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Israeli Security Cabinet Approves Plan To Occupy Gaza City; Putin Suggests UAE For Possible Site Of Summit With Trump; Trump Eyes Census That Excludes Undocumented Immigrants; Women Who Survived U.S. atomic Bomb Speak To CNN; French PM: Wildfire Is "Catastrophe On An Unprecedented Scale". Aired 12-12:45a ET

Aired August 08, 2025 - 00:00   ET

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

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Publicity for this -- this coin. Meghan Hall, thank you so much for the reporting that -- that you are doing on this and for spending a few minutes with me tonight.

And thank you for watching. "Anderson Cooper 360" is up next.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: One war looks set to expand efforts to end, another appeared futile. And life after a war ending atomic blast with the so-called disposable women of Nagasaki, ahead on "CNN Newsroom."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Occupying Gaza is a very bad idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And a growing number of Israelis agree, but not the Prime Minister. And for the first time in three decades, the Israeli forces could soon reoccupy all Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They would like to meet with me and I'll do whatever I can to stop the killing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: They being Vladimir Putin, who scores international credit from a summit with the U.S. President without any concessions, like holding ceasefire talks with his Ukrainian counterpart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kikuyo Nakamura is an atomic bomb survivor.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: She survived only to face a lifetime of ill health and discrimination, considered contaminated, disposable, unfit for marriage and motherhood.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with John Vause.

VAUSE: Within the past few hours, Israel's security cabinet approved the first phase of a multiphase plan for the full military reoccupation of Gaza.

The Prime Minister's office says Israeli troops will soon take over all of Gaza City, once home to more than half a million Palestinians, all part of a broader plan which includes the disarmament of Hamas, the return of all hostages and a civil administration to rule the territory that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

The head of Israel's military notably opposes the reoccupation, fearing Israeli forces could be trapped within Gaza and the remaining hostages would be at greater risk.

Hamas says the plan amounts to the sacrifice of the hostages to serve Netanyahu's personal interests.

Many Israelis have taken to the streets in protest over the expanded military operation, gathering outside the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, as well as his Likud Party headquarters in Tel Aviv.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALON LEE GREEN, NATIONAL CO-DIRECTOR, "STANDING TOGETHER": This plan to occupy the entire Gaza Strip has only one meaning, and this meaning is the death of the hostages, the death of the Palestinians, and yes, also the death of the Israeli soldiers.

If they -- they send our soldiers to kill and get killed, the only meaning is just more death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: CNN's chief global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance joins us now for the very -- the very latest on this decision by Israel's security cabinet. Matthew is travelling back to Israel. He's in Jordan right now.

Matthew, when do we expect the reoccupation to begin?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's not clear, John. Certainly making decision to reoccupy Gaza is not the same as preparing the military operation to do that.

And as you mentioned, the -- the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli military, have -- have already expressed concerns, the strains that they're under, having been fighting a very intensive conflict in Gaza for nearly two years now.

And -- and so, look, it could take some time for that plan to come together.

Also, an Israeli official has told CNN that, you know, if Hamas decides to come to the negotiating table and to make concessions, this plan to reoccupy Gaza could be -- be set back. And so it may be a pressure tactic being used by the Israeli government to bring Hamas back to the negotiation table to try and extract concessions for them and to get the hostages released.

But the fact that the security cabinet took more than 10 hours to debate this and to reach an agreement on this or to perhaps this -- this idea, it gives us a -- a very strong hint at the level of division, not just in the government, but in Israel in general.

There are hardliners in this country on whom Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, depends to stay in power because they're important parties in his coalition, who want the full occupation of Gaza. They want the military strategy to be doubled down on, as a means, they say, of getting the hostages out.

But, you know, the vast majority of Israelis, and there's been a recent opinion poll that said 70 percent of Israelis want the war to end as soon as possible and want the government to have to deal with Hamas, whatever it takes to get the 50 remaining hostages still being held inside the Gaza Strip. And 20 of them, by the way, are still believed to be alive back at home (ph).

And so there are widespread protests, as you mentioned, across the country, amongst the hostage families, amongst, you know, people in general, against this decision by the security cabinet to -- to continue the war and to intensify and to occupy vast areas or entirety of the -- the Gaza Strip.

