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Hezbollah Retaliatory Strikes Against Israel; Hezbollah Fires More Than 300 Rockets from Lebanon; Impacts of Israel and Hezbollah Strikes on Ceasefire Talks; Hamas Delegation Arrives in Cairo for Ceasefire Talks; Hezbollah: First Phase of Strikes Were Successful; Harris and Walz to Launch Bus Tour in Georgia; J. D. Vance Says Trump Would Veto a Federal Abortion Ban. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired August 25, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada, and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.

Let's begin with breaking news from the Middle East. You're looking at live pictures from Southern Lebanon after Hezbollah militants say they've successfully completed their retaliatory strikes on Israel for the day.

So, that is what happened in Northern Israel hours ago after the group fired at least 200 rockets from Lebanon. Hezbollah called that the first phase of its retaliation for the recent killing of its top military commander. But earlier, Israel said it hit Hezbollah positions just as they were preparing to launch their strikes.

The IDF says more than 100 fighter jets took part in the operation, destroying thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels. Lebanon says three people were killed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to those strikes. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This morning, we detected Hezbollah's preparation to attack Israel. Together with the minister of defense and the chief of staff, we instructed the IDF to act proactively to remove the threat. The IDF has since been acting vigorously to thwart the threats. It destroyed thousands of rockets aimed at the north of the country. It also thwarted many other threats and operates with great strength, both in defense and attack.

I ask you, citizens of Israel, to comply to the directives of the Home Front Command. We are determined to do everything to protect our country, return the residents of the north safely to their homes, and continue to uphold a simple rule, whoever hurts us, we hurt them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: U.S. President Joe Biden is monitoring the events in Israel and Lebanon. The White House says Biden has discussed the strikes with his national security teams. Senior U.S. officials have also been communicating with their Israeli counterparts, and that includes Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who spoke with Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. After the call, the Pentagon reaffirmed America's ironclad commitment to Israel's defense.

Now, CNN has reporters on the ground across the region. CNN's Nic Robertson is in Tel Aviv, Israel. And Ben Wedeman joins us live from Beirut, Lebanon.

Ben, I want to start with you. Take us through what Hezbollah is saying about the targets and what might come next.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Hezbollah put out several announcements today, Kim, the first one saying that this was in -- this was the long-awaited response for the 30th of July killing of Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander here in Beirut, they said that they launched more than 320 missiles at 11 military targets along the border with Israel.

The point of that was to knock out surveillance, observation posts as well as Iron Dome positions, anti-drone positions to allow other drones to go deep inside Israel. They claim that they successfully struck a major military target within Israel. We have yet to hear anything back from the Israeli side on that claim. They now say that -- they put out a later statement saying that today's strikes have been completed successfully.

We're expecting secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, to give a speech at 6:00 p.m. local time. Perhaps then we'll get an indication from him whether there is indeed going to be a second phase in its response to that assassination last month.

Now, what we've seen since before sunrise, was the most intense series of Israeli strikes on targets within South Lebanon. What -- by one estimate, more than 25 individual strikes took place. As far as the toll of those strikes, we've heard that three people were killed. One was in a strike on a car, killing a man in the village of Khiam, near the border, and two people killed in the town of al-Tyri, further north of there.

[04:05:00]

Now, we don't know how many people were wounded, but certainly, it does appear, at least for the time being, that this first opening round of hostilities in this latest escalation is over. It seems, for instance, here in Beirut, the airport is operating normally. We've seen a variety of flights coming in to the city. We do know that -- the Lebanon's government is it -- has an emergency ministerial committee that's going to be meeting today. The Lebanese government, however, the state is a fairly weak state. They don't have really much control over how Hezbollah acts, but certainly, they're going to be keeping an eye on this situation. Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right. And so, Nic, from Israel's point of view, take us through the military and political reaction there. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, there was a security cabinet, so that's the government meeting at its highest level clearly evaluating the steps that were taken and the impact that those steps had, this preemptory strike at Hezbollah targets as they were readying to fire at Israel.

The IDF has confirmed now somewhat the allegations that Hezbollah had made or the claims that Hezbollah had made that it was planning to strike deeper into Israel. The IDF saying that intended targets were in Central Israel. The targets listed so far, the military targets, Hezbollah says that it hit 11 military targets, the IDF has not given an assessment yet of the damage there. That's quite normal. They're normally slow to do that. In fact, sometimes they won't even offer in detail accounting of precisely what was hit at those locations.

