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Americans On Board Plane After Leaving Ship Hit By Hantavirus; Trump Says Iran's Response To Peace Proposal "Totally Unacceptable"; Politicians Using Influencers As Inspiration For Campaigns; California Democrats Shift Strategy In Governor's Race; Palestinian Journalist Speaking After Nearly A Year In Israeli Prison. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired May 10, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:02:33]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

And we are following breaking news tonight as 17 Americans are now headed back to the U.S. after they were on board that cruise ship at the center of the deadly hantavirus outbreak. The plane now headed to a quarantine facility in Nebraska. If these passengers continue to show no symptoms, they will be allowed to go home, where they will be monitored daily for the next 42 days. So far, health officials say none of those Americans are showing symptoms.

Ninety-four people in total disembarked today from the ship. Not everyone is off yet, though. The final two flights to evacuate people to Australia and the Netherlands will depart tomorrow. Those passengers will spend one more night on board the ship tonight.

And also this. We're now learning one French passenger did become sick and started showing symptoms today while on their flight home to France after clearing medical screenings.

Let's bring in CNN's Rafael Romo, who joins us now from the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

Rafael, the Americans now on board that plane. They are headed back to Nebraska. What more are you learning?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they're headed back, Jessica. But make no mistake about it, it's going to be a while before they can actually be home. You just told us how the day ended. Let me share with you how the day started for those passengers.

The MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the center of the hantavirus outbreak, initially moved into the Port of Tenerife in the Canary Islands as expected, just after 1:00 a.m. Eastern Time or 6:00 in the morning local time in the Spanish archipelago, according to Marine Tracking Data. The first passengers disembarked just after 6:30 U.S. Eastern Time, or 11:30 in the morning local time.

What followed was a carefully managed operation to evacuate passengers and escort them to flights arranged by multiple nations, including, of course, the United States. The passengers were seen wearing personal protective equipment, with some pointing their phones toward the shore, where the world's media, including our very own CNN team on the ground, witnessed the moment.

Passengers from the United States began disembarking the MV Hondius just after 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, or 8:00 p.m. local time. As you mentioned, a total of 17 American citizens have been on board the hantavirus stricken cruise.

In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "STATE OF THE UNION" this morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acting director also explained they will be flown to Nebraska.

[18:05:10]

A team of experts there from the CDC will be waiting for them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA, ACTING DIRECTOR, CDC: We're going to interview them and assess them for risk. Risk meaning in this case, risk doesn't mean the risk of dying from the disease or anything. The risk is a high risk if they've been in close contact with somebody who was symptomatic. If they weren't in close contact with someone who was symptomatic, then they were going to deem them low risk. If they're -- if they were in close contact with them, you know, medium or high risk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Now, Jessica, Dr. Bhattacharya said that once that assessment is made, health officials will offer the passengers several alternatives. Those options include staying in Nebraska, where the National Quarantine Unit, which is a federally funded facility, is located. Another option, according to Bhattacharya, is allowing the passengers to, quote, "safely drive home without exposing other people" on the way. Those people would be monitored by their state and local public health agencies.

One point that the acting CDC director seemed eager to emphasize, Jessica, is that even though the memory of COVID is fresh in people's memories, it would be wrong, he said, to assume we're dealing with similar risks -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Rafael Romo, thank you for that.

And we're joined now by Dr. Robert Redfield, former CDC director, during President Trump's first term, which did include the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. He's also the author of "Redfield's Warning: What I Learned but Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life."

Dr. Redfield, thanks for being with us tonight. We really do appreciate it. I first just want to get your assessment of how the CDC is handling this outbreak so far. And we just heard from Rafael there that this is not COVID, that that's what the global health officials are saying as well. What do you think of all of that? DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR IN THE FIRST YEARS OF COVID-

19: Well, I think CDC is, you know, having a very appropriate response. They obviously met the Americans in the Canary Islands, did a risk assessment of the individuals and obviously they're meeting them again when they arrive in Nebraska. That Nebraska facility is a facility we have in the United States to be able to evaluate people that have significant pathogens.