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The problem is, the -- the Israelis already sort of militarily controlled 75 percent of Gaza. It's the remaining 25 percent that they're now going to apparently occupy. But that 25 percent is where the majority of Palestinian people are. It's where the majority of the hostages are believed to be, although, of course, their exact whereabouts are -- are not known.

And so any military operation in that area is -- is likely to have a very severe impact indeed on the civilian population, on the welfare of the hostages, and of course on Israeli soldiers as well.

And so that's why there's such a broad opposition to this latest escalation by the Israeli authorities.

VAUSE: Matthew, thank you. Matthew Chance there who has reported from Israel for many, many decades. Thank you for being with us, Matthew. We appreciate the update, the analysis.

Shaina Low is a communications advisor for the Norwegian Refugee Council. She joins me now from Amman in Jordan. Shaina, thanks for being with us.

SHAINA LOW, COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR, NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL: Nice to be here, John.

VAUSE: Now, every time it seems the war in Gaza could not get worse, it does. So from a humanitarian perspective, what's your reaction to this plan by Israel for reoccupation? Especially the key part of the plan, which will force a million Palestinians from the main population centers in Gaza to the south of the territory and force them into compounds where they'll be basically herded into and kept there.

LOW: I mean, the situation in Gaza is about as wor -- as -- it's the worst we've ever seen it. And to imagine it getting even worse is just unimaginable and unconscionable.

I was speaking to a colleague yesterday in Gaza City and asked her what she was thinking about the news that was coming out. And she said, I'm very worried.

But the reality was that the people in Gaza City, who she was talking to, they were focused on the fact that for the first time in months, they were seeing sugar and cheese in the markets.

People in Gaza are not thinking day to day or week to week. They're thinking meal to meal. That's how desperate the starvation crisis is in Gaza.

And so to think about a million people being forcibly displaced, this is a violation of international humanitarian law. These are not evacuations.

In order for an evacuation to be lawful, it must be temporary. People must be guaranteed the right to return home. They must be guaranteed safe passage and they must have facilities that can sustain human life where they are sent to go.

What we have seen is that there is no place in the Gaza Strip that is livable. The displacement sites and shelters are all overcrowded to imagine trying to squeeze a million more people into tiny, contained spaces.

And -- and, frankly, what it sounds like in terms of this proposal to concentrate the Palestinians in -- in sites that they would not be able to leave. That to me sounds like a concentration camp.

This is extremely dangerous. These are war crimes that are being committed day in and day out. And -- and it will be much, much worse should Israel go in and with the military to these large population centers.

VAUSE: Israel's Prime Minister says this total reoccupation by the military would last just a few months. Here he is talking to Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Well, we don't want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter. We don't want to govern it. We don't want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving the Gazans a good life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Who are these Arab forces? You know, the reality is the last thing Egypt wants is control over Gaza, same for Jordan and every other country in the region. The Palestinian Authority never wanted it, in the first place. There's a very real chance that Israel could be like holding the bag when it comes to Gaza.

LOW: I think, first of all, a couple of things. I think Prime Minister Netanyahu has proved time again, he cannot be taken at his word. And so I think all of us are very concerned about the -- the extreme right elements in his government that have had tremendous influence over him who have openly spoken about wanting to -- to maintain permanent control over Gaza to resettle Gaza. You have settlers already making the plans of where these settlements will go.

The second thing is that we talk about this as reoccupation, but the fact of the matter is that Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip continuously since 1967. And as a result has obligations towards the population living under its control.

The International Court of Justice was quite clear in its advisory opinion last summer, saying that Israel's presence in the occupied Palestinian terri -- territory that the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was unlawful, and that they needed to end that occupation as quickly as possible.

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What we're seeing is a doubling down of -- of -- of -- of control, of occupation, rather than adhering to international law, U.N. General Assembly resolutions and so on.

And what we know is that it's only going to have catastrophic consequences for the people inside Gaza. The 2.1 million civilians who have been trapped in a hell for the last 22 months and the remaining hostages who -- who should be released and must be released.

