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Israel Death Toll In Hamas Attack Likely Over 500; Israeli Security Cabinet Declares State Of War; Israel: At Least 350 Israelis Killed in Hamas Attack; Israeli Airstrikes Targeting Hamas In Gaza. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired October 08, 2023 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
AMARA WALKER, CNN HOST: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING. It is Sunday, October 8th. I'm Amara Walker.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: And I'm Victor Blackwell.
Our colleague Becky Anderson is live in Tel Aviv. As we continue to follow developments in Israel, we will toss it out to Becky in just a moment.
Right now, it is 3:00 p.m. in Israel. At least 350 Israeli citizens are dead, far more wounded since Hamas attacked yesterday morning. And the number of dead now includes 44 Israeli soldiers and 30 police officers and border officers.
WALKER: Well, today, the focus for the Israel Defense Forces is to take control of Gaza. Retaliatory air strikes from Israel against Hamas targets have killed more than 310 people and injured nearly 2,000 and that is according to Palestinian authority officials.
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WALKER: And in the past 24 hours, Israeli forces have struck more than 400 targets in Gaza, including ten towers used by Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing vengeance against Hamas and warning civilians in Gaza to get out while they can.
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BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): All of places which Hamas has deployed, hiding and operating into, that wicked city, we will turn it into an island of ruins. I'm telling Gaza's people to leave those places now because we will take action everywhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BLACKWELL: Hamas claims to have captured dozens of Israelis including children and soldiers. Look at this. This is video, it is disturbing. It shows Israeli civilians being rounded up, presumably taken into Gaza. The IDF is working to figure out exactly how many Israeli citizens have been taken hostage.
But near the Gaza border, Israel is now evacuating more than 20 communities to get Israeli citizens out of harms way. Israeli forces are also using drones to keep militants from crossing the border. IDF says that more than 1,000 Hamas fighters poured into country yesterday and their still fighting to remove Hamas fighters from eight areas in southern Israel.
WALKER: And let's go now to our Becky Anderson in Tel Aviv.
Becky, we're now looking at the second day, Israel has a lot on its hands including trying to find a way to get those hostages, many of whom are civilians and Israeli soldiers back safely, but also securing Israel itself, where there are still areas that are undergoing fighting.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: That's right. This is unprecedented for Israeli officials. This is uncharted territory.
Let's put it squarely in focus here. At least 100 rockets fired on the Israeli town of Sderot by Hamas this morning alone, according to militant group, as Israel continues its response, targeting now close to 500 targets in Gaza overnight and into the morning. You could continue to hear the booms here in Tel Aviv. It is not very far away but far enough that you don't expect to hear what is going on in this theater of war. But it continues, according to authorities.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing that this is a war that Israel will win and saying that the enemy will pay an unprecedented price. But I think it's important to consider quite what that war looks like going forward. And what the price will be in terms of further lives lost and that will only become apparent in the hours and days ahead. We've already seen significant civilian casualties on both sides in the hundreds.
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Those numbers tragically could rise. And what is clear is that the dozens of Israelis who have been taken captive by Hamas and the IDF will not put a precise figure on those numbers as they try and establish exactly how many people have been taken by Hamas militants. But the IDF admitted this is dozens of Israelis, men, women and children and elderly rounded up in Israel and taken into Gaza as hostages.
That will massively complicate the Israeli Defense Forces' next moves. The sheer scale of this operation by Hamas has caught Israel sort of flat footed as it were. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding what the government has described as a situation assessment with senior defense and security officials as we speak. And I do just before I get you on the ground to Nic Robertson who is
very close to Gaza at present, I just want to remind what the world has witnessed in the past 30 hours or so and this is through the Israeli lens. These scenes of people seen fleeing a music festival in southern Israel, and militants that have breached the border attacking festival-goers.
This next video which is disturbing to watch, let me warn you, is of a man and woman, festival-goers, taken hostage by militants. Their whereabouts are known at present but very likely among those who are captured and have been taken into Gaza. And Hamas saying that the hostages now littered around Gaza will make the Israeli Defense Forces next moves into Gaza very difficult.
Let's get right to CNN's Nic Robertson who is in southern Israel. As we consider, Nic, and I'm caveating this, as we consider, you know, what the Israeli defense forces will be. Of course, there are 2 million Palestinians in what is a very, very congested Gaza who are also at massive risk here. Already we've seen upwards of 300 Palestinians killed in the past 30 hours and thousands wounded.
So lest we forget, there are civilians and their lives at stake here as well crucially the 44 Israeli soldiers who have been killed and these outages who are being held.
Nic, explain where you are and what you are hearing there.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Becky, I'm in Sderot. This time yesterday afternoon, this area, that police station, the remains of it was under Hamas control. There was a fierce fire fight by Israeli Defense Forces into the earl why I hours of the morning, 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. before they took back control of the police station.
