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Israeli Military: Bodies of Six Hostages Recovered in Gaza; Polio Vaccinations, Humanitarian Pauses to Begin in Gaza. Aired 12-1am ET

Aired September 01, 2024 - 00:00   ET

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

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Now, the news that the bodies have been found has outraged some family members of hostages who, as you can see there, protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The group, Missing Families Forum, issued a statement saying, quote, "Netanyahu abandoned the hostages." They are calling for the public to mobilize and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign that ceasefire hostage release agreement.

Journalist Elliott Gotkine joins me again from London. For those just joining, just bring us up to date on where we stand?

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Michael, where we stand is that we learned on Saturday evening that the IDF had discovered six bodies in the Gaza Strip and we were awaiting identification of those. One of those has now been identified as Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli- American, who viewers may recall seeing in the wake of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of October the 7th with half of his left arm blown off. He subsequently appeared in a Hamas hostage video several months ago. His parents have been incredibly vocal. They appeared at the Democratic National Convention. They've met with President Biden and they've been tireless in their campaign to get not just Hersh released, but also all of the hostages still remaining in the Gaza Strip released as well.

The family of Hersh put out a statement saying, "With broken hearts, the Goldberg family -- the Goldberg-Polin family, excuse me, is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time."

President Biden, the White House, put out a statement as well, saying that the President was, in the words of the statement, devastated and outraged.

And then we also heard from the Hostages Forum, which represents the families of those who were kidnapped on October the 7th, saying that Netanyahu abandoned the hostages starting tomorrow, i.e. September the 1st, Sunday. The country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. We will stop the country.

We've also subsequently had two of the other bodies have been identified as well, of people who were kidnapped on October the 7th. One is Eden Yerushalmi, who was working as a bartender at the Nova Music Festival, which is where hundreds of Israelis were killed in the most deadliest single incident of those terrorist attacks of October the 7th.

And Ori Danino also has been confirmed as being killed, as one of those six bodies that were discovered in this tunnel in Rafah on Saturday.

Michael?

HOLMES: What is the usual process, again, for identifying the other five? I mean, there are names out there now. So one presumes that we're not reporting, of course, but there are names out there now about some of the other members of the six. How does this normally unfold?

GOTKINE: So the IDF will, you know, have people who can identify forensically the bodies to then be able to inform the families. They will be the first ones to be told. And then sometimes we get statements from the families first, as we did in the case of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and indeed from Eden Yerushalmi's family and the family of Ori Danino. And then sometimes those statements are put out simultaneously or beforehand by the IDF as well.

And it's worth noting, of course, that there are still more than a hundred hostages being held in the Gaza Strip after being kidnapped on October the 7th. Around a third of them are believed to be dead.

The Hostages Forum and those with loved ones in Gaza have been urging, ratcheting up the pressure on the government to try to do whatever it can to bring those hostages home, saying they're running out of time, and if a deal isn't done, then they won't be coming home alive. It'll just be their bodies that will be returning. And sadly, that is the case now with these six hostages, three men and three women, we understand.

As you say, Michael, we're not revealing the identities of the three that haven't been officially confirmed just yet, but so far we do have confirmation of the death of Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Ori Danino, whose bodies were discovered on Saturday.

And the families of those who still have loved ones in the Gaza Strip will be even more alarmed and concerned at the fate of their loved ones who are still inside Gaza as we now move into the 11th month of fighting between Israel and Hamas, which led those terrorist attacks and the kidnapping of those Israelis and people of other nationalities as well.

HOLMES: And has the IDF given any more information on the operation that found these bodies or any information on how they might have died?

GOTKINE: So we're expecting a statement actually from the IDF. They're holding a press conference shortly in the morning. Just got a notification about that. But -- and usually they will give details that they feel able to give without, you know, giving away any intelligence that they might have done because in previous cases when they've discovered bodies, some of that has been directly attributable to intelligence that they've received. Sometimes they might, you know, come across these bodies as part of their operations.

