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Defense Official: US Warship Shoots Down Houthi Drones, Responds To Ballistic Missile Attack On Commercial Vessel In Red Sea; IDF Says It Has Destroyed About 500 Tunnel Shafts In Gaza; NYPD: Four Killed, Three Injured In Queens Stabbing Spree. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired December 03, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:42]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone, and thank you so much for joining me. I'm Jessica Dean, in for Fredricka Whitfield.

A dramatic scene playing out in the Middle East today, a US Defense official saying an American warship shot down two drones in the Red Sea and also responded after a ballistic missile attack on a commercial vessel.

CNN's Zach Cohen and Ivan Watson are following the latest on the situation. Let's start first with Zach and talk about what more we know about this attack.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Jessica. US officials saying that both of these drones belong to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and the first was shot down as it flew towards an American warship in the Southern Red Sea.

Now, at that very moment, US officials saying that the warships crew saw a ballistic missile launched inland in the vicinity of a commercial ship that was sailing nearby. As the American warship responded to the distress call of that commercial ship, US officials say another drone flew towards both of those ships, and it was subsequently shot down by an American destroyer.

Now, look, this is just the latest in a series of incidents like this that have played out in the Red Sea and frankly, across the Middle East since the October 7th attack in Israel by the terror group, Hamas, and US officials in the US military deployed these ships, this carrier strike group to the region in an effort to deter Iran and other groups that are its proxies, including the Houthi rebels in Yemen from expanding this war that's happening in Israel and on the Gaza Strip at this moment.

You know, US officials say that these attacks and these incidents that are playing out in the Red Sea, in Syria, in Iraq are not evidence that the war is expanding. But it has raised questions if the Biden administration is being aggressive enough in protecting US forces it has deployed to the region in response to the October 7 attack in Israel.

DEAN: All right, Zach, thank you for that.

Ivan, let's go to you in southern Lebanon where we've seen more fighting today between Israel and Hezbollah militants. This is just another kind of satellite issue and place where this is kind of playing out that the Iranian backed, you know, groups that are clashing with Israel kind of in that whole area. Tell us more?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it sure is another day of what I would probably characterize as kind of cross border artillery duels, though the Israeli military says it also used warplanes to carry out airstrikes hitting what they described as Hezbollah targets here in southern Lebanon.

If you were here this afternoon, we heard the rumble of incoming Israeli artillery striking in the surrounding hills. One strike that took place very close to here that frightened some people around here.

The battles have been deadly yesterday, for example. Two Hezbollah fighters were killed and one civilian woman as well in Israeli fire. Today, the Israeli military says that Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile that hit an Israeli military vehicle and lightly wounded a number of Israeli troops and damaged that vehicle.

But it is not of the intensity of the battle that we're seeing play out in Gaza, in part because these are less densely populated areas. Also, a lot of the civilian population has been moved out of northern Israel and out of southern Lebanon. There are places they can run to, unlike in Gaza, where the civilian population is really caged in by a security barrier, but also because Israel and Hezbollah have not yet used their most powerful weapons, the kinds of weapons that we saw in a war in 2006 between these two adversaries, which caused much more damage on this frontline, and hurt a lot more people, saw a lot more civilian casualties.

The fear is, is that it could escalate the longer this conflict and crisis goes on. However, I would point out that Lebanon itself is still reeling from a huge economic crisis over the last three years that saw more than 30 percent unemployment last year and saw that per capita GDP plunged, the World Bank describing it as one of the worst economic crises that the world has seen since the 19th Century.

[15:05:12]

So there is not a lot of stomach for a full-fledged war with Israel right now, even though I think a lot of Lebanese you would talk to have a lot of sympathy for Palestinian civilians who are dying in such large numbers in Gaza -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Ivan Watson and Zach Cohen for us, thanks for that reporting.

And the fighting has also continued to in Gaza. Today, Israeli Defense Forces ordered people in southern Gaza to move even farther south as it expands its ground operations against Hamas. The IDF saying it destroyed at least 500 Hamas tunnel shafts so far in this war, and claims many of those tunnels were in civilian areas and structures.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israeli forces will not stop fighting until Hamas is eradicated. Hamas says though there will be no negotiations for the remaining hostages they are holding, which do include women and children still, until Israel agrees to a ceasefire.

