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CNN This Morning

Israel at War with Hamas; Interview with Bloomberg Editor and Foreign Affairs Columnist Bobby Ghosh; Biden Assures Israel Complete Support in War Against Hamas; Currently, Third Day of Violence, Sirens are Audible in Northern Israel; Interview with Armed Services Committee Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ); Families Beg for Details on Loved Ones Held Captive by Hamas; Interview with Mother of Laor-Itzhak Who Went Missing Near Gaza Border Michal Halev; Interview with Father of Laor-Itzhak Who Went Missing Near Gaza Border David Abramov; Israel Moving Military Equipment Towards Gaza; Increasing Death Toll in Israel and Hamas' Warfare; Third Day of Fighting Sees Israel and Hamas Exchanging Rocket Attacks; Total Blockade of Gaza Strip Ordered by Israeli Defense Minister; Interview with Palestinian-American Middle East Analyst Omar Baddar. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 09, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

BOBBY GHOSH, EDITOR AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG: They will want to do as much as they can to degrade Hamas' capability. Hamas has shown a much greater capability than anybody had given them -- the -- anyone was aware that they could put together. So, that needs to be severely degraded.

There's talk of decapitating Hamas. I'm a little skeptical about that because it's a multiheaded beast. You don't know where the head is, who is head is at any one time, and what you would qualify -- what Israel would consider to be the head of Hamas. I mean, quite a lot of the political leadership is in Turkey, not even in Gaza.

If Israel went in with land forces, it would go in to try and engage as many fighters as it could possibly do so and take them out. Whatever Israeli intelligence has on the current leadership of those fighters in Gaza, they will want to take them out. The obvious complication being that there will be hundreds of thousands of ordinary civilian Palestinians, and now possibly more than 100 hostages, possibly including some Americans nationals.

And so, that is a complicating factor that really is hard for the Israeli planners to game out. I mean, the Israelis have gamed out almost every scenario that the four of us at this table can imagine with -- to do with Gaza. They've had people gaming this out for years now. But this, with this many civilian hostages on the ground, I'm not sure they gamed out this one.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN THIS MORNING CO-ANCHOR: All right. To Johnson, Bobby, Christiane, we appreciate your expertise, as always. Thanks very much, guys. President Biden throwing his full support behind Israel, but the war is happening as the U.S. House didn't even have a full-time speaker. How can Congress get started on sending aid? Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill joins us next to discuss. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Well, happening right now, sirens ringing in Northern Israel. Hamas and Israel have been exchanging rocket fire throughout the morning.

[07:35:00]

Aid is, "On its way," that's President Biden promising more defense support to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in a phone call on Sunday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that U.S. carrier strike group was headed to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as a, "Deterrence posture." In a statement, Austin also said the U.S. will, "Be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with addition equipment and resources, including munitions."

This comes as we learn that two members of Congress were in Israel during the weekend attack. Representative Dan Goldman and his family were there for a bar mitzvah. They have now safely left the country. And New Jersey Senator Cory Booker was in Israel for several days of meetings ahead of an economic summit in Tel Aviv. He spoke on social media after safely leaving the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): About this time yesterday, I was jogging behind me in the old city when I got an urgent call from my chief of staff telling me to get back to the hotel as quickly as I could, that Israel was under attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey. She's a member of the Armed Services Committee and a former navy pilot. Congresswoman, thank you so much for taking the time. Just to start, it's over the weekend. The House has not been in session. What is your understanding in terms of your conversations either with your colleagues on Capitol Hill or with the administration about where things stand right now.

REP. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-NJ), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Thanks so much for having me. As I spent last night with hundreds of members of the Jewish community here in New Jersey, many with very close ties to family and friends in Israel, many who have lost a loved one in the attacks. I can also tell you that the attorney general of New Jersey is very aware of the situation, has put out extra support for our synagogues, our mosque, our places of worship. However, he did say last night that there were no credible threats right now, but we are continuing to monitor the situation to make sure that people who are very concerned about it here are kept safe. And then, moving forward, we are getting back into session tomorrow. I wish it was today, but we have to get a new speaker so we can continue to provide Israel with all the resources its needs to defend itself.

MATTINGLY: To that question, I know it's been something House Republicans have been trying to figure out throughout the course of the weekend. Do you have to have a speaker to be able to move forward on any additional aid packages? Is that your understanding right now?

SHERRILL: That is my understanding now. It's pretty limited. The actions of the speaker pro tem and those actions are basically to be put towards getting a new speaker. That's what we have to do now.

MATTINGLY: And do you have confidence that Republicans can actually secure a new speaker at some point in the coming days?

