAW, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL: It looks like they are in chaos. It looks like they cannot pick a leader. It looks like they have grounded our legislative agenda, meaning the country's ability to legislate to a halt. And it looks like we are going to be facing another big budgetary crisis in just a few weeks. As we know, we kept the government open for 42 days. The clock is ticking and Republicans are going to need to coalesce behind somebody and ensure that our government remains open, which is a public good for all of us. So it looks like there is a deep rift in the party. And it looks like this might be something that Democrats can really campaign on going into the 2024 election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Now, still ahead, people across the world are showing their support for the civilian victims of a conflict between Israel and Hamas. We'll show you some of the rallies worldwide.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOBILO: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just landed in Tel Aviv.

FOSTER: He is set to meet with Israeli leaders in the hours ahead. He says the U.S. is actively working to ensure humanitarian assistance can get into Gaza.

More than 270 Americans who had been stranded in Israel after the deadly Hamas attacks arrived in Florida on Sunday night. They landed in Tampa on a flight chartered by a nonprofit group, and the Florida governor and U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.

NOBILO: DeSantis was there late Sunday to greet the returning Americans on the tarmac. He said there will be more charter flights to bring up to 1,000 Floridians home from Israel.

FOSTER: State police in Illinois are urging residents to stay vigilant against hate crimes. After a Chicago man allegedly killed a six-year- old Palestinian Muslim boy.

NOBILO: Police say 71-year-old Joseph Czuba stabbed 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, to death in his apartment and seriously wounded the child's mother. She reportedly told the boys father that Czuba, the family's landlord, attacked her and her son while yelling, you Muslims must die.

FOSTER: Authorities have charged Czuba with first degree murder, attempted murder and two counts of a hate crime. The U.S. Justice Department has also opened a federal hate crimes investigation into that attack.

NOBILO: Around the world, people took to the streets this weekend to show support for both Israelis and Palestinians.

FOSTER: However, pro-Palestinian rallies were most prevalent on Sunday. CNN correspondent Melissa Bell has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Palestine will be free.

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Sydney, thousands turned out to express solidarity with Palestinians and oppose Israel's military action in Gaza. The police out in full force as well, with organizers warning that anti-Semitic behavior that had been seen at previous protests would not be welcome. No signs of that chaos here, but the crowd's message to the Palestinian people was loud and clear.

LIQAA, DEMONSTRATOR: What's the protest going to do except spread awareness and support? We have no legitimized -- legalized any enforceable power to do anything to protect them. Shame on the government who do and don't do anything.

[04:55:00]

BELL (voice-over): Pro-Palestinian rallies have been held in cities around the world. In France and Germany, where they've been banned, demonstrators gathered regardless.

Some of the largest rallies for Palestinians were held in the Arab world. Thousands attended a rally in Turkey, where crowds vented anger at both Israel and the United States. Similar scenes of solidarity in Pakistan.

SALMA REHEEL QAZI, DEMONSTRATOR: We are seeing from our rallies and all over the Pakistan that Palestinians are not alone.

BELL (voice-over): And in Tunisia, anger that more is not being done to protect Palestinians.

SAHER ELMASRI, DEMONSTRATOR (through translator): I am, as a Palestinian, I am as a son of Gaza, my people facing extermination and Gaza is being devastated. Where is the international community? Where are the Arabs? Where is the Arab conscience?

BELL (voice-over): In Tokyo, a smaller crowd but has similar plea.

AWEED SADEED, DEMONSTRATOR: I came here that to show that we are united now, the Muslims, they are very tired of war and everyone is tired of politics and everyone wants justice.

BELL (voice-over): Melissa Bell, CNN Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.

NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. "EARLY START" is up next right here on CNN.

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