CNN's Larry Madowo and Matthew Chance are tracking all of these developments. Matthew, we will start first with you for this movie. What more is the IDF saying as it moves deeper into southern Gaza?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the fact that it is now concentrating more of its military efforts in the south of the Gaza Strip, is I think, really significant.

First of all, it's that part of the very densely populated Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have moved over the course of the past several weeks to escape the intensity of the fighting in the north. There are still attacks taking place in the north of the Gaza Strip, there's some dramatic video that's been put out within the past few hours of an Israeli attack for the second day in a row on the Jabalia Refugee Camp, where dozens, according to Palestinian Health officials controlled of course by Hamas were killed there yesterday.

And there have been -- there has been another strike today, and so Israel not sort of slacking off as it were on the pressure in northern Gaza, but it is focusing to some extent in the south as well.

It has issued a map dividing the Gaza Strip into what it calls evacuation sectors, blocks that it can order the Palestinians inside to leave ahead of any military action. That's an attempt to try and limit the very high number of casualties that have been caused in this campaign so far, somewhere in the region of 15,000 people, again, according to the Hamas controlled Health Ministry.

But Israel is also under a lot of pressure to make sure that that sort of high casualty figure from the north predominantly is not repeated in the South. It's also allowing in trucks carrying humanitarian aid like food and water and medical supplies to alleviate the humanitarian problems in the Gaza Strip, as well as that military action continues.

But at the same time, the IDF, the Israeli military is saying, they are still going to pursue Hamas, just as vigorously in the South, as they did in the weeks before in the north, and so the whole region is bracing, I think, for what comes next in this conflict.

DEAN: And, Larry, I want to go to you. We are still seeing that aid trickling into Gaza, as Matthew was just explaining, and I know you've reported on a lot of the really ill children that have come in through the Rafah Crossing to Egypt there to get treatment. What is the status of the aid and people -- civilians, children -- being able to get out and the aid able to get in at this time.

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So Jessica, both are happening in small doses, at a small scale, not enough to make a meaningful impact. So, let's go through about -- let's go through the civilians evacuating from Gaza.

These are -- over this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 871 civilians have been able to leave Gaza. These are dual nationals, 17 Americans, 130 Turkish, and also nationalities from Australia, and Canada, and South Africa and a couple of other countries that are able to get across the Rafah Crossing from the Gaza Strip into Egypt, but this is a wait and see game where you go to the border and hope your name is on the list there. Sometimes your name is not as a list, but your daughter is or your son is, and you come back another time and hope that you can do so.

And even those who get across still say we have family left on the other side who should be here with me, but they are not. So 871 over the weekend is a small number.

Aid is also trickling in, but it's a drip, drip of aid. The Palestinian Red Crescent today confirming that 108 trucks came in from the Egyptian Red Crescent across the Rafah Crossing to the Nitzana Crossing where the Israelis verify what's in these trucks and then eventually to the Gaza Strip.

So over Saturday and Sunday, 100 trucks on Saturday, 100 trucks on Sunday is still a small amount considering during the truce that last seven days, at least 200 aid trucks were allowed to come in. US officials estimated about 240 came in.

So in the grand scheme of things, it is barely a drop in the ocean, and for so many desperate people across the Gaza Strip, it means nothing to them, like this 80-year-old man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABU WAEL NASRALLAH, GAZA RESIDENT (through translator): There is nothing left to fear for. Our houses are gone, our property is gone, our money is gone.

Sons have been martyred, some died, some handicapped in the hospital. What is left to cry for? And then they tell us we will get aid. Where is it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:10:47]

MADOWO: And Jessica, as James Elder from UNICEF told me the last hour, nowhere is safe in the Gaza Strip, so even the people that were told to move south, they can't live there long enough hoping that the aid will come in, before a bombardment or something will take them out.