Certainly, one of the locations Hezbollah said they were aiming at was a major air defense site, sort of a principal node, if you will, in an array of infrastructure designed specifically to stop drone and missile strikes getting into Central Israel.

Not crossing a red line, at least it appears, the sort of red lines or the lines that Israel and Hezbollah operate under that don't trigger a massive escalation from the other side. And I say that because Hezbollah claims only to have targeted military sites, and as far as we know so far, only one civilian in Akko in the north, a woman was injured by shrapnel.

But the steps that have been taken to heighten the alert for people in Israel, the Home Front Command instructions have told people in Northern Israel, in fact, from Tel Aviv to Northern Israel to stay closer to their shelters, not to go further than they need to.

And here in Tel Aviv, an indication again, perhaps of just the range or intent of Hezbollah with its missiles. The beaches here have been closed for swimming today and leisure and cultural activities also have been put on hold. Gatherings of more than 30 people have been put on hold as well. So, the level of concern stretches as far down here for the Israeli authorities as Tel Aviv and officials here say 240 shelters open in Tel Aviv, although telling people that they don't need to go to them and don't hang around in those shelters. And if things do escalate further, then more shelters will be made available.

But this is an increased security preparedness footing that Israel hasn't taken until now. And that does show the level of concern. And while battle damage assessment is done by the military, you can be rest assured that preparations for a next round of strikes, should they be called upon, that those preparations will be well in hand.

BRUNHUBER: All right. I appreciate that. Nic Robertson in Tel Aviv and Ben Wedeman in Beirut. Thank you both. And we'll come back to you later in the hour for the latest.

All right. I want to bring in H. A. Hellyer, Middle East Studies Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And he joins me now from Cairo, Egypt. Good to see you again. So, Hezbollah says this is the first phase. So, do you get a sense, is this just the beginning?

H. A. HELLYER, MIDDLE EAST SCHOLAR, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SENIOR ASSOCIATE FELLOW, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: Thank you very much, Kim, for having me on. I do think it is just the beginning. What we've seen over the last nine months has been escalation after escalation. And we have actors involved in all of this that are looking for escalation, right?

I mean, over the past few months, we've seen a lot of chatter within the Israeli press talking about how an escalation with Hezbollah would actually be the preferred option. It wasn't taken as a route up until now, but we saw those warnings quite early on, which means that there's that temptation to escalate, and this is the unfortunate dynamic that we're in.

[04:10:00]

If you have a situation like this, then the only course is active de- escalation, otherwise, you have passively or otherwise, you have a route towards escalation. And what we've seen over this morning is precisely that, where, you know, quote/unquote, left to their own devices, there's going to be escalation, which means that we have to actively push for de-escalation, otherwise, things could spin right out of control and we're getting dangerously close in that regard, especially as we see that the ceasefire negotiations haven't really gone anywhere and aren't likely to anytime soon, not without a much more intense effort by the United States.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. I want to get back to the negotiations in a second, but just on the idea of escalation here, we're still waiting for Iran's threatened retaliation. How independent is that from what we're seeing now? What kind of level of coordination is there between Iran and Hezbollah on all of this?

HELLYER: So, on a regular basis, people describe Hezbollah, the Houthis, and, you know, Iraqi militias as basically, quote/unquote, extensions of Iran's military capacity. And I do think that overplays it somewhat. They're allies, of course. There's no question about that. Hezbollah is very strongly allied with Iran. You could say that it's an Iranian asset in the region, but they do operate with slightly different calculations depending on the situation that is underway.

And of course, Lebanon is on the border with Israel. The threat to Hezbollah is tremendous in a way that simply isn't the same for Tehran. Having said that, I do think that on -- in this particular situation, there will be coordination. I would be very surprised if Iran hadn't been made aware of Hezbollah's retaliation this morning.

But having said that, this may have taken place at extremely short notice. The Israelis have said that they engaged in a preemptive strike. Besides the Israelis, we have no way of verifying that it was actually a preemptive strike that actually took a part in a Hezbollah operation that was about to take place. We simply don't know that.

And had this been a strike that Israel had undertaken independently of any new threat from Hezbollah, then Hezbollah would have probably been placed in the situation of feeling it had to respond irrespective of its plans. And we do know that everybody's been on, quote/unquote, the -- you know, the hair trigger for weeks, if not months, i.e., the preparations are ready sort of 90 percent all the way anyway and it's that last step that needs to be taken in order to move into position.