Look at the destruction, look at the amount of force that was required to take it back from the Hamas militants who had taken control of this town. What am I seeing and hearing now. The very beginning of the clear up, but I'm hearing drones in the air, that was an explosion, you may have heard that. We're hearing explosions and fighter jets in the air. This town is almost entirely deserted, just a few civilians we're seeing over here coming out talking to each other about what happened here.
Just to the left, I'm going to direct John to turn the camera on this car. This was part of the shootout yesterday. It is a very bloody situation on the other side of the vehicle, we won't show you that. But just look around here. If you follow me on the ground, look at all of the shell casings that are scattered around on the ground and this gives you an indication of the intensity of the fire fight, that all over the ground around here.
As we drove into Sderot, in the last half hour, another explosion there, that is the general background, we're a couple of miles from Gaza and the explosions sound like they're coming from inside of Gaza, hearing the fighter jets and another explosion there. When you drive into Sderot, you pass vehicle after vehicle that is damaged, that is shoot up. We even drove past a police vehicle that had three clear shots through the wind screen on to where the driver would have been sitting.
Hamas came in here. Again, you can be understate this -- they've never done this before, coming into Sderot and taking control of it. And obviously, Hamas say they're still shelling these towns, we have the sirens go off. We have seconds to get to a bunker here.
So, this is still a very active, a very hot zone. In this area, security is very tight. You see soldiers at checkpoints with safety catches off their weapons and soldiers going through fields looking for places where there have been reports that there are Hamas militants,
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Hamas militants have been caught further north from here trying to infiltrate today deeper into Israel. So this is still a very uneven situation. But the beginning of the clear up at the Sderot, what remains of Sderot police station, that's just getting underway now, Becky.
ANDERSON: I spoke to the IDF spokesman earlier on who said the IDF is still working to secure and protect 20 communities around that Gaza border, which, you know, I echo your words, it cannot be understated or underscores just how spectacular this incursion by Hamas militants have been. The breaching of these very secure defenses until now the Israelis had which put Gaza under siege for so many years.
The Israeli now saying it is part of their next plan, they will cut the supplies of electricity, cut the supplies of fuel and goods into Gaza, which will just reinforce the siege that Palestinians have been living under for years. But now, you have the addition of, and we don't know the numbers here, but we're talking about multiple dozens of Israeli hostages which will be absolutely at the forefront of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mind, as they look to what their plans might be going forward in Gaza itself.
The IDF spokesperson wouldn't confirm that there would be a ground incursion. We're certainly seeing a buildup of troops around Gaza.
What's your perspective, Nic, of what happens next, in the immediate hours to come?
ROBERTSON: Literally, as you're speaking to me, Becky, explosions are going off. Fighter jets in the sky. This is what is going to happen. This is Israel Defense Forces making sure that they've secured that border fence, just a couple of kilometers from here through to Gaza, the defense that the Hamas militants breached massively and came out into Sderot and other places, secure that and make sure that they hit as many Hamas firing positions to stop the rockets coming and try to begin to target Hamas leaders as intelligence allows them to do, active real time intelligence.
We're hearing multiple drones and they are also scouring the area. So in the immediate aftermath, that's what we're going to see. Because I think this area is still in a situation of being secured, you are not yet having this big expected military deployment of further forces into the area. You wouldn't want to put artillery units out in remote fields where there could be Hamas militants still around. All of this groundwork needs to be put in place first but real focus is on securing that border fence and making sure there are no more Hamas militants around, that's the immediate issue.
But, of course, the deterrence of Hamas having a high number of hostages, dispersed across Gaza will be a very big political decision for Prime Minister Netanyahu. We've already, at CNN, heard from the families of those taken away. They've already seen the videos of their loved ones on social media taken away.
It's very clear what is happening. It is very clear how the families feel about it. This is absolutely terrible for them. They're going through an absolute living hell at moment and there will be political pressure on the prime minister not to jeopardize the lives of those hostages, that my military action in Gaza as the prime minister is vowing to do potentially does that.
There are off-ramps in that situation right now. That is really not clear at all. And up likely that Hamas is to give any ground. This is the strongest bargaining position Hamas has had, I think we could say, ever with the Israeli government. The stakes are high because the stakes are people's lives, Becky.
ANDERSON: One Palestinian commentator describing this is a lurch of hubris on the part of the Israel government to humiliation at this point. This is what happens next. You talked about the very short-term intelligence that the IDF will now be used to work out what its next move is. I mean, there will be discussions, I'm sure, that they want to park today and pick up perhaps tomorrow.
But already, discussions being held outside of the sort of -- the very core group around Benjamin Netanyahu at the moment about how this happened, you know, seemingly a spectacular failure in intelligence on the part of Israeli authorities.