The only way to end this suffering for everyone, for all sides, is a permanent sustain -- ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages and the opening of all of Israel's crossings to allow a surge of aid so that we as humanitarian can finally go in and do the jobs that we are meant to do, which is save lives.

VAUSE: And also feed people because that is not happening right now in Gaza to a great extent. There is an Israeli created food crisis, which is ongoing.

Hamada Shaqoura is a food blogger in Gaza. He spent most of all cooking meals for children that didn't taste like emergency rations. Now, he can't even do that.

He wrote it op-ed for "TIME." Here's part of it. "When you cannot feed your child, you begin to lose hope. I've seen the despair in parents' eyes and the fear in children who no longer believe a real meal will come. Cooking for them was about giving them a dignity and a small amount of joy in a world that has taken almost everything from them, telling them that they matter and that they are not forgotten."

Only 12 countries have gone beyond just words of condemnation to take concrete measures against Israel's Gaza's crisis, the hunger crisis in Gaza, actually. Those countries are Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and Grenadines and South Africa.

So by taking no real action, are countries like the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Canada, it goes on, they essentially say the lives of a million or so children are meaningless. They just don't matter.

LOW: Yes. I mean, the -- the international community has so much leverage beyond just words of condemnation that could have pressured Israel to open these crossings and allow us to save lives.

Every day, we are hearing stories of people dying from malnutrition, people dying, trying to get food to feed their families.

Just last week, the brother of one of my colleagues was killed near Zikim Crossing, as he went to look for his son to have gone there and search a flower. He heard that there was a lot of shooting in the area and went to find them, and he himself was killed.

This is happening every day and it's senseless. It's needless. And it's -- it's so difficult to speak to our colleagues in Gaza.

When the world has turned their back on, it has (INAUDIBLE) has neglected them and allowed them to face this tremendous suffering administered by one of the West's greatest allies. It's -- it's unconscionable that -- that the world powers have allowed this to continue and be livestreamed on social media, on CNN, on all of the major news networks, and yet, we have not seen any meaningful improvement despite the fact that the leading world food hunger organization has said that we are seeing the worst scenario of famine playing out.

It is just shocking. The world is -- has -- has its fingerprints all over this crime scene and -- and really must be doing more to save lives. Palestinian lives do matter.

VAUSE: Yes. They must, but we will see if they will.

Shaina, thanks so much for being with us. We really appreciate your time.

LOW: Thank you, John.

VAUSE: Well, just days before the U.S. and Russian presidents are likely to hold direct talks about a ceasefire in Ukraine, Donald Trump appears to have made a major concession to Moscow, saying the summit will happen without any conditions on Vladimir Putin to sit down for one-on-one talks with Ukraine's president.

The Kremlin says the meeting is all but set for next week. Some U.S. officials though suggest nothing has been finalized.

More details now from CNN's Fred Pleitgen reporting in from Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): A grand welcome to the Kremlin for the president of the United Arab Emirates. A place Russian leader of Vladimir Putin says could be the site of the summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

I think we will decide later, Putin says, but this could be one of the suitable venues.

But while President Trump says he wants his meeting with Putin to be followed by a trilateral summit also involving Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Putin, who often questions Zelenskyy's legitimacy, not willing to commit.

I've been repeatedly saying that I, in general, have nothing against it, Putin says. It's possible. But before that, certain conditions should be created, and unfortunately, we're still far from creating such condition.

And the U.S. and Russia are also far from agreeing on how to end the Ukraine conflict. While President Trump says he wants an immediate 30- day ceasefire, the Russians want a comprehensive peace agreement requiring a long diplomatic process, even as the fighting continues.

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The Putin-Trump summit idea was agreed after Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow on Wednesday, a senior Kremlin aide saying the idea came from the U.S. side.

There was an offer made by the Americans that we consider quite acceptable, he says. That is it.

On Moscow's streets, folks saying they hoped the summit could also be a starting point to mend U.S.-Russia relations.

I wish we could travel to the U.S. and Americans could travel to Russia, this man says. I wish we could be friends and that trade would recover.

And she says, I wish for peaceful skies over everyone's head so that everything is good for everyone.