So, there's going to be, I think, a bit of a war of narratives that also happens now, whether or not this truly was a preemptive strike. I'm not saying that it wasn't, but we simply don't know without further verification, and it'll be difficult to get that.

BRUNHUBER: Before we go, I did want to ask you about the negotiations. You're in Cairo, reportedly, negotiators from Israel and Hamas will be there today for the ceasefire and hostage negotiations. Listen, you and I have talked a couple of times recently about this, and you articulated that earlier, that you're pessimistic about the prospects of peace with everything that's happened now. Has anything changed or the fact that both parties are still heading to Cairo give you more optimism that they are intent on getting something done here?

HELLYER: So, two things. One, I think the key to de-escalation in the region is Gaza and we have to push for de-escalation in Gaza in order for us to have any hope, more regionally speaking. Secondly, I don't think that what's happened this morning is necessarily going to impact on those negotiations.

I do think that, unfortunately, the negotiations are going nowhere. You have the Israelis insisting on new demands, particularly around the Philadelphi Corridor, which is the border between Gaza and Egypt, having a strong idea of presence there, which is, you know, a nonstarter in terms of not only Hamas, but I suspect also the Egyptians because it goes against the Camp David Accords. And I don't think the United States has expressed the willingness to use the leverage that it has in order to push the Israelis towards the finish line.

So, there's a lot of pressure on Hamas as there ought to be. But I'm not sure that there's corresponding pressure being leveraged on the Israelis. And as such, I don't expect these negotiations to succeed in this round, especially given the fact that in the Israeli press itself, Israeli negotiators are leaking, and the Israeli press have been reporting this that Netanyahu himself is simply not interested in a deal right now.

[04:15:00]

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll have to leave it there, but good to speak with you again. H. A. Hellyer, thank you so much for joining us.

HELLYER: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: All right. As we were just speaking about there, the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah comes amid efforts to restart talks on a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. We'll have more on where those talks stand coming up next. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: We're following breaking news out of the Middle East. Lebanon's Ministry of Health says three people have been killed in Israeli strikes in the southern part of the country. Israel's military says it launched preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets after seeing that the militant group was preparing to fire missiles and rockets towards them. Hezbollah says it launched strikes in retaliation for the killing of a top military commander last month.

Meanwhile, Hamas says its delegation is in Cairo for a meeting. for a ceasefire talks that were due to resume on Sunday. The goal is to stop the fighting that's been raging for more than 10 months and negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas.

An Israeli official told CNN that an Israeli delegation was also expected to go to Cairo. Earlier, an Egyptian official said negotiators are still far apart on some issues, including the presence of Israeli troops on Israel's border with Egypt.

[04:20:00]

Elliott Gotkine is standing by in London. So, Elliott, despite these recent attacks, delegations from both sides reportedly still meeting in Cairo.

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Yes, I suppose that's the good news, Kim, that these talks are still on, that they're still going ahead. But of course, the two sides are still far apart. And I suppose, you know, that they -- these talks have enough problems trying to reach an actual deal without having to worry about, you know, whether Hezbollah's strikes on Israel or Israel's preemptive strikes on Hezbollah are going to push them off course.

Of course, you could also take the view, if you're of a more optimistic bent, that if things are going to heat up more so on the northern border, then Israel may be keener to wrap things up in the Gaza Strip to get a ceasefire agreement so that it can focus on the north, as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been indicating in recent days.

Of course, at the same time, Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, the architect of the October the 7th terrorist attacks, may, according to some observers, have been playing a waiting game to see if Hezbollah strikes on Israel, to say nothing of Iran's planned retaliation for the assassination off of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July the 31st may actually drag Israel into a wider war.

So, in that respect, any escalation in the north or with Iran could -- the reaction of Israel and Hamas are almost kind of misaligned. But if we focus back on the talks, as you say, Kim, still wide differences between them, not just between Israel and Hamas, but also between Israel and one of the key mediators, Egypt, an Egyptian official telling Israel that Israel -- after Israel's submitted a new proposal on Thursday regarding the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, the 14- kilometer strip of land that's effectively the border between Gaza and Egypt. Egypt saying the decreased Israeli presence is not the solution. Egypt would want to see Israel withdrawing its troops completely from that area. Something that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have said is a red line effectively. He's drawn that line in a sense saying that Israel must control that border to prevent Hamas rearming. It believes Hamas gets most of its arms through tunnels between Egypt and Israel and doesn't trust the Egyptians to prevent that from happening.