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Nic, thank you. Nick Robertson is on the ground in Sderot, very, very close from the Israeli side of the border to Gaza.
Well, Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning the attacks on Israel and is working closely with his European and Middle Eastern parties to discuss and monitor these situations.
CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins me now.
What's latest there, Natasha?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, the secretary of state has been carrying out a number of intense diplomatic corporations with regional United States partners over there, including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, basically encouraging them to condemn the attacks in the starkest terms possible. And the message from the White House and the State Department has been that no one should take advantage of this chaos to carry out any additional violence.
They are very concerned at this point that other groups, perhaps other states could take advantage of this to potentially fuel the flames even further. Now, the White House said yesterday that they are horrified by these attacks and the priority right now according to President Biden is just to ensure that Israel has what it needs in order to defend itself and continue to be supportive by the United States and its alleys as it continues to fend off the attacks by Hamas.
Here's a little bit of what President Biden said in his remarks on Saturday.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hamas terrorists crossing into Israel killing not only Israeli soldiers but Israeli civilians in the street, in their homes, innocent people murdered, wounded and entire families taken hostage by Hamas, just days after they mark the holiest of days in the Jewish calendar. It's unconscionable.
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BERTRAND: Now, Biden was surrounded by his national security team yesterday including Secretary of State Blinken who was at the White House making these calls and as I said the priority has been in the short-term to just make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself. But there have also been a number of conversations about the intelligence failure that appears to have predicated this and what -- you know, how the intelligence community would better work with the Israelis to make sure they're not missing any potential signs of additional chaos and violence.
Another question, of course, is whether Iran played any role in this given the sheer sophistication of the attack by Hamas. A lot of questions swirling about they were involved. That is something according to the administration that they are going to be investigating in the coming days, Becky.
ANDERSON: And, Natasha, while you and I have been speaking, the Israeli government, the security apparatus around the security -- the Israeli cabinet has just closed and they have indeed declared this as a state of war. That will play into how Washington basically responds to this as they continue to assess the activity on the ground.
We will expect to see more activity in the hours ahead, a state of war now being declared by Israel's security apparatus.
Natasha Bertrand, thank you.
And, coming up at the top of the hour on "STATE OF THE UNION," Dana Bash is going to sit down with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. That begins at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
And just to remind you, you're watching CNN. I'm Becky Anderson in Tel Aviv.
This conflict has been going on for decades and the history is complicated to unravel. We bring in author Robert Wright of perspective. Robin has written a number of books on the Middle East, and writes for "The New Yorker" as well.
Robin, it's -- it's good to have you. What do you make of what we are witnessing at present?
ROBIN WRIGHT, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, it's historic and it's going to change, I suspect, the face of the Middle East in multiple ways, not just militarily. I think there are four or five big steps that have to play out when you look at the pattern of conflict in the Middle East. First is the Israelis have to contain Hamas. They have to regain territory. They have to eradicate the arsenal and decapitate politically at least the leadership of Hamas, make it less of a viable force.
But then it has to deal with the hostages and this could be the much longer drama that plays out because this has given tremendous leverage to Hamas. And we all know how long hostage dramas could play out particularly in the Middle East.
And then it has to deal with, you know, what is next. How do -- Israel has been in this position before. It controlled Gaza and in the end it decided to leave and the cost/ratio was too high. And because it's been there before, there aren't a lot of, you know, instantly viable or visible alternatives.
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So this is why this war could be stretched out not just militarily, but also politically.
ANDERSON: When it -- when it comes to Gaza, and I saw one Palestinian commentator describing the Israeli government as having lurched from hubris to humiliation. What do you make of that as an assessment?
WRIGHT: Well, clearly, the intelligence operation failed, abysmally. And the bottom line is that Israel appears quite vulnerable today. And that will be picked up on across the region, that a country that has the largest military, the finest most pervasive intelligence, failed against what is a limited kind of ragtag militia and political movement, and that it didn't have any intelligence on this at all will have consequences in the way that I think the region treats Israel, particularly this government.
ANDERSON: This was a -- however, you want to describe it, you know, a group, a militant group that spectacularly breached Israel's defenses on its border with Gaza. This is been described as a spectacular failure of intelligence. There are those who suggest who catch this closely and I know that you are one of those, who watched this intently, who have suggested that it was Israel with its eye off the ball, flatfooted with what is going on around Gaza with Hamas as they had their attention focused on the north of the country and what they perceived to be a very real threat from Lebanon, Hezbollah in Lebanon. We have seen some activity across that border, albeit relatively small at this point. Two, three, four, I think attacks from Hezbollah into the Shebaa Farms area in Israel which has been responded to in kind by the IDF.
