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CNN This Morning
Israel Kills Militants Who Tried To Infiltrate From Lebanon; IDF Announces Safe Passage From Within Gaza, North To South; Biden Speaks with Families of Americans Unaccounted for in Israel; FBI and Pentagon Offering Hostage Recovery Expertise in Israel. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired October 14, 2023 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:00:34]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to CNN this morning. It is Saturday, October 14th. I'm Victor Blackwell.
AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Amara Walker. Thank you so much for being with us as we continue to follow the latest news. Breaking news right now, a mass evacuation in Gaza. The Israeli military has ordered more than a million people in northern Gaza to move south. They have given them a six-hour safe passage window today which we are now halfway through.
The Israel Defense Forces, the IDF, is accusing Hamas of actively trying to stop people from leaving so that they can use them as quote, human shields. But Hamas says that Israel is still carrying out airstrikes killing 70 people after warning them to move out. The Palestinian health ministry posted dramatic video showing the moment and ambulance was rocked by an explosion in Gaza during those evacuations.
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BLACKWELL: In Israel, the city of Sderot is under a red alert this morning after Hamas fired rockets into the city. CNN team on the ground there in the area heard Israel's Iron Dome intercepting the rockets and the sirens going off across the city. The U.S. says it is supporting Israel and its support is iron clad. Two of the Biden administration's most senior national security officials made trips to Israel this week. Defense Secretary Austin delivered more U.S. weapons, ammunitions to support Israel.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with several top leaders in the region, urging them to use their leverage with Hamas to free them more than 100 hostages taken to Gaza. On Friday, President Biden spoke with family members of some of the American hostages being held in Gaza, 14 Americans are still unaccounted for after last week's attack.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to do everything in our power to find them, everything on our power. And I'm not going to go into the detail of that. But there's -- we're working like hell on it.
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BLACKWELL: Well, it's been an active morning along Israel's northern front and its border with Lebanon as well. Israel has sent a number of airstrikes and drone attacks on Hezbollah.
WALKER: Yes, Israel says it's a response to an explosion at a security fence at the border. Now, earlier this morning, Israel said it killed a group of terrorists who tried to infiltrate the border. CNN's Ben Wedeman is in southern Lebanon right now. And Ben I understand you were at the funeral of one of the journalists who were killed there. What's going on? What's the latest?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a funeral for Issam Abdallah, a friend, a colleague, a cameraman for Reuters, who was killed yesterday afternoon by Israeli shelling near the border him and then a group of journalists they all had gear that clearly identified them as journalists. They were all in a very open place. But they were struck as a result of this violence that's ongoing on the border between Lebanon and Israel.
What we saw yesterday afternoon was this was in several locations. Issam was in a different location near to the Mediterranean. We were in the central border area. Let's try to catch up with the -- and what we saw was shelling on Lebanese territory, it appears that Hezbollah fired back targeting one military position that took a direct hit, as far as we could see.
Now this morning, the Israeli military is saying that they killed several infiltrators trying to cross the border into Israel. Last night just after about 1:00 a.m. local time, we heard several very large explosions in the direction of the border. Now, what we also saw yesterday was a heavy presence of Lebanese army along the road that runs by the border trying to just keep the situation under control.
It doesn't appear that Hezbollah at this point is anxious to become involved in a full scale war with Israel but it does seem to be doing enough to keep the Israelis on high alert. We were overlooking one Israeli community right next to the wall that constitutes the border between the two countries. That town, Metula, was essentially empty. The only movement we saw there were Israeli soldiers running from house to house.
[06:05:20]
But at this point it does appear that calm is being maintained. But for how much longer, time to say. Yesterday, the Israeli foreign -- the Iranian foreign minister made a visit to Beirut, Baghdad and Damascus. In Beirut, he stressed that if Israel continues with its operations in Gaza, then all scenarios are possible. Obviously, the concern is that if Hezbollah becomes involved, Hezbollah supported by Iran, then northern front could be open in this war and it could be far worse than what's going on in Gaza, given that Hezbollah is the best equipped, best trained, best lead non-state actor in the Middle East. Victor?
BLACKWELL: Ben, I know that you had to walk to keep up with what's happening there. Could you just talk more about what is happening around you right now where you are?
