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Oct 24, 2023 54 min

Hamas releases two more hostages

from Anderson Cooper 360 Hosted by CNN Podcasts

Two more hostages have been released from Hamas custody after Qatari and Egyptian mediation. Israeli citizens Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz have arrived for medical care in Tel Aviv, Israel. Yocheved’s daughter Sharone Lifschitz joins AC360 from Heathrow Airport where she was about to jump on a flight to Israel when she heard the good news. Plus, the United Nations says twenty more trucks passed the Rafah crossing into Gaza to bring vital humanitarian aid. CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward gives Anderson Cooper an update on the hospital situation in Gaza. For daily information on the Israel-Gaza conflict, check out CNN’s podcast ‘Tug of War: Attack on Israel’ here: https://link.chtbl.com/-lB8n-bJ To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

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Hamas releases two more hostages

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Three a.m. in Tel Aviv, two more hostages and more than 200 still being held are on their way home. Noreek Cooper, who's 79 years old, and Yokeve Lipschitz, who's 85. Both Israeli citizens, both taken with their husbands from Kibbutz and Yaraaz on October 7th.

This Lipschitz and her husband are founding members of that Kibbutz. Her husband is still being held. A short time ago, she and Mrs. Cooper were handed over to the Red Cross and the Rafa border crossing into Egypt from southern Gaza, where they eat to were examined by medics before being put into ambulances for the first leg of their journey back to Israel.

Now the medics telling an Egyptian state-affiliated media outlet that Mrs. Cooper and Lipschitz were in stable condition, and just a few moments ago, we got this video of a military helicopter arriving at a hospital here in Tel Aviv carrying the two freedwomen, now safely back here in Israel. This comes with sources telling CNN that the Biden administration has been pressing, Israel to delay its incursion into Gaza, to allow more time to get hostages out and humanitarian aid in from the south. That said, national security spokesman John Kirby tells CNN to, quote, we don't believe that this is the time for a ceasefire.

It's really a lot to get to in the hour ahead. We begin with my conversation with Yokel Kibbutz and Yokel Kibz and Yokel Kibbutzitz, his daughter Sharon, who grew up on Kibbutz and Yaraaz and now lives in London. When we spoke, she just got in the news of her mother's release and was at Heathrow Airport about to catch a flight here. Sharon, what have you heard about your mother?

My mom, she's now with us. She's been flown out and she's coming. I've seen a picture of her in a bed, in a hospital bed. She's waving her hand.

I know that she's well enough to see and well enough to walk. I think she walked across the border. So my mom's story is an amazing story. My heart is with my father and the other 218 people also that are still held hostage.

This is a great sign that other things can happen. Do you know the other hostage who's been released, Noreet? Yes, of course. She's a Kibbutz member, her name is Noreet Kupa and she's a member of I Know That All My Life.

What did you, when you heard the news, what went through your mind? It's impossible to describe. My mom, I think she had a good smile. I don't know.

I'm so delighted. But my heart is with, you know, this is a small ray of light in a big story that is still unfolding. My father is there. So many other people were waiting for good news about everyone.

My heart is with all my friends and loved ones and everybody else that are still hostage. I think this is a great sign that we are moving in the right direction. Your father is still being held hostage. Have you had any information about him?

I know. I don't know any information at least. I'm waiting to hear what my mom says and I do not know. What is your message to other hostage families who are watching this eager for, happy for you wishing more were released?

What's your message to them? I hope we can share in this happiness and that when we can all join the together. We should know over. You know, my mom is one ray of light and my phone is trying to serve and everybody are happy for us.

I'm waiting to also be happy for them. There are so many from your eyes who are killed who are missing. It's a community of 400 people. A quarter of them are believed dead or missing.

It's unthinkable. More. More. More than a quarter.

And we have to bring those as we still can. This is not a political issue. This is a humane issue. We have lost so many people are going to funerals every day.

Noya and Carmela are dead. This is a ray of light because there's so much darkness and I can't wait to hug my mom and I can't wait to see my other members of my community and the region also hugging their loved ones. I have to go now. There's a lot of members of your community who want to hug you as well.

Have a good flight. Thank you. We speak again soon. Thank you.

Sharon, we've just been able to establish communication with Ms. She's grandson Daniel who's just seen his grandmother at the hospital. Daniel, how is she doing? She's talking.

She can walk. She can hug her grandchildren, which are very happy from that. We are very glad to meet her. It is incredible that we see her.

We couldn't imagine that it will happen. From one side I have so much joy and light from seeing her. I'm telling you I came here from a lat now with a helicopter to see her and the joy in the hotel in a lat that gives huge amount of hope for the other families that was just inspiring. I felt like everyone are just hugging me in an amazing gesture.

Like their people are there. They're not sure if they will be back, but it was just giving them so much joy, so much light that I have goosebumps all over my body now to think about it. I mean, for this community to see these two old women was just an amazing thing. And meeting my grandmother here was, I was thinking that I would never see her again and see her here.

It's just amazing. She's a hero. She has so much courage. She's so strong.

She's sick and she suffered walks in tunnels and so many things. I don't know where this woman has this power from. And seeing her, which I know that she's so strong, I can imagine another one and I'm telling you we have to be fast. Seeing my grandma like that and from one side, so happy but from the other side, I see her how she's been through.

And I know that the timeline, the clock is ticking and making everything to bring all those hostages back is so evident now. And it's the top mission now for everybody. A lot what you were talking about. That's where most of the community from the EROS has been relocated to now.

You're all together. Did your grandmother, did she describe some of what her captivity was like you mentioned tunnels that she was moving through? So she mentioned that she was a walk and then she was there in a room but she didn't know much and I actually didn't have the time to speak with her. So I know the officials will speak with her and I'm sure there will be no more, we were more in the hugging and crying and kissing her.