[00:05:24]

But certainly we would expect to get some more details from the IDF which, you know, has people that are very well trained in terms of searching for these bodies and something that, you know, a grisly task that they've been carrying out, trying to locate obviously living hostages but also dead ones over the past, you know, 10 months, almost 11 months of fighting.

HOLMES: Yeah, absolutely. Elliott Gotkine, thanks. We'll be checking in with you again.

I want to read the White House statement that was put out and just part of that quote. It says, "It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes and we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages." That's from the U.S. President Joe Biden just in the last -- within the last hour or so as this news has broken.

I want to go back now to Yaakov Katz who's a Senior Columnist at the "Jerusalem Post." He's also the author of three books on the Israeli military including, "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power." He joins me again from Jerusalem.

I want to go back to --

YAAKOV KATZ, SENIOR COLUMNIST, THE JERUSALEM POST: One, two, three, four, five, six.

HOLMES: We've got you, Yaakov. Can you hear me? It's Michael.

KATZ: Yeah.

HOLMES: Yeah?

KATZ: Yes, I hear you, Michael.

HOLMES: Excellent. OK, good. I wanted to go back to what Elliott was talking about and we were discussing this last hour as well. The hostages, the Missing Families Forum, this call on the public to mobilize and saying that the country tomorrow will tremble. What do you expect that to look like?

KATZ: Well, I think kind of as we discussed before, Michael, the feeling here in Israel this morning is one of great devastation and mourning, right? These people were believed to have been alive just until a few days ago, the six hostages, which as we now know, four of the families have identified their loved ones.

You have Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli-American, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, now Carmel Gat, a 39-year-old woman who was taken from her home in one of the Kibbutzim along the border, was a yoga instructor. Lots of yoga had been done in her honor and to try to push for her release over the last 11 months. Now it will have to sadly be in her memory by many Israelis. So Israelis are feeling mourning, devastation and the tragedy and they

will direct it somewhere. And the feeling is that this could have been avoided, that writing was on the wall with these people who were held in Gaza, the over 100 hostages who are still there, that every day that passes, their lives are at risk and are in peril. And this was told to the security cabinet, which Prime Minister Netanyahu leads and heads.

And unfortunately, as members of the negotiating teams here in Israel are now saying to different media, including Barak Ravid earlier, that they could have been saved in the deal. And that deal did not happen.

So I think Israelis are going to potentially take to the streets today. We already have one senior politician who's calling on all high school students. Today is September 1st, the beginning of the school year here in Israel. I have kids who are on their way now to school. He is calling on high school students, don't go to school, go to the streets, go protest. So I think that's what we should expect to see later today.

HOLMES: And as we were discussing last hour too, there's been enormous criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu from within his own cabinet. Among his own hostage negotiators, Mossad, Shin Bet, and so on. But he's still there.

What do you think is the tipping point for him as Prime Minister, given that there is so much public and hostage family anger directed at him personally for being the stumbling block on getting a deal done?

KATZ: Yeah, I mean, it's not even just the stumbling block, Michael. It's that -- it seems that his priorities at times were just warped. That he preferred and prioritized political survival and keeping his government intact and not being toppled by the threats of members of his coalition who said, if you make a deal and you end the war or you grieve into a ceasefire, we will bring down your government.

He prioritized that over the real potentially tangible opportunity which was to bring back these people, including the six whose bodies were discovered yesterday in a dark tunnel inside the Gaza Strip in some Hamas dungeon. They could have potentially have been brought home.

[00:10:02]

So really the question is going to fall again on the political lines I think that we've seen all throughout this war where it seemed in the beginning that Netanyahu's political career was over after the unthinkable disaster of October 7th, which really ends by him, right? He was -- he's been the Prime Minister pretty much for the last 15 years, straight and consecutively. He's the man who orchestrated and was the architect of Israel's policy when it comes to Hamas.

But he's managed to claw his way back and he's now at the top of polls once again. There was a poll that just was taken on Friday that showed that if elections were held today, he would be the largest party by far, based on the parties that are currently inside Israel's parliament.

So I'm not sure that this is something that's going to hurt him necessarily because his base of voters still support him, but this does have the potential to really rip once again into the hearts of Israelis.