WEDEMAN: Well, this is the town of Khiam not far from the border. And this was a funeral procession for our friend and colleague who was killed yesterday. It's quiet. And there's nothing going on. It's a Saturday morning here. The town is obviously everyone's come out to this funeral. He was a very popular member of the Beirut Press Corps. I've known him for years. We work together in Syria and Iraq and here in Lebanon. And people have come from all over Lebanon to attend to this funeral for somebody who was a dear colleague. Victor?
WALKER: All right, Ben Wedeman, appreciate you being there and bringing us just the sights and scenes there in southern Lebanon. Well, U.S. intelligence warned the Biden administration of the growing risk of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians weeks before the devastating attack by Hamas that killed 1,300 people in Israel.
BLACKWELL: The intelligence community produced at least two assessments, part of which was based on intelligence provided by Israel, warned the Biden administration of the increased risk of conflict including possible rocket attacks by Hamas from Gaza. CNN, Alex Marquardt has more for us.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Sources familiar with U.S. intelligence tells CNN that there were warnings and indications about possible attacks by Hamas from Gaza that could happen, but nothing on the level of what we ended up seeing last weekend. There were at least three intelligence reports to American, one Israeli, in the days leading up to the horrific events of October 7th.
On September 28th and October 5th, the U.S. intelligence community issued warnings of potential cross border airstrikes by Hamas with rocket fire and then the growing possibility of violence around Gaza. Then on October 6th, there was a third report from Israel that was the day before the attacks, saying that there was unusual activity by Hamas.
Sources are now telling CNN that these reports looked nothing like what ended up unfolding in terms of the scope and the barbarity. A Biden administration official tells CNN quote, there was no information warning about the terrorist attack in advance. Instead, sources tell us that the sense was that if something happened that it would look more like it had in the past, perhaps rocket fire from Gaza, interceptions, then by the Israeli Iron Dome and possible responses into Gaza by Israel. But more profoundly, U.S. sources say there was a general complacency that had taken hold in Israel underestimating what Hamas could pull off. And given that Gaza and Hamas are in Israel's backyard. American sources say the onus is primarily on Israeli intelligence to have detected the looming plot still, with regular warnings from the U.S. intelligence community and Middle Eastern allies as well about a buildup of Hamas weapons and growing Palestinian anger. This is also raising questions about whether the Biden administration was taking the Hamas threat seriously enough.
Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.
BLACKWELL: Alex, thank you so much. Joining me now is CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel Leighton, good to see you. I want to start with a thread from what we just heard from Ben Wedeman there in Southern Lebanon and it's on Hezbollah. The IDF says that this morning had killed in their words, a number of terrorists in Lebanon struck Hezbollah targets yesterday in Lebanon as well.
What Ben said was that they are not fully in this. They're not intervening on behalf of Hamas, but in his words, doing enough to keep Israel on alert. Why do you think that to this degree Hezbollah is involved but not in? What's your assessment of their involvement to the degree that they are thus far?
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COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. Good morning, Victor. Right. The placement of what Hezbollah is doing is actually quite interesting, because they are helping Hamas in the sense that they are diverting Israeli forces to the north. And in essence, they've done that successfully, they are putting out some little attacks basically small-scale attacks in the direction of Israel, you know, using rocket fire, you know, some other things that they're keeping the Israelis off balance just a little bit.
And of course, there's some infiltration across the northern border. So that's just enough to keep people interested and occupied. And it also forces the Israelis to move more of their forces to the north more than they would like. Of course, the preponderance of Israeli forces is in the south. And that's going to stay that way unless and until there's a greater threat from the north.
BLACKWELL: The Israeli Defense Forces have started some raids in Gaza. There, of course, is this expectation of a ground incursion? We have the I guess, most recent history in the U.S. in the Iraq War, the house-to-house fighting, that happens in a ground war sending troops in. But considering Hamas is, their sophisticated tunnels and the history of their style of attacks, what should the IDF and the rest of us watching expect as this begins?
LEIGHTON: Yes, this might be a slow grinding process. It, you know, it won't be this a rapid movement at all, it won't be like something that you would see, for example, in Ukraine, when the Ukrainians reach took a large portion of the territory that Russia had taken from it. But in this particular case, because of those tunnels because of the cavernous nature, not only of the tunnels, but of the very streets in Gaza City, for example, it's going to be very difficult to go house to house, but it's almost a requirement, in order for the Israeli forces not to be surrounded either in a tactical sense, or a more strategic sense where a larger body of units could potentially be surrounded.
