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At Least 122 Killed In South Korea Plane Crash, 181 On Board; Putin Apologizes For "Tragic" Azerbaijan Airlines Crash, Without Saying Russia Was Responsible; At Least 2 Killed From Severe Storms, Tornadoes In U.S.; Trump Defends Foreign Worker Visas, Sides With Musk; Images: Biden Meets Son's Chinese Business Partners In 2013; IDF: At Least 240 People Detained In Gaza Hospital Raid. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired December 29, 2024 - 01:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:00:29]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST: Hello, I'm Kim Brunhuber, live in Atlanta, and we begin with breaking news. Officials now say that nearly everyone on board a plane that crashed in South Korea has died. 181 people were traveling from Bangkok on a Jeju Air flight. So far, rescue workers have confirmed the deaths of 96 people.

Two crew members have been rescued, but they say that the remaining passengers and crew are presumed dead. The Boeing 737-800 jet crash landed at Muan International Airport. Firefighters believe the accident was caused by a landing gear malfunction.

Now, this video shows the plane dragging along the runway with no landing gear in sight. Moments later, the plane burst into flames. South Korean officials say hundreds of emergency personnel are at the crash site to help identify the remaining victims and to record the exact locations where people have died.

CNN Correspondent Mike Valerio is following this breaking news from Seoul. Mike, just tragic news at a time when so many families are celebrating the holidays. What is the latest?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Kim, I think an interesting detail that's just come into our bureau here in Seoul, we heard from the CEO of the airline, Jeju Air. And he told reporters a short time ago that this aircraft had no history of accidents or anything that would suggest that some disaster, some catastrophe like this would happen.

Now, of course, the most arresting piece of video that we have is what we all have just witnessed, the aircraft, the Boeing 737-800, approaching the runway with seemingly no landing gear deployed from its belly and then careening into an embankment and then crashing into that embankment. We do not show you the fireball in that moment because it is the end of life for perhaps 179 people on board. We want to be respectful of the families and everything that they have been through.

Speaking of the families, so many of them are congregated at this airport, which is about three and a half hours south of Seoul, where we're coming of you -- coming to you from right now, Kim. And we have reports from the journalists who are gathered there that there are people who are just absolutely inconsolable and who are wailing and who just, you know, cannot wait a single moment for first responders to identify their loved ones.

On last count, there have only been five people who have been identified publicly in the briefing room where families are converging at this airport. So in terms of how we got here, this is a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800. We should point out, not a MAX aircraft. It's a slightly older version of the 737.

It takes off from Bangkok just after 2:00 a.m. local time and is due in here in South Korea in the 9:00 hour. So everything appears to be fine based on the open source intelligence that we've been able to see up until the very final moments of its approach.

Now, we're working here at CNN to bring in video that shows, or I should say appears to show, perhaps some sort of explosion near one of the engines. We don't have that video yet. We just want to do everything we can to be sure it's authentic. But it is playing nonstop, I should tell you, on TVs here in South Korea, showing perhaps an explosion near one of the engines.

And one of the lead first responders has brought in the possibility of bird strike, Kim, into the equation, saying, I have the quote right here, "The cause of the accident --

BRUNHUBER: Mike, before you --

VALERIO: -- is estimated to be the occurrence --

BRUNHUBER: -- get to that quote, Mike, I just wanted --

VALERIO: Yes.

BRUNHUBER: -- to break in --

VALERIO: Sure.

BRUNHUBER: -- because we do have some breaking news. Unfortunately, an update on the number of dead, and we just got that number. One hundred twenty-two people confirmed dead at this moment.

VALERIO: Yes.

BRUNHUBER: So, unfortunately, and we expect that these updates to continue throughout the day here. But go ahead, Mike. You were talking about the possibilities of what may have caused this. Take us through that. VALERIO: Sure. And the fear is that death toll, Kim, that there are no more miracles on the horizon, and now it stands at 120. You know, thank you certainly for bringing that in. And the fear is that it will possibly reach 179 people. Everybody minus the two crew members who managed to come away from this explosion alive.