At the same time, Hamas, of course, has repeatedly said it wants a permanent ceasefire agreement and also full withdrawal of Israeli troops in order to proceed with this phase one of this three phased ceasefire agreement, which would also see a number of hostages released after being kidnapped on October the 7th. And at the same time, the freeing of a certain number of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas also accusing Israel of changing the terms of the prisoner release and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying time and time again that Israel reserves the right to go back to fighting after the temporary six-week ceasefire in order to finish the job to prevent Hamas from threatening Israel and from maintaining its governance and military capabilities and to put pressure on the militant group, Kim, to get all the hostages home.

BRUNHUBER: All right. I appreciate that update. Elliott Gotkine, thanks so much. All right. I want to bring in Alon Pinkas, who's a former Israeli consul general in New York, and he joins me live from Tel Aviv, Israel. Good to see you. Thank you so much for being here with us. So, just first, what do you think Israel's strategy was here in striking first?

ALON PINKAS, FORMER ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL IN NEW YORK: Well, good morning, Kim. There are two ways of looking at it. One is via the intelligence lens or the intelligence prison. Israel supposedly had information that Hezbollah intends to strike overnight between Saturday and Sunday here in Israel and preempted the attack.

But then, there is another way of looking at it, a slightly broader perspective, and that is that Israel has been somewhat restrained and patient for eight months -- well, almost 10 months given Hezbollah's constant harassment and firing of drones, missiles, and rockets ever since October and it accelerated -- the rate accelerated in November and December.

So, the idea was to retaliate based on both the intelligence and to perhaps stop the harassment. But at the same time, keep it confined to something that's proportionate as to not to lead to a vicious cycle of escalation. Now, whether or not that's going to work, I don't know. If both sides can declare success, then supposedly everyone's happy. But I don't know we're going to have to wait a day or two.

[04:25:00]

There is one more thing that I have to add, Kim, and that is that whatever Israel's strategy is, it refuses, I think wrongly, but nonetheless, the government refuses to link the war in Gaza to possible or potential escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. I mean, it's like two connecting vessels. If only a ceasefire in Gaza could be conducive to de-escalation in the north, and Israel has refused to see that logic.

So, whatever the strategy is, unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza, which I am skeptical about, I don't necessarily see a de-escalation in the north.

BRUNHUBER: So, you're skeptical of any progress on the negotiations. Do you think that the fact that these Hezbollah attacks came now reflect on the state of the negotiations? They were assuming that things weren't progressing and might as well attack now?

PINKAS: I think you're absolutely right in that proposition. Hezbollah was contained or restrained possibly by Iran and possibly by their own reading of the political developments and figured that if they strike while negotiations are going on in Doha and Qatar now in Egypt, they will be accused of undermining the talks. By escalating the conflict, they would be undermining the talk. So, they waited patiently.

Once they concluded, according to them, that these talks will not produce an agreement, which I think is a realization they have reached in the last few days, they figured, all right, now's the time. Now, note one more important thing here, and that is that, you know, for a long time there was this idea that both Iran and Hezbollah would retaliate simultaneously. Then the logic said, well, Iran has to, but Hezbollah doesn't. And actually, the third possibility is -- transpired and that it is, that Hezbollah reacted rather than Iran. I'm not saying it won't happen tomorrow or in the next month, but right now, it was Hezbollah rather than Iran that retaliated.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll have to leave it there, but appreciate getting your expertise. Alon Pinkas, thank you so much.

PINKAS: Thank you, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: And we'll have much more on the latest tensions between Israel and Hezbollah with live reports from Tel Aviv and Beirut. That is after a short break. You're watching CNN Newsroom. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:00]

BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada, and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN breaking news coverage.

We'll return now to our latest news, the back-and-forth exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The militant group says its first phase of strikes were successful. Hezbollah claims it fired more than 300 rockets across the border. Israel says the group fired about 200 rockets.

Earlier, Israel's military initiated strikes against Hezbollah targets, saying the group was about to launch its weapons. The U.S. is monitoring the situation and communicating with Israeli counterparts. An IDF spokesperson says Israel took action to protect itself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADMIRAL DANIEL HAGARI, IDF SPOKESPERSON: We are operating in self defense from Hezbollah and any other enemy that joins in their attacks against us. And we are ready to do everything, everything we need to defend the people of Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: I want to go back to our reporters in the region. CNN's Nic Robertson is in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Ben Wedeman joins us live from Beirut, Lebanon.