But how concerned, are you, Robin, that we could see an escalation, an escalation away from Gaza into the West Bank, on to the northern borders anon to the southern borders perhaps of Israel as well, and you talk about Israel now looking very vulnerable in the eyes of the Palestinians but also this region. What are the consequences of that?
WRIGHT: Well, Israel faces challenges as you pointed out against Israel -- I mean against Lebanon and the mighty Hezbollah arsenal, which are far larger than what Hamas has. So, if you saw a wider war, there would be what military experts call a state of overmatch. Israel is very vulnerable because it has one major airport and one major electricity grid and there are certain installations that you took out that Israel could be crippled. But it also faces the kind of allies and militias that are deployed in Syria with their missiles and rockets.
So there are three different fronts that Israel faces if it were to become a wider war. But the most important thing to note is that despite the -- the three or four little attacks on the Shebaa farms on the border with Israel, the fact is that Hezbollah did not act simultaneously and hasn't in the past and these are two different movements that have different agendas, they are different, one is Shiite and one is Sunni and they have their own rivalries, their own separate agendas. It would have been much more effective if the game plan was to do something together, from the start, not later on once Israel kind of understood that it was under attack and had begun planning to response.
So one could only hope. And the reality is that down the road, Israel will face challenges on all three orders and Iran is aiding all three of those countries. So you have place the war in Gaza in a larger context of both Israel's immediate border and the larger picture of the shadow war Israel is playing out with Iran today in many places.
ANDERSON: Robin, many people have asked what the trigger for this event, this spectacular incursion by Hamas was talked, you know, to Palestinians, and they say there was no need for any single event. They say the occupation over the last 56 years or more, as many see it, is the reason for this, the siege in Gaza that pushed toward normalization with the Arab states is what is in focus here when the Palestinians say their file, as far as Israel and the U.S., Saudi other Arab states is simply not in focus.
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That conversation perhaps not for today. But it will be high on the agenda as we move forward in this. Today, though, as the IDF described it to me, this is early days. And this is just the beginning of what we should expect to see on ground.
Robin Wright, it is good to have you. Thank you.
Well, still to come, Israel is in the midst of the full-scale response to what was a surprise attack by Hamas. We'll assess what we can expect in the hours and days to come.
Stay with us.
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BLACKWELL: All right. We're just getting this in.
The number of dead in Israel after the surprise attack by Hamas is likely now over 500. That is according to CNN analysis. We're also learning that Israel has officially declared a state of war.
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Joining us on this is retired Lieutenant General and CNN military analyst Mark Hertling. General Hertling, good to see you.
First here, let me start with the hostages that have been taken by Hamas. How do the IDF forces get to them because as we've learned from the armed wing of Hamas, they say that the IDF should be careful here, be careful of miscalculation because what happens to Gaza, as they have said in a statement, happens to these hostages.
LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well Victor, certainly they've been taken as human shields and there are already multiple reports of hostages being taken from Israel back into the Gaza Strip.
That is going to make any military operations difficult. What I suggest is, you know, as your military analyst, what I try and do is always put my head in the mind of the commander on the scene.
When you're talking about an Israel commander, right now, anywhere within the state of Israel, who are heading toward the Gaza for a potential ground operation, they're measuring all sorts of information.
They don't have intelligence on the most likely positions where the Hamas headquarters are. They don't know where the hostages are. They don't know what kind of equipment the Hamas fighters can use against them. They don't know what is secure and what is not.
So all of those things from a military perspective are going to change the way you conduct operations.
When you throw in hundreds and possibly at times thousands of hostages inside of the enemy territory, that makes your military operations extremely difficult and that is what the commander is dealing with right now.
You're seeing the Israeli air force conducting operations now in Gaza. It is relatively easy to do for a modern air force to conduct operations against an enemy that doesn't have many air defense capabilities. What you're then going to see is a ground operation and we've seen the
Israeli Defense Forces go into Gaza before on multiple occasions and they are relatively brutal in their approach.
You can't do that when there are Israeli hostages in the area, unless determine that you will do it and kill the hostages. So it's a very difficult situation for the Israeli commanders.
BLACKWELL: And when you say hundreds if not thousands of hostages you count not only the Israeli hostages but the Palestinian civilian human shields as well in that number, I assume.
HERTLING: Yes, absolutely right, Victor. And what we've seen the Israeli forces do in the past is use or attempt to use and they have been very successful at doing this -- precision weapons systems against Hamas headquarters, against what they know are Hamas fighting positions or ammo caches or those kinds of things.
They don't have that kind of intelligence now and they don't know what the Palestinian people inside of Gaza are doing and how many of them have been human shields.
You add to that the fact that they have seen, the Israelis have seen over the last several days their fellow citizens being brutalized, being murdered, being kidnapped. You know, that takes a toll, a psychological toll on the soldiers who are going to be conducting the operations.