And as Jay Bhattacharya said, they'll have a very careful risk assessment there to determine what their individual risk is based on exposure. I suspect most of them will probably have moderate to high risk exposure just for the fact that they were on the vessel for that period of time with individuals that were infected. And then they'll make a judgment in each individual case, whether they stay in the facility or, as he mentioned, whether they can be maintained in isolation by going home on their own, you know, driving in a private vehicle, for example, so they don't put any risk to people on airplanes.

It's important to realize this virus is very, very difficult to transmit. It's also important to emphasize, unlike COVID, where when I was CDC director, we didn't have any experience with COVID as a virus. We didn't know anything about it. This virus have -- we've had for many, many years. Hantaviruses were a major virus that the U.S. government had to deal with during the Korean War. So we have a lot of experience with this virus.

Most of these viruses only go rodent to man, rodent to man, rodent to man. These hantaviruses. There is one exception, which is the Andes virus, which is the strain unfortunately that is involved in this ship and is circulating in Argentina. Many people may not know that since July last summer, they've had over 100 cases of hantavirus infection with the Andes virus in Argentina.

And it's moved out of Patagonia into Central Argentina. And one of the things that has people, you know, taking this quite seriously of those 100 patients, they've had about a 35 percent to 40 percent human mortality. So this is a dangerous virus if you get it. But it's very hard to get.

DEAN: And I think that is very important for people to know and understand. We did hear today about this one French passenger who had cleared the medical kind of initial medical assessment, let's call it, and then started showing symptoms while flying home. What do you think about how these passengers are being handled, treated, and the protocol surrounding how they're getting people off this boat and back home?

REDFIELD: Yes, I think it's important first to realize, and this is one of the complexities, that the incubation period from the time an individual gets infected to the time they get symptoms, may be as long as eight weeks.

[18:10:01]

So you can see it's kind of hard when they evaluate these individuals. DEAN: Long time.

REDFIELD: It's a long time.

DEAN: Yes.

REDFIELD: And I'm more conservative that -- so I think, you know, I'm more conservative and say, well, it's probably better to keep these people out of the public domain until that incubation period is over. Now that you see the consequences, now you have an individual flying on a public plane to France, and now you have other people who are on that plane, and you're going to have other people now defined as high risk contacts because if you were sitting next to this person on the plane for two or three hours, that's a high risk contact.

And so now you sort of have another group of people you got to bring into the evaluation period. And unfortunately, you got to bring them into that evaluation period for another six to eight weeks. So I think I have very confident in the CDC. They got really good people that are handling this. I have a lot of confidence in Jay Bhattacharya, who's the acting director. I've spoken to all of them.

I think, they'll make that assessment in Nebraska and make a decision should the individual stay in the Nebraska for the period of time where they could be incubating this infection if they're infected, or do they feel that the likelihood of infection is low enough that they can go home and still stay in an isolated environment and let the local public health officials of each of the states continue to monitor them. And they'll be monitored on a daily basis for the development of symptoms.

The problem I have for all of us is the symptoms for hanta are very nondescript. It's fever, malaise, diarrhea, nausea, headache. So, I mean, that could be flu. That could be, you know, an upper respiratory tract virus infection. So it's very hard to distinguish early on. After you've gone through that period, say, five, six, seven, eight, nine days into infection. Then you develop what we call the hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is a quite severe complication frequently associated with death.

So, but initially it's hard. Do I have the flu? Do I have the COVID virus? So in a way it's easier to monitor them in a more contained environment.

DEAN: Certainly. I mean, that makes logical sense.

All right. Dr. Robert Redfield, thank you so much. We do appreciate your time.

REDFIELD: Thanks, Jessica. God bless you. Bye-bye.

DEAN: Thank you.

Still ahead, President Trump reacting to Iran's latest response to the U.S. proposal to end the war. He's calling it totally unacceptable. Plus, Democrats in California shifting their strategy in the gubernatorial race. What they're doing to try to avoid being locked out by Republicans.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:17:30]

DEAN: "Totally unacceptable." That was President Trump's reaction to Iran's response to the latest U.S. proposal to end the war, though it's not clear exactly what Trump didn't like or what exactly is in Iran's response. The president earlier accusing Tehran of, in his words, playing games and delaying the process.

