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CNN International: Israel Expanding Ground Operations to All of Gaza; Gaza Residents Mourn the Dead Amid Renewed Airstrikes; Trump: Biden is Destroyer of American Democracy; COP28 Tackles Climate Change. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired December 04, 2023 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo, live from London. Max Foster is off this week. Just ahead on CNN newsroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dozens were killed in a series of Israeli strikes Saturday, many more still under the rubble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are trying to alleviate the suffering on the Palestinian civilian side.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And we've been waging an all-out war in American democracy.

RON DESANTIS, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's one candidate that told you what he's going to do and that's me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: COP continues this week in Dubai as global leaders try to put climate goals into climate action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.

NOBILO: It is Monday, December 4th, 9:00 a.m. here in London and 11:00 a.m. in Gaza, where Israel's war is expanding but leaving devastation inside the enclave as Israeli forces pursue those who carried out attacks on October 7th. Israel Defense Forces now say that ground operations are expanding to include all of Gaza, including southern areas where many have taken shelter. The IDF says it's hit approximately 200 targets inside Gaza today, and its warning civilians to evacuate large areas within the enclave, but it's unclear how many are receiving those warnings given there is limited electricity and Internet service.

Meantime, the IDF says it has destroyed some 500 tunnel shafts inside Gaza since October 7th, out of more than 800 shafts, it says it has located within the enclave. The head of the Israel Security Agency, the Shin Bet, vowed Sunday to eliminate Hamas all around the world, even if that takes years.

Elliott Gotkine joins me now live from London. Elliot, bring us more of the latest about this ground offensive. And is there any indication that Israel is adjusting its tactics in response to warnings from the U.S. that they have to be more careful about the civilian population.

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST. So, the short answer to that is no, I think. But you know, Israel hasn't really finished the job in the north yet. And it's already saying that it's expanding its operations to the south and all parts of the Gaza Strip. And to that end we saw, for example, an air strike as part of these 200 air strikes or so, strikes that we saw over the overnight. Israel saying that among those strikes was a school in the northeastern town of Beit Hanoun from which it came under attack, and also where it discovered more tunnel shafts, explosives and weapons.

But yes, as you say, it is expanding now, not just to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, but also to all areas of Gaza, it says. And we spoke with another a spokesperson who says that this fighting won't be over anytime soon.

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LT. COL. JONATHAN CONRICUS, ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES SPOKESPERSON: Until we get all of the Hamas battalion strongholds, and until we work on them and take them off the battlefield, there will be active fighting. And we said from the beginning to Israeli civilians and to anybody listening in the world that this unfortunately will take time. It won't be a quick and easy operation. It's a difficult operation, in difficult combat terrain where we're fighting a very committed enemy that has no issue with sacrificing civilians for their military cause. We, on the other hand, are trying to limit our force in order to get the job done without exposing the civilians to that danger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOTKINE: Now, before Israel expanded its operations to southern Gaza, we heard warnings from the likes of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of civilians that we've seen in the northern part of the Gaza Strip cannot be repeated in the south. And to that end, Israel has seemingly ramped up its efforts to warn Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip. And don't forget a lot of people there now are those that evacuated from the north to begin with. So, there's a lot more people kind of scrunched into the southern parts of the Gaza Strip.

Israel saying that it's giving them warnings via flyers, via text messages, phone calls on social media. But either the message isn't getting through. It's not being fully understood amid all of the confusion. And as a result, we are seeing casualties and more civilian casualties there as well. So there are of course concerns that as this operation expands that it is possible that we will see a repeat of what we've seen in the north so far. NOBILO: And these people just don't have many options of where they

would move anyway.

[04:05:00]

Let's talk about the diplomatic breakdown. So, Israel withdrew Mossad operatives who were acting as negotiators in Qatar, saying that the talks had reached a dead end. What, if anything, can bring Hamas and Israel back to the negotiating table at the moment and make progress?

GOTKINE: A lot of death diplomacy is what's going to be required, and it's not going to be easy. Because we saw the breakdown of those talks, Israel saying because Hamas didn't abide by its terms of the deal to release those remaining women and children. Hamas now saying that it will not go back to negotiations until such time as there are -- as there is a ceasefire. So, Hamas says no more hostages released until there's a ceasefire. Israel saying that look, these hostages need to be released for us to consider going back into a truce. So, we do have a bit of an impasse.