So the quote from the leader of the fire department in this locality where the airport is found, it says, "The cause of this accident, Kim, is estimated to be the occurrence of bird strike or bad weather".

[01:05:15]

And I was telling Paula a couple of minutes ago, our colleague Paula Newton, that you see in all the video, it's almost clear as a bell, just nearing a cloud in the sky. It's starting to cloud up here in the Korean Peninsula.

But this morning was beautiful. So the question is, could a bird strike have led to some precipitating series of events that led to the landing gear somehow not being deployed? That is the question. Bird strike, again, being recognized as a possibility by the authorities who are investigating on the ground right now, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. And Mike, there will be certainly so many questions about what caused this. And we don't want to speculate. You've given us some possible reasons there. But there are certainly questions about the airline. And what can you tell us about Jeju Airlines?

VALERIO: So remarkably safe, nothing like this on its record. So Jeju Air was founded in 2005. It's the largest budget carrier here in South Korea. So you got to know, Kim, you know, if you don't live here in South Korea, if you're going to go to any of these beautiful vacation spots across East Asia or Southeast Asia like Bangkok, Jeju Air is a possibility that so many families would think of immediately.

Nothing to preclude Jeju Air, you know, for families to say, oh, no, I wouldn't think. It's a wildly popular airline here in South Korea. Again, the CEO telling reporters within the past hour that there was no issue, no series of problems or accidents with this aircraft.

But to that end, we could expect to see people from Boeing, specifically from Washington State, where the aircraft was manufactured coming here to the Korean Peninsula with, again, potentially the NTSB. This is how investigations like this have unfolded before, to just make sure that this was an incident specific to the aircraft and not something that the wider fleet of 737-800s would have to worry about.

So, we're waiting to see that storyline unfold. But in the nearer term, investigators say they're looking to find everybody on board before they look to get the black box and see what exactly is on it, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. All right. And once again, we have confirmed at least 122 people dead in this crash.

Mike Valerio, live in Seoul. Thank you so much.

All right, I want to bring in David Soucie, who's a CNN Safety Analyst and a former FAA Safety Inspector and the author of the book, "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370," and joins us now from Denver, Colorado. Thank you again for being here with us on this sad day.

So listen, again, it's hard. We don't have any answers right now. We don't want to speculate, but certainly we aren't getting hints from the videos that we're seeing. When you look at the video, what does it tell you?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, first of all, it's pretty obvious that the landing gear has not been deployed, not even partially deployed. But the second thing that really concerns me is that these aircraft, the 737, one of the most reliable and well-used aircraft, not only in the United States, but in Europe. And it is capable of landing without landing gear down, and in an emergency situation like this.

My concern is that after it touches down, that there are blockades and items on -- near the runway that they collided with that may have caused this severe explosion once it hit the ground. So a well- designed airport would not have had any kind of blockades there, the aircraft could have landed and slide off the runway onto the grass, and it should not have been able to -- it should not have had any interference with these blockades.

So that would be the first thing as an investigator I would be looking at, is certainly this tragic loss of life perhaps could have been avoided had the airport been designed and prepared for this type of emergency landing.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, that's a good point, because certainly these aircraft are designed, even if there is, I understand, a hydraulic failure that wouldn't allow the landing gear to deploy, normally there are still manual ways to do this, right? And as you say, these aircraft are designed so you can possibly land it without that.

And also, there have been so many advances in safety that, you know, we don't often see these aircraft sort of, you know, exploding in flames like this, unless of course, as you say, it hits an object. So certainly there are all these questions.

What about the idea of bird strikes? That's something that was mentioned as well. Does that seem like it might be a cause here?

SOUCIE: You know, it's very perplexing to me because I don't know of any bird strike causing the landing gear not to be deployed.