So yes, it is going to put a lot of people at risk and I think the operations could get very brutal and not as precise as they have been in the past when the Israeli Defense Forces have gone into Gaza.
BLACKWELL: Live pictures up on your screen now. These are plumes of smoke over Gaza as the IDF continues their retaliatory aerial strikes. Hundreds of them, according to the IDF, have been executed -- these strikes have been executed since the attack by Hamas.
So part of the surprise here was not only that it happened, but the coordination, the planning and training that it required.
As you said, our military expert, does this appear that Hamas just got a lot better quickly or they had some help?
HERTLING: No. Well I would say a couple of things. They've had some help. They've seen operations that have been conducted in other parts of the world specifically Ukraine by the Russians. They have coordinated with the Iranians.
And truthfully Victor, when this all started yesterday morning, you have to remember Hamas has never conducted human attacks inside of Israel other than some suicide operations. They haven't had the kind of waves, they haven't coordinated strikes of air, land and sea. They haven't gone in and used paragliders. They haven't used or drones like they used yesterday. They haven't done denial of services on computer systems which they are continuing to do.
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HERTLING: A report this morning in the "Jerusalem Post" say that that was hacked.
So you're seeing some really great actions by the Hamas terrorist groups that are not typical of any terrorist groups -- coordinating operations, conducting multi-domain operations, attacking into a foreign country. Now -- into Israel at this point.
But what you also saw was great use of intelligence. They have had to scope out the border operations of the Israeli Defense Forces. They have had to know where the Israeli army was and obviously many of them weren't in their think base camps in and around the Gaza Strip. They were elsewhere.
So the combination of intelligence, training the forces for what they have to do as infantry men or drone pilots or whatever and then attacking specific targets that are outside the Strip all require a lot of coordination and a lot of help.
You can't just do that from inside of Gaza. You have to have intelligence. You have to have human sources in other places in Israel. And you also have to have the help of your enemy, in this case the Israeli army who were not there and whose intelligence resources were depleted in that area for whatever reason and I'm sure the investigation will determine that.
BLACKWELL: As we're watching these plumes of smoke, and we've seen three or four by my count as we've been talking, General. I want to ask you about what we're hearing from Israeli officials warning people in Gaza to get out of the way, or get away from these Hamas-related facilities. Where are they supposed to go?
I mean, it is not like they're allowed to leave this area, there has to be a consideration as we've discussed in the context of U.S. missions, the collateral damage, the impact on civilians -- that's the primary concern. The secondary concern -- how that then could feed the terrorist group and their narrative as this retaliatory campaign continues. What is your consideration as we watch these pictures?
HERTLING: Yes. And that is certainly a thought, Victor, and it is something that happens before in any of the incursions into Gaza.
The Palestinians have attempted to use actions by the Israelis on a -- on a public relations front to show how brutal they are, how they kill women and babies.
I think, you know, when I heard Minister Netanyahu yesterday say they needed to get out of Gaza, the Palestinians who weren't involved in the fight, you know, I think everybody in the world said that is a ridiculous comment. That is ludicrous. Where are they going to go? This is a two-mile wide stretch of land that has two million people.
But I think he was saying really was get away from any facilities you know tend to house Hamas because we're going to bomb them. We're going to do direct strikes against those facilities. So you could move about within the area but Victor, I don't think it
is going to be very precise or very surgical in terms of surgical -- in terms of strikes by the Israelis in this area. They are going to go in and roll over much of Gaza. That is the kind of war this has become.
And they see that the young people that came across the border yesterday, I mean, they're not wearing uniforms. This is not an army. This is a terrorist group.
So it is very difficult to separate the so-called military-age male inside of Gaza from normal citizens. So unfortunately, I believe there are going to be a lot of citizens of Gaza that are not involved with this strike and may not even support the Palestinian striking inside of Israel that are going to be killed and wounded.
BLACKWELL: General, thank you.
I want to bring in Becky Anderson who is live in Tel Aviv. Becky, we've been seeing these live pictures of plumes of smoke over Gaza as the retaliatory campaign continues. I don't know that there is any country in the world that would blame or criticize Israel for retaliating after the numbers we're hearing, what we saw yesterday.
But there is, as the general said, this concern of -- and even from the Israelis of trying to move Palestinian civilians out of the way. What can you tell us about what we're seeing in pictures we're seeing?
ANDERSON: Certainly. Let's just be quite clear, I mean caveat there. There certainly are some countries and Qatar included who has put Israel squarely in the cross-hairs here as they responded to what we saw, what, 30 hours ago. And said it is up to Israel to change their position with regard the Palestinians.
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ANDERSON: Be that as it may, let's just have a look at these pictures because these are just coming into us now. These are live pictures, sort of just after half past 3:00 in the afternoon.