And as the fighting ratchets up, it's going to make it that much harder to get back to the negotiating table for real and to see a truce coming into effect once more. At the very not least, because Israel says it is still far from completing its objectives of destroying Hamas militarily, preventing it from governing the Gaza Strip and getting those 136 remaining hostages that Hamas abducted back into Israel.

NOBILO: And Benjamin Netanyahu was very clear that this was not an indefinite truth, that there was the operation to continue as soon as it lapsed.

GOTKINE: He always said that Israel would go -- would go back to the fighting and to that end he's been true to his word.

NOBILO: Elliott Gotkine, thank you very much.

Qatar's Prime Minister spoke with the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken on Sunday to discuss the situation in Gaza. Emphasizing the need for de-escalation and a ceasefire, according to Qatar's state news agency. Qatar has been a key mediator since the war began, and the Prime Minister expressed concern to Blinken that the bombings in Gaza following the humanitarian pause could complicate future mediation efforts and worsen the humanitarian crisis.

Blinken just wrapped up his third trip to the region since the start of the war as he looks to discuss Gaza's future with Israel's Arab neighbors.

More than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed since October the 7th. That is, according to the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. That death toll is expected to rise in the coming days, especially with renewed air strikes by Israel. As the IDF says that they're continuing to target Hamas. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more now on the details of how Gaza's hospitals are struggling to help those in need, and how residents are responding to the attacks. And a warning to you that his report does contain disturbing images.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look around. This is Gaza City's Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital where the wounded are treated in the open on wooden pallets. The emergency ward is already jammed.

The courtyard is full of body bags. Dozens were killed in a series of Israeli strikes Saturday, many more still under the rubble.

(EXPLOSION)

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Israel claims one of those strikes killed a senior Hamas commander, who helped plan the 7 October attacks. He was, perhaps, one dead among many, many others.

This woman lost her daughter and grandchildren, and names them all.

And may God judge those watching us die, she cries.

It's a similar scene in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza -- more wounded, many of them children. More dead, many of them children.

They bombed an entire street, says Saad. He pulled his brother Mohammad (ph) from the rubble. But his brother Mohammad was dead. Says Saad, let me say goodbye to him.

My father's been killed, cries this boy after a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp, Sunday. The seven-day truce seems like the distant past.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: U.S. military officials say Iran backed Houthi rebels have launched attacks on ships in the southern Red Sea. According to a statement from CENTCOM, the targets were civilian run vessels with ties to at least 14 different nations. The U.S. says Houthi attacks on ships travelling through the Red Sea are posing a deadly threat to international commerce as a whole. CNN's Zachary Cohen has the details.

[04:10:00]

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ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: U.S. officials telling CNN that an American warship shot down to more drones on Sunday, both belonging to Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Now the U.S. destroyer downed the first drone while operating in the Southern Red Sea. At that same time, the ship saw a ballistic missile that was launched and landed in the vicinity of a commercial ship that was operating in the area.

Now, as the U.S. warship responded to the commercial vessels distress call, it shot down a second drone that was flying towards both those ships. Now this is just the latest in a series of incidents involving U.S. forces, not only in the Red Sea but across the Middle East since the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas.

The Houthis have claimed responsibility for attacking Israeli commercial vessels in the Red Sea and said it launched ballistic missiles into Israel itself.

The U.S. deployed two carrier strike groups to the region in an effort to deter Iran and its proxy groups from expanding the conflict. But those same ships have constantly come under attack from Iranian backed groups like the Houthis. This raises the question about what more can the Biden administration do to protect American forces deployed to the region?

Zachary Cohen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: U.S. military officials say they will, quote, consider all appropriate responses to keep Iran backed militants from threatening life and trade in the Red Sea. CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling explains what the U.S. is doing in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Those ships and both the Ford and the Eisenhower groups were put in specific locations as part of the preliminary operations to do exactly what they're doing, intercepting missiles from other countries. But it certainly puts the crews in danger even though they have a great deal of air defense capability on each one of those ships. Multiple capabilities on the Carnegie, for example. So, they are they are -- they can self defend. But what they're also doing is protecting Israel and making sure this doesn't expand.

But I think we're going to see additional strikes probably on the Houthi rebel groups and other groups in the near future. And there will be strikes against proportional targets, as we always do to send the message to try and get them to stop. But this is going to be very difficult. Because those Iranian backed rebels will continue to try and harass shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Gulf and in several other areas in in that area.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling there.