So the Israelis are going to have to be very careful, very diligent, very thorough, and they're going to have to find those tunnels very quickly.
BLACKWELL: There's also the, as Amara mentioned at the top of the show, we're halfway through a six-hour window to allow the requested 1.1 million people in Gaza, northern Gaza, to move south ahead of a potential ground incursion and continue to tax. There's the Norwegian Refugee Council that's warned that this relocation, quote, amounts to the war crime of forcible transfer. Secretary General the Norwegian Refugee Council said that the order must be reversed first, before we get into the logistics of this. Is that an exaggeration? What do you make of the characterization?
LEIGHTON: It's a false characterization, Victor, plain and simple. A forcible transfer of populations would be something like what the Soviets did in Eastern Europe after World War II or what happened between India and Pakistan in the late 1940s. This is an effort by the Israelis to protect the civilian population there, to warn them in advance that something is going to happen, and that they need to leave.
In essence, the Israelis are showing their hand militarily in order to try to protect the civilians. If the civilians take that advice, that's one thing. If they don't, of course, that's another. But the Israelis are doing what they can, under their interpretation of the laws of war, to try to protect the civilians as much as they can.
BLACKWELL: So some of the people in Gaza have moved south out of the requested evacuation zone. What does this portend for what's next for southern Gaza? I mean, if you asked a million people to leave northern Gaza, does that suggest that there will be fewer, at least airstrikes on southern Gaza?
LEIGHTON: One would think that's the way that this is going to unfold, because most of the targets of the Israelis are interested in so far has been in the north. But they have struggled a little bit in the south and in the central portions of Gaza already. So this is going to, I think, tax the targeting process. Plus, Hamas can very well move a lot of its activities to the central or the southern parts of Gaza, endangering those refugees when they go down that way. So it's a problem that is very difficult to solve from a targeting perspective. Victor?
BLACKWELL: Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you.
[06:14:41]
WALKER: Still to come, the United States presents a united front with Israel ahead of an anticipated ground offensive as tens of thousands of citizens in northern Gaza flee after calls for an evacuation. We're going to talk with a doctor in Gaza and find out the situation there. That's next.
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BLACKWELL: Two of America's top national security officials are building this united front in their visits to Middle East. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, they both emphasized us support for Israel in separate meetings with senior leaders.
WALKER: But behind the scenes, a difficult diplomatic challenge is brewing. How does the U.S. support Israel while keeping the war from expanding to new fronts? With us now is CNN's Jennifer Hansler in Washington, D.C., that is the question.
JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTER: Well, Victor and Amara that is indeed the question. And we have seen the U.S. engaged in this extensive shuttle diplomacy to try to respond, to try to deal with this challenge.
Now publicly, we have seen Secretary Austin and Secretary Blinken be absolutely in lockstep about their full-throated support for Israel and their need to respond to those atrocious Hamas attacks we saw last weekend. I just want you to listen to some of what they said in their stops in Israel both on Thursday and Friday,
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LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: As the U.S. Secretary of Defense, I am here in person to make something crystal clear. America support for Israel is ironclad. And I extend my deepest condolences to the Israeli people. For those killed or wounded in this terrible slaughter by Hamas.
ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: Israel has the right and indeed it has the obligation to defend its people. And to try to ensure that Hamas can never repeat what it's done. We continue to discuss with Israel the importance of taking every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.
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HANSLER: And this issue of protecting civilians is one that has come increasingly to the forefront in Blinken's public remarks. We know behind the scenes to hay (ph) has been urging Israeli officials to establish safe zones within Gaza to ensure that these civilians who are innocent have done nothing wrong are not affected by these military operations. It is unclear when those safe zones will be established, if they will be put in place before this expected military incursion.
At the same time, he is also working for Americans who live in Gaza to be able to evacuate to be able to get to Egypt. We were told just this morning by a senior State Department official that they are working to have the Rafah crossing, which is the only crossing opening right now out of Gaza, open for American citizens to be able to leave later today.
We will see if that happens in this official noted the situation is incredibly fluid. And it's possible that Hamas will block people from even being able to access that crossing. Victor, Amara?