And let me just add one last thing, Michael. Israelis' hearts have been pierced for the last 11 months with the inability to heal. As many people around the world, and especially in America, who were praying for Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American Israeli, to come home, that -- that -- those hearts will not be able to heal now even more.

And the question is, what are we going to do with this pain? And I think that it might translate itself into a political movement to try to do something, whether it's get back those hostages or change this government.

HOLMES: That's a fascinating point. Do you think it could be a sea change politically in that regard?

KATZ: I think it's possible. Look, it's always difficult to know what is going to be that trigger that's really going to finally create that momentum that's needed to bring down a government. And it's difficult to tell.

I think whether you like Netanyahu or you don't like Netanyahu, there's one simple conclusion. This government brought upon Israel the greatest disaster almost in its history on October 7th. We've been stuck in a war now for 11 months.

So whether you think he's making now the right decisions or the wrong decisions, that sits on him. That's his responsibility and his government's responsibility. The question now is whether this great tragedy can now be diverted, that energy and direction, to reconstruction and rebuilding and recovery that this country still needs.

Because no matter what happens, how the war ends one way or the other, Israelis do need to somehow heal after this long period of just pain and suffering of the hostage families and every Israeli who is praying and yearning and just wishing that these people would be able to come home alive. And tragically, they're not. But also, what do we want to see our country look like in the future? And how do we prevent these types of instances from happening once again?

HOLMES: Yeah, or October 7th was a lapse in and of itself, which Israelis want accountability for. Yaakov Katz, a great analysis, a powerful insight there into the thinking where you are. We'll talk again, I'm sure, my friend. Thank you so much.

KATZ: Thank you.

HOLMES: All right, I want to read now a statement from the Goldberg- Polin family, and it is this, quote, "With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Pollin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time." Heartbreaking.

Journalist Elliott Gotkine joins me again from London with more. Are you hearing anything else about other hostages, Elliott?

GOTKINE: We are, Michael. Just in the last couple of minutes or so, the IDF has put out a statement confirming the identities of the other three hostages. There were six whose bodies were discovered in this tunnel in Rafah in Gaza on Saturday.

So the IDF, together with the ISA, which is the Shin Bet, saying that they located and recovered the bodies of the hostages, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, whom we already mentioned, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who we've been talking about, the Israeli-American, Alexander Lobanov, whose wife, if I'm not mistaken, gave birth while he was in captivity, Almog Sarusi, and Master Sergeant Ori Danino.

So those are the six people that were discovered, whose bodies were discovered in a tunnel in Rafah in the Gaza Strip after they had been kidnapped during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of October 7th. The statement continues saying they recovered these bodies from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area in the Gaza Strip and returned them to Israeli territory, saying they were all taken hostage on October 7th and were murdered by the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.

Now, they usually also tell us when they feel. In a lot of these cases recently, when they found bodies, they've said that they believe that this particular person would have been killed on October 7th. But, of course, just a few months ago, we saw a hostage video put out by Hamas featuring Hersh Goldberg-Polin as well. So, you know, we know that he certainly was alive a few months ago.

[00:15:17]

I should also note that the main spokesman, the chief spokesman, Daniel Hagari, for the IDF is just about to start giving a statement to the media. So, just to continue while we're waiting to see what Mr. Halevi has to say, the IDF statement continuing saying they had an identification procedure which was carried out by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the Israeli police and the IDF military rabbinate. This is to ensure, you know, identification and ultimately burial in accordance with Jewish law. As well as the IDF Manpower Directorate's hostage team. And they send their condolences and say that they're operating with all means to bring home all the hostages as fast as possible.

But, of course, after this grisly discovery, there are fewer of them alive. The 107 or so hostages still believed to be in captivity in the Gaza Strip, about a third of those are already believed to be dead.

And, as we heard in the response from the hostage and missing families forum, which it put out on Saturday evening, they're calling, effectively, for a nationwide shutdown, nationwide protests on Sunday, September the 1st, which also happens to be the first day back to school for Israeli children. In their statement from Saturday evening, they said Netanyahu abandoned the hostages starting tomorrow, that's Sunday, September the 1st. The country will tremble. We call on the public to prepare. We will stop the country.