Former President Donald Trump, who's facing criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, insists that President Joe Biden is the real threat to democracy. Toxic talk on the campaign trail coming up ahead.

Plus, we'll tell you what to expect from today's financial talks at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOBILO: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is accusing Donald Trump of not acting decisively enough. Saying the former president failed to keep his campaign promises, including a major one from 2016, to repeal the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. De Santis has been touring Iowa trying to shore up support in the state ahead of next month's caucuses. The Florida governor says if he's elected president, he will replace the Affordable Care Act with, quote, a better plan. But he has no specifics just yet only saying that his campaign would roll out a big proposal sometime in spring. In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press, DeSantis said he'll keep his promises.

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RON DESANTIS, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's important to point out he's running on a lot of the things he campaigned on in 2016 and didn't deliver it on. Whether it's repeal and replace Obamacare, whether it's building the border wall, whether it's draining the swamp. Remember he said he would do a special counsel against Hillary Clinton. Then two weeks after the election, said no. Now he says he's going to do one against Biden.

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NOBILO: Donald Trump was also back in Iowa over the weekend, where he spent much of his time trying to turn the tables on opponents who say his reelection would threaten democracy. The former president, who's facing criminal charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, accused President Biden of being a massive threat to democracy himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our opponents and we had a lot of opponents, but we've been waging an all-out war in American democracy.

Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod talked about whether Trump strategy is working for him and how the Biden administration should react.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, this is his go to play. When you know, when he's suspected of corruption, he accuses his opponents of corruption. When he loses an election, he fabricates the story about the corruption of the election. And he's good at this. We should all acknowledge that he has a feral genius for this kind of branding. When you look at the fact that 70 percent of Republicans believe that some -- that the last election was dishonest. The most -- probably the most scrutinized election in the history of this country, and yet they believe it. And a similar number believes that these charges against him are political.

Trump needs to be responded to. He is going to be the nominee of the Republican Party. Unless something very, very strange happens. I mean, he's got a historic lead in that race. So, we're looking at a race between Biden and Trump. And it has to be a comparative race. And Trump has to be very much in that equation. So, when he says these outrageous things, he needs to be called on. And there needs to be an army of surrogates out there responding to him as a campaign strategy. Because in some ways, despite all his bombast, he's been sailing a little bit under the radar so far, and I don't think Biden can afford that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney is issuing a strong warning about her party, saying a Republican led House of Representatives would pose a threat to the U.S. in 2025.

[04:20:03]

Speaking to CBS to promote her new book, which comes out on Tuesday, Cheney said the Republican Party of today has made a choice and that they, quote, haven't chosen the Constitution. She warns that change could be very dangerous if Donald Trump is re-elected. In her book "Oath and Honor," Cheney describes Trump as the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office.

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LIZ CHENEY, FORMER US HOUSE REPUBLICAN: People who say, well, if he's elected, it's not that dangerous because we have all of these checks and balances, don't fully understand the extent to which the Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted. One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: It is finance day at the COP28 Climate Summit. That means more financial discussions and the potential for climate action and disaster support funding to be announced in the coming hours. In addition, Saudi Arabia will host a side event promoting its clean energy plans and the UN Climate Agency could publish a new draft showing what kind of progress countries have made, in the latest push to fight global warming.

CNN's David McKenzie joins me now live from Dubai, and he's been following all of this. David, the President of COP28, is facing more backlash now for remarks he made around a fortnight ago, claiming that there was no scientific evidence that reduction in fossil fuel usage would prevent the warming of the planet. Is that likely to over shadow events today? DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well,

certainly a topic of discussion here amongst delegates. And I think what he said was that a phase out, meaning a stopping of fossil fuel usage, would not be having the impact that is suggested. The science says generally otherwise. And certainly, it will apply more pressure on COP president to really put his money where his mouth is when it comes to having concrete steps towards at least phasing down fossil fuel usage in the coming decades to avert the worst of the climate crisis.

You know, as one delegate, the head of the Greenpeace delegation, told me a short time ago, she said, it's game on now for the next week or so for the negotiators to try hammer out something that works for the livability of this planet.

You know, it is finance day here at COP. A lot of talk about how to pay for all of this. We spent a day with a pretty extraordinary individual in South Africa, which shows that you don't always need money to have solutions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENSIE: Lamoki Mokoka (ph) and his cart are on the move. His job goes by many names here -- reclaimer, hustler, even urban surfer.