WALKER: Yes. A very difficult situation on the humanitarian front, Jenny Hansler, thank you very much. So right now that humanitarian crisis in Gaza, it's only deepening. The World Health Organization is warning that hospitals in Gaza are at a breaking point.
BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now Dr. Zaher Sahloul with MedGlobal, which operates three hospitals in northern and central Gaza serving about 600,000 people in that portion of Gaza. It's one of the last nongovernmental organizations left there. Dr. Sahloul, thank you for your time. You're in Chicago, but I know that you've been in Libya, you've been in most recently Ukraine, Gaza several times before for perspective. How does the situation there in Gaza now compared?
DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL, PRESIDENT OF MEDGLOBAL: Giood morning, Victor. It's actually beyond catastrophic. I mean, there's no words to describe what's going on right now in Gaza. As you mentioned, I just came back from Ukraine where I meant, you know, visited some of the areas that were occupied by Russia around Kyiv. We have teams there in Ukraine. I've been in Syria. I've been in many other places, Yemen. And what's going on right now in Gaza is the worst that I've seen in disaster areas in the last 10 years or so.
Hospitals are overwhelmed. There's only 2,500 beds in the Gaza, whole strip of Gaza. And there's about 7,000 critically ill patients right now. So the whole hospital system is overwhelmed. I've seen videos that were sent by Dr. Hassan to me from Kamal Adwan Hospital. This is a hospital that we support in northern of Gaza and Beit Lahia.
And I've seen patients on the floor. I've seen every exam table, there's three or four children screaming, many of them are in shock, of course, all kinds of injuries. You have burn injuries. He sent me a gruesome picture of two children who were glued to their mom, dead body of their mom, and they were not able to separate them from the dead body of their mom. And all of them are dead.
And hospitals are running out of medical supplies and medications. Of course, they're running out also a fuel that is important to operate their electricity. And there's also they're running out of food and hope. Doctors and nurses are overwhelmed also because they're not sure whether they will be able to live for one more day or not. There were 75 attacks on health care, including ambulances and hospitals. And some of them lost family members and lost their houses. And now you have this evacuation order. Dr. Hassan just sent me a voicemail about this, which is horrible.
WALKER: Let me ask you about that. How -- so do all of your hospitals are three in northern and central Gaza, do they fall under that evacuation order? And how does that complicate the situation? Are your hospitals -- the doctors and the staff is everyone going to take the patients and everyone you're going to try to move south? SAHLOUL: Some of them did. We have nine staff members besides the hospitals that we support, three of them chose to move south and six decided to stay. Many people are unable to leave to south and leave their family members or their houses and they're afraid that they left they're not going to be able to go back.
[06:25:07]
As you know, 75 percent of people in Gaza are descendants of refugees and leaving their homes and villages is a huge trauma. The hospitals that we support did not evacuate yet. And Dr. Hassan told me that it's near impossible that they cannot evacuate a newborn who are in -- on incubators, patients on ventilators. And it's beyond control.
BLACKWELL: The ICRC says that once the fuel runs out to these hospitals, they will become morgues. You mentioned that the fuel sources, the resources are low. How much is there? How long can these generators be fueled? I mean, what is the cutoff date if the blockade continues to fuel into Gaza?
SAHLOUL: Our organization help doctors by providing training and medical technology, medical supplies, but our team was busy in the first three days by distributing diesel fuel because it's necessary to operate ventilators, operating rooms, emergency room, incubators, everything that hospitals will need. Without electricity, hospitals will go back to the Middle Ages, and we cannot perform as physicians and the nurses cannot perform. So that's a tragedy.
And also we are distributing medical supplies because hospitals are running of medical supplies. So this is a huge problem. Most of the hospitals that I talked to will, they said that they will have fuel for only a couple of more days. And because of the complete blockade that will exhaust and then hospitals will stop running.
WALKER: Let me ask you about the staff that have chosen to stay behind and of course, the patients who don't have a choice but to stay behind because of their medical needs. And the fact that we know Hamas hides within the civilian population. This is their MO. They also have tunnels underneath schools and they hide underneath and their weapons caches also, underneath hospitals and residential buildings. How does that impact the safety of the hospitals that you are working with?
SAHLOUL: Amara, that's a good question. I've been in Gaza four times, I did not see these tunnel systems, at least in the hospitals I visited and I trained in. But probably it's there. I mean, doctors and nurses care more about their patients and what's happening to them and to their families. And I'm not sure how these tunnels will factor in their management of daily patients.