CNN's Oren Liebermann has more now on the negotiations from Jerusalem -- Oren.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: At this point, we don't know whats in Iran's response to the latest U.S. proposal to end the war in Iran. What we do know from Iran's state media is this appears to be fairly focused in nature. According to Iran's state media, it's -- according to the proposed framework, negotiations at this stage will focus on the issue of ending the war in the region, and that gets at the staged or phased negotiations that Iran has been looking for.

Deal with one issue at a time, deal with ending the war, the Strait of Hormuz, and then the nuclear issue on different timelines. But that's not what the U.S. is looking for. The U.S. and President Donald Trump are looking for a comprehensive agreement, and it appears to be on a fairly fast timeline. Iran, though, not rushing these negotiations at all, taking their time, perhaps dragging out this process.

And that's because it's apparent at this point that they feel their negotiating from a position of strength. They see no reason to rush these along, and they've made clear that they have very hard lines here. They now view the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic Iranian asset, one that public officials there have said they intend to keep control of in negotiations. Well, that, of course, is an immediate hurdle for negotiations.

And it's not clear at this point that negotiators and Pakistani mediators can bring together what have been until this point very far apart positions from the U.S. and Iran. So even as President Donald Trump and others have tried to signal some sort of optimism here, enormous gaps still remain. And we'll see if the latest Iranian response to the U.S. proposal addresses those.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview to CBS's "60 Minutes" where he said there is more work to be done when it comes to Iran. In the interview, he acknowledged that the main issues that Israel and the U.S. were initially looking at, that is, removing the highly enriched uranium, more than 400 kilograms of it, the nuclear program and nuclear facilities, ballistic missiles, support for proxies in the region. Iran is still able to do all of this to some extent. Of course, the

U.S. and Israeli strikes have degraded Iran's military, decapitated its regime. But all of these are still capabilities that Iran holds. So Netanyahu said there is more work to be done. He said the highly enriched uranium can be removed physically, seeming to hint that there could be an agreement to remove it with inspectors going in, or it could be military force that tries to remove that.

[18:20:10]

But he refused to put a timeline on what it would take to do that, as right now, negotiations at a very critical point, perhaps even a very fragile point here as we wait to see where this goes.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, in Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, Oren, thank you for that.

Let's talk more about all of this with CNN national security analyst Alex Plitsas. He's also director of the counterterrorism program at the Atlantic Council.

Alex, good to see you as always. Let's start first with the president's response that we got just a short time ago. He said it's totally unacceptable. He said he didn't like it. What happens now?

ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, if the president was waiting to see what the initial response was going to be, and then we're supposed to take this week to see if we could craft something that both sides could come to an agreement on, and he was hoping by the time he got back from China that this would sort of be worked out. Unfortunately, what came back today from the Iranians appears to be still maximalist on their sides.

They want to control, you know, the Straits of Hormuz until afterwards. They don't want to completely give up their right to enrichment and also not completely give up all of their highly enriched uranium. They want to retain some of it. None of these terms are acceptable to the president. They've been very clear since the beginning that he's not going to stand for a potential future Iranian nuclear program, and he's sort of said that as a red line policy in the sand. And the Iranians are still pushing back.

DEAN: Alex, are we at a stalemate? Do you think that's a fair assessment?

PLITSAS: At this point, from a negotiating standpoint, I think it appears to be a stalemate. We've imposed maximum pressure in terms of the blockade on the Iranian ports and anything getting in or out. You know, we've struck 13,000 targets at this point out of about 16,000 total if my math is correct from what CENTCOM has briefed. As the president mentioned, it's still a couple of weeks of targets left.

What the president was hoping at this point that if we pulled back and gave them a chance to negotiate, that there would be some, give and take, and that at least there would be room on the nuclear side to come to the table, solve those remaining issues, and potentially on the conflict. But unfortunately, it does appear that we're negotiating stalemate at this point. If they retain that position, they're not going to budge.

DEAN: And so then what is a breakthrough? How do you get a breakthrough?

PLITSAS: Well, there's only a couple of options here. The U.S. can respond again and see if there'll be any room to move on these positions, although I think it's been clear that this has gone back and forth a few times, and there's been no movement. The president suggested that. Unfortunately, that may mean additional military action. And if that takes place, what has been discussed at this point is what he called Project Freedom Plus, which would be reimposing, you know, opening of the straits by force, if necessary, which the Iranians have already responded to, you know, with military action.