And as we understand it, the Israeli Defense Forces say that fighter jets have struck three military headquarters belonging to, as they describe them, terrorist organizations in the Gaza strip -- and I quote the IDF here -- military headquarters belonging the Hamas terrorist organization used for directing terror was struck as well as military headquarters belonging to Islamic Jihad terrorist organization that were used during recent operations to bring in that Palestinian group as well."
And additional military headquarters belonging to Islamic Jihad terrorist organization that were used by the terrorist organization's rocket forces.
So we -- we have heard just in the past hour or so that Israel has now declared that it is in a state of war. And the prime minister has been meeting with the security apparatus here. And ahead of that statement. We heard Benjamin Netanyahu describe this as war. A war he said that Israel would win. And it would be punishing and brutal the response to what he describes as the enemy's activities.
We know that there has been a buildup of ground troops, movement towards the border, which of course has been breached. This is the border between Israel and Gaza that has been breached by some 1,000 militants yesterday morning, Saturday morning -- well breached.
And the Israeli forces still trying to reassure Israelis living in the communities around that they are securing and protecting those communities.
The community of Sderot where our colleague Nic Robertson is, he has witnessed the debris of a real fire fight which clearly happened yesterday. Israeli forces say that community is now secured and protected.
But look, I mean, Israelis on the Israeli side of the border, those who haven't been taken hostage, of course, are massively concerned about the failure of intelligence, their security at this point. The IDF describing this as very early days to mean earlier on today, this is the beginning of the operation.
And certainly the images that we're seeing now is the result of bombardment by Israeli forces from the air.
Nic has been hearing those booms. We can even hear in Tel Aviv. Certainly we are hearing activities, booms of activity; whether or not that is coming from the actual bombing of Gaza or not remains to be seen.
But you know, this is -- this is the security operation now in action on the part of the Israelis who have been caught extremely flat-footed when it comes to the securing of their border.
The Palestinians, of course, describe this as a siege and that siege of Gaza now reinforced by the Israelis, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that they will cut the supplies of electricity, of fuel, of goods.
So for those 2 million that you have just been discussing with Mark, Victor, you know, those 2 million people have a very worrying time ahead of them. And they are to all intents and purposes hostages in their own city. As there are -- as we know multiple dozens, the number is not yet being released by the Israeli, but multiple dozens of Israelis who have now been taken hostage, captured on the Israeli side of the border, taken back into Gaza and are now being held hostage.
The Hamas militant group has said they are littered around Gaza and it will be with real concern that the Israeli forces now work out what their next moves are.
The Palestinians who are living within Gaza, lest we forget already, more than 200 have lost their lives, thousands have been injured in this attack as we know now there are 500 deaths on the part of the Israeli, 44 of those as we understand it are IDF soldiers.
Stay with us as we continue to monitor these images.
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ANDERSON: But this is Gaza live as we speak.
WALKER: Ok. Becky, this is Amara here along with Victor here in Atlanta. I do want to address something that General Mark Hertling brought up a moment ago about how this is going to be a very difficult operation considering that there are hostages, Israeli hostages that have been taken into Gaza.
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WALKER: And of course, you know, saving those lives is going to be paramount for the IDF.
We also have been hearing through the morning, you know, IDF officials along with Netanyahu are urging those who live in Gaza, the civilians to leave their residential areas immediately as the retaliation strikes continue.
What are -- are there viable options for those civilians who had nothing to do with Hamas, to seek shelter, a place that they can reasonably stay safe?
ANDERSON: It is a very good question. And in the past when we have seen attacks on Gaza by the Israelis and Palestinians have sought refuge in hospitals, in schools, education facilities. Primarily those oftentimes are run by the U.N. where they seek sanctuary because they feel that that at least may be a better cover, provide more security, more protection than facilities that the Israelis might identify as those that are used by Hamas.
So that is the sort of -- that is the sort of opportunity that Palestinians in Hamas, in Gaza have at present.
But yes, you're absolutely right, when the Israelis say seek shelter, leave your homes, you know, be clear, you know, Gaza will be under attack. It's absolutely terrifying for those who live there, who quite frankly have very, very few options, Amara.
BLACKWELL: General Hertling is still with us as we watch these pictures all over Gaza. General, One would assume that those who coordinated this attack, that we saw yesterday, also would anticipate exactly what we're watching -- a retaliatory early on aerial strike.
So we're seeing that these are military headquarters that according to IDF are being targeted. How much organizational damage are they likely doing if this is anticipated, this response has been anticipated by the armed wing of Hamas?
HERTLING: Yes, I picked up on that same thing, too, from Becky's comments, Victor, and it is a very good point.
Normally when Hamas has launched rockets and artillery into Israel, there is an immediate response by the Israeli Defense Forces.
This is a slow response. They planned -- Hamas has planned this operation for months. I would suggest all the headquarters that Israel has been tracking through either signal or human intelligence or satellites, Hamas has gotten smarter.