They're more focused right now on how to stop the bleeding of a child that was pulled from under the rubble and been under the rubble for 48 hours pregnant woman who's trying to have C section and there is very minimal resources of patients with heart attack, that most of the resources are directed to patients who are injured. This -- the issue of tunnels and the fighting is the last thing that doctors and nurses are thinking of at this point. They want to focus only about their patients. And it's a horrible situation, especially in light of the bombing of many places, that bombing of roads and also the draining of resources, and the mental health trauma that is affecting all of them. We had a COVID pandemic a couple of years ago, and everyone was exhausted in my hospital in Chicago because of the sheer volume of many sick patients, many of them are dying, especially early in the pandemic. It's the same thing in Gaza, but times 1,000. The situation is beyond description.
BLACKWELL: Well, Dr. Sahloul, I thank you first for your time, but also for the work you're doing. We've seen some of the pictures that have been sent in by your organization and the video that we've seen come out of Gaza. And it is certainly tragic as we see these hospitals overwhelmed as this goes on. Dr. Zaher Sahloul with MedGlobal thanks so much.
SAHLOUL: Can I say one more thing?
BLACKWELL: Quickly. Yes. Can I say one more thing that for people who want to help, they can of course look at our website, medglobal.org. But it is important for call on everyone to stop the bombing, and also allow humanitarian corridor from Egypt because that's the only way that fuel and food and medical supplies and medicine, lifesaving medicine can get into Gaza.
VAUSE: And we'll focus more on the Rafah crossing and potentially the U.S. State Department there relating to Palestinian Americans, some passage there. We'll get into that a little later in the show. Doctor thanks so much.
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In addition to MedGlobal, for more information about how you can help humanitarian efforts in Israel and Gaza, go to CNN.com/impact. Or use your mobile device to scan the QR code that is there on your screen. We'll be right back.
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BLACKWELL: So we're learning more about the conversations between President Biden and the families of Americans who are unaccounted for in Israel.
WALKER: Yes, the president told "CBS News" that his administration is, quote, "working like hell", his words, to get them back.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're going through agony, not knowing what the status of their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, children are. You know, it's gut-wrenching. I assured them my personal commitment to do everything possible, everything possible to return every missing American to their families.
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WALKER: CNN's Jasmine Wright is joining us now from the White House. Hi, good morning, Jasmine. So, we know that 14 Americans, they remain unaccounted for, but the White House says it believes less than a handful of them are being held hostage. So, what do we know? What can you tell us about that call, by the way, President Biden held with the families as well?
JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Amara, well, President Biden was promising the full might of the U.S. government, promising to do what they can to get their loved ones back to their families.
[06:35:00]
We know from talking to sources, but also participants on the call that it was an emotional call lasting for about 45 minutes. There are about 20 representatives of the families on the call with President Biden, both in the U.S. and Israel, so a larger call, and it was really gut-wrenching about some of the stories that the president heard from those whose family members are missing.
He really tapped into that, what we know and what we call as empathizer and chiefly, listening they said, to allow the stories about family members, but also about what they wanted the U.S. government to do to try to return their family members.
And also, he very verbally and directly reiterated that commitment that he would do whatever he could to bring those family members back. Something that he also told "CBS 60 Minutes" just a day before that call happened. Take a listen.
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BIDEN: I say we're going to do everything in our power to find them, everything in our power. And I'm not going to go into the detail of that, but we're working like hell on it. Because I think they have to know that the president of the United States of America cares deeply about what's happening, deeply. We have to communicate to the world this is critical. This is not even human behavior. It's pure barbarism.
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WRIGHT: Now, when talking to the families that were on that call, that is exactly the message that they said that they got from the president, both support, empathizing and also understanding where they're coming from. They said that he even talked about knowing how hard it was to not know exactly how your family member is doing.
So, to those details that President Biden didn't want to get into -- you're right. There are about 14 missing Americans, only a handful, of those, according to NSC's spokesman John Kirby, are believed to be hostages of Hamas. Now, in terms of diplomatic, we know that we saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the ground there in Israel for the last few days. But yesterday, he was in Qatar, one of the countries we know that is
involved in diplomatic effort. Also, the U.S. has both FBI officials and other U.S. officials on the ground in Israel, trying to work that hostage situation. So this is something that the White House wants to show Americans that they have a full corps press on trying to bring those unaccounted back to their families. But of course, only time will tell exactly how this all unravels. Amara?
