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CNN This Morning

Gaza Humanitarian Crisis Catastrophic as Supplies Run Out; Secretary Austin: US Concerned about Potential Escalation; IDF: Israel Struck 320 Targets in Gaza Overnight; Former U.S. V.P. and Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Pence Interviewed on Biden Administration's Request for Funding Support for Ukraine, Israel, and U.S. Southern Border; Israeli Strikes against Hamas in Gaza Increase as Possible Ground Invasion Pending. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 23, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I know you largely have been supportive of this, maybe quibble with some of the numbers, but there are a lot of Republicans in Congress who are not supportive of it, and I wonder what you say to them.

MIKE PENCE, (R) FORMER U.S. V.P., 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I would say to them that following that disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan by President Joe Biden that cost the lives of 13 American service members and really weakened America's credibility on the world stage, and after two years of appeasement by the Biden administration of Iran, that we've got to recognize that the weakness of this administration has emboldened the enemies of freedom around the world. War is raging in Eastern Europe, and now war in the Middle East. We continue to see China menace in the Asia Pacific.

We've got to meet this moment with American strength. We're the leader of the free world, we're the arsenal of democracy. I would tell my old colleagues, it's time. Let Congress work its will, let them crunch the numbers. For heaven's sakes, let's get resources to secure the southern border of the United States as well. But this is a time for American leadership and American strength, and that's the pathway toward peace around the world and among our allies.

HARLOW: And those are all things included in this package proposed by the Biden administration. Come back soon, former Vice President Mike Pence, thank you.

PENCE: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: CNN THIS MORNING continues now.

And it is the top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow with Phil Mattingly in New York, Erin Burnett live in Tel Aviv. Overnight, Israeli forces ramping up air strikes on Gaza, launching raids on the ground. The IDF says troops are gearing up for, quote, the next phase of the war with Hamas. And a senior Israeli official tells CNN there will be no ceasefire. This is new video this morning of the aftermath in Gaza City. Palestinian officials are claiming the intense bombardment has killed at least 436 people, including more than 180 children. The Israeli military says it struck hundreds of targets including the underground tunnel network used by Hamas fighters.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And new this morning, Israel's president says one of the Hamas fighters killed during the attack on Israel more than two weeks ago was carrying instructions of how to build chemical weapons with cyanide. CNN has not verified the claim. Let's go straight to Erin Burnett live in Tel Aviv. Erin, so much is moving right now, as has been the case for almost two weeks now. What's happening on the ground?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: On the ground, our Nic Robertson has reported, obviously, overnight. You could absolutely experience, he witnessed and can verify an increase in the Israeli strikes, more than 300 of them, as you said.

Also we're finding out that Israel has made its first operational use of a new type of weapon. It's a precision munition, it's a mortar bomb that they have used for precision targeting, tunnel targeting. And we understand they have used about 10 of them over the past 17 days since this war began. And this new weapon, as our Nic Robertson was reporting, actually even sounds very different than what we're accustomed to hearing along front lines like the one that has already started along the border with Gaza.

So that's the latest that we understand now. But more than 300 targets overnight. Those were targeting command centers. Those were targeting individual Hamas operatives, of course, and also tunnels. And right now, I will say it's quiet. It is the middle of the day. It is the heat of the day, not usually the loudest time. It is quiet today. The question is whether it will be the quiet before the next storm or not, Poppy.

HARLOW: What about what Israeli President Isaac Herzog has said, that they found, I believe, a USB drive on one of the Hamas militants that was killed in the attack that has some sort of instructions for a chemical attack using cyanide. What specifically was found? I know CNN hasn't independently verified it yet, but what does it tell us?

BURNETT: So it's a USB, and on it they found a page from an Al Qaeda operational manual back from 2003. Interesting, of course, the Israelis are making the argument that this shows that it is one continuum from Al Qaeda to ISIS, now to Hamas. This is an operational manual with a page, with a crude drawing of a cyanide distribution method from chemical weapon from a 2003 manual. No evidence presented that there was any intent to actually use such a weapon by the Hamas operatives.

But I will say, Phil and Poppy, reading through some of the documents that were found on these Hamas operatives, what they did have that they used was incredibly specific and accurate, detailed and tested over time, battle plans that they had worked on for at least a full year, since October, 2022, with plans to attack individual kibbutz along that border that were incredibly detailed. And they did follow those exactly to a T.