[01:10:03]

The other thing to think about is that if a pilot knows that they're going to have to land in an emergency situation without the landing gear, they radio ahead to the airport and the airport can do some things to prepare for that. They can put foam on the runway, they can have emergency vehicles standing by so that when the aircraft does have this emergency landing.

So it appears to me that no one really was really aware of the fact, at least on the ground, that the aircraft was landing without the landing gear down. So that indicates to me that possibly it was an oversight during the emergency landing to not deploy the landing gear.

That's one of the things that I would be looking at again as an investigator. But, again, I really am hedging on speculating in the cause. And certainly this isn't the time to do that.

BRUNHUBER: Yes.

SOUCIE: The time now is to make sure that there's any survivors that are dealt with and removed from the aircraft if possible.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, it sounds as if they're only in the recovery phase, unfortunately.

SOUCIE: It's not good (ph).

BRUNHUBER: I want to lean into your expertise as an investigator. So take me through exactly what they'll be trying to find. What condition do you expect the black boxes to be in, given that the tail section seems to be in good condition? What exactly are they going to be looking for here?

SOUCIE: Well, the first thing that I would do as an investigator is listen to the flight data recorder and listen to the communications and then get the information from the air traffic control as well to determine why the aircraft was in that particular flight configuration with the landing gear up and also to find out why it was making an emergency landing.

Also look to see if there was any calls ahead of time to notify the airport what's going on. So that would be my first step. The second would be the flight data recorder itself to tell me what was going on with the systems on board the aircraft. You have to rule those things out first if there was something that failed on the aircraft.

And as you mentioned, Boeing and the NTSB will most likely be there at the investigation as well to determine if there's anything specific -- anything beyond that specific aircraft that needs to be dealt with fleet-wide, which would be done immediately.

So that's some of the communication concerns that the NTSB or the investigators there would have to communicate immediately to see if there's any other things that we need to do with the rest of the fleet.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. The fact that this crash happened at an airport and not in, let's say, rugged terrain on a mountain, crashed in the ocean, obviously it'll be easier to find those answers. Does -- in your experience, does this remind you of any previous incidents?

SOUCIE: Again, it's too early to speculate as to the cause but, you know, there's accidents that happen on the runway. And as you said, it makes it much easier. One investigation I did when I was stationed in Hawaii was at Japan Airlines that crashed or that basically hard landed on the runway there in Hawaii.

And, fortunately, in that case, the landing gear was worn down to nothing. There was fire. There was tragedy on board. But only a few people were injured by that. So there's nothing really comparable in my experience that would, you know, give us any clues at this point until we get more information.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Well, listen, I appreciate your expertise. David Soucie in Denver, Colorado, thank you so much.

SOUCIE: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: And of course, we'll continue to follow this breaking news. We're also following the latest updates on the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines crash in Kazakhstan.

Still ahead, Vladimir Putin is now speaking out after a U.S. official suggested Russia could have been involved. Stay with us.

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[01:17:01]

BRUNHUBER: All right, an update now on breaking news in South Korea. The death toll from a plane crash in Muan, South Korea, now stands at 122. Officials say there were 181 people on board the jet that crashed on Sunday.

Two crew members have been rescued, but most of the remaining passengers and crew are presumed dead. South Korea's acting president is now at the crash site. The Boeing 737-800 crash was caught on video. Officials say they'll search for the plane's black boxes after they recover all remaining victims.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized for the fact that an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed after entering Russian airspace on Christmas Day. During a phone call with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, Putin called it a tragic incident. Aliyev told Putin that external interference led to a complete loss of control before the plane went down in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people.

CNN's Nada Bashir is following the latest developments.

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as questions continue to mount over the possible connection between Russian air defense systems and Wednesday's deadly plane crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued an apology for the fact that the flight crashed after entering Russian airspace around the Chechen city of Grozny, acknowledging, according to the Kremlin, that Russia's air defense systems were in fact active when the plane attempted to land in Grozny.