So it's a very dicey situation where you're not sure you're going to be safe where you are, long enough to get this food and medicine and cooking gas and fuel that is so badly needed across the strip, where almost 80 percent of the population is displace and afraid that the next strike could take you out. DEAN: All right, Matthew Chance and Larry Madowo, thanks to both of you. We appreciate that reporting.

And later this hour, I'll speak with an IDF spokesman about the ongoing ground operations in Gaza, again, that's coming up just a little bit later.

In the meantime, let's bring in Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan. She is a pediatric intensive care physician for Doctors Without Borders and the co-founder of Gaza Medic Voices.

Doctor, thanks for coming on with us this afternoon. I first want to ask you what you're hearing from your colleagues who are serving people there in Gaza, civilian and children about the conditions in the hospitals there.

DR. TANYA HAJ-HASSAN, PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE PHYSICIAN FOR DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: Yes, there is a lot of terror, a lot of confusion. You know, you may have heard that in the last 24 to 48 hours, Israeli forces dropped these leaflets all over the southern area of Gaza with block numbers so the entire Gaza Strip divided into blocks -- to evacuate further south, so beyond the previously so-called safe areas, and nowhere is safe.

The areas they've been told to evacuate to, these so-called shelters aren't shelters at all, they are basically deserts. There is no access to clean water there, no access to food.

And one of my colleagues sent a photo enroute to the area she was told to evacuate to with shelling and aerial bombardment onto the area she was told to evacuate to from the area that she was told they were about to bombard. And she's like, I don't know where to go, do I go back? Do I keep going? We don't know where to go. There's just death everywhere.

And it's really -- it's a Russian roulette of how do you want to die? Do you want to die from aerial bombardments? Do you want to die from thirst? Do you want to die from hunger? Do you want to die from access to medical care? From hypothermia? It's a humanitarian catastrophe that defies the descriptive ability of words.

One of her last messages was, we are no longer in Rafah, we are in block -- and then she lists the number of the block and went on to say that the reality is uglier than anyone can imagine, because what is happening to us, to her and her family has never happened before.

And it's really difficult to describe, they're continuing to go to the hospitals. You know, the majority of hospitals in the Gaza Strip were there in the center and north. So all of these health care providers who have survived have been forcibly displaced south.

And so now, they are trying to find ways to help in any which way they can. And they describe the hospitals seeing thousands of victims coming in, thousands of casualties.

One of our colleagues described today seeing seven bilateral amputations, so that's amputations of both legs. Seven coming in, two were children; one aged two, one aged 11.

We received horrific photos of these children as they were trying to provide care for them, and they describe severe third-degree burns. Children just covered in these burns, shrapnel injuries to all parts of the bodies, to the eyes, head injuries.

You know, these are injuries that are potentially -- some of them are potentially survivable, but not under the current conditions. These patients will die of these injuries.

There is no medical capacity. The health care system in the Gaza Strip has been utterly annihilated in the past 58 days. You know, I don't know how to describe some of the injuries that they are saying -- they said they start wishing -- one of the surgeons sent us a message, they start wishing for death because they feel like it's more for them and for their patients because they feel like it's more merciful than seeing them in the pain that they're in and not being able to treat it.

[15:15:16]

DEAN: I want to ask you about the aid that was coming in during the seven-day truce. We've heard from our correspondents, obviously that has slowed since the fighting has resumed. Was it able -- was any of that aid able to reach your doctors and the medical facilities or wherever they were trying to work from?

HAJ-HASSAN: Sorry, I missed part of your question. Were you asking about aid?

DEAN: Aid. Yes, were any of your doctors able to get their hands on some of the aid that was coming in during the truce?

HAJ-HASSAN: The aid that is coming in is really a drop in the ocean. Look, if I could describe the amount of aid that is needed versus what's coming in, there is some aid coming in. There was some water, some fuel, some food, but not nearly enough to sustain the population.

So we keep being asked about aid. This isn't a question of humanitarian aid anymore. This is not something that humanitarian aid workers or doctors can fix. Every day, the amount of carnage so far outstrips the amount of aid coming in.