SHERRILL: I have confidence that Republicans could secure a new speaker, especially if they are willing to work with the majority in the House to make sure that we move forward on that. I would encourage anyone who wants to be the next speaker of the House to do just that. I think our nominee, Hakeem -- who we will nominate when we go back on Tuesday, Hakeem Jeffries put out an op-ed about how that could look moving forward. I think it's really critically important as we have seen that as speaker of the House not be beholden to an extremist far right group of people that are not focused on governing the nation or supporting our friends and allies across the world.

MATTINGLY: You know, as we're speaking, we're showing videos from what's transpired over the course of the last 48 hours on the ground in Israel. In your role on the Armed Services Committee, were you ever aware that something at this scale could occur like it has over the course of the last several days?

SHERRILL: You know, as you know, I said on the -- as you mentioned, I sat on the Armed Services Committee. We worked hard to -- in the memorandum of understanding in other ways to support Israel, to replenish the Iron Dome when necessary. I -- you know, I had not seen this or indications that this was happening. And we're going to do an after-action report when it's appropriate.

But right now, what we need to do is make sure Israel has the resources it needs to defend itself, that up to and including intelligence sharing with the United States, and then in the future we will make sure that we understand how this happened so we can prevent it from happening again.

MATTINGLY: We have -- do you have any sense in your conversations, I know U.S. officials have spoken to or trying to identify what connection, if any, Iran had in terms of direct involvement. Have you received any briefings or indications as to where that stands currently?

SHERRILL: I have asked for briefings on this, but I think we should be very careful about any understanding of how Iran is involved. We know they have given weaponry in the past to Hamas. However, I think moving forward we want to make sure we understand exactly how this happened.

[07:40:00]

And so, we will be looking into that. But I think it's too soon to say exactly what role Iran may or may not have had in this situation.

MATTINGLY: All right. Congresswoman Mikie Sherill, very busy week ahead for you guys. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SHERRILL: Thanks.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN THIS MORNING CO-ANCHOR: Well, this morning the search for dozens of civilians including children, the elderly, they're among those believed taken hostage by Hamas over the weekend and held in locations across Gaza. This is complicating Israel's response, and turning the situation into a hostage crisis as well as this war.

Among the missing, this young man, Laor Abramov. His parents say he was attending a nature party with his friends. They lost contact with him on Saturday. His parents shared this photo of him. They have not heard from him since Saturday afternoon. That on your screen is a photo of him in shelter. They believe he is hiding out in a border city near Gaza.

His parents, Michal and David join me now from northern Israel. Thank you both for being with us. No one can imagine a parent's anguish. Tell us if you've had any update from your son at all.

MICHAL HALEV, HER SON LAOR-ITZHAK WENT MISSING SATURDAY: No, we haven't had any update. We are trying to contact any piece of information. We have nothing. We are -- we have --there is hundreds of parents like us. We can't find any source from any formal source that can tell us anything. We are working with hundreds of people trying to just look for him and all his friends.

HARLOW: He looks very young in this picture. How old is he?

DAVID ABRAMOV, HIS SON LAOR-ITZHAK WENT MISSING SATURDAY: He's 20 years old.

MATTINGLY: Can I ask -- you know, you -- and I think you got at this, but try and broaden this out. We have been trying to figure out if you all have been giving -- given any information from the authorities. If there's been any contact. If there's been any guidance. Are you saying, at this point, there just simply has not been any contact from government officials?

ABRAMOV: There was a contact two days ago for missing people to come and give a DNA sample. So, we gave a DNA sample of him and mine just to make sure if they find him. And today on the third day of the -- after the attack, some rescue teams -- official rescue teams contacted us and we gave them the exact location -- the last location we knew and all the information we had and gathered by ourselves from friends and people that saw him or maybe saw him just to try and find him to find something. And that's it. It's chaos. It's so much information coming from unofficial sources. And this is this age of time, of so many sources coming. And we try to find him ourselves, I think much more than the official government or people.

HARLOW: Michal, you are nodding. Tell me more about that, your efforts to find your son.

HALEV: We are -- we have been calling and texting and e-mailing and just sending photos on social media and asking everyone we know and sending -- trying to look for people in upper scales in the official authorities. And just no one is contact -- we have no parents to this whole event. We are trying to connect with other parents. We are trying to connect with just -- we don't know anything. Please, please, if anyone can help us and all the other parents find our children. He was there with his friend, Tamar Semet (ph). And I hope you have her picture as well.

HARLOW: Yes.

HALEV: And we are desperate, desperate to find our children. Please, if anyone can just contact someone that can help us.

HARLOW: We are --

ABRAMOV: We're trying to find him on the -- in the hospital, on the injured, in the morgue. He's not in the kidnapped list. Nothing.