However, no admission of responsibility from Moscow. Investigations are still ongoing, but nearby Ukrainian drone attacks in the moments preceding the crash have led some officials to believe that the plane may have been downed mistakenly by Russian anti-aircraft defenses, with officials in Azerbaijan saying that the plane came under external, physical, and technical interferences while in Russian airspace.

Meanwhile, several aviation experts and U.S. officials have said that perforations seen in the fuselage are consistent with shrapnel damage from an explosion, but the cause of the holes in the wreckage has not yet been confirmed.

Investigators are continuing to assess the evidence, including two black box recorders which were recovered from the wreckage, as well as, of course, eyewitness accounts. Remarkably, 29 people out of 67 on board the flight survived the crash, some of whom filmed their final moments on the flight.

One survivor describing a loud bang being heard and felt before the plane began to descend. But it could still be a matter of days or even weeks before any final conclusions are made by investigators.

For now, at least five airlines have suspended flights to areas in Russia, many citing safety concerns.

Nada Bashir, CNN, London.

BRUNHUBER: Here in the U.S., the threat of severe weather continues to loom large for millions of Americans. Have a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unreal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you hear that sound?

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[01:20:03]

BRUNHUBER: At least two people are dead after severe storms and tornadoes tore through parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi on Saturday. More than 5 million Americans are currently under tornado watches, and more than 2 million were under a rare particularly dangerous situation warning early on Saturday. That's according to the U.S. National Weather Service.

A number of tornadoes were reported outside of Houston, Texas, on Saturday, including in the small town of Montgomery, where you can see here a family, including young children, had to be rescued from the rubble. The storms moved quickly and unpredictably, impacting those who thought they were out of harm's way.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were already in the driveway. It was just drizzling. We were waiting for the realtor to come show us the property. And all the reports said that the tornado or the storm was passing already by us. It was headed northeast. So we were sitting there waiting for it, and then two minutes later, everything just shifted tremendously. The wind started blowing, and then the trees just fell on top of us.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BRUNHUBER: 30 reports of tornadoes on Saturday from Texas to Alabama. The threat area continues to move eastwards in the hours ahead.

All right, we're taking a quick break. When we come back, the latest on the breaking news, that deadly plane crash in South Korea. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: All right, an update on our top story. The death toll from the Jeju airplane crash in South Korea has risen to 122. Two crew members have been rescued, and the remaining passengers and crew are now presumed dead.

[01:25:09]

The Boeing 737-800 jet was traveling from Bangkok to South Korea when it crash-landed at the Muan International Airport. Hundreds of emergency workers are on the scene working to identify the remaining victims.

I want to bring in CNN Correspondent Mike Valerio from Seoul. Mike, unfortunate, but as we expected, that confirmed death toll continues to rise.

VALERIO: Yes, Kim. And two major developments from the past 20 minutes from the last time we spoke. The flight data recorder has been recovered. The voice recorder, which is the second component of the black box system, according to our reporting, has not been found yet.

But the data recorder recovered. So that will be used in concert, assumedly, one can only hope, with hoping that the two people who survived this crash are in good enough condition and will ultimately survive and be able to tell investigators what exactly happened.

To that end, we have new reporting from the land ministry here in South Korea. They gave a briefing about what they've been able to find out so far. And I'm just going to read you part of the Korean translation of what we heard a short time ago.

So from this briefing, it says, quote, "In the first round of investigation, the authorities listened to the communications between the pilot and the control tower before the crash. The jet initially attempted to land on runway number one when the control tower warned of bird crash. Not long after, the pilot called mayday.

The control tower then instructed the plane to land in the opposite direction to land on runway 19. The pilot followed the instruction. And as he was landing the plane, it hit the localizer and then crashed into the wall." So the localizer is part of the instrumentation on a plane that helps the pilot to land correctly when we're talking about the horizontal orientation to line up with the runway. So the biggest takeaway from these quotes translated from Korean into English is that the pilot called mayday as this flight was ending.