If you have families that are being displaced to areas that are effectively deserts, what use is it if water gets to the border? That water is not even going to get to them.

So I feel like every day, we take 10 steps further into this abyss of something that we haven't seen in modern day history, a systematic violation of international humanitarian law and an exceptionalism that we wouldn't tolerate under any other circumstance.

This is a systematic elimination of a population in a thousand and one ways, and it is a violation on so many levels of international humanitarian law and we keep being asked about aid.

When you receive hundreds of casualties at the same time into a hospital that has now been reduced to caring for the majority of a population all under extreme duress, hunger, injury, chronic illnesses that have not been treated, and you expect one hundred, two hundred, even 500 humanitarian aid trucks to fix what on a day-to-day basis prior to October 7th needed 500 trucks with a fully functioning health care system, it's absurd. There is no other way to describe it.

There is the cognitive dissonance between what is happening on the ground in Gaza and what we're talking about in the media, and what conversations are happening at a political level and something needs to change.

This is setting a precedent for all interactions, conflicts, humanitarian interactions in the future. Humanitarian workers are being targeted, doctors are being targeted, journalists are being targeted. Civilians, thousands of children -- more children have died in the last 58 days than any conflict.

You're talking about the entire -- you know, we talk about Afghanistan and Yemen and Syria and Iraq and all of these horrific conflicts and the human toll of them. More children have died in the last two months than collectively, annually all global conflict since 2019, and that record, that is a record that was broken a month ago. That is the worst kind of record to break.

DEAN: Right. And it has made harder by the fact that we do know that Hamas uses human shields as well there in Gaza.

HAJ-HASSAN: No, we don't. I'm sorry. I'm going to stop you there. I'm going to stop you there because Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth.

DEAN: It is. It is, and there is also intelligence that --

HAJ-HASSAN: And if you imagine the most densely populated area being displaced in its southern border.

DEAN: There is intelligence that shows that Hamas does use human shields.

HAJ-HASSAN: There are human shields. Everybody -- everybody is shielding everybody.

DEAN: I hear you. Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, we've got to leave it there, but thank you very much. We appreciate your time.

And still to come, the new details we're learning about the suspect in a brutal stabbing that left four family members dead.

Plus, Israel's intensifying strikes in Gaza as the IDF orders people to evacuate more areas in southern Gaza. A spokesperson for the IDF will join us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:24:10]

DEAN: Police in the New York borough of Queens have now identified a suspect in the brutal stabbing rampage that left four family members dead. Police saying officers received a 911 call from a young female saying her cousin was killing her family.

When two officers responded, they were attacked by the suspect and also injured. The house was also set on fire with authorities later finding multiple dead family members inside.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is following this for us, a horrific story. Polo, we know the suspect is dead. What else are you learning?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, the NYPD is summarizing this morning's horrific scene as one in which they found multiple victims, a house fire, and who police are describing as a madman on a rampage and on a mission.

Now what that mission was is still unclear, but I will tell you this, investigators said this morning that all of those affected are family, so there is certainly an early indication in all of this that this may have been a family dispute that took an absolutely bloody turn here.

[15:25:10]

Now, you also mentioned the call that a while ago, Jessica, it was shortly after NYPD arrived there that they were able to make contact with a suspect now identified as 38-year-old Courtney Gordon, who investigators say had a knife attacked the officers and you'll hear in just a few seconds how that all played out.

But police had opened fire, shooting and killing the suspect. It wasn't until after that that they were able to identify an 11-year-old little girl outside of that home who had been killed and the house was on fire.

So when the fire department was able to extinguish the flames, investigators went in, and then made yet another horrible discovery that is a 12-year-old little boy, a 44-year-old woman and a man in his 30s all found dead inside that home. One more victim actually survived the attack, currently in critical condition, a woman in her 60s.

But again, this is how the NYPD described that confrontation between the suspect and the two officers who sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JEFFREY MADDREY, NYPD: So our officers, they pull up to the driveway. As they get to the driveway, they see a male walking out. He is carrying luggage. Our officers asked the male a question or two, an encounter that lasted about 10 seconds where the male draws a knife on our officers. He stabs one officer in the neck chest area. He strikes the second officer in the head.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: That suspect, a 38-year-old from the Bronx. According to investigators, they believe that they had been visiting family members at that home in Queens when this morning's attack happened, Jessica.