[07:45:00]

And we are -- you know, three days you don't do nothing about your son. It's hard. Very, very hard.

MATTINGLY: I can't even imagine. Can you tell people a little bit about your son, as you continue to, kind of, try keep hope to get any kind of information. What was he like?

HALEV: What is he like?

MATTINGLY: What is he like, yes.

HALEV: He is an amazing soul. Everybody that meets him loves him. He has this charming smile. He's 6'4". He's this huge gentle giant. His father is a deejay and his dream is to be a deejay like his father, and that's what he loves to do. He loves to be in nature with his friends and celebrate life. And that's what they were doing over there. They were just going out to have a good time in this crazy world that they live in.

ABRAMOV: Like young people should do.

HALEV: Yes.

ABRAMOV: And we can't even imagine such an event happening in such a happy place that its purpose is just to make good to yourself and to each other. And it's like the craziest horror movie which was nobody could ever dream something like this could happen. And people doing this stuff to other people.

HARLOW: Michal and David, we will keep showing the picture of your son as well as his friend, Tamar (ph), who I know was with him when he went missing. We will share this on all of CNN social media accounts. And we are here if there is anything we can do to help. Thank you.

HALEV: Please do anything you can.

ABRAMOV: Thank you very much.

HALEV: Thank you very much.

HARLOW: Of course.

MATTINGLY: New video just in to CNN showing Israel moving heavy armor and troops towards Gaza. More details from CNN reporters on the ground, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

HARLOW: Just in to CNN, this is new video, and you're going to be looking at heavy -- right there, heavy armor and troops moving towards Gaza from Israel. This comes after the third day of Hamas and Israel exchanging rocket fire.

Nic Robertson joins us now. Nic, explain to people exactly where you are in the context of all of this, and what you're seeing at this moment.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: So, we're in a town called Ofakim. We're about 10 miles from Gaza. Gaza is in that direction. And when Hamas stormed in on Saturday, this town, 10 miles from Israel proper was the furthest they got into Israel. Now, we've heard from Israeli Defense Forces today saying that they've got all Hamas elements out of Israel. That situation is under control here.

What we have seen on the highway driving down here today, we've seen some of that heavy military armor. In fact, there's some part -- well, I shouldn't go into details about the dispensation of military equipment, but we have seen some on the highway and some relatively close by.

And we have seen as well troops moving in this direction towards Gaza as well. Not huge numbers, but when we add that up with what we saw when we were up in the early hours of this morning, late into yesterday evening, and into the night yesterday, it is very clear there's a lot more -- there's a lot more tanks. A lot more howitzers, heavy mechanized howitzers. Those big guns that can maneuver around and fire artillery shells at long distance. Armored personnel carriers and additional troops coming in here.

The security checkpoints are very tight. There's a high degree of concern again making sure these areas are controlled. And just -- we've witnessed here just a few minutes ago, a small army patrol going by. So, this is an area where the military presence really is stepping up at the moment.

HARLOW: Nic Robertson, thank you very much for your reporting. I know you've been on the move all day as you've continued to cover this. Just extraordinary to have him on the ground. Thank you very much.

MATTINGLY: Well, the Palestinian Observer to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, is speaking out against Israel's military response to the Hamas terror attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIYAD MANSOUR, PERMANENT OBSERVER OF PALESTINE TO THE UNITED NATIONS: History for some media and politicians start when Israelis are killed. We know only too well that the messages about Israel's right to defend itself will be interpreted by Israel as license to kill. To pursue on the very path that led us here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: The death toll is rising on both sides, with more than 700 people confirmed dead in Israel, nearly 500 Palestinians killed. The U.N. estimates that more than 123,000 Palestinians have already been displaced since the fighting began on Saturday.

Joining us now Palestinian-American Middle East Analyst Omar Baddar. Omar, appreciate your time. To start with the timing. I think the big question has been the surprise and how did this happen? How was Israel caught so off guard? But what's your sense in terms of the timing of why it happened now?

OMAR BADDAR, PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: I think the timing is inherently random because otherwise it would not be a successful surprise attack. And I just want to mention that obviously, what we've seen out of it has been absolutely horrific. I've listen listening to your previous guests who are talking about not being able to find their children, and that's absolutely heartbreaking. As a father of two little children, and I cannot imagine how I would feel if they were kidnapped and I did not know where they were.

But the real scandal here is that this is every bit as horrific as it is predictable and preventable. A lot of people are talking about this an intelligence failure but I think there's a much more fundamental failure of common sense that you can put millions of Palestinians under indefinite military occupation and a system of apartheid as recognized by every major human rights organization in the world where Israel commits daily war crimes against Palestinians everywhere, land theft, lack of access to water, dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilian areas.