Vladimir Putin always says the right things, this man says. You should listen to him and respect him.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Still to come here on CNN, why does Donald Trump want to change how the census bureau counts the American population? And what will be the far-reaching consequences of this move?

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VAUSE: Every 10 years, the U.S. holds a census. The last one was five years ago in 2020. It's essentially a 24-hour snapshot of who is in the country and where, be they citizen or tourist, permanent resident or undocumented worker.

But now, President Trump has ordered a new census which would exclude undocumented immigrants from the count.

And as CNN's Alayna Treene reports, this is not the first time Donald Trump has tried this.

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ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: This is something we've seen before from the President himself. I remind you back in 2020 and the lead up to that census, the President was fighting repeatedly to try and insert a citizen question into that. It would be the first time that that was changed since 1950.

Now, ultimately, the Supreme Court had blocked it then but we still saw the President try and move to kind of request citizen data ship from other agencies.

But I also think what's important is that this is, of course, would be a longstanding shift in census practices. The survey has historically counted all residents regardless of immigration status. And the census website actually cites Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution on that reasoning.

But I think what's really important here about all of this, of course, is the timing of it. It comes as the President is really encouraging Texas Republicans and other Republicans in red states to try and redraw congressional maps to help boost their chances in the 2026 midterms.

And redistricting, of course, usually takes place after the census is -- is done and that happens every 10 years. The next time it's up is not until 2030.

All to say, I think we still have to figure out whether or not how committed the President actually is to this, but I do think everything that's going on with them looking forward to the midterms is definitely playing a factor in this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Still to come, the women of Nagasaki. They survived an atomic blast 80 years ago only to face years of illness, bigotry and discrimination. We'll have their stories after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:25:18]

VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Vause. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

Israel's security cabinet has approved a plan to occupy Gaza City. The prime minister's office says, the military will prepare to take over the area while providing aid to civilians outside the combat zone. Opponents say an expanded military operation will threaten the lives of hostages and put IDF soldiers at risk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says, the United Arab Emirates is a possible location for a summit with the U.S. President Donald Trump. Both Trump and Putin have expressed interest in meeting face to face for peace talks about the war in Ukraine, possibly as soon as next week.

Although U.S. officials say nothing has yet been finalized.

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet with President Trump at the White House Friday. They're expected to sign a peace deal, which was agreed to back in March to end decades of fighting over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The most recent flare-in fighting was back in 2023.

As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the U.S. dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number of people who remember those fateful days and were actually there is slowly dwindling.

CNN's Hanako Montgomery sat down with -- with women who were among the last remaining survivors of the bombing of Nagasaki.

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MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Kikuyo Nakamura is an atomic bomb survivor, a past she believes that killed her own son.

NAKAMURA (through translator): I say "I'm sorry" to him every morning and night.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): In 2003, her son Hiroshi was diagnosed with leukemia. He was born three years after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb in Nagasaki, where the 101-year-old Nakamura still lives.

But the doctor claimed, without concrete evidence, that it was her breast milk that poisoned her son.

NAKAMURA (through translator): Even now, I still believe what the doctor said that I caused it. That guilt still lives in me.

I told my children never to tell anyone outside the family. If people know that he died of leukemia, especially before my grandkids got married, others might not want to marry them.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Women like Nakamura, who lived through the atomic bombings, were often seen by society as damaged, poisoned by the bomb's radiation that make the mothers to disabled children.

These unfounded rumors flourished under U.S. occupation, when all reporting on the bombings was banned.

MASAHIRO NAKASHIMA, RADIATION STUDIES PROFESSOR, NAGASAKI UNIVERSITY (voice-over): Under Japan's deeply rooted patriarchal culture, the effects of radiation exposure on women were especially profound. One can imagine how significantly these factors became obstacles to marriage.

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MONTGOMERY: You can tell it's raining quite heavily now, but we're told that survivors of the atomic bombings and their supporters will still come here to remember the lives lost and also to pray for world peace.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): But for Mitzgul Yoshimura, motherhood was a burden she never got to carry. The 102-year-old met her husband a year after she survived the atomic bombing in Nagasaki. The day her world turned into hell on earth.

