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CNN This Morning

Major Blow to Israel/ Saudi Arabia Relations; Hamas Rocket Strikes Israel; Hamas Claims to be Holding Hostages. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 09, 2023 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, EURASIA GROUP AND GZERO MEDIA: The new Netanyahu right-wing government that was taking only more land, taking more settlements. And the average Israeli, even on the left. This wasn't a top priority. They're focused on economic issues. They're focused on their own constitutional crisis.

So, yes, certainly you can see that the Hamas leadership saw themselves as increasingly isolated and without many good options. And in that circumstance, sometimes you make suicidal decisions. That's, I think, exactly what we've seen here because this leadership is not going to be around for much longer.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Christiane, if you could speak to the hostages and a big question mark is whether they'll -- there will be a ground incursion. But take us back to 2006, Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was taken. Five years to get him out and 1,027 Palestinians handed over by the Netanyahu government at that time for one. What does that portend for what may be ahead for 100 plus?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, I mean that - that - you've just -- you've just absolutely put your, you know, finger on the button. One soldier, five years and more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released. That's how important it is for Israel to get back their soldiers and their civilians. And by all accounts, those who have been held hostage now are mostly civilians we understand. We haven't had a readout from Israel as to who they are. But that is the general belief that they're mostly civilians. So, this is going to be incredibly difficult.

Where are they? What tunnels are they in? Where are they being held? How are they being held? Presumably, Hamas is going to want to keep them alive if the idea is to bargain them. But how, when you have these, you know - you know, relentless air strikes? Where are they, et cetera? So, this is going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult.

And to the U.S. perspective, it's sending its aircraft carrier, warships, fighter jets to support Israel and to try to warn off any other activity from Iran or elsewhere. But the truth is, as Ian has said, as David has said, that the United States hoped with its deals, with, you know, potentially Saudi capping all the others, that this region would be able to look after itself. And it is unable to do that. None of these deals mean that any of these countries can deal with the crisis inside Israel.

And we have heard many, many Israelis, even this weekend, a former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, a formally good prime minister, we've heard Israeli former intelligence and the like, unless the Palestinian situation is dealt with, Israel faces an issue. And we've heard many, many times from Israeli security officials that that is the existential threat. And now you have all this on top of it. And it's very, very complex now to figure out how this is going to go.

While the U.N. Israeli - sorry, the U.N. Middle East envoy told the security council, that this region has now taken a very, very, very big step towards the precipice.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Christiane, Ian, David Sanger, stand by because just moments ago a Hamas rocket strike landed in a residential neighborhood in Ashdod. No casualties have been reported, but the damage is significant.

CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward joins us live from there.

Clarissa, tell us what you've been seeing on the ground.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, you can probably see behind me, I'm going to step right out of the way, but this is where that missile landed. It has completely destroyed one, two, three, four, at least four cars that I can see. And I don't know if you can hear those booms in the distance. It has been a very active morning here.

We could hear this barrage from our hotel, which is not too far away, as it came in. We actually watched one or two missiles make impact in the sea. Some of them, of course, were intercepted by the Iron Dome. But this one actually took a direct hit. You can see the apartment building as well just behind. Some of the shutters have been destroyed. There's also some shrapnel damage.

Mercifully, it appears that nobody was injured or killed in this. But you can begin to imagine, Phil, just by seeing the scale and the damage, the effect that this has on the psyche of ordinary people who are trying to go about their lives living here.

Also, this is coming on the heels of a very active night. We were up all throughout the night in the nearby city of Ashkelon. We could hear jets in the skies nonstop, profound pounding of the Gaza Strip last night. The IDF now coming out today and saying basically that Gaza will be completely shut down, no food, no fuel, no electricity will be allowed to be delivered into the Gaza Strip.

And certainly here in Ashdod, also in Ashkelon, where there were strikes this morning, a lot of tension as people are bracing themselves for yet another day of war, Phil.

[06:35:01]

HARLOW: Clarissa Ward for us on the ground in Ashdod, right in front of the scene of a most recent strike. We'll get back to you very soon, Clarissa. Thank you.