[08:05:00]

A volunteer defender in one of those kibbutzim literally going through and reading it. It said do this and then this, and go to this street, and go to that. And they said that is exactly what they did.

So some of the documents found on Hamas operatives they did follow to the T. Others, like this chemical weapon, may just have been something that was on a USB in someone's pocket. Unclear if it's any more than that. But Israelis are saying that they found that as well.

HARLOW: Erin, thank you very much for the reporting. We'll get back to you very soon.

MATTINGLY: As the Israeli war effort is escalating and a ground operation into Gaza seems imminent, there are conflicting stories this morning about whether the U.S. is calling for an actual delay.

Two sources briefed on the discussion tells CNN the Biden administration has pressed Israel to hold off its invasion of Gaza to allow for more time to release hostages held by Hamas, and more aid to reach Gaza. But a senior Israeli official denied the U.S. is seeking any delay, telling CNN, quote, "We deny this report. We have a close dialogue and consultations with the U.S. administration. The U.S. is not pressing Israel in regards to the ground operation." Here's how President Biden responded over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you encouraging the Israelis to delay invasion?

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm talking to the Israelis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Joining me from the White House is National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby. Admiral, appreciate your time. My sense is there's some space in between, there's some gray area here to some degree, which is why I want to ask this question. Does the administration believe that once a ground incursion is launched, the window to get hostages released closes?

JOHN KIRBY, COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Look, I think, I'm not getting ahead of Israeli military operations and whether there will or will not be a ground incursion, it kind of depends on what they do and the manner in which it's executed.

And since the beginning of this conflict, we have been talking to our Israeli counterparts about their plans, their intentions, their strategy. We have been asking them how they're answering the tough questions that any military is going to have to do before you go on and conduct major operations. And that's what we're doing now. But obviously, look, the Israeli Defense Forces, they make these decisions for themselves. They have to defend their own people on their sovereign soil, and of course, they're going to have to make those decisions.

MATTINGLY: I understand that. But if the administration's interest, in particular, is with 10 Americans that are currently missing, a majority of which are believed to be hostages, do you believe that whenever the, quote, "Next phase," as the Israelis have framed it, of this operation commences, the window closes to get those Americans released through negotiations?

KIRBY: Again, I think it would depend on what operations we're talking about, how they execute them. I will tell you that nothing has changed about our focus on those hostages. We're glad we got two back home with their families where they belong last week. We want to get the rest of them out. And you've got to have the ability to continue to negotiate and try to work towards that outcome. So we absolutely want to make that happen.

MATTINGLY: Admiral, I want to ask you something about the president, what he said on Air Force One. He was asked about discussions that have been happening. I'm not going to ask about military operations, but take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have long talked about that and what alternatives there are. Their military is talking with our military about what the alternatives are, but I'm not going to go into that, either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: What are the alternatives? Everybody's been talking so, I think, definitively about a ground incursion. There's an assumption there. It has not been confirmed. It is just an assumption. Clearly, there's been a buildup. What alternatives are there right now?

KIRBY: Anytime you conduct a military operation, you plan for what we call branches and sequels, different ways of executing that mission, and contingencies in case Plan A doesn't work and you've got to go to Plan B. And what the president is talking about is exactly what I have just been saying. Since the beginning, we have been in touch with our Israeli counterparts about their thing, about their planning.

And of course, we have a little experience of this too. And I think we have been willing to share some of that experience with the Israelis in terms of branches and sequels and thinking about the contingencies and what the backup plans might be. You would expect us to do that. We're very, very close friends.

MATTINGLY: The secretary of Defense said this weekend there's a prospect of significant escalation. You guys have talked about the concerns about escalation, the efforts towards deterrence. There have obviously been shots back and forth between Iranian proxies. Has there been any sign that the type of escalation the administration has been concerned has started?

KIRBY: We have seen some worrisome attacks. And we've got to do what we've got to do to protect our troops on the ground, particularly in Iraq and Syria. You have seen us add additional military capability to the region. We are watching this very, very close, so I don't want to get ahead of where we are. But right now, we don't see an indication that a major player is willing to escalate in a major way. That said, I don't want to diminish the kinds of attacks that we have seen in the last few days on our troops.