And that the control tower warned of bird crash, which gives credence to some of the things that we had been hearing from the chief of the fire department from the locality where this happened, that bird strike is being considered a possibility that perhaps began a chain of events that led to the cataclysmic crash that we've all witnessed earlier today, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Interesting. It doesn't explain, of course, the fact that the landing gear wasn't deployed here. Still so many questions, but they may be answered with the black box. At least one of them, as you've just reported, has been found.

Tell us more about how South Koreans are reacting to this. I know that the acting president is now at the airport. Is that right?

VALERIO: That's right. So this is Choi Sang-mok, and he is the third person in the month of December to hold presidential power. Kim, you know as well as I do, as anybody living here in South Korea, that the country has been put through so much with martial law happening on the night of December 3rd into the early morning hours of December 4th, traumatizing pretty much almost everybody who lives here to the impeachment of President Yoon, the impeachment of the acting president after President Yoon.

And now we have a third acting president who holds the powers of the presidency as we wait for President Yoon's impeachment trial to begin. So this just certainly adds to what the country has been put through over the past three, four weeks.

Now, we have a national tragedy with a death toll that we're preparing to reach up to numbers as high as 179 people killed in this crash. It's just -- you have people who are texting members of the CNN bureau left and right, making sure that we got home from our vacations OK.

Just to give you some further background on this airliner, Kim, and anybody who's watching us from outside South Korea, this is Jeju Air, and it's a budget airliner, very popular for vacation destinations. And if you want to go outside of Korea on a budget to places like Bangkok, where this flight started from, Jeju Air is certainly one of the top contenders.

Founded in 2005, a very clean safety record. And the CEO of Jeju Air came out about two hours ago and said that there were no record, there was no record of anything that would have signaled that such a catastrophe could have happened on this Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

[01:30:03]

So that's some of the wider context of just as people are coming home from their Christmas holidays and have been through so much in December. This is just another terrible thing that has befallen South Korea, and it's not lost on anybody here on this otherwise perfect Sunday afternoon, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely.

All right, Mike Valerio, live in Seoul. Thank you so much.

All right, well, Geoffrey Thomas, editor of Airline News, spoke to CNN earlier and explains what might have gone wrong. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

GEOFFREY THOMAS, EDITOR, AIRLINE NEWS: The aircraft landed without the undercarriage deployed. Now, whether or not it's a little bit unclear, whether or not the undercarriage collapsed on landing, or whether the undercarriage was not deployed at all, this is a really serious issue that I think, you know, obviously investigators will be very much focused on.

Fundamental system that works on these aircraft and all aircraft, you know, literally tens of thousands of times a day, the undercarriage lever goes down. You get three greens. If you don't get three greens, you get a red or three reds or whatever, depending on which part of the gear is deployed.

If that's the case, if you got reds, then you talk to the control tower and they will visually tell you whether or not the gear is down or not. They had perfect weather, so a flyby of the control tower would have been easily possible.

And then if the gear had not deployed, then the next stage in an emergency like that would be that all the fire engines would be laying foam all over the runway and there would be all sorts of fire and emergency protocols put in place and equipment ready for this particular type of landing.

So, the only explanation at this stage is that for some reason, either the pilots forgot to deploy the undercarriage, and again, there's warning systems for that as well. There's a ground proximity warning system that tells the pilots that the ground is too close and that the undercarriage is not deployed.

So there are multiple warning systems in place to prevent such an accident. So obviously way too early to tell. The black boxes will now become critical. That's if the pilot have not -- if the pilot did not survive this accident, any control tower conversations as well. This one's perplexing.

You've got a beautiful fine day. You've got an excellent airplane. You've got a good airport. Dry conditions. It's -- it is perplexing.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BRUNHUBER: We'll have much more news on the breaking news out of South Korea. Stay with us.