So again, just to summarize these numbers: Four people killed in this morning stabbing, and a fifth survived, a woman in her 60s currently in critical condition.

A lot of questions still, but at least we know enough to paint just an absolutely disturbing picture of this morning's event.

DEAN: No doubt about it. Polo Sandoval for us. Thanks so much.

Coming up, the IDF urging more people in southern Gaza to evacuate as their combat operations against Hamas continue with the truce talks and hostage negotiations collapsing.

Where does the war go from here? An IDF spokesperson joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:31:23]

DEAN: The Israel Defense Forces is now expanding its ground operations to the whole of the Gaza strip that was announced at a press conference earlier today. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing that his forces will continue their fight until Hamas is eradicated.

Hamas is now saying there will be no further negotiations for the hostages that they hold which still include women and children until Israel agrees to another truce.

Let us bring in Jonathan Conricus. He's the Israel Defense Forces international spokesman.

Thanks so much for making time to come on with us this afternoon.

LT. COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS, INTERNATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES: Thank you.

DEAN: I want to ask you first about this expansion of your ground operations. We've heard from the US government and Secretary of State Tony Blinken that they've relayed to your government that they don't want to see the level of civilian deaths in the south that they saw in the north.

So my question to you is, is as you all expand these ground operations further south? How will you proceed with that operation? And how will that information from the US and their thoughts play into what you're doing?

CONRICUS: Thank you for having me.

Well, first of all, we listen, and we take notice. Second, it's important for everybody to understand what a tremendous challenge we are facing, because not only are we going to fight an enemy that is heavily entrenched and underground and hiding, but we are also going to fight an enemy that uses everything civilian for military purposes and uses civilians as their human shields.

And it makes it very difficult for us to on one hand, eradicate Hamas, and then on the other hand, not have any civilian casualties. What we are going to do is the best possible way of minimizing civilian casualties that we are aware of, and that is to evacuate Palestinians from the areas where there's going to be the most fighting and tell them ahead of time, enough time realistically that they can take their belongings and relocate temporarily to another area.

We've designated a special humanitarian zone in southern Gaza, close to Khan Yunis, which yes, it isn't perfect, but it is the best, currently available solution that we have. And what we're planning to do is to tell Palestinians ahead of time, evacuate, go to the Mawasi, that's the humanitarian zone and we will tell you when it's safe to go back to your specific neighborhoods, not when all of the fighting is done, but when it's safe to go back to your specific neighborhoods.

We're trying to be the highest resolution that we possibly can during war, mindful of the fact that many people are concerned with the amount of civilian casualties, taking that into consideration, but really keeping our focus on defeating the enemy because that is what we need to do in order to make sure that Israelis are safe.

DEAN: And I want to talk more about what that looks like in defeating Hamas in one second. I want to stay on the civilians for one more question because I did talk to a spokesperson from UNICEF.

You all are dropping leaflets there in southern Gaza, telling people to evacuate. It's also on social media. And I asked him about the ability of people to move and follow that advice and I just want to play what he said to me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES ELDER, GLOBAL SPOKESPERSON, UNICEF: It's a very dangerous narrative, I think that has been spun by those in power. Some of it was a leaflet coming to people -- remembering, I guess, let's go back a step. These are people who have had their homes bombed, their homes sitting on a couch and seeing their mother or grandmother or daughter die.

[15:35:08]

They have moved. That's often being attacked. That's often being attacked, they've been forced to the south in a humiliating way, in a grossly overcrowded camp again, and then they're asked to move again with a leaflet that says scan a QR code for a place that hasn't had electricity for 50 days. This is a generator, and there's no 4G.

Now, if someone does want to move, apart from there being no transport and the places as I say, you go to there is no water, no sanitation. So, it's not scientific. It's not rational. It's not possible.