Ben, starting with you, do you get a sense that Hezbollah is walking a fine line here, a mostly symbolic attack, without crossing the line in order to avoid a major escalation?

WEDEMAN: Kim, that seems to be their strategy. We knew that it was very clear and we heard it from the head of Hezbollah that they would respond to the 30th of July assassination of a senior Hezbollah commander. And they say this is the first phase of their response. They say that they've completed their military strikes successfully. We're expecting to hear from Nasrallah 6:00 p.m. local time. That will probably give us a better idea whether there's going to be a second phase at all.

But in this first phase, they put out an announcement saying that they launched more than 320 missiles at Israel at 11 military targets near the border, including the Meron base, which is a sort of an air control surveillance base. So, their tactic was to knock out all the surveillance and observation and perhaps Iron Dome systems and whatnot to send what Hezbollah said was a swarm of drones into the heart, the depth of Israel.

They claimed in this statement they hit a major military installation, but we have yet to hear any confirmation on that from the Israeli side. Now, we understand reports from the south of Lebanon say that there are still ongoing Israeli strikes on a variety of towns and villages in the area along the border, according to the official National News Agency, this has been the most intense day so far of Israeli strikes since October.

The death toll so far is one man killed in the town of Khiam. He was in a car when he was struck and in the town of al-Tyri, two other people were killed. We don't know, have any details about injuries so far.

Now, certainly, as I said before, Hezbollah is walking a fine line. They said they were going to retaliate for the assassination of that military commander, and we've seen in the past, for instance, I was here in September of 2019 when an Israeli drone struck the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah is headquartered. Hezbollah, a couple days later, struck back with an operation on the border. They claimed to have killed an Israeli soldier. The Israelis claimed that it was a dummy that basically what they wanted to do was each side does a strike, Hezbollah strikes back, and that was the end of it.

[04:35:00]

And certainly, what we know is that Hezbollah has made it clear that this front, so to speak, in the war on Gaza is a support front. Hezbollah has made it clear time and time again they have no appetite for a full-scale war. Certainly, there is no support whatsoever in Lebanon for a full-on war along the lines of what we saw in the summer of 2006. And then, the Israelis have also made it clear that they aren't interested in a major escalation as well.

So, we'll probably get a hint when we hear this speech from Hassan Nasrallah this evening, whether, indeed, there will be a phase two.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Appreciate that. I want to go to Nic now. And we have new updates from Israel on more strikes and the effects of Hezbollah strikes as well. So, take us through what Israel saying and the war of narratives that we're seeing about these latest attacks.

ROBERTSON: Yes. Hezbollah claims to have struck 11 military sites, Israeli military sites in the north of the country. The IDF says that they can confirm that the majority of the projectiles that came over the border from Hezbollah were towards the north. But they also say that Hezbollah intended to strike the Central Israel area as well.

And the authorities here in Tel Aviv have put restrictions on people in Tel Aviv, reminding them that 240 bomb shelters are open, not to be used just to go and loiter in because people are afraid right now, that they can open more shelters, but telling people not to congregate in groups of more than 30, that the beaches will remain closed in Tel Aviv, that leisure and cultural events are not to be held.

What the authorities here have doing is go on to a higher level of alert warning for people from Tel Aviv all the way to the north of the country, where in Akko, a lady was injured by falling shrapnel. But when it comes to that really specific and important question of what actual damage Hezbollah was able to do to Israeli military infrastructure, we don't have any details on that from Israeli authorities.

And typically, in these situations, they might confirm a strike on a base, that air base or the air defense site in the north has certainly been hit before by Hezbollah with multiple rockets on occasion, and the IDF does give some clarification about that later, but rarely do they get into what was damaged and casualties or specifics on casualties at those sites.

So, at the moment, the IDF and their continued strikes along the border, it seems that while the sort of proactive targeting of Hezbollah, as the IDF said, Hezbollah was preparing for this bigger wave of strikes, while that is sort of paused, it's very clear that the normal level of IDF military operations along the border with Lebanon is not on hold. It's going to continue. The security cabinet here wrapped up several hours ago. We don't know what conclusions they came to about their force posture, but I think you can be quite sure that the Israeli Air Force is ready should they get the command and the need to go on the offensive again as they did last night. So, I think the posture at the moment is caution, assessment, heightened state of alert. But at the moment, no return to the high levels of fire that we saw overnight.