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[01:36:40]

BRUNHUBER: The death toll from the Jeju airplane crash in South Korea is now 122. 181 people were on board the Boeing 737-800 when it crashed. Two crew members were pulled from the wreckage alive, but officials say the rest of the passengers and crew are presumed dead.

The jet was traveling from Bangkok to South Korea when it crash landed at Muan International Airport. Now the cause of the incident isn't clear, but video shows the plane hitting the runway without landing gear deployed. South Korea's president has now declared the crash site a special disaster zone.

All right, turning now to the U.S., where Donald Trump is finally taking sides in the civil war brewing among his supporters. CNN's Alayna Treene has more.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday defended the H-1B visa program, essentially -- which allows high-skilled foreign workers to come and work in the United States, weighing in for the first time on an issue that has really divided his supporters this week.

I want to read for you what he told the New York Post in a phone interview on Saturday. He said, quote, "I've always liked the visas. I have always been in favor of the visas. That's why we have them". He added, "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I've used it many times. It's a great program".

Now, to take a step back here, this is a conversation that has really kind of shown a rift among his supporters this week. On one hand, you have kind of the MAGA faithful, the people who have been very loyal to Donald Trump and many of whom have been attracted to him because of his hardline immigration views.

Then, on the other hand, you have a lot of the Silicon Valley latecomers to this, people who have supported Donald Trump, but also really rely on these high-skilled foreign workers for their own businesses.

Now, all of this kind of started playing out when we saw Elon Musk, a close confidant of Donald Trump and also someone who is going to be running his new Department of Government Efficiency Initiative, started weighing in on it on X this week, really defending the H-1B visa program. We also saw Vivek Ramaswamy, who's going to be running that initiative with him, defend that program as well.

Now, to be clear, Donald Trump has been ambiguous on this issue in the past. I'd remind you that back during his first administration, we actually saw H-1B visas -- excuse me, H-1B visas decline significantly during his first term.

And at one point, his administration had even suspended them altogether. However, earlier this year, Donald Trump told a popular podcast that he actually believed that any immigrant who came to this country and graduated from a United States university should receive a green card and be allowed to stay in the country.

All to say, Donald Trump is now saying that he supports this program. It's unclear exactly what this will mean for policies come his next administration.

Now, one thing as well I want to note is going back to Elon Musk's support of this program. He weighed in again on Friday, something that drew a lot of ire from far-right pundits like Laura Loomer and Ann Coulter.

I'm going to read for you what he said. Musk said, quote, "The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H-1B". He added, I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend."

So, as of now, it does seem that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are aligned on this issue, despite a lot of the backlash we've seen Musk and others who have supported this program received this week.

Alayna Treene, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

[01:40:05]

BRUNHUBER: So, as the Biden administration winds down, newly released images are raising doubts about his claim that he never had any business-related contact with his son. CNN's Marshall Cohen has the details.

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: New pictures released this week of Joe Biden when he was vice president, meeting with some of his son Hunter Biden's business associates in China. These images released by the National Archives after a lawsuit from a right-wing pro-Trump legal organization, and the photos show what we've known for a while, but we've never seen, that there was at least one photo op between Vice President Joe Biden in 2013 during a official visit to China where he met some of Hunter Biden's business partners from the private equity firm, DHR Partners.

You can see the pictures of Hunter Biden introducing his father to these Chinese business executives, and they all posed, all smiles for this photo op. Now, not only are we seeing these images for the very first time, but we also saw pictures of Joe Biden introducing his son to top Chinese government officials, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, one of the most powerful figures in the world, as well as the vice president of China at the time, who was also participating in some of those bilateral meetings.

So this is important because these pictures of Joe meeting some of his son's business partners undercuts the unequivocal denials that President Biden has previously offered, where he said that there was never any contact between him and his son's business affairs.

Now, we've known for a while that those denials haven't really held up. They weren't true. They weren't accurate because it has come to light that there were some dinners, some phone calls, and some meet and greets, and some photo ops like the pictures that you saw here.