MATTINGLY: Admiral, I want to ask you something. We had a gentleman who's friends with -- close friends with a couple who has a child that are currently near the Rafah crossing. They have been there for several days now. And we asked about what Secretary Blinken said over the weekend, was that basically, Hamas has been blocking American citizens from crossing the Rafah crossing.

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We asked him about that statement. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMMY NABULSI, FRIENDS TRAPPED IN GAZA WITH THEIR ONE-YEAR-OLD SON: And that statement by Secretary Blinken is one of two things. It's either not true or it's wordplay. So physically at the crossing, there are no militants. There are no military or government personnel at all on the Palestinian side. Abood sent me video and pictures of him at the crossing, and literally, the only thing between him and Egypt is a series of gates that are just closed. There just isn't an agreement right now about aid coming in and American citizens getting out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Admiral, to that point, we talk a lot about the hostages. There are several hundred American citizens that are currently in Gaza.

KIRBY: Yes.

MATTINGLY: To the point made by Sammy there, what is the disconnect right now? When will they be allowed out?

KIRBY: I wish I could tell you date certain, time certain. We want to get them out. We want to make sure they have safe passage out, and we are working very, very hard both with the Israelis and with the Egyptians to get to that outcome. Right now, of course, you've seen some humanitarian assistance flow in, but we have not forgotten the plight of those hundreds of Americans that are on the other side of the Rafah crossing. We know they want to get out, and we want to help them get out, and we are working on that very, very hard.

MATTINGLY: You have been working on that very, very hard for several days now. They have oftentimes gotten messages about specific windows when could leave. That fell apart. Is there any sense that working will end up with an outcome soon? KIRBY: That's what we're working towards, Phil. I wish I could tell

you for sure, but this is hard stuff. And if it was easy, they would have been out on October 8th. But it's hard stuff to get done. And that's why our diplomats are on the ground. Ambassador Satterfield was specifically appointed for this purpose to get aid in and to get people out, Americans out. He's working on this literally every single hour of every single day. Again, I wish it was easy. I wish we could just flip a switch and have that gate open and all those folks get out. But that's just not the reality on the ground.

MATTINGLY: Understood. Last one before I let you go. In the president's primetime address, he talked about the aid he's seeking for Ukraine and how much of the aid is to basically refill American stockpiles.

KIRBY: Right.

MATTINGLY: My question is, the state of those stockpiles right now, the state of where U.S. weapons stockpiles stand with two wars, sending now two different types of shipments on a regular basis towards two U.S. allies, how big is the concern that the U.S. is dangerously low on what it should have for its own defense right now?

KIRBY: Of course, it's a concern. That's why we asked for that extra supplemental funding from Congress. Without getting into classified information, I can assure you and the American people that the United States military can continue to defend our national security interests all around the world. But it's something that we watch very, very closely. And with every single aid package that goes to Ukraine and now Israel, the Department of Defense has to do an assessment to make sure that we can continue to meet our own war plans, our own operational needs. And we are doing that.

We have also revitalized the defense industry to create, to manufacture, and produce much more of these munitions so that we can, A, keep them going to Ukraine and Israel, but also B, replenish those stocks. But it is important, and that's exactly why the president asked for that supplemental funding.

MATTINGLY: Admiral John Kirby of the National Security Council, appreciate your time, sir, thank you.

KIRBY: You bet, thank you.

HARLOW: The humanitarian crisis is getting worse by the hour in Gaza. Officials are warning hospitals are overwhelmed. There's an acute shortage of food and fuel. Clarissa Ward takes a close look at the dire situation inside those hospitals.

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BURNETT: Gaza's catastrophic humanitarian crisis deepening this morning, and some of the images that we are going to show you are disturbing. This is just a look at how dire the situation has become. Some parents

in Gaza apparently are writing their children's names on their legs to help identify them if they are killed. It is just as hard to see what the children go through who do survive.

This is a journalist in Gaza who was traveling to the scene of a strike. Here is what he said. Listen for yourself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heading to a place that got striked and just people gave me these two babies. They are injured by the bombing. You see them. You're fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: A Gazan neonatal doctor warns that infants on ventilators won't survive if the electricity is interrupted. Doctors also say that yesterday was a bloody day, the Israeli airstrikes intensified. Israel said that themselves.