We've seen them attack ships, fired on U.S. ships, but then also potentially decapitation strikes on the elements inside of Iran that are holding up a deal. We're hearing that elements of the IRGC are particularly problematic, including Vahidi, the guy in charge, as well as some of the intelligence services. So we could see infrastructure strikes inside the country. We could see oil and gas, we could see decapitation strikes and strikes along the strait.

Unfortunately, it looks like we are barreling back towards military conflict unless the Iranians are going to move on some of these positions.

DEAN: And sources say that the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke earlier today. Netanyahu saying in a new interview that he thinks there's still work to be done here. How do you think Israel is factoring in to the U.S. involvement and the U.S. strategy and movements right now?

PLITSAS: Prior to the hostilities kicking off, no one was really on the same page as to what the threat was. For President Trump, it was the nuclear program. For the Israelis it was the ballistic missile program. And for the region, it was the proxy forces or, you know, groups like Hezbollah or the militias in Iraq that were largely problematic. But now, since the conflict has kicked off, everybody sort of coalesced around the idea that the, you know, the Iranians can't have those types of drones and missiles in large numbers, that they can't be defended against. And the proxies are also a problem.

So I think, you know, for the Israelis, they've seen significant, you know, disruption of Iran's military capabilities. But the last piece is really the nuclear program, which, again, President Trump had made his signature item. And so this is normal. You'd want to wait until the end, make sure that you get all of the offensive capabilities you can, all of the air defenses, et cetera. And then the most difficult targets, if you had to go after them, are potentially those, you know, remnants of highly enriched uranium that are buried either under Isfahan or in Natanz. And that's kind of where we're at right now. And I think that both

President Trump and president -- Prime Minister Netanyahu, that have both made it clear that the highly enriched uranium needs to come out of the country and that enrichment isn't on the table. So if there's no way to negotiate this, I think they're both very clear that there's going to have to be additional military action.

DEAN: And just briefly, you mentioned the broader region. The UAE says their air defenses dealt with two drones that had been launched from Iran earlier today. What are you hearing about the broader Gulf region and how it's enduring all of this?

PLITSAS: So the broader Gulf didn't want to be part of this from the beginning. You know, a couple of countries were actively involved in the beginning from Oman and Qatar to trying to make sure that this didn't happen.

[18:25:01]

Then after it kicked off, Iran decided it was going to try to pressure the United States by attacking all of the GCC states and then hoping that those Gulf Arab countries would pressure the U.S. to get it to stop. But it backfired. And now that they've done that, the collective region is basically saying, hey, we do not want a wounded animal that's left in Iran with these capabilities to continue to attack us afterwards that we can't defend against.

If we have to go do this, let's go back and finish the job and get it done right. They'd prefer that this is settled through negotiation, that this doesn't continue into military action. But if military action, you know, is needed again, go back and finish the job as the message that we're hearing behind closed doors from just about everybody in the region.

DEAN: All right. So more to come. Alex Plitsas, always great to have you. Thank you so much.

PLITSAS: Thank you.

DEAN: And still ahead, how potential 2028 presidential hopefuls are hitting the campaign trail in a different way. Taking a page out of influencers' books.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:16]

DEAN: When it comes to running for office, things are changing in a lot of ways. Local news has been declining in importance for a lot of younger voters. Coverage of campaigns isn't always happening with the vigor and -- that it used to. And now many politicians are working to get attention on their own, and they're using social media to develop their own brand. You look at someone like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who regularly uses social media to get his message out. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today we're taxing the rich.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And obviously that video, Sara, in particular went viral for a lot of reasons. Got a ton of pushback. But you think about his campaign and how he used social media to really go from being someone that a lot of people hadn't heard of, to ultimately winning and beating the Democratic establishment. It is quite something.

Sara Fischer, a CNN media analyst and media correspondent for Axios, wrote about this topic. She joins us now.