I would suggest that as soon as they launch the operation, they took the command post, if you will, away from the places that were normally used as headquarters and I'm going to use the term in the military often uses when you hit a target that is not effective and that is the Israelis have probably been pounding a lot of dirt without Hamas leaders in those buildings that they once used.
So, I think, you know, you see a change in the way Hamas has conducted their operations, how increasingly savvy they've become. They also know that when they're about to be attacked and it is announced by the Israeli government, they're going to get the hell out of their headquarters.
There are not going to be people in the kind of places that the Israeli Defenses have been tracking as the CPs, the command post of the Hamas organization.
So that makes it increasingly difficult for Israeli military to counter those actions. And by the way, one of the other things I forgot when I was talking about what goes through the minds of a military commander. In the past the Israeli army has gone right into Gaza immediately. We have seen that in several iterations of the campaign against Hamas.
This time -- different. They have to secure areas on the Israeli side of the border. So that is one more task that the commander has to have and right now, by my count, there are 17 locations where there is still not a proper understanding of who is in the area, where Hamas forces are, what are they doing. And that really rummages through the mind of the military commander on the eastern side of the Gaza Strip.
[08:50:00]
HERTLING: So you know, a lot of things going on. We will see a ground assault into Gaza, I'm sure. It is probably going to take longer. I'm not sure that the Israeli military is going to be able to roll as quickly as they have in the past. And it is going to be much more difficult because their intelligence is faulty right now.
WALKER: So perhaps the worst is yet to come, right. I mean these are early days. This has just begun the retaliation or it's about to begin when it comes to Israel.
Let's bring in Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League. And let's focus on the widespread repercussions of what we're seeing right now in the Middle East there in Israel.
Are you concerned, Jonathan, about further violence in other parts of the world following incidents like this especially considering what you are also seeing, the rhetoric that you are seeing online and on social media?
JONATHAN GREENBLATT, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: Amara, I'm glad you asked. And I appreciate you having me on.
I'd say a few things. Number one, Hamas should be seen as the hate group that it is. A hate group that has been promoting an ideology for years. Dehumanizing Jewish people and dehumanizing the Jewish state.
As we've seen in America and around the world, when you dehumanize people, you create the conditions, you brainwash the public into thinking that acts of dehumanization are permissible.
So we know that conflicts that they least have (INAUDIBLE) here in the United States and around the world. We've seen time and again after attacks on Israel, prompt vandalism and violence against Jewish people in France, Belgium and U.K. and here in America in 2021. So we're very alarmed about that.
I also have got to tell you that you need to tell Becky Anderson to stop using words like "spectacular", to describe the terror organization of Hamas. Stop saying they made "great gains", "spectacular gains". It is a savage organization that we've seen the videos of them gleefully shooting elderly people at point blank range, kidnapping children after killing their parents. Mutilating corpses and dancing on them.
We should call these people the barbarians that they are and we should recognize that the only words to use in the context of this are criminal and homicidal. Those are the only adjectives that apply.
WALKER: Jonathan, I appreciate your perspective. If we could bring in General Hertling.
Just regarding what is happening there on the ground. Regarding Hamas's capability now. Now that they are -- as they are awaiting a dramatic escalation or retaliation from Israel, what kind of fight will they be able to keep up or sustain?
HERTLING: In my view, Amara, it's going to be difficult for them to continue to sustain. They have taken action over the last 24 plus hours, Hamas has, and they have really expended a lot of what they have right now. But in doing so, you would anticipate that Hamas, if they have advanced in their thinking, about ways to conduct military operations, which they have -- I mean this is a pure military analysis, it has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with determining what your enemy can do.
You would think they know that the Israeli Defense Forces is going to come into the small area which is the Gaza Strip.
In the past, they have been very -- Hamas has been relatively effective in countering combined arms weapons that the Israelis have brought in.
They have struck tanks, they have destroyed (INAUDIBLE), they have killed Israeli soldiers as they rolled into traps. This is same kind of thing that occurred. Truthfully (ph), I'm going back a couple of decades that occurred in Lebanon in 1982 in Operation: Peace for Galilee, where the Israeli military rolled into a place with a conventional force and was struck with both conventional weapons and terror weapons and an unconventional force.
I think the Israeli army may see the same thing here. I think Hamas certainly knows that the normal actions of the Israeli military is to come in on the ground after they conducted air strikes. So I believe they're going to be prepared for it.
The question in my mind, Amara, and it's the one that you really asked is what kind of weapons and how could they sustain it. And the answer to that is I don't know.
Iran has been supplying Hamas with missiles for decades. Have they now been supplying them with other weapons like drones, like anti-tank capabilities.