Doctors say 166 bodies arrived at the hospital. Of course, none of these numbers are possible to verify independently. Meanwhile, they're forced to treat patients right now, they don't have morphine. So not even a painkiller for the surgeries that are desperately needed. Kids with burns are suffering with no painkillers.

This is a healthcare system, obviously, that has completely collapsed. Doctors are toiling against the clock and against everything to try to keep people alive.

Clarissa Ward is live in Cairo, Egypt with more.

Clarissa, you were at the Rafah border crossing where now, there are a few trucks of aid going in, nothing like what is needed, but a few.

But one of the things you were talking about explicitly was how fuel was not allowed, so that there would be water, there could be medicine, things like that, but no fuel, because Israel says that Hamas would siphon that off and take that for their own purposes.

But Clarissa, what does this mean for hospitals who, you know, when you run through your generator fuel, then you really don't have any backup electricity even to keep those ventilators or anything else going. So what do we even know about the dire nature of the fuel crisis for hospitals?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think you seized on the right word, though, Erin, "dire." It's gone from critical to dire.

Israel has turned off the electricity in the Gaza Strip. That means that all of these hospitals are dependent upon generators. Those generators are dependent on fuel and fuel is not getting in. Israel has blocked it. They say it could be taken by Hamas. But as a result, you have this kind of diplomatic impasse: How to get

that fuel in? How to satisfy Israel's concerns? So far, no one has been able to resolve it.

We're talking about 34 trucks worth of aid that have gone through that border into Gaza in the last couple of days. Just to give you some perspective, Erin, in a normal 16-day period, more than 7,000 trucks full of aid would have gone through into Gaza.

And now, this is all happening against the backdrop of relentless bombardment, many civilian casualties. We spoke to one doctor in the Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, take a look what he had to say.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice over): You are entering the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. This is just one minute on one day, but doctors tell us it could be any minute of the last 16 days.

It is a scene from hell. Many of the patients are young children. The reception area now a triage center, and everywhere you turn, another casualty.

Every one of these people has been ordered by Israel's military to evacuate the hospital, including the staff already outnumbered and overwhelmed.

And as the punishing bombardment continues, the wounded keep flooding in. Doctors say there is nowhere else for them to go and no safe way to transport them out.

DR. MARWAN ABUSADA, CHIEF OF SURGERY, AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL: We had the mass -- the mass casualties once or twice a day, but now, we have every half an hour casualties, so it is overloaded. Our Emergency Department and our OT Department and our IBD Department are overloaded with patients.

WARD (voice over): Dr. Marwan Abusada warns that the situation is about to get dramatically worse. The hospital, he says is just two days away from running out of fuel needed to power the generators that are keeping the hospital and its patients alive.

WARD: If you do run out of fuel in two days, what will you do? I mean, what can you do?

ABUSADA: I think the international community will be part of the process of killing of our people. If they don't act on Israel to allow to get fuel to enter Gaza, what to do for the people who are in the ICU on mechanical ventilator? What about the neonatal? The neonates? The small babies?

We have more than 130 in our neonatal ICU units. What to do with them? They will -- okay, it is, I think we are allowing them to die in this. That is the issue if we don't have the fuel to run our generators in the hospital.

WARD (voice over): Just a trickle of aid has been allowed to cross into Gaza, and none of it fuel, blocked by Israel, it says over concerns if will be taken by Hamas.

Hundreds of trucks are waiting along the Egyptian side of the border. Diplomatic efforts to establish a continuous humanitarian corridor have failed, and there is no more time for debate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (on camera): Now, Erin, another important point to make is that the trickle of aid that has gone into Gaza has not reached northern Gaza, has not reached that Al-Shifa Hospital.

Dr. Abusada said they haven't seen any of the medical supplies that have been going inside Gaza. This is just another problem, another obstacle to be overcome.

And meanwhile, a lot of frustration, particularly in the Arab world, certainly here in Egypt, from the government. They say they desperately want to make this happen, but there is just a complete standoff over this issue of the fuel.

Obviously, Israel has been very vocal about its concerns about getting the fuel, but we are now firmly on the precipice of what is very clearly a life or death situation -- Erin.

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely, and of course Israelis say there is no electricity in Gaza, but when we look at those shots and the night, it is incredibly dark.