So what are you noticing? What are you seeing happening here?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes. Well, myself and my colleague Kerry Flynn decided to do a big deep dive on this because going into the 2028 election, Jessica, the media strategies that have been leveraged for decades are going to be drastically different. For one, yes, of course, politicians are leaning more heavily into social media, but they're also leaning into developing their own properties.

And that's not something that we've seen as much in other elections. So what do I mean by that? Their own podcasts, their own newsletters, their own video first sort of vlogs, if you will, their own merch stores even. And the reason they're doing this is because in this day and age so much money is being spent on elections that if you can't develop a national brand to be able to fundraise at the national level, you're not going to be able to compete for some of those big national positions, like president, or even for, you know, senators and members of the House, this is becoming the reality, too.

DEAN: Yes. I mean, I'm thinking about some of these like you're talking about Senate seats or even House seats, but they can be very expensive. You've got to run in the primary. Then you've got to run in a general. And if you live in a state that has a really expensive media market, you know, you need fundraising from all across the country. And this is a way to reach, you know, Democrats or Republicans everywhere.

FISCHER: Yes. And it's also it gives you the ability to build your audience much wider, especially through platforms like e-mail. And what that does is it allows you to collect a lot of data that you will be able to use for your fundraising campaigns later down the line. So, for example, when you want to target Facebook ads or Google search ads, oftentimes the best way to do that is to gather critical, you know, voter information data, to be able to target accurately.

How are you going to get that data, Jessica? Oftentimes it's by developing your own media properties. Again, newsletters and things like that, where you can get e-mail addresses that can later be used for targeting. So you got to start really early with this stuff. It's not the type of thing that you can snap your fingers and build overnight. And that's why we're seeing all of these presidential hopefuls.

Even if they don't know that there are eventually going to run, they're developing these media strategies now so that they can employ them later if they do decide to toss their hat in the ring.

DEAN: And then you -- yes. And then you think about the control that they have over how they're presented to people, what their message is. They have full and complete control over that versus coming on and having an interview or something that's more traditional where it goes through another layer. This is direct -- essentially direct to consumer.

FISCHER: Yes. And it's reaching younger people. I'd be remiss not to say that. You know, back in the day, people were clamoring for like local newspaper endorsements and even national newspaper endorsements. I mean, you know this as well as I do. National newspapers are quitting the endorsement game. So are many of the local papers that are owned by huge conglomerates.

And no longer is that glossy profile considered the A standard for how you're going to get your brand out there. It really comes down to things like TikTok following or things like podcast downloads. And so this is the new reality for politics.

Now the question becomes, Jessica, what do we make of this in terms of accountability? And that's one of the things we looked into when we wrote this deep dive. You know, traditionally you had that layer of journalists and editors that were applying scrutiny to an interview when they published the profile. What we have now is this game of sort of like clapback politics, where if someone puts out a video vlog of them visiting with constituents, any number of people on TikTok or on Instagram can just clap back, make it go viral with whatever their comments are on it. And so there's a new layer of accountability.

[18:35:01]

Now, it's not necessarily journalistic, but I would argue it's actually healthy in its own way, too, because as especially local journalism falls out, having your own constituents have a voice and a platform to be able to call, you know, a potential politician out and say, this doesn't make sense. This isn't right. There's something to be said for that.

DEAN: It is really interesting, and we're going to see it more and more obviously in these midterms. But certainly, as you mentioned, keep your eye on all those potential 2028 presidential hopefuls and what they're doing now as they potentially prepare for what comes next.

Sara Fischer, great to see you. Thank you so much.

FISCHER: Thanks, Jessica.

DEAN: Still ahead, while California's -- why California Governor Gavin Newsom has not publicly backed a candidate in the contentious race to replace him. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:28]

DEAN: Tonight, top Democrats in California are working behind the scenes to prevent their party from getting locked out of the governor's race. With no clear front runner and the June 2nd primary now just a few weeks away officials are pushing to increase turnout and reduce Republican momentum.

Let's bring in CNN senior reporter Isaac Dovere, who has been doing a lot of reporting on this.

Isaac, this is such a fascinating race for a number of reasons. But just start first giving everyone an overview of what you've learned in your reporting.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, the first thing here to remember is that in California, there's not a primary. It's the people who get the top two vote finishes in this first round, which is on June 2nd, go on to November. So there are five Democrats running at this point and two Republicans. If both Republicans are in the one and two spots, then they go on to November.