The only thing is, I think it is honest -- calculated and cruel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And General Conricus, I understand what you're saying about Hamas being in these civilian populations, but what do you say to kind of -- to what he just said there? What more can you say about that?

CONRICUS: I think, you know, I think his words are very, very unfortunate, they are not true and they do not reflect anything that is fair to be saying.

He may have forgotten that we did not start this war. We didn't send our fighters across the border into their communities and butcher their civilians. This was a war that was forced upon us, and a war that we unfortunately have to fight and we have to win. And we are doing our best to do it with minimal civilian casualties.

Now, UNICEF is the same organization that together with UNRWA and with other UN organizations, when we launched the ground operations a month ago, more than a month ago in the northern part of Gaza. Two weeks ahead of time, we announced that we were going to operate and we called on people to evacuate.

Now, why did we do that? Because we are cruel? because we wanted to humiliate anybody? That is preposterous.

We did it because we want civilians out of harm's way, because we want to fight the enemy and the enemy alone. And to claim anything else, I think is borderline reckless.

And at the end of the day, the same organizations that should have been helping Palestinians evacuate then are still today, instead of helping people evacuate for their own safety are perhaps infusing them with false expectations, or telling them things that they shouldn't be telling instead of helping them to evacuate.

And our intention is very serious, we are going to operate, and we intend to defeat Hamas because that is what we have to do in order to defend our civilians.

If we don't do that, Hamas will launch on October 7th attack again and again and again. And these are Hamas words, not my words. So we have the responsibility to defend Israelis. The only way we can do it is by defeating Hamas and we are doing it while trying and calling on civilians to evacuate.

Now, I understand and appreciate that he is emotional because he is there and he sees the human suffering, I get it. But at the end of the day, this is as good as we can do in war, in fighting, and to be honest, I don't think that any other military in any other conflict, defending its own civilians just a few kilometers behind it would be doing anything more than we are.

DEAN: And I want to ask you about defeating Hamas, and I know you all have said Your objective is to eliminate and eradicate Hamas. And so my question to you is, at this point, as this fighting resumes, what does success look like? When will you know that you've achieved what you say your objective is?

CONRICUS: That's always a good question in war, and usually you know that after you've achieved it, after the enemy has been defeated, after the enemy no longer has any combat capabilities, after they surrender, after their command and control is rendered useless, or after a certain amount of key leaders and combatants have been taken off the battlefield, then the enemy stops fighting, and then you know that you have defeated your enemy.

Beforehand, it is always difficult and any general or any soldier that you'll ask who has been in battle will tell you that, you know, the enemy will break when he breaks, and we will have to continue to fight until he does.

Now we are aiming for commanders, for their command and control structure. We are aiming for senior combatants, we're aiming for their weapons, and we're aiming for their logistic facilities where they store their weapons and where they store their ammunition.

Those are the priorities and that's what we have been targeting over the last weeks that we have been fighting. There has been significant success both in taking out key combatants in Shuja'iyya, Jabalia, Shati and many other regions in northern Gaza, and we intend to continue with the same modus operandi, based on intelligence, based on precision warfare, as much as we can in a densely populated area and taking out enemy combatants in the best way we can, in order to decisively defeat the enemy, so that we can all go back to living our lives.

Israelis first and foremost, but also Palestinians.

[15:40:17]

DEAN: All right, Jonathan Conricus, we've got to leave it there, but I do appreciate the time. Thanks so much.

CONRICUS: Thank you for having me.

DEAN: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Later tonight on CNN, we are bringing you the all-new CNN film "Chowchilla," which tells one of the most shocking true crime stories you've probably never heard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and started carrying, sawing, and hammering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now, all of a sudden, the door flies open.

They took Ed Ray out first and then they grabbed on to the kids. The door flashed shut again.

[15:45:30]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A few minutes we'll go by, they'd reach in, grab another kid. And I scooted myself way to the front of the van again. I was trying to survive at that point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I felt helpless. That to me was one of the scariest, because now we're going to find out what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: That was a clip from "Chowchilla." It's about the 1976 kidnapping of a school bus full of children and their driver, who were then buried underground for more than 12 hours before they orchestrated their own dramatic escape.