And, of course, the other context of this is just a couple of days ago, this quite mind-blowing, almost transcription of this spat between Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It's no secret that the two men loathe each other. You'll recall that Netanyahu sacked and then unsacked Gallant in March of last year when he came out and called for a pause in Prime Minister Netanyahu's plans for overhauling the judiciary and weakening the power of the Supreme Court.

I should say that the IDF's main spokesman is about to start speaking to the media. I'm not sure if he's going to be speaking in English or in Hebrew. And so, as a result of this spat, it came out that Gallant, the Defense Minister, effectively said to Netanyahu, you are killing the hostages by insisting that in the ceasefire negotiations with Hamas that Israelis stay in control of the border between Gaza and Egypt, the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, because you've basically got two choices, either stay in control of the Philadelphi Corridor, which is a non-starter for Hamas, or you get the hostages home. And Gallant saying that, look, you have made your choice, Netanyahu.

And he was backed up by the head of the IDF, Herzi Halevi, who said, look, we can leave the Philadelphi Corridor during this initial six- week pause and then retake it if need be, Israel feeling strategically that it needs to be in control of that border between Egypt and Hamas -- and Gaza, I should say, because that is the main conduit underground, especially for arms and other supplies to get to Hamas. And Israel doesn't want to enable Hamas to rearm.

But certainly the defense establishment is very much in favor of doing this deal. And as we've seen, time is running out for so many of these hostages. Netanyahu brought to a vote of the cabinet the decision that he was advocating to insist on remaining in control of this border between Israel and Gaza in hostage negotiations with Hamas, and that vote was passed 8-1, the only dissenter being Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defense Minister.

Michael?

HOLMES: Yeah, and I was talking with Yaakov Katz about this, and I mean, you know, Israel very well and Israeli politics. This level of anger directed specifically at Benjamin Netanyahu, you mentioned, you know, Yoav Gallant, his own Defense Minister, senior IDF officers, some in Mossad, some in Shin Bet, or one of his own negotiators, all criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu. And now this seething public anger, which is probably going to play out in the day ahead even more than it has done in recent months. Does Netanyahu survive this? What's your read on, you know, the survivability of him?

GOTKINE: Look, Michael, first of all, only a fool would write off Netanyahu. He has been written off so many times before among his many nicknames, although he's clearly lost the Mr. Security nickname in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks which happened on his watch. One of them is the magician, because he always finds a way to, you know, get out of sticky situations, even when it seems that there's no hope of doing so. And the fact remains, as Barak Ravid was pointing out just a few moments ago, is that he has 64 seats in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset. So long as he keeps his coalition together, he can stay in government as prime minister until the next elections are due, which are in October of 2026.

[00:20:15]

Now, could he lose the support of some of his coalition members? Well, we've heard them say it quite openly, that if Netanyahu goes ahead and does a hostage deal, then the Jewish power and religious Zionism factions of his governing coalition, these are the far-right parties headed up by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, then they have said they will bolt the coalition.

So it's -- from his perspective, the only way he can lose his standing as Prime Minister, the only way that his government collapses, is if he does a deal with Hamas to bring the hostages home, even though the actual deal would get the support of the opposition, and Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition, and others have said that they would support Prime Minister Netanyahu if he signed on the line for a hostage deal in the Knesset.

And it is worth noting, and many analysts have pointed this out, the Israeli Knesset is on recess right now until after the High Holy Days, so up until kind of, you know, October, it's on recess. So to that end, he would not have to face a vote of no confidence if he did a deal to get with Hamas. That would see this ceasefire coming into effect and a number of hostages being released at the same time.

But Netanyahu's perspective seems to be he knows best. He's been prime minister for, what, 15 years. He's the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history, and he feels that he knows best what position Israel ought to take, and he has maintained publicly all of this time that it is the military pressure on Hamas which will pressure them to, you know, come more towards Israel's position in negotiations to do a hostage deal that is as palatable as possible to Israel.