BRUNHUBER: All right. I appreciate that. Nic Robertson in Tel Aviv and Ben Wedeman in Beirut. I want to thank you both.

Now, Hezbollah calls this the first phase of its retributions, and that's raising the question about what a second phase might look like, and what role U.S. assets in the region might play. We'll look at that when we come back. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:40:00]

BRUNHUBER: And returning to the breaking news in the Middle East. Hezbollah says it's done for the day with its retaliatory strikes against Israel, calling them a complete success. The militant group fired at least 200 rockets from Lebanon, which came after Israel says it conducted preemptive strikes on the militants across the border, destroying thousands of their rocket launcher barrels.

And joining me now from Canberra, Australia, is Malcolm Davis. He's a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Good to see you again. Thanks for being on. So, listen, we don't have a full damage assessments, of course, but given what we know so far, what do you make of the scale and the targets in these strikes on both sides?

MALCOLM DAVIS, SENIOR ANALYST, AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE AND MILITARY ANALYST: Look, essentially, any preemptive attack would be designed to go after the missiles and the launches and the systems that are being prepared to be used. So, they would be attacking missiles that are being on their launch rails or being transported to launch locations, destroying those. Plus, they would be going after storage sites for munitions. In other words, storage sites for missiles and rockets and that sort of thing.

And as you say, we don't really have in detail bomb damage assessment. All we have is Israel's suggestion that they've destroyed thousands of launch rails. So, in other words, it probably has disrupted Hezbollah's plans for an offensive. But Hezbollah has a very large arsenal of missiles and rockets. So, I wouldn't suggest that we're out of the woods yet in terms of a Hezbollah attack on Israel.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, on that, I mean, Hezbollah says, you know, first phase complete. So, that, you know, suggests a second phase. What could a second phase entail?

DAVIS: Well, my guess is that, you know, the second phase would be a larger attempt by the Hezbollah group to launch attacks, potentially in concert and synchronized with Iranian attacks or attacks by Iranian sponsored militia groups in Iraq and Syria. So, it could be that Hezbollah did launch a number of missiles into Northern Israel and Iron Dome responded, but in doing so, you know, you've reduced the amount of munitions for Iron Dome in the process.

We still don't know about the damage that any Hezbollah attack did. So, it's really uncertain at this point in time. It's very early days and we need -- we're going to need to wait for more information.

[04:45:00]

BRUNHUBER: You brought up Iran. Obviously, the big fear here is that any escalation could trigger a much broader war involving Iran. Any signs that were closer to that happening?

DAVIS: Well, look, my perspective on this is that if Hezbollah were to launch a second attack and Iran did nothing to support it, that would undermine Tehran's credibility in the eyes of Hezbollah and the Hezbollah leadership, that could actually be damaging to Iran's political interests in the region.

So, you know, there'll be pressure from within Iran and from groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to actually step in and support groups like Hezbollah, whether Iran does this is uncertain. Iran will be making its own calculation in terms of just how much damage can it do in an attack on Israel and how much damage can Israel do in retaliation.

And I think one of the big concerns that Iran would have is that in any retaliation against Iran, Israel would go after Iran's nuclear sites. In other words, Bordeaux and Natanz, and potentially retire Iran's ability to race for the bomb, you know, in a significant way.

At the moment, we have maybe a few weeks to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. If Israel hits those sites, it could be pushed back months.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. And that type of escalation that you're talking about could risk dragging in the U.S. The U.S. has been in dialogue with its Israeli counterparts. What role do you expect the U.S. military assets in the region to play?

DAVIS: Look, the U.S. is there to essentially practice deterrence by denial against Iran. So, they have deployed a substantial amount of military hardware in terms of carrier strike forces, land-based airpower, naval warships and so forth, with the principal goal being to shoot down any Iranian missile attack and to destroy Iran's chances of inflicting significant damage on Israel.

So, by raising the likelihood that any Iranian attack will fail and then trigger a major Israeli retaliation, the U.S. is there to try and deter Iran from launching that attack in the first place.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll leave it there. Appreciate your expertise. Malcolm Davis in Canberra, thanks so much.