BLACKWELL: Jasmine Wright for us there at the White House, thank you so much. The house GOP is still in disarray. No end in sight to the speaker fight. Can Jim Jordan get enough votes? Could Kevin McCarthy make a comeback? We'll discuss.
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WALKER: With future aid to Israel on the line, the House of Representatives has now gone more than ten days without a speaker. The GOP did pick a new nominee for the job, Jim Jordan, but they still have the same numbers problem. More than 50 Republicans voted against supporting Jordan on the house floor, so the Ohio congressman doesn't seem to have the votes to get the gavel.
We're joined now by CNN political analyst and political anchor of "Spectrum News", Errol Louis, great to see you, good morning. So a speaker without in ten days, in that time, Israel declared war on Hamas -- we obviously have another war raging in Ukraine, funding about to run out in about 4 to 5 weeks. The U.S. House of Representatives is effectively paralyzed, right?
So talk to me about the big tasks at hand that cannot get done as a result of this standstill with no speaker.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Amara. That's right. In the immediate term, you've got the question of even just the expressions of support for Israel as well as a funding package. We're expecting a Senate delegation to go over to the Middle East and come back with a request for funding to support Israel that can't be acted on.
We know that there are ongoing needs in Ukraine, same outcome. No way to actually vote for the money. The speaker of the house is one of the most important positions in American government and second in line if something should happen to the president. That seat is currently unfilled. I mean, it really is extraordinary, and the government is going to run out of money in 34 days.
So all of the different priorities here at home will also be paralyzed. It's an extraordinary situation that they can't get it together enough to name a speaker to handle all these very weighty responsibilities.
WALKER: Yes, I just want to shake them and say, get together, right? How do you think this is going to play out for Jim Jordan as he's trying to get enough gavel votes. I mean, we saw winning the nomination is not the same as getting enough votes on the floor as we saw play out with, you know, Steve Scalise. So, what do you see? How does this move forward?
LOUIS: Well, look, we're in uncharted waters, but I find it hard to imagine Jim Jordan putting together enough votes to become the next speaker of the house. He was not their first choice even just a few days ago within the Republican conference, and certainly the Democrats are dead-set against him. The Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries gave a speech pointing out that Jim Jordan has never passed a piece of legislation in 16 years in the House of Representatives.
He's not respected on the other side of the aisle. A plurality wanted somebody else even within the Republican conference. So, you know, there's talk about placeholders, there're third-parties -- there are third candidates that have popped up in the last few days, but nobody can get a majority. But really, what is a possibility is that some kind of coalition forums that we -- have never seen before, in which Republicans cross the aisle, make some kind of a bargain with the solid Democratic minority, and put together the kind of coalition that can run Congress.
[06:45:00]
It's going to be very hard to imagine, but I never imagined we'd go this long without a speaker. So, we're -- again, we're in uncharted territory, but some kind of coalition government, so-to-speak, could in fact, be what gets us out of this.
WALKER: Crossing the aisle, that sounds like it's still a bad word though. We'll see what happens. What about the -- I mean, this has being talked about, giving more power to the interim speaker, Representative Patrick McHenry in the meantime. I mean, there are a crises happening right now.
LOUIS: Yes, that's kind of hard to imagine, to be honest with you. But I mean, you know the -- you never know what the Republicans might do, but they would require Democratic assistance. They would require a majority of the House of Representatives, and they seem split over everything. But they would need a majority in order to give him any extraordinary powers.
And it's not clear. You know, there could even be lawsuits. It's not clear that they can do that. You know, there's a limited role that he is expected to play, which is to manage the floor debate until a new speaker can be selected. And, again, the speaker is -- you know, this is listed in the constitution. It's listed in fact, even before the roles of the president of the United States are listed.
The framers of the constitution intended this to be a very serious position, a very important position, and not one where you just kind of slowly add some powers to somebody who's just supposed to be there as an interim measure. So, and I don't think McHenry wants more power than he already has, to be honest.
WALKER: Yes --
LOUIS: It seems -- it seems like they're going to have to work through this the hard way.