And Prime Minister Netanyahu believes, or has said, and certainly in this, as I say, almost word-for-word transcription that we got from Israeli affiliates, Israel Channel 12 and others in the Israeli media, is adamant that Israel must remain in control of this corridor between Gaza and Egypt to prevent Hamas from rearming. And that is a red line that he has drawn and that he seems to be sticking with.

And if that is indeed a non-starter for Hamas, as it seems to be, then there will be no deal, no matter how optimistic or whatever optimistic pronouncements you get from President Biden or from anyone else who has their ear to the ground in terms of these negotiations.

These talks have been going on and off for nine months now. There has not been a deal. And I suppose the conclusion that many have reached is that either means that Netanyahu doesn't want a deal or it means that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, doesn't want a deal, or that neither of them want a deal for their own personal reasons. Netanyahu for his own political reasons to keep his coalition together, and Sinwar because he believes that all he needs to do and Hamas needs to do is to survive and that the longer this war is dragged out, the more of a pariah Israel will become in the eyes of the international community.

And the more delegitimized or the less legitimized Israel will be in the eyes of the world and the more likely it is that some kind of regional conflagration could erupt to the degree that Sinwar, who of course was the architect of the October 7 terrorist attacks, to the degree that he wanted to happen on October 7 and didn't happen, and perhaps the longer this goes on, he feels the more likely it is that this will happen, which would stretch, you know, Israel's military to breaking point.

Michael?

HOLMES: Great context there, Elliott. Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Elliott Gotkine. We will be talking again in the minutes ahead.

Meanwhile, you're watching CNN Newsroom with me, Michael Holmes. We'll have more news after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:27:36]

HOLMES: All right, bringing you up to date now. The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza. The parents of one, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month. Just to give you an idea, here's some of what they said then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL GOLDBERG-POLIN, MOTHER OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: At this moment, 109 treasured human beings are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. They are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. They are from 23 different countries. The youngest hostage is a one-year-old red-headed baby boy, and the oldest is an 86-year-old mustachioed grandpa. Among the hostages are eight American citizens. One of those Americans is our only son. His name is Hersh.

JONATHAN POLIN, FATHER OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: This is a political convention. But needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue. It is -- it is a humanitarian issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: CNN Military Analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton joins me now. Colonel, your reaction to these identifications and how these bodies were found, I mean, obviously a very painful time for those families?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, it certainly is, Michael. This is a very, very difficult time. I actually did have the honor of meeting Hersh Goldberg-Polin's parents when they were at CNN a few months ago. And I have to tell you, they are an incredibly dignified couple, and my heart breaks for them. It is a very, very sad moment for them and, of course, for all the other hostage families.

As far as, you know, the political and military aspects of this are concerned, Michael, I think that, you know, this clearly shows that the diplomatic part of this did not move in the way that it should have to release these hostages.

[00:30:09]

And as far as the military is concerned, they had achieved some success in releasing some hostages before, such as the hostage, the Bedouin hostage, the Israeli Bedouin hostage who was released a few weeks ago.

But this is, you know, definitely a failure, I would say, of the system, and it shows that there are going to be some consequences, I think, for the Israeli political leadership as a result of this. The primary goal was often stated to be the release of the hostages, and when six of them die, when what seems to be a situation where it happened within a fairly recent time, that is something that is going to create some real difficulties, I believe.

HOLMES: And when it comes to the military campaign, itself, I mean Benjamin Netanyahu has said all along that, you know, he will not waver from his aims, which is the complete destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages. Well, hostages being found dead. There's still dozens that are being held. Hamas still fires rockets every now and then. Their senior leadership is largely intact and we're 11 months in. Can Benjamin Netanyahu's stated aims even be achieved in a military sense?

LEIGHTON: I've long thought that they could not be. And the reason for that, Michael, is that it's very hard and really impossible to eradicate an ideology. And that's the kind of situation the Israelis are finding themselves in right now. They're trying to eradicate an ideology and they're also trying to release the hostages and either free them through military means or through negotiation.