That being said, Hunter Biden himself testified to Congress earlier this year, and he said, yes, there were photo ops. Yes, maybe I put him on speakerphone once or twice, but we never discussed any substantive business, and he was not involved in the financial arrangements whatsoever.

A former Hunter Biden business partner here in the U.S. testified that he thought Hunter was selling the illusion of access, but not actually selling access. Now, Republicans have argued that pictures like these and all of these contacts amount to a corrupt and illegal influence peddling scheme.

But of course, I have to note that the Justice Department spent years investigating Hunter Biden and never charged him with violating any lobbying laws or any sort of corruption whatsoever. Hunter Biden's attorney released a statement about these pictures saying, quote, "These attacks trying to twist these images into something they are not is just more of the same old tired, misinformation spin from some Republicans who can't let go of their ridiculous conspiracy theories".

Marshall Cohen, CNN, Washington.

BRUNHUBER: The last major functioning health facility in northern Gaza now sits empty and partially burned out. That's according to the World Health Organization and witnesses following Israel's latest raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The IDF says at least 240 people have been detained for questioning, claiming they're Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. Some patients and staff have been transferred to another hospital, which the WHO described as destroyed and non-functioning.

As Elliott Gotkine reports, witnesses are describing horrific scenes that played out during and after the raid.

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: The Israeli military says that its operation in and around Kamal Adwan Hospital ended on Saturday morning. They had only informed reporters of that fact on Saturday evening. It said that it made more than 240 arrests of what it described as terrorists belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and it made an unspecified number of additional arrests.

But the upshot of the operation is that the last remaining major medical facility in northern Gaza is now no longer operational. The World Health Organization said that the hospital is now empty.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

GOTKINE (voice-over): A hospital on fire and encircled.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): The situation is extremely dire tonight. The Israeli army is present at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

GOTKINE (voice-over): Patients and staff gather anxiously at the entrance of northern Gaza's last major functioning hospital. Others fight flames.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translation): The army are surrounding us from every side, our situation is very difficult. Dr. Hussam was directly threatened with arrest. They might arrest him at any time.

[01:45:11]

GOTKINE (voice-over): These words from a nurse at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the midst of an evacuation order from the Israeli military.

Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital's director, is one of the last doctors in northern Gaza. He had been documenting the horror inside his hospital in the wake of an Israeli offensive that began in early October.

DR. HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA, KAMEL ADWAN HOSPITAL DIRECTOR (through translation): We had spoken and appealed to the world to protect and neutralize the medical system. But unfortunately, this is the grim reality we are witnessing.

GOTKINE (voice-over): On Friday, he was assaulted and detained by Israeli forces, witnesses tell CNN. On Saturday, the IDF said he was being questioned in Gaza, suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative, but didn't provide evidence for the claim.

Meantime, video shared widely appears to show the front of Kamal Adwan Hospital with people walking between a number of tanks. Many appear to be holding their own clothes with hands held above their heads.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): From Kamal Adwan Hospital to al-Fakhura, they made us strip down to our underwear. It was a tough situation and they assaulted the wounded and women.

GOTKINE (voice-over): In a briefing, an IDF spokesperson said people were asked to remove clothes to ensure no one was carrying explosives.

SHUROUQ SALAH, NURSE AT KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL (through translation): They separated the men from the women and took the women in groups. Those who refused to remove their clothing were beaten and they took our phones. I didn't have a phone, but those who were refusing to hand over their phones were beaten. And those who refused to take off their clothes were also beaten.

GOTKINE (voice-over): The IDF says that it had carried out targeted operations around the hospital based on intelligence regarding the presence of terrorist infrastructure and operatives there. CNN cannot confirm these claims.

On Friday, the World Health Organization said the raid took the last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Adding that, "The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care."