Also this, new video into CNN. It shows how nearly 1,000 Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza. Look at that. More on the ground straight ahead.

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MATTINGLY: Well, overnight, there were a new round of Hamas rockets fired into Israel - both overnight and into the morning. The death toll rising on both sides with more than 700 people confirmed dead in Israel. Nearly 500 Palestinians killed. Israel defense minister now saying Israel will completely blockade Gaza.

We're now joined by CNN military analyst and former member of the Joint staff at the Pentagon, retired Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, thanks for joining us.

To start -- I want to start actually with the IDF saying that there's no ongoing fighting on the ground right now in the Israeli communities around the Gaza strip. They're all under Israeli control after a very intense 48 hours. What do you make of that?

COL. CEDRICK LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: So, good morning, Phil.

I think one of the big things to look at here is the fact that they've kind of done their mopping up operations and they've stopped what they needed to do. So, when you look at all of the different aspects here, like all of the efforts that the Israelis have been able to do when it comes to attacking things in Gaza, they've basically done this in addition to the fact that they've been in essence dealing with attacks in all of these areas within Israel itself.

So, what you're seeing here, Phil, is the fact that they think they've mopped up everything here, at least to the extent where things are more or less safe or safer than they were when the -- this attack first occurred. But every single one of these areas right here is one in which the Israelis had to either clean things up or move in and take out Hamas fighters that were coming in this way.

HARLOW: Can you speak to what this will mean -- we just, in the last hour, have heard from the Israeli defense minister, who has given an order for a complete siege of Gaza. And let me quote here.

[06:40:01]

Quote, "no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything closed."

HARLOW: Does that tell you that a -

LEIGHTON: Yes.

HARLOW: That a ground incursion is ahead?

LEIGHTON: Poppy, that would be one of the key indicators for a ground incursion.

So, basically what you're talking about here is the fact that every single one of these areas right here is going to be in essence x-ed out. So, what you're doing is you're cutting off all the power supplies. So at least half of the electricity that Gaza gets is supplied by Israel. That very fact limits all the things that the Gazans can do when it comes to, you know, they are a very densely populated area.

When you look at everything that you see here, this right here is actually the border area right in this way. And all of this area is Gaza. All of this is extremely crowded, densely populated area that probably the most densely populated area on earth. You've got about 2 million people here. So, every single one of these areas is going to suffer from food shortages, lack of electricity, lack of sanitation. In essence, this is what you do when you're getting ready to move in if you're going to actually do a ground incursion. In essence they're laying siege to Gaza.

MATTINGLY: In terms of how a ground incursion would work, there's been a very real reticence to fully engage in something like this from the Israeli military side for exactly the reasons you state, how densely populated it is, just how to get out once you get in to some degree. What would be a -- what are the key elements they have to consider before doing something like this?

LEIGHTON: So, there are several key things - and this is actually an excellent point. So, there's something unique about Gaza. People have described it as being in essence an open air prison because once they're in, they can't get out. Now, that's overstating it a bit because before all this attacks there were a lot of people from Gaza who were working in Israel. They had this border crossing right here was the one they would use to go in and work day jobs in Israel. But this is all now closed off.

And so one of the unique features that they have to consider is that these people can't get out of anything that is happening here. This, in essence, is all blocked off right here. And that very fact makes it really hard for the Israelis to go in because when you look at all of the different areas here, these are all very narrow streets, all built up areas with very few agriculture areas, at least in this part of Gaza, and that makes it hard because what you're dealing with here is known as urban warfare. It's going to be really tough for people to get in here, for the Israeli forces to move in buildings, around corners, around rooms. Their tactical intelligence is going to have to be extremely precise, especially when it comes to any efforts to try to rescue the hostages. And that's going to be a critical moment for the Israelis. They're going to have to decide exactly how they want to do it and what other things they can do in order to make that happen.