MITSUKO YOSHIMURA, NAGASAKI ATOMIC BOMB SURVIVOR (through translator). When I got out to the road, there were people with blood gushing from their heads, people with the skin peeled off their backs. It was a sea of fire everywhere.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): But the couple never had a family. She had two miscarriages and a stillbirth.

YOSHIMURA (through translator): You can see I collect a lot of dolls. But I collect them because I couldn't have children. But I don't blame anyone for my misfortune. But sometimes I just wished someone would say to me, "that's unfortunate," even just once.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Yoshimura's grandniece is a third-generation atomic bomb survivor. But despite her family history, she had never fully heard Yoshimura's story until now.

SAORI HAYASAKI, THIRD GENERATION ATOMIC BOMB SURVIVOR (through translator): I learned that she had no choice but to become strong to overcome them. I thought the atomic bomb is really terrifying. My father's parents would still be here if none of that had happened. Because of it they had to go through hardships that they wouldn't have otherwise had to face.

MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Women like Yoshimura and Nakamura didn't choose war, but they were forever changed by its violence. Silence for decades by a world that saw them as broken.

But now, they're choosing to speak. Hoping the next generation never has to know what it means to lose everything to nuclear war.

NAKAMURA (through translator): I beg that please never use nuclear bombs. People really need to think carefully. What does winning or losing even bring, wanting to expand a country's territory, wanting a country to gain more power? What exactly are people seeking from that? I don't understand it. But what I do feel deeply is the utter foolishness of war.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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VAUSE: Officials in France have warned deadly wildfires in the country's south could continue burning for days. Sixteen thousand hectares have already been left black and at least one person has died, in what the prime minister there described as a catastrophe on an unprecedented scale, all made worse, he says -- she says rather, by climate change.

Melissa Bell has our report.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Within 2,000 firefighters in France remain locked in the battle to try and contain the fire that's been described by the French press as the fire of the century.

So quickly did it start and so fast did it progress from Tuesday afternoon. It is some 16,000 hectares that were burnt within just over 24 hours.

And whilst the fire has yet to be contained, there had been some hope by Thursday morning that weather conditions were turning. The wind was dropping, the temperatures seemed to be falling as well.

And we had understood from the region's firefighting chief, this is the old region in the south of France, just above the border with Spain, that he hoped that that fire might be contained at some point over the course of Thursday.

In fact, what appears to have happened is several of the fires within that wildfire have picked up. And there are fears that the weather conditions, in fact, are turning the other way with extremely hot temperatures and a new heat wave threatening parts of southern France, but also winds now picking up and making the firefighters' task much more difficult than it had been.

So far, there's only been one death. This was a woman who'd refused to leave her home. She'd refused an evacuation order, but there has been many businesses, 36 houses, so far, destroyed or damaged by the fire.

And there are fears that those attempts to contain it might not yet be paying off.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE) VAUSE: Well, volunteers in Texas cleaning up after last month's deadly flooding, have made a rare discovery. Experts say these clawed footprints are from dinosaurs. The flooding washed away trees, dirt and gravel, and 115 million years as well. That's how all these footprints are thought to be.

One expert telling CNN the tracks were made by Acrocanthosaurus, who is a large carnivore.

U.K.'s Royal Mail is releasing a stamp collection next week, honoring the comedy troupe that gave us The Ministry of Silly Walks, The Lumberjack Song, and the movie, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," which came out 50 years ago.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're indeed brave tonight, but the fight is mine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I know nothing. Look, you stupid (BLEEP) that you've got the arms left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I have.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look. It's just a flesh wound.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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VAUSE: Just a flesh wound. "The Monty Python" collection includes 10 stamps with a sheet of them costing as little as 6 or about $9.

The cool classic T.V. show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus" aired from 1969 to 1974. The Royal Mail says the collection honors a body of work that has shaped the comedic landscape for nearly six decades. Indeed it has. The Knights of Ni.

Thank you for watching "CNN Newsroom." I'm John Vause. Back at -- back at the top of the hour. A lot more news including "Monty Python" stuff.

"World Sports" up after a short break.

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(WORLD SPORT)