Many patients now evacuated to Gaza's other hospitals, which medical staff say are not fit for purpose. This critically ill man evacuated from Kamal Adwan, still in an ambulance Saturday after he was evacuated a day earlier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

GOTKINE (voice-over): Inside another hospital, this man tries to explain what happened to him, appearing to make signs of gunfire and beating.

All the while, Gaza's healthcare system, in a seemingly never ending freefall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOTKINE: Now, of the more than 240 terrorists, as the IDF puts it, that it arrested, it says that some were posing as patients, others tried to flee in ambulances. And of those who were arrested that it merely suspects of being members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, it says that those found not to be militants will be released.

And one can only assume that that also applies to the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Abu Safiya, who was detained for questioning and was, as of Saturday evening, still being questioned inside Gaza.

Elliott Gotkine, CNN, Jerusalem.

BRUNHUBER: Earlier, we spoke with CNN Political and Global Affairs Analyst Barak Ravid, and he explained why the only remaining hospital in the area became a target.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: The IDF still claimed that it had intelligence that there was terrorist activity in and around the hospital. Until now, the IDF did not produce or present any evidence, any real evidence for that, other than some photos of two handguns and four hand grenades, which is weapons.

But, you know, it's definitely not something that is like a major terrorist base inside the hospital. And I think what we see here and that this operation is part of a wider effort that the IDF is doing in northern Gaza and the Kamal Adwan Hospital was, I think, maybe one of the key places that the IDF was looking at.

The fact that this hospital was still functioning was one of the things that kept Palestinian civilians in this area. And the humanitarian situation in this area is very, very bad. And I think that the IDF is trying to get all Palestinian civilians out of northern Gaza.

When you ask Israeli officials whether they will ever be able to come back, you hear different versions. Some say yes, some say no, some say we don't know. And I think this raises a lot of questions about the real intentions of what the IDF is doing in northern Gaza, exactly where the Kamal Adwan Hospital was.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[01:50:03]

BRUNHUBER: The relatives of hostages held in Gaza have made a new appeal for them to be returned home Saturday night that lead Hanukkah candles and called for the release after almost 450 days in captivity. The ceremony is in Tel Aviv was led by the son of one of the hostages.

But in Jerusalem, emergency sirens, as you can hear, rang out after two projectiles were fired on the city from northern Gaza. Israeli officials say there were no reports of injuries and the military fired interceptors after the projectiles crossed over the border.

All right, much more to come here on CNN. Our special coverage of the deadly crash of a Jeju airliner. We'll continue with the very latest from South Korea. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: All right, more now on the breaking news in South Korea. 122 people have been confirmed dead after a plane crash. There are 181 people on board. Two crew members have been rescued, and firefighters say most of the others on board are now presumed dead. The Boeing 737- 800 crash landed in Muan, South Korea.

[01:55:02]

A short time ago, CNN spoke with an aviation expert who says he noticed a few unusual things about the plane's approach to the airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SCOTT HAMILTON, AVIATION INDUSTRY CONSULTANT, LEEHAM CO. OF CHICAGO: The landing video makes it clear that the landing gear was not down. We don't know why that's the case. The landing video also makes it clear that the leading edge slats on the wings were not lowered, which helps slow the airplane as it comes into land.

And the video that I've seen, and that still shot that you have on your website, does not make it clear whether or not the trailing edge flaps were deployed. It appeared to me that they were not. So the question is, why weren't the slats deployed? Why weren't the flaps deployed? Why weren't the landing gear deployed? Was there an engine problem?

All of these could combine to, as your consultant David Soucie also pointed out, could that have caused cockpit confusion, or was the cockpit flight crew overwhelmed by handling three emergencies at the same time. We also don't know at this stage what communication there was with the control tower.

We don't know at this stage how far down the runway the airplane touched down and why it was not able to stop before exiting the runway and running into that embankment. Those are all areas that investigators will be looking at.

(END VIDEOCLIP) BRUNHUBER: And of course, stay with CNN for more on the crash and the investigation. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Our breaking news coverage continues after a short break.

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