HARLOW: Colonel Leighton, to Phil's good point about once they get in, how do they get out, couple that with the fact that we've learned overnight that the U.S. is sending this carrier strike group to the eastern mediterranean. How will that play into this decision? And what - what can be done from that to help Israel? LEIGHTON: Yes, so the carrier strike group, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is

a - really a key element. This is one of the preeminent ways in which the United States projects its power. And when it uses a carrier strike group, they've got a lot of aircraft. This - this carrier strike group can take anywhere from 70 to 90 aircraft along with it. And it's got other ships that are a part of this - this effort. So, what they can do is they can do everything from humanitarian aid, all the way to providing things like close air support if they were engaged in combat operations, which this is not what's going to happen in this particular case.

They can also be a presence there. And that would mean that they cut off anybody else who is going to, for example, try to do something from other countries around here to try to help Hamas in this particular area. You don't want anybody to move in, in that sense. And what you want to do is you want to make sure that every single element is in essence blocked off so that the fighting is contained. So, what the Gerald R. Ford and all the other elements of U.S. power in the region are here to do is, they are going to make sure that nobody else gets involved, at least overtly. And that's one of the key reasons to have them do this.

MATTINGLY: Yes, U.S. officials have been very clear, deterrence, deterrence, deterrence, not active participation.

Colonel Cedric Leighton, we appreciate it. Thanks, sir.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Phil.

HARLOW: So, the situation in Israel and Gaza turning into a hostage crisis. We will hear from one woman whose mother was kidnapped. And that kidnapping is on video.

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[06:48:06]

MATTINGLY: We're hearing devastating accounts of Israeli civilians discovering from online videos that their missing family members were kidnapped by terrorists. Tomer Tal spoke with Israel's Channel 12 about her experience. Tal said her mother heard gunshots and was entering a bomb shelter. Tal didn't hear anything else from her until someone sent her a video posted on Telegram.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMER TAL, MOTHER WAS KIDNAPPED (through translator): At the beginning of the video you see the terrorists enter the house of my mother's partner. They just enter, talk in Arabic and then there's a cut and you see the shelter breaks. They enter the shelter and just take her from under the bed. Just shocking. Unfathomable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: CNN cannot independently verify the video. There have been similar shocking videos throughout the course of the last 24 hours. Joining us now to discuss, former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh

Johnson. And joining us now from Jerusalem, writer and political analyst Arieh Kovler. He spent time in a bomb shelter with his family after the rocket sirens started going off.

Arieh, I want to start with you.

Can you describe what it's been like the last 48 hours on the ground there?

ARIEH KOVLER, WRITER AND POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, firstly, I'm not in the direct line of fire people are in the area around Gaza. But all of these (INAUDIBLE) one of the heartland of it has been under rocket fire for the last two days. And here in Jerusalem, rockets are pretty infrequent. We've only really ever had one or two sirens at a time. On Saturday, in the Jewish festival (INAUDIBLE), the barrages were pretty much constant the entire morning. You know, we have a toddler, a two- year-old, and we told him it was a game. And when the music plays outside, you have to run to the office. We did pretty well because by the end he was asking for more music, but we managed to keep a brave face.

HARLOW: To have to tell your toddler to go to shelter is a game really says it all.

Secretary Johnson, to you.

If you could just help us put this in perspective. We keep saying somewhere around right now, and it may go up, 700 Israelis killed in these attacks.

[06:50:06]

Put then in the context of America post-9/11 because it is such a small country, 700 is a huge number.

JEH JOHNSON, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: For Israel, the state of Israel, 700 is a huge number. On 9/11 we lost 2,977. I agree with the prime minister that this attack on Saturday alone was Israel's 9/11. It was the worst single day terrorist attack in that nation's history. I almost think that it's - it - it overdignifies it to refer to it as a war. This is terrorism. It's just out and out terrorism. And the initial wave of rocket attacks was somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 in the space of just minutes or an hour on Saturday morning. And it was such that Iron Dome, the Iron Dome defense system, could not keep pace with interdicting all of them.

HARLOW: Nor the Iron Wall.