WALKER: What an embarrassment, right? I mean, just watching this dysfunction, nothing happening. The world is watching as America tries to lead, you know, with -- and give support, unwavering support for Israel. What would the consequences be of this bitter intra-party fighting? Do you see the Republicans losing their slim majority in 2024?
LOUIS: Oh, not necessarily. I think it will do a lot of damage to them going into next year's elections if they are branded as the party that cannot run government. It's going to hurt a lot of individual members, and it could cost them the majority, and they could really have some implications for the race for president as well.
WALKER: Errol Louis, appreciate you getting up early again. Thank you so much.
BLACKWELL: Still ahead, this is a remarkable story. We'll tell you how a 72-year-old former paratrooper protected his Kibbutz from Hamas terrorists.
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[06:50:00]
BLACKWELL: So, all week we've been hearing these stories of heroism as we learn about how Israeli citizens put up this resistance against Hamas militants who invaded their home.
WALKER: And one such story -- excuse me, a 72-year-old paratrooper led local residents in a revolt when invaders approached their Kibbutz near Gaza last weekend. CNN's Matthew Chance has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(GUNFIRE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The attacks by Hamas were a bloodbath, Israelis slaughtered or taken hostage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): But the Kibbutz again near Gaza, the militants met their match.
BARUCH COHEN, HEAD OF SECURITY, KIBBUTZ MAGEN: Well, to think that they always were there -- told is, you shall never catch me with my underwear in my hand.
CHANCE (on camera): Never catch you with your pants down.
B. COHEN: Never.
CHANCE: He suffered shrapnel wounds and an amputated leg when dozens of Hamas fighters tried to breach his Kibbutz fence last weekend. This 72-year-old former paratrooper and war veteran swung into action.
B. COHEN: I then decided to take my car, I take a few magazine with me and I decided to enter as much as soon as I can let go -- to show them over the window of my car.
CHANCE: So you drove towards the attackers --
B. COHEN: Yes --
CHANCE: And you started shooting at them.
B. COHEN: I -- right, I shoot them --
CHANCE: Before they came through the fence?
B. COHEN: Before. In my head, that was the only way to stop them.
CHANCE (voice-over): In nearby Jewish community or Kibbutzim, Hamas attackers ran amok in a vile killing and kidnapping spree. But in Kibbutz Magen hunted more than 400 Israelis. A small team of armed volunteers trained and led by Baruch kept the militants at bay.
B. COHEN: Never seen --
CHANCE: His wife, Mina at his bedside told me she has no doubt why?
MINA COHEN, HAMAS ATTACK SURVIVOR: The difference is about -- because --
CHANCE (on camera): Your husband --
M. COHEN: My husband, Baruch, 20 years that he's used -- that he's in this position, and every time that a lot of young people coming, make the same position, that, well, we can -- in Kibbutzim -- they laugh at him. They said that he's crazy. They said that they -- that he's speaking nonsense. Nobody will come. And Baruch defended Kibbutz year by year, and all the people left him, and he was --
CHANCE: They laughed at him --
M. COHEN: Yes --
CHANCE: They said he was paranoid.
M. COHEN: He's paranoid.
CHANCE: They said it's not going to happen.
M. COHEN: It's not -- it's never going to happen because we have the army.
(GUNFIRE)
[06:55:00]
CHANCE (voice-over): In fact, the Israeli army came under attack by Hamas, too, leaving Baruch and his team to fight alone for more than six hours, way longer than expected.
B. COHEN: Where is the army? They teach us that if something happened --
CHANCE (on camera): Yes --
B. COHEN: I always tell some of my friends as well as Mabel's(ph), that they've got 35 minutes -- of course, 12 minutes that belong to us until 35 minutes, the army should be here, the best units should be here and et cetera.
CHANCE: But they didn't come.
B. COHEN: In their words (INAUDIBLE) --
CHANCE (voice-over): As Israelis elsewhere were taken hostage, their communities overrun, Baruch fought on, civilian injured and out of ammo, armed with just a blade.
B. COHEN: I take a knife and I said, if you should come, he should find me holding a knife.
CHANCE: A stubborn determination his friends and neighbors say helped save them from a grim fate of others nearby. Matthew Chance, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALKER: A remarkable story, Matthew Chance, thank you. Still to come, as Israel prepares for a possible ground offensive in Gaza, it's also been an active morning along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. We're going to have team coverage from the region when we come back.
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