And in many cases, those are incompatible goals. And you really have to pick one. You can't pick both when you're in a situation like this. And that's the problem. I think they tried to pick both. And I think that is basically a failure.

Now, they can recover in some ways by really changing their goals in the military sense and concentrating on getting the remaining hostages released, which would mean a more diplomatic approach. But what they have right now is not sufficient to achieve either the destruction of Hamas or the release of the hostages.

HOLMES: And the other thing, too, that, you know, we know or it's certainly been reported that at least some of the hostages who were killed were actually killed by Israeli bombardment. Speak to the difficulties in that environment of, you know, knowing what you're bombing when the hostages are underground.

LEIGHTON: Yeah, this is one of the biggest problems, the biggest challenges for a military force like the IDF in a situation like this. For one thing, you have an urban terrain that is extremely densely populated, and you have a foe that has means of hiding not only the hostages, but their own installations in many different ways.

And as we can see now with the efforts by the IDF over these 11 months, they've often had to retrace their steps over many parts of Gaza. Gaza is a relatively small area, but because of its density, the density of the population, the density of the tunnel network that Hamas has been able to establish, and other factors, it's been very difficult for the Israelis to truly physically eradicate these structures, especially the tunnels. And they've also had difficulty eradicating Hamas' leadership. They've of course achieved some success in that regard on a temporary basis. But as far as a permanent basis is concerned, it's very difficult.

So this makes it -- this really an intelligence challenge. And every now and then the Israelis have been successful in getting some of the hostages out because of good intelligence.

But it is something that has to be basically a synchronized operation. And sometimes that synchronization seems to not have worked as well as it should have. That is the synchronization between the diplomatic, the military, and the intelligence spheres.

HOLMES: Yeah. Yeah. Well, always good to see you, sir. Thank you so much, Cedric Leighton.

All right. And we will be back with more news. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:38:12]

HOLMES: All right, more now on the breaking news out of Gaza. The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages from an underground tunnel in the Rafah area on Saturday. In the past few minutes, the IDF has identified all six, saying that their families have now been notified. Obviously, very grim news for those families.

Now, the news that the bodies were found angered many family members of hostages who, as you see there, protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The group Missing Families Forum issued a statement saying, quote, "Netanyahu abandoned the hostages," referring to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

They're calling for the public to mobilize and for the Israeli Prime Minister to sign the ceasefire hostage release agreement that he has so far failed to agree to.

All right, I'm joined now by retired U.S. Army Major General Mark MacCarley. These hostages were found underground in tunnels. Speak to the difficulty of a military operation when that is where your hostages are being kept?

MARK MACCARLEY, U.S. ARMY MAJOR GENERAL (Ret.): John, any operation, what we call subterranean operation, is one of the most difficult ground operations that any soldier can participate in. Certainly the planning necessary, the equipment, the personnel that have to be committed to, one, locate these hostages, locate these hostages based on perhaps intelligence that is not clear, or the very difficult circumstances that any soldier who is asked to find himself or herself in these tunnels facing an enemy who could be around the corner, all those make subterranean operations, as I indicated, so terribly difficult. And that's what we saw here.

[00:40:19]

HOLMES: Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people perhaps don't appreciate how small Gaza is. I've been there many times. It's maybe 24 miles long. It is, you know, anywhere from 5 to 10 miles wide. It's a very small place, very concentrated, densely populated. With the amount of bombing that has gone on too, that surely does put hostages at risk, correct?

MACCARLEY: Absolutely. You just have to take a look either from open source or from other sources of intel and look at the tremendous damage, the destruction of the areas within Gaza in which IDF forces have basically leveled towns.

So what you're seeing are rubble piles, and it's a quite simple deduction when you see rubble piles on top of entries to tunnels. That just complicates this whole operation. We call these operations rescue operations within a subterranean setting. But again, they are horrifically dangerous and very, very difficult.

HOLMES: And I was talking to Cedric Leighton about this just a little while ago. When you look at the overall military campaign 11 months in, in this very small area, would you consider it a success? I mean, the aims were to destroy Hamas and get hostages out. There's over 100 hostages unaccounted for, and the Hamas leadership, the top leadership, still exists.