JOHNSON: And we've already lost some 700 Israelis by their count. I suspect that's going to rise. And overall over 1,000. This was an act of terrorism, pure and simple. There's a second wave occurring as we speak right now. And I would not be surprised if Israeli defense forces do go into the Gaza Strip to try to recover the hostages and, frankly, decapitate the Hamas leadership. MATTINGLY: To that point, Arieh, the - the feeling inside the country

right now, I think there's always been this kind of assumption, certainly here in the U.S., I think over there as well, that the IDF, the intelligence and security apparatus that Israel has and utilizes is the best in the world, if not one of the best in the world. You talk about what it's like now knowing that this is even possible.

KOVLER: It's a sense of real shock that (INAUDIBLE) happened. The failures both in intelligence and in readiness. It wasn't just that nobody knew this was coming. It was that no one had a plan for if it did happen. So, you know, intelligence can fail. You cannot know something was going to happen. But it just seemed like there was no readiness whatsoever. It took -- you know Hamas terrorists entered Israel in 7:00 a.m. on Saturday. It took somewhere -- 12, 14 hours in some cases before the military arrived. And Israel is a tiny country.

There were stories of people, retired military officers, getting in their cars from Tel Aviv and driving themselves to go and rescue people. And they got there hours before the IDF did.

There's a lot of head scratching, a lot of shock, a lot of disappointment and general bafflement at how is it that Gaza seems to have had no troops around it. And, you know, eventually we're going to have to get to the bottom of what happened.

HARLOW: That is the question, how is that the case? Not only on the Israeli intelligence side, but also on the west, on the United States.

Here is what National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said ten days ago. This was about the Middle East on September 29th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: And the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. Now, challenges remain. Iran's nuclear weapons program. The tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. But the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: It is not to point fingers, it is to ask and to look at what is ahead and how this was missed on many fronts.

JOHNSON: Well, first, I can attest that Israeli intelligence capability is first rate. To the extent that the United States very often relies on Israeli intelligence for our own intelligence capabilities in that region.

I actually think Jake put his finger on it. He said, ten days ago, it's as quiet as it has been in that region for a long time. For a terrorist organization like Hamas, that is at odds with their interest. This attack is very definitely an effort to destabilize the region, to increase tensions, to roll back the clock, to stop the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world. And so, this is the nature of terrorism, to disturb the peace, to stir

up violence, to stir up passion, emotion, to cause death and destruction.

MATTINGLY: Arieh, what's the sense of what - what happens next? You know, Secretary Johnson makes a key point about there are 100 plus hostages at this point. We've seen the scale of what could be traded, Poppy was pointing out earlier, for just one IDF soldier several years ago that had been detained for five years. What happens next? What are the expectations right now within Israel?

KOVLER: It still hasn't fully sunk in in Israel. People are beginning to get the names of people who were killed and beginning to figure out who was taken by looking at videos.

[06:55:09]

And the Israeli government has not been on top of updating families just of the situations. It's clear that there's going to be some kind of ground operation in Gaza, I think both for - for the root (ph) fact that people expect a rescue attempt and the fact that there's just kind of political inevitability (ph) to it. But it's not at all clear that such an operation would be successful. Already we're hearing reports today that Hamas is claiming, and who knows if this is true, that Israeli air strikes on Gaza are killing some of the Israeli hostages. And those could be lies, but it shows the challenges that Israel is already facing in its operations to try and rescue those people.

One thing on the other side is that a lot of Israel's policy and military posture towards Gaza and the West Bank has been predicated on avoiding there being any hostages taken at all. And operations are planned to make sure that no one could possibly be captured under any circumstances. Some of that calculous may also shift because once there are 100, 150 hostages, then maybe there will be a bit more of a balance to the decisions taken.

MATTINGLY: All right, there's so many questions that remain outstanding.

Arieh Kovler, Jeh Johnson, we appreciate it. Thanks so much for your time.

And you're looking at live pictures right now of Gaza City. Israel now relaunching counterattacks against Hamas. Stay with us. We have much more of our breaking news coverage coming up next.

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