And to think that this is a situation that's not going to eventually lead to an explosion. This is absolutely insane. This is absolutely predictable. We were obviously heading towards eventually a disaster of this kind. And now, all of this direction towards further militarism and further violence is obviously not going to lead to anything better because that is exactly the track that got us here. I think that is absolutely correct. We need a real meaningful solution to the underlying justice that drives this violence, and that has to mean that Palestinians get to be declared free of Israeli control and occupation.

[07:55:00]

HARLOW: Omar, you just heard from Michal and David Abramov searching desperately for their 20-year-old son. They are one of many, at least, 100 hostages being held at this moment. This is what the spokesman for the IDF, Lieutenant Colonel Hecht, said overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. COL. RICHARD HECHT, IDF SPOKESPERSON: We don't focus our attacks on women and children. We'll do everything we can to minimize collateral damage. But again, we are at war with Hamas. And sadly, there might be people that are involved killed. It's not -- it won't be intentional. And sadly, Hamas have entrenched themselves in a cynical way within the civilian population.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You have said that this conflict cannot be solved militarily. How do you see this ending? Where do you see this going?

BADDAR: I mean, look, there's all of these pronouncements about the need to -- that they're going to do everything they can to avoid civilian casualties. It is really worth emphasizing here that Israel has bombed Gaza many, many times before and human rights watch and Amnesty International and even Israeli human rights organizations like B'Tselem say that this is not at all what Israel's conduct is.

There isn't an effort to minimize civilian casualties. There is mass indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. And frankly we're watching that unfold right now as well. The policy is essentially to punish the entire Palestinian population. Cutting off electricity to all of Gaza. Preventing anybody in Gaza from coming in and out.

This is an act of collective punishment. And this is exactly the trajectory that we are unfortunately are on. I think what we're going to see is much greater death that's going to cover the entire Gaza Strip. And at the end of it, Palestinians are going to remain a population that is captive and under an illegal siege as recognized by the U.N. And we're only setting ourselves up towards another round of this in the future.

What we need right now is the world community to come together and start dealing with this issue seriously. Understanding that this policy of giving Israel a carte blanche to behave however it wants towards Palestinians is not way to actually achieve long-lasting peace. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The one thing that has not been tried so far is allowing Palestinians to be free of Israeli occupation and military dictatorship. And until we start taking Palestinian grievance seriously, until Israel starts seeing Palestinians as equal human beings who are deserving of the same human rights and decency and dignity that Israelis enjoy, I'm afraid we're going to be in stuck in this situation for a very, very long time.

HARLOW: Omar Baddar, thank for joining us this morning.

BADDAR: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: We have new video this morning that shows what the Supernova Music Festival looked like moments before the deadly attack. Young people dancing and celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, but that was before the rockets and gunfire.

CNN's Clarissa Ward visited the festival site. We want to warn our viewers, what you are about to see is graphic and disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARD (voiceover): What happened I just up that quiet border road was a massacre.

WARD: I see a body.

WARD (voiceover): The bodies of the perpetrators still remain, while the fate of many victims is unknown. Organizers of the Supernova Music Festival say that thousands of young revelers had gathered to celebrate the end of the holidays. And just after 6:00a.m., Hamas militants launched a bloody attack.

WARD: So, we're just now on the approach to the Kibbutz where that dance party was taking place. You can see there's vehicles all around here that have been shot at. We see the bodies of at least one, two, Hamas fighters. I think there are more down this way.

WARD (voiceover): Many of the victims spent hours in hiding, waiting to be rescued, and calling their loved ones.

WARD: Many of them are still missing. Many of them are dead. It has been very difficult to try to get a precise number.

WARD (voiceover): Now, a volunteer group that handles human remains says that at least 260 bodies have been found at the festival site. The government here took a bold step, releasing an image of scores of body bags in a tent where investigators were tasked with identifying them.

WARD: So, you can see over here the body of at least one other person. I don't think you want to get too close to it, it's pretty graphic.

WARD (voiceover): Active fighting continued along this stretch of the border throughout the day as Israeli military forces poured in.

WARD: So, we're seeing a bunch of tanks being brought down this way. You can also -- I've been hearing a steady stream of booms, apparently rockets landing in the distance in that direction. And certainly, a feeling that people are on high alert. We tried to push further down that way. We were told in no uncertain terms we needed to turn around.

WARD (voiceover): Clarissa Ward, CNN, Re'im, Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Our Clarissa Ward reporting there. "CNN This Morning" continues right now.

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