It's dangerous work in a dangerous city. There are thousands Mokoka fanning out well before dawn. After an hour on the road, he's in the neighborhood south of the city.

LAMOKI MOKOKA, SOUTH AFRICAN URBAN SURFER: I'm looking for the plastic.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): I'm looking for the plastics, cardboard boxes, metals and cans, he said.

MOKOKA: Metal.

MCKENZIE: And it's a dirty job, do you mind?

MOKOKA: I don't mind.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): What they discard, he recycles, earning about $150 a month. It's steadier than his old construction job, and Mokoka likes being his own boss well

There aren't any jobs here, he says. So, we've made our own work.

Making their own work with the scale and impact that's hard to overstate. Just look at the sorting zone near Joburg, where thousands live. It's informal, but hardly simple. Everything is carefully separated. Everything has value.

MCKENZIE: Towards the top of the pecking order are cans. Now, a bag of these will get reclaimers almost $40 U.S. As they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. MCKENZIE (voice-over): I'm always surprised how rich people throw away so much rubbish, says Akat Laang (ph). But I'm happy they do. This collection took him weeks.

Don't know much about climate change, he says. Of course, I'm glad that we can help. But what matters is to survive.

Today's payday. And every bag is carefully weighed.

There's always trust amongst us, says middleman Motsamai (ph). Though, he seems a little skeptical.

I have to double check they didn't put any water in the bottles to make them heavier, he says. It must just be the plastic bottles.

What reclaimers don't find, end up in a nearby landfall.

[04:25:00]

Even here, the desperate salvage what they can.

Back in the neighborhoods, Mokoka is in a race against the dump trucks.

MOKOKA: Done. We're done. Done, done.

MCKENZIE: Are you done?

MOKOKA: Yeah.

MCKENZIE: Just in time.

MOKOKA: Yeah

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Today, they arrive a bit late.

MOKOKA: I have more stuff today now.

MCKENZIE: More stuff?

MOKOKA: More stuff than other days.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Mokoka is proud of his work, proud of his effort.

MOKOKA: Yes, I feel so happy.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): I feel so happy. I feel so happy, he says. Because I'm going to put bread on the table."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE (on camera): Well, it was pretty exhausting just keeping up with them for the day. And sometimes, you know, strolling around here in a suit, in the air, conditioned halls of COP28, you forget that the solutions are sometimes out there staring you in the face and that it's not always the richest countries that come up with the best solutions -- Bianca.

NOBILO: David Mackenzie in Dubai for us. Thank you so much for your reporting.

And while leaders debate how best to tackle climate change at COP28, CNN's Elisa Raffa has more on how rising sea levels could impact cities like Dubai and New York over the next 30 years.

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ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: COP continues this week in Dubai as global leaders try to put climate goals into climate action. This is a climate central simulation on what inaction can look like at 3 degrees sea of warming. That host city of Dubai just gets inundated by sea level rise. And now our sea levels have already risen about three centimeters on average per decade over the last century. So, in the last 100 years we've added 30 centimeters of ocean rise.

Now going forward, we could add that same 30 centimeters, but just in the next three decades. So, rising just as much in the next 30 years as we did in the previous 100. That rise can amount to about a foot -- as much as a foot or that 30-centimeter mark. More profound coastal flood events from tides and storm surge could be an issue. Moderate flooding could occur 10 times as often.

Major cities are already vulnerable to sea level rise like Boston, New York, Charleston, Miami, New Orleans. They all deal with something called Sunny Day Flooding. Sometimes it doesn't even take a storm anymore to get that water to go inland. Just a regular high tide that's higher now than it was before.

Here's a look at another simulation, three degrees sea of warming. Water coming into the National Mall there at DC. Lady Liberty standing around even more water if that warming continues to rise.

But like I mentioned, COP is all about action, right? So, if we look at a place like new. York City, if that carbon pollution continues, future generations like Gen Z and Gen -- and Gen Alpha could see six to seven degrees of warming if we keep these emissions as business as usual, as they are right now. But if we cut them, look at how significantly the warming could be cut to. Closer to two degrees of warming, which is much closer to that Paris Climate Agreement goal of 1.5.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NOBILO: Still to come, why hundreds of trucks are needed every single day to solve Gaza's humanitarian crisis.

Plus, how Ukrainian soldiers survived alone on the battlefield for two weeks after he was hit by Russian shelling. That's next on CNN.