Now that incident captivated the nation at the time and it became a turning point in our understanding and treatment of childhood trauma.

Joining us now is Dr. Lenore Terr. She is a child psychiatrist who studied the impact of the kidnapping on the Chowchilla children.

She's also a clinical professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Terr, thanks so much for being with us.

Just watching that clip. It's a reenactment, it really sends a chill down your spine, to think what that must have been like for these young children, for anybody but especially a child. Talk us through what these children endured during that kidnapping in 1976.

DR. LENORE TERR, CHILD PSYCHIATRIST: Well, they were driven around in blackened vans without any bathroom, food, stops or anything. They didn't know where they were going.

And then they were told one by one to get down into that hole and to give up a personal possession, I guess, so that the kidnappers would be able to prove that they had those kids.

And then they heard the sounds of being buried alive and incredible that they were able to think about the possibility of escape, and especially with the older boys, digging them up, and being able to pry open the top of a buried truck trailer in a rock quarry, and they got out. So, it's an amazing story. DEAN: It is an amazing thing.

TERR: I think, you know everybody who was an adult in that town thought that somehow kids would grow out of it, that they would think their way out of it, or that they would behave their way out of it, or they were just mature and forget about it.

But I knew from looking at one or two stories at a time from World War Two, that there was no way to get out of this. And the best thing I could do would be to interview all 26 kids, and so I did that, and then I did it again at five years afterwards. And at this time, I compared them to a comparison group or a control group, you could call them down in McFarland and Porterville, California.

So I was able to sort of, because of 26 kids going through exactly the same thing, I was able to tell what childhood trauma really was.

DEAN: And what did it teach us about childhood trauma?

TERR: Well, it taught us that kids don't just outgrow these things, even though kids are flexible, and they have resilience, they don't just outgrow these things. They keep on bothering them both in their thoughts, in their behaviors, and in their emotions.

And so these kids had horrible dreams, not just of being buried alive, but variations on that theme. They had a tendency to do something that I found, I named it reenactment. They would actually behave as though they were down in that hole again.

And some of their behaviors and their attitudes, like if they had had a fight with their parents the day before or that morning, they didn't want to go to school or whatever it was, they would reenact that over and over again and their thoughts would be that their parents had something to do with it and of course, they had nothing to do with it.

So it was like some mad scientist did an experiment on 26 kids all the same and between the ages of five and 14, and this mad scientist said what is childhood trauma and then I want to go and try to find out.

[15:50:10]

DEAN: And now it's something that I do think we talk about in kind of popular culture more than we certainly did when you were studying it, and its effects not only on the child, but then they become an adult and the effects on the people around them, but it is all very interesting.

Dr. Lenore Terr, thank you so much for talking with us. We appreciate it.

TERR: Well, thank you too, and thanks to the kids.

DEAN: Yes, for sure. They endured so much. Be sure to tune in the all-new CNN film, "Chowchilla," premieres tomorrow at 9:00 PM only on CNN.

CNN NEWSROOM continues after a quick break.

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[15:55:09]

DEAN: Alaska Airlines says it's acquiring Hawaiian Airlines for $1.9 billion. The surprise announcement made today by the Alaska Airlines CEO saying that acquisition will lead to the fifth largest commercial fleet in the country.

But the Flight Attendants Union, which represents 9,000 flight attendants between the two airlines will determine if the merger will improve conditions for flight attendants before supporting that deal.

The flight attendants have been negotiating for a new contract with Alaska Airlines.

The newest group of Kennedy Center honorees will be celebrated tonight at a star-studded event: Billy Crystal Queen Latifah, Barry Gibb, Dionne Warwick and opera singer, Renee Fleming will each receive tributes to their lifetime achievements.

A bit of Kennedy Center Honor trivia for you, Queen Latifah and Renee Fleming both performed at the 2014 Super Bowl. Fleming sang the National Anthem, while Queen Latifah performed "America, the Beautiful."

CNN NEWSROOM continues after this.

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