MACCARLEY: You're asking the most important question that can be put not only to me as an observer and a student of warfare, but to those principals both in Hamas and in Israel who are perpetuating this war. There's no such thing right now as victory. There's no one who can legitimately stand up on the Israeli side and say that Israel has succeeded in this campaign.

This very recovery of those six bodies indicates that there are still continuing challenges that have not been resolved, and that's why you can see this political avalanche of parents, friends, relatives of the hostages gathering in Tel Aviv and other cities and basically demanding that something be done, and that, of course, be execution of at least some sort of document to allow a ceasefire and give a bit in order to get the release of the remaining 101 or so hostages that some believe are still in those tunnels or in Hamas's custody.

HOLMES: All right. U.S. Army Major General Mark MacCarley. General, thanks so much for being with us.

MACCARLEY: Thank you.

HOLMES: And we will be right back with more news. You're watching CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:47:21]

HOLMES: Continuing our breaking news on the naming of those six bodies, those hostages who were found in Rafah in southern Gaza over the last 24 hours. They have been identified. Families have been notified. And they have been named.

The U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris just releasing a statement about the death of one of those hostages, the American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. He was one whose body was recovered Saturday in Gaza.

I just want to quote Kamala Harris. She said this, quote, "Doug and my prayers are with Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Hersh's parents, and with everyone who knew and loved Hersh. When I met Jon and Rachel early this year, I told them, you are not alone. That remains true as they mourn this terrible loss. Americans and people around the world will pray for Jon, Rachel, and their family and send them love and strength as is said in the Jewish tradition, may Hersh's memory be a blessing."

Journalist Elliott Gotkine joins me again live from London with more on the story. Now, you were listening in to what the IDF was saying earlier about this, giving some more details about this. What have you learned?

GOTKINE: Michael, it's going to perhaps be of even less comfort to the families to learn from Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, saying that, yes, these hostages were, in his words, brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists, but saying that this was a short while before we reached them. That will perhaps make it even harder, if it can be harder, to swallow and to comprehend what has happened to their loved ones knowing that they were so close.

In fact, Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, adding that these bodies were discovered in a tunnel under Rafah, in the Rafah area of the southern part of the Gaza Strip, about a kilometer away from where the Israeli Bedouin hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, was rescued a few days ago.

So they were looking perhaps more so in that area to -- and adding that they were taking more care to allow for the possibility that when they're fighting that there would be hostages nearby and, in fact, Hagari adding that there was -- it was during combat in Rafah, they were fighting above ground, it was then that they found these bodies in this tunnel of these six Israeli hostages who have now been confirmed as dead.

Michael?

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HOLMES: And tell us more about what we're learning about those killed?

GOTKINE: So, look, as you said, perhaps the most high profile, not just because he was an Israeli-American, but also because there were, you know, quite startling images of him being kind of loaded onto the back of a truck with half of his left arm blown off on October the 7th itself as a result of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks.

This is Hersh Goldberg-Polin. He was 23 years old, Israeli-American, and he was at this Nova Music Festival where hundreds of people were gunned down and where the majority of those who were kidnapped were taken because it was just happening on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip.

Eden Yerushalmi, 24-year-old woman, was working as a bartender at the Nova Music Festival. She was actually widely reported to be on the phone with her sister, with her family, while she was hiding from the Hamas militants as they were rampaging through the Nova Music Festival and that she was eventually captured while she was on the phone to her sister.

Carmel Gat, a 39-year-old, she was taken while visiting family in Kibbutz Be'eri, one of the Kibbutzim, the kind of farming communes that surround the Gaza Strip and which were also devastated on October the 7th.

Almog Sarusi, a 27-year-old, and Alex Lobanov, whose wife was widely reported to have given birth while he was in captivity.

HOLMES: Elliott, appreciate the update there, keeping across the very latest for us. Elliott Gotkine, thanks so much. We'll talk to you next hour as well.