(CROSSTALKING)
[08:55:00]
WALKER: General, do you think Israel knows too? Because again we're talking about a colossal intelligence failure, right. And the fact that they didn't even know that they had this number of rockets.
I think it was the former Mossad chief who was talking to CNN yesterday, General -- I'm sorry for cutting you off there. But I wanted to ask you about it.
I mean he even stated it was "beyond imagination" were his words, the number of missiles that were launched into Israel.
So do you think we -- at least Israeli intelligence has an idea of their arsenal?
HERTLING: Yes. Well, it is a good point. And if I can segue just a second, Amara, because what you talked about in terms of missile strikes is Israel is saying there were 2,000 missiles launched from Hamas yesterday. Hamas said they launched 5,000 missiles. It doesn't matter. Between 2,000 and 5,000, that is a lot of missiles and in fact, it's more missiles than Hamas launched between the years 2002 and 2006 -- four years in one day.
So it overwhelmed the Israeli defense systems. The Iron Domes were effective, but not as effective because of the mass attack. So again, if Mossad does not know the kinds of things that have been transferred into the Gaza from Iran on ships or some kinds of smuggling, it is going to be very difficult to counter that with conventional operations.
BLACKWELL: Nic Robertson is with us as well in Sderot which is closest to the Gaza border. Nic, we're getting this shot as wide as possible to look across Gaza.
We've not seen any of those smoke plumes in just the last couple of minutes but I understand you've been hearing the explosions all morning, afternoon there. Are they continuing?
ROBERTSON: They are continuing. Sometimes they're intense, sometimes not as intense. But to set the scene here, this area here, Sderot, about a couple of miles just from the border with Gaza was under Hamas, if you will, control yesterday.
They controlled the police station. The destruction that took place at that police station overnight was the Israeli Defense Forces regaining control of this area.
So they have control of the town. But there are still high concern about the security in the countryside about infiltration from Hamas militants.
We're hearing drones in the sky above us. We occasionally hear fighter jets above us as well. And I could see standing behind our cameraman here, John, the spokesperson from the Israeli Defense Forces.
So I'm just going to wander up.
Nic Robertson on CNN. We're actually live -- Ron, very good to meet you. Doron (ph) We spoke on the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, IDF SPOKESPERSON: Yes, we did.
ROBERTSON: We're live on CNN just now. We're talking about the current situation. Can you brief us on the situation as it stands right now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. I can tell you that we're in Sderot, of course, only ja few kilometers from the Gaza strip.
We can hear the IDF response taking place on the Gaza Strip.
ROBERTSON: What is that response?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we are right now trying to eliminate the Hamas infrastructure as effectively possible. We know Hamas here took the men and women and children, dragged them literally from where you and I are standing right now not that long ago to the Gaza Strip from right here.
These families in these homes right next to us -- some of them are missing. Dragged them back to the Gaza Strip. What we're doing right now is trying to eliminate the Hamas infrastructure as effectively as possible and guard that gate, the same openings that they came through. More and more terrorists are still trying to infiltrate into Israel.
ROBERTSON: Today? That's still coming in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As I'm speaking to you, there are seven different locations that they are trying to infiltrate into Israel. We have mostly air command over all of those.
But it is still going to take some time before we do. The desire to come in here and to continue doing this, is like a kamikaze, they know we're coming. They know we're ready but there is just a hunger and thirst for blood. They're trying to come in more and communities.
Just up the street from where you and I are, we just found a Gaza man. He followed those terrorists in here looking to steal and rob.
ROBERTSON: You found him just now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just now. Right over there.
ROBERTSON: How big of a task is it -- I mean they came in, they infiltrated the territory. How they (INAUDIBLE). When can you say that they're gone? When can you bring in reinforcements safely to this area?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is -- let's keep this in mind. This is the most devastating attack in the history of the state of Israel over the last 75 years since the state was created.
We have hundreds of civilians that were killed. We have men and women and children and grandmothers sitting in Gaza in some basement.
ROBERTSON: Tell me this -- I'm going to interrupt because we're short on time and I'm really sorry. I really want to know how you are going to get the grandmothers and the children and everyone else back from Gaza.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I can tell you is that we're not going to stop until we exhaust every means possible of doing so. We will not leave any person behind and we will do anything to make that happen. That's what has changed over the last 24 hours.
ROBERTSON: Thank you very much. We'll speak later. Thank you very much.
That is the situation from Sderot. It is still fluid. It is still dynamic and this area here, the police station just being -- beginning to go through it now.
But this area, still under missile threat, active missile threat from Gaza.
BLACKWELL: Nic Robertson there for us in Sderot with that crucial interview giving us the very latest that's happening there, so close to Gaza.
Nic, thank you so much for that.
And thank you for joining us this morning.
WALKER: We will of course, stay on top of this breaking developing story in Israel.
"STATE OF THE UNION" is next.