DAVIS: Thank you. BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll be right back with a look at other stories we're following, including the swing states. It will be the focus of presidential campaigning in the days ahead. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:50:00]

BRUNHUBER: German police say a suspect in the stabbing deaths of three people at a music festival in Solingen in western Germany has turned himself in and confessed to the crime. The suspect is a 26- year-old Syrian man and his actions are currently, quote, under intensive investigation, according to police. Islamic State claimed responsibility but offered no evidence to back the claim. Eight other people were wounded. Police haven't determined a motive for the attack. Two neighboring towns later canceled weekend festivals.

French police say they've arrested a suspect behind a synagogue arson attack on Saturday. At least two cars were set on fire across the street from the synagogue and one exploded, injuring a police officer in the process. Authorities say anti-Jewish incidents in France nearly tripled in the first half of this year compared to 2023.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, will hit the campaign trail again this week. They'll kick off a bus tour in the battleground State of Georgia, marking their first time campaigning together in the state.

Meanwhile, former U.S. President Donald Trump will campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan, two battleground states that could prove to be decisive in this election.

On Saturday, Republican vice-presidential nominee J. D. Vance said that Trump will veto a federal abortion ban if such a bill is passed by the Congress. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been talking to Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham just last week, who've made it very clear that if Donald Trump is elected, if you are elected, they will continue to press this point. Senator Graham said to me, I'm going to keep saying that there should be a federal ban. If such a piece of legislation landed on Donald Trump's desk. Would he veto it?

SEN. JD VANCE (R-OH), REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think it would be very clear he would not support it. I mean, he said that explicitly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But would he veto it?

VANCE: Yes. I mean, if you're not supporting it as the president of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, he would veto a federal abortion ban? VANCE: I think he would. He said that explicitly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: So, as the race for the White House heats up, social media is flooded with fake and manipulated images and videos claiming to show celebrity endorsements for specific candidates. New research shows that hundreds of examples of election related misinformation have reached voters and are sowing confusion. CNN's Marshall Cohen has more.

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MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): The internet is swamped with these fake endorsements. They're spreading widely and sowing confusion on social media. So, researchers from the News Literacy Project, a non-partisan group, they analyze more than 500 unique examples of election misinformation.

They launched a searchable database a few days ago, hoping to raise awareness and combat the lies. We looked through the data and found that about one in 10 of their examples were fake endorsements like these. Take a look at this, just last weekend, Donald Trump shared these A.I.-generated images of Swifties for Trump. Many of these images simply aren't real. They were made by a computer and designed to deceive the voters.

But it's not just Trump. The misinformation is coming from all angles. Here's another viral post from earlier this year claiming that Taylor Swift endorsed Joe Biden. So, she did support him in 2020, but she hasn't weighed in yet for 2024.

And here's one more. Check out this photo-shopped image of actor Ryan Reynolds supposedly wearing a shirt supporting Kamala Harris. Some fakes like that are pretty easy to spot, they're pretty rudimentary. Others are far more sophisticated with A.I. technology. Posts like these regularly rack up millions of views online, including on Twitter, which is now called X.

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This is the first presidential election under its new owner, Elon Musk, who has dismantled many of the company's safeguards against disinformation.

The A.I. chatbot on that platform called Grok recently rolled out a new feature allowing users to generate their own A.I. images with just a few clicks, which is clearly making the problem worse.

For their part, Facebook and Instagram say they are spending billions of dollars on election integrity, and they say they're cracking down on A.I. images appearing in political advertisements.

But ultimately, it comes down to us. If you see pictures of celebrities wearing a political shirt or holding a political sign or claims from some random Twitter user about a shocking new celebrity endorsement, you should probably take a closer look before you hit that share button.

Marshall Cohen, CNN, Los Angeles.

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BRUNHUBER: Tropical Storm Hone is getting stronger and nearing hurricane strength as it moves closer to Hawaii. The National Hurricane Center says maximum sustained winds are at 70 miles per hour. The center of the storm is currently less than 300 miles southeast of Honolulu and it's likely to continue westward into Monday, but slowing down earlier in the week. Hawaii Governor Josh Green has declared a state of emergency. The tropical storm is also elevating fire danger in the state. Winds extend outward up to 125 miles from the center of the storm. A tropical storm warning remains in effect for Hawaii County.

Meanwhile, parts of the U.S. are sweltering in the dog days of summer. Nearly 25 million people across the country are under heat alerts. On Saturday, triple digit heat threatened the Southern Plains. Extreme heat is expected to move north on Sunday, bringing miserable heat and humidity for millions.

All right. That wraps this hour of CNN Newsroom. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back with more news in just a moment. Please do stay with us.

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