All right, a different story from Gaza. The first group of babies have now received polio vaccinations in Gaza as a massive U.N. campaign to vaccinate more than 640,000 children gets underway in a war zone. This comes after Israel and Hamas agreed to pauses in fighting in three phases, beginning Sunday through September 12.

But Palestinian health officials have stressed a permanent ceasefire is what's needed for the vaccination campaign to truly succeed. Gaza had near universal polio vaccine coverage before the war. That has now dropped.

All right, Louise Wateridge is the Senior Communications Officer for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA. She joins me now from Gaza. Thanks so much for doing so.

So this plan is phases with pauses, but those pauses are for a few hours at a time. When you look at the math, to vaccinate 650,000 kids under the age of 10, it's literally thousands of kids an hour under those rules. How enormous is the task ahead? Is it even doable?

LOUISE WATERIDGE, SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, UNRWA: Yeah, it's an incredibly enormous task, incredibly complex. We're giving everything we've got towards this. These children need to be vaccinated.

As you say, 640,000 children. This is an estimate. We don't know, very sadly, how many children have been killed, how many children are under the rubble. We don't have the exact numbers. In this first phase, we are aiming for 156,000 children in this middle

area where I am to be vaccinated. Our teams are already mobilized. They are in health facilities. They are in mobile points. They are going tent to tent, and they're going to be out for the next four days trying to do this in this middle area.

Right now, it's quiet on the ground. We're very hopeful this will last. We're hopeful these humanitarian forces will continue. We have to see over the coming days as this unfolds.

HOLMES: Of course, the question of why did polio emerge in the first place is an easily answered question. Israel's bombardment led to all five of Gaza's wastewater treatment plants being shut down, desalination plants as well, clean water storage. There's sewage in the streets and restrictions on hygiene supplies.

Polio spreads through contaminated water or food, and pretty much all of Gaza is contaminated. How dire are the risks?

WATERIDGE: The conditions here are just as you described. It is horrific. Families are living in these makeshift shelters. They're on the floor, many of them in very small, confined areas. They don't have homes. Nobody here has a home anymore. They are surrounded by animals. There's a spreading disease. There's mice, there's rats, cockroaches, you know, mosquitoes.

The sewage is running through the street. We've not been able to clear the trash and sewage for months on end. All the infrastructure here is damaged, destroyed, or we simply cannot access it. These conditions are exactly what the disease needs to spread.

And it's one thing, yes, we are going to be able to roll out this vaccination. We're going to do everything we can, but we also need a ceasefire to reverse these conditions.

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People need to live in a humane environment. They cannot continue to live in these conditions. Children are going back to our health facilities with their parents. They've got rashes, they've got skin diseases. And we can put a band-aid on these things, but we cannot treat the problem because the conditions are the same.

HOLMES: And importantly, polio does not respect borders. It could easily get outside Gaza. You touched on something and we're almost out of time, but I wanted to ask you about the broader issue of diseases, not just polio.

The WHO has reported, as they put it, respiratory infections, diarrhea, scabies, lice, skin rashes, chicken pox, jaundice and hepatitis and more. How big is the overall threat of disease, polio and others?

WATERIDGE: Children and families here are at severe risk. We've been warning this for the last 10 months. You know, it's August, we've just finished August, the middle of summer. We've only got -- the conditions, you know, they just keep getting worse every day. We've had the heat of summer. We've had people living in these shelters in these conditions.

Our next fear is going to be winter with the rains coming, with the sewage water flooding the areas the families are living. These diseases will only spread further and spread wider because of these conditions. So we really, really need a ceasefire, not only for the civilians here and the families and children here, but also for the hostages. The hostages have to go home to their families. A ceasefire is the only option in the Gaza Strip now. Otherwise, you're going to see things will continue to get worse.

HOLMES: Yeah. It's hard to imagine them getting worse, but it's certainly possible.

Louise Wateridge with UNRWA, thank you so much for your time and thanks for the work that you're doing there. Urgent, important work. Thank you.

WATERIDGE: Thank you.

HOLMES: I'm Michael Holmes. I'll be right back with more news.

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