Poppy and Phil, back to you.

MATTINGLY: All right, thanks, Erin. We'll get back to you soon.

We want to bring in CNN chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour, who joins us live from London.

There is the humanitarian crisis, Christiane, and then there's kind of the broader geopolitical on the verge of crisis, if not already there.

You have so much experience in the region. The way regional actors are operating right now, how close is kind of that line that US officials are very clearly concerned about right now?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: So guys, the internationals who support you know, Hamas, Hezbollah, all the rest of it, and the regional powers are looking at precisely that humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza as part of their publicly stated reasons for potentially getting involved.

And just to add, you know, the fuel means that there's no water either. Humanitarian organizations, the UN told me just last week, that most Gazans have to rely on bottled water because they have salinated water naturally occurring and without fuel, they cannot operate the desalination process. So it's about water, too.

I mean, this is the basic of survival, because people can live longer without food than without water.

This is causing Hezbollah, Iran, the others to say, unless, this "war crime," this humanitarian catastrophe is not relieved, not to mention the massive deaths amongst civilians including according to Gaza Health Ministry, some 1,900 children, then on Iran's words, the situation risks spinning out-of-control, and you can see there has been more intensive, I'm going to say skirmishes now, but engagements on the northern Israeli border between Hamas and the IDF.

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HARLOW: Christiane, you have so much experience reporting on Hamas and its rise to power. I mean, especially in 2009 right after the Israel-Hamas war in December of 2008. Can you tell us a bit about that, and how it informs where Hamas is now?

AMANPOUR: So yes, I started going, you know, in the Hamas era in 2006, when they won that election that the US had insisted on at that time. The administration of George W. Bush had insisted on an election, believing that their war in Iraq meant that democracy was going to, you know, take over the Middle East via Baghdad. Well, it didn't happen.

And despite what the Israeli government and what the Palestinian Authority said, that don't have these elections, because Hamas will win in Gaza, they did go ahead and have the elections and of course, Hamas won.

At that time, I went in in 2006, and then again, June, just after the last, you know, the latest war, 2008-2009. Hamas was moving from having been mostly, mostly according to the people a social organization. It was becoming more and more militant, more and more involved in "the resistance" and becoming very, very militant in that way.

But what I did notice and which I think is a cautionary tale, is I visited the homes of Palestinians in Gaza City and around that, you know, heavily -- always heavily bombarded north Gaza and went to civilians' homes, there was a little boy who I always remember, Hamza, five years old, who his parents showed me what had happened to their house in the latest Israeli campaign.

And this is a cautionary tale about what happens when people are constantly subjected to this kind of violence, and how they and where they put their faith and their, you know, their politics, even as a kid for the future.

Just watch this a little bit, an excerpt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice over): Since this latest round of war, teachers have noticed not just sadness, but anger. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hamza, please put that down.

AMANPOUR (voice over): Hamza hits a boy with the ball that we've given him. When an adult tells him to share, he makes an extraordinary threat. He wants to bring in the Hamas militia.

For him, they are the strongest authority.

AMANPOUR: Oh my God.

AMANPOUR (voice over): They tell me, their home was hit by missiles twice. It so frightened their 90-year-old grandmother that she now spends her days sitting outside in the dust.

(HAMZA speaking in foreign language.)

AMANPOUR (voice over): Unprompted, Hamza launches into a tour of his devastated home, complete with sound effects.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (on camera): So you see what happens, and we spoke to a very respected psychologist at the time in Gaza who said they have no more faith in their parents, they can't defend them. They have no faith in society, not their teachers, just in what they're told is their defender, and that is Hamas in this case.

And so these generations, and that was in 2009, he is nearly 20 now, young Hamza, where is he today?

This is a very cautionary tale. And you can see it in even in US expeditions in whether it's in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the tendency to radicalize people who have nowhere else to turn.

HARLOW: At such a young age as well. Christiane, thank you. I'm so glad you brought us back to that moment.

Well, sources tell CNN, the United States is indeed pressuring Israel to delay its planned ground invasion of Gaza in hopes of getting more hostages out.

A senior Israeli official tells CNN there will be "no ceasefire" in Gaza. We'll be joined by a man who says five of his family members were taken by Hamas in the initial attack on October 7th.

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