There's no write-in provision in California. That's it. The governor of California will be a Republican. So Democrats are really concerned about that and are trying to get to have at least one of those top two spots occupied by a Democrat. But easier said than done, perhaps. And they are in a melee of their own, trying to figure out who will be in the best position to do it. And they so far have not come close to agreeing on who that should be.

DEAN: And so as they sort all of this out, what about how they're spending and also, too, we haven't really heard from a lot of the establishment Democrats out in California weighing in.

DOVERE: Well, that's right. Look, remember just a couple weeks ago, Eric Swalwell, the congressman then was in the race and was leading in a number of polls. But obviously, he had quite a scandal that brought him down and part with the CNN reporting about multiple women accusing him of sexual misconduct. So when that scrambled the race, that led to even more wariness of getting involved.

There were some people, including Senator Adam Schiff, one of the senators from California who had endorsed Swalwell already, he obviously didn't endorse Swalwell anymore, but he has been, like the others, staying away from this, trying to figure out how to maybe guide what's going on without an outright endorsement, but trying to push up Democratic voter turnout. Ballots are already out in California.

A lot of voters receive their ballots in the mail starting this past week. And so as that happens, trying to get Democrats turn those ballots in and to attack Republicans in ways that may not seem the most forthright. There's a new independent expenditure effort that's being funded in part by some really notable Democratic donors, including, for example, $250,000 just last week from the -- one of the big unions, the SEIU union in California, that's endorsed two candidates, not one, but two of the remaining Democrats in the race.

So it's a lot that's going on here. And some of it behind the scenes, trying to not get caught in the public embarrassment, potentially nobody wanting to endorse a candidate who doesn't go on to win. It's a tricky situation.

DEAN: Yes. And as someone who's covered politics a long time, Isaac, are you surprised by how this is playing out or not?

DOVERE: I mean, it's the race for governor of California. It's the fourth largest economy in the world. It's a big state with a lot of people and a lot of different constituencies. It is -- the thing that has confused a lot of people is not that it is a crazy race, but that even into these last couple weeks, there isn't any clear front runner that's coming together. And that's, you know, I spent the time with Gavin Newsom last week, the current governor. He's also watching this closely, trying to figure out what's going on. And so far, sitting back doing the behind the scenes stuff, but not the endorsements.

DEAN: Yes, it is a fascinating race to watch. Isaac Dovere, great to see you. Thank you so much.

The Americans who were on board that hantavirus stricken cruise ship now headed back to the United States. We have details on how and where they will quarantine. That's just ahead.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:49:05]

DEAN: A Palestinian journalist held for about a year in an Israeli prison. He says he was abused physically and psychologically. He was never charged with a crime. The Israel prison service did not respond to CNN's questions about his detention. The 59-year-old journalist is one of more than 100 Palestinian media workers arrested by Israel since the start of the war with Hamas in Gaza.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more now on his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The man gingerly walking down the steps is Ali al-Samoudi, a well-known Palestinian journalist.

I've worked with Ali several times and I barely recognize him.

(Voice-over): The 59-year-old has just been released from Israeli prison where he was held for a year without charge and without a trial. Ali, so good to see you.

(Voice-over): The physical toll of his detention now on display.

[18:50:00]

This is what Samoudi looked like when I last worked with him, three months before he was arrested. He lost a 130 pounds in prison, about half his body weight.

ALI AL-SAMOUDI, PALESTINIAN JOURNALIST RELEASED FROM ISRAELI PRISON (through translator): They basically gave us food only to keep us alive. Breakfast consists of one spoon of labneh, a quarter spoon of jam. As for dinner, it's a luxury dinner for us. Two spoons of hummus and one spoon of tahini in addition to an egg.

DIAMOND (voice-over): It was only when he emerged from prison where mirrors were banned that he saw his face for the first time in a year.

AL-SAMOUDI (through translator): My situation is difficult, and I understood that, but I didn't imagine it to this extent.

DIAMOND: You had already interviewed, I'm sure, Palestinians who were held in Israeli prison, but what was it like to see it and experience it for yourself?

AL-SAMOUDI (through translator): When I came to prison, the reality was different. It was real hell. One time after I returned from the visit with a lawyer, they threw us on the ground. An Israeli officer stood and stepped on my head like this and pressed my face into the ground for four minutes until I suffocated.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Israel's prison service did not respond to our request for comment about Samoudi's detention. But it's what Samoudi witnessed that's most painful, like the young man who got sick but was refused medical treatment.

AL-SAMOUDI (through translator): He died in front of us for no reason. He did nothing. Why? Are we not human?

DIAMOND (voice-over): That man is Louay Turkman, a 22-year-old from Jenin who was also held without charge. Israel's prison service didn't respond to our request for comments.

Samoudi is among a 105 Palestinian journalists who have been imprisoned by Israel since October 7th, 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. 33 are still being held in Israeli prisons, nearly all of them without charge. That pace of detentions landed Israel as the third worst jailer of journalists worldwide last year behind only China and Myanmar.

When we asked the military at the beginning, when you were detained, we said, why?

AL-SAMOUDI: I know. DIAMOND: And they said you were, quote, "identified with the Islamic

Jihad terrorist organization and suspected of transferring funds to the group."

AL-SAMOUDI: Bullshit.

DIAMOND: Bullshit.

AL-SAMOUDI (through translator): They did not ask me once about any suspicions. My arrest is part of the Israeli war against the Palestinian press and media to silence my voice and block my camera and break my pen, and thus prevent me from practicing my right that all laws and international norms guarantee, the freedom of the press.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jenin, the West Bank.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right. Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much for that report.

And stay with CNN, we have much more ahead here. Later tonight, we have the back-to-back season finale of "SEARCHING FOR FRANCE WITH EVA LONGORIA," and which she explores the coastal region of Brittany, and then returns to Paris to learn the history of a seven-course meal on a Seine River cruise with some of the world's most influential chefs.

As the series comes to a close, I sat down with Eva to discuss what reflections she had about the journey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: You essentially took a tour through French gastronomy via a seven-course fine dining meal on a boat on the Seine.

EVA LONGORIA, CNN HOST, "EVA LONGORIA SEARCHING FOR FRANCE": It was on the Alain DuCasse boat.

DEAN: OK.

LONGORIA: But it was, it was with Eric Ripert. I got to do this really deep dive into the history of Escoffier, who's like the godfather of French cooking. He codified the five mother sauces, which all sauces come from. He codified the brigade system, which organized the back kitchen with a military hierarchy. The front of house, maitre d, sommelier, hostess, waiters. He really created the system that we use today.

DEAN: So there's -- the amuse-bouche that you had.

LONGORIA: Yes. which is --

DEAN: Was a classic --

LONGORIA: Amuse-bouche is entertaining your mouth. The French do experiment a lot with texture, scent, and hot, cold, savory and sweet. They really like to put contradictions together on a plate. All the chefs in France take their craft so seriously, and they're just constantly trying to push the limits and explore.

I was in the kitchen with the chef that made us this fish. It was just like, how are you good at all of these things?

DEAN: So there's the Asian influences, there's North African influences.

LONGORIA: Marzocco, who's the chef of the moment in France right now, he's an immigrant. He's West African. So in his household, his mother would make traditional West African dishes, but yet he's Parisian.

[18:55:03]

So his restaurant is a West African-Asian inspired fusion with French cooking. It's really what France is about, which is a mixture of culture.

DEAN: Where do you see French cooking, French food going?

LONGORIA: They've been the standard of excellence for a very long time. When I did "SEARCHING FOR SPAIN," you saw the movement in the 1990s saying, I'm sick of the French being at the top of this ladder. Then you saw this like, you know, rise in Spanish gastronomy to rise to the occasion of let's compete. And then you see Japanese cuisine, you know, nipping at the heels of that French standard. And so now everybody is at play. All of the new up and coming chefs are bringing that global influence into that cooking.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Be sure to tune in, the new and final episodes of "EVA LONGORIA SEARCHING FOR FRANCE" airs tonight at 9:00 Eastern and Pacific, only here on CNN and then tomorrow on our CNN app.

We'll be right back.

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