For coming here. Hearing the story. Yeah. Yeah.

Both your grandmother and your grandfather who is still being held. I mean they sound like such extraordinary people. They were among the original founders of the community of near us which I think has been there for more than 50 years. They were peace activists in many ways.

What are your thoughts? Your grandfather is still being held. This is an impossible situation for families like yours. Yeah, it's so much joy and light and you know happiness from one side and so much sadness and still this rollercoaster.

We don't go out of it. I could describe my feeling like I went up on a rollercoaster and I can't go out when I sleep it's 10 but I'm still on the rollercoaster and I can never go out in the morning, in the night and now my grandmother is back but still now I'm more afraid about my grandfather that is still there and still no man been released. But you know if they are so extraordinary people that even when they were so sick like that they've been helping so many people in Gaza Strip you know these sick people which had cancer and other disease and they took them every week to the hospitals in Israel, they were like where I am now to get treatment and getting them back to Gaza Strip and you mentioned their time in the Kibbutz since 1955 and it was a heaven and you imagine the hell came there. Yeah and there are so many people from Niroz who have been murdered, somebody who are believed to be being held Shari Babis, her two children, her parents, they're about to are unknown, so many families from Niroz.

Daniel Lipschitz I'm so happy for your family tonight. Thank you for talking with us. Thank you really most important as you said to those children, do everything for those children to come back. Yeah the children of Shari Babis, Erez called around 12 years old was also kidnapped from Niroz and many others.

Daniel, thank you, we'll continue to be in touch with you. Sena's Chorus Award has more on all this. She joined us now from Cairo. Chorus, what have you learned from that side of the border?

So it was earlier this evening Anderson that we first heard of ambulances kind of pulling up at the rough across essentially Niroz Cooper and Yochi Lipschitz were released by Hamas militants. They actually released a propaganda video as well. We're not showing it, it shows the militants offering the woman tea and biscuits, clearly Hamas wants to use this or try to milk this to the best of their ability as a propaganda opportunity. The women were then escorted by members of the Red Cross into an ambulance, across to the Rafa side of the border.

They were taken from there really straight to an airport where they were then flown out to a medical center where they now are. As you see, Daniel has just visited with his grandmother who you just had on the show there. Questions still remain of course Anderson about the future of all the other hostages who have been taken, there have been discussions of other deals in the works. We know the Egyptian government and the Qataris have been very actively involved in those negotiations Anderson.

Of course, thank you very much. I appreciate it from us. I'm from Rami Igor who joins us once again, a former chief of the hostages and MIA unit of Assad. Rami, what does this release of two more hostages tell you, particularly when it comes to Hamas's tactics and overall strategy?

Well, as we have already spoken, Hamas is using the hostages as their cards of negotiation. They are trying to do two things. First of all, they're trying to get a ceasefire. They would like to stop Israeli attack and they would like to stop Israeli in Persian.

They are still under the force that by doing these things, Israel will change its resolve and not go into the Gaza Strip. The second thing is they're trying to show their humanity. Remember, these people that are trying to show their humanity went into an air-arled, decapitated baby, did the killed elderly, killed women, raped women. Now they're trying to show out to the world.

For some of your viewers that may be, they're free to fight this, but they're not free to fight this. And they're murderers. They're arrested. This is what they're trying to do.

Very important here is the fact that the Egyptians mediated this deal. They're not the Qatar. The Egyptians, as you understand, really hold the entrance to the Gaza Strip, the entrance where the supplies come. The Egyptians are also the people that don't want the Gaza Strip citizens to move into Egypt.

There's another deal that is now brewing and that's the deal for releasing 50 hostages. It's been talked about. Qataris have been putting it forward. Is it going to happen?

We don't know. It exists from getting fuel into the Gaza Strip and the Israeli government is against doing it. The fact is because they want the fuel to be used in the fighting that will come in the next couple of days or soon, very soon. Israel government has been holding back for several reasons.

One is Netanyahu's being a little hesitant and the fact that we are letting all the possibilities of releasing these hostages come to life. What kind of information can a release Hoshid provide that's useful to intelligence officials or in just finding out about the status of other hostages in the past? Have they been able to provide any information? I don't think that there is any very important information.

There is information. Unless the grants are just at the Grand Malatazan, no, it's not. She's gone into a room. She's been into a tunnel.

But this is not going to give us a lot. The information is being gathered. As I've said before, the Israeli army now has put a lot of emphasis into gathering information about the hostages. This is the way in the end.

Unless there's a miracle, we're also for a miracle. Unless there's a miracle, at the end, the way these hostages are going to come home is by force. In order to do that, Israel has deployed a lot of gathering tools in order to gather the information needed to cleanse the hostages and create special operations. This means visual information, a lot of cyber human assets that Israel has in the Gaza Strip all are working on the collection of this kind of information.

What a hostage can tell is a perspective that doesn't really give you any tool to use if you want to go into that area and release the other hostages. Ramayy, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Much more now on preparations for any possible move by the IDF into Gaza.

As you've seen, as Niproperson joins us from Storot, not far from the Gaza border. What have you been seeing on the ground there? We're continuing to get artillery impacts. Artillery taking off from outside of Gaza, impacting inside the Gaza Strip.

It's low level compared to the very heavy missile strikes we were hearing last night. There are fighter jets in the sky, but it doesn't seem as if this is a particularly heavy night of shelling during the day Hamas or other groups have fired a couple of salvos of rockets into this town of Storot. But as far as that, incursion goes and the troops that are getting ready for it, according to the IDF Chief of General Staff, the troops are ready. They're ready to go.

We're also learning that they're doing additional training. They're not moving away from the border, as best we can tell at the moment. But they're also not formed up at the border. It doesn't appear that they're going to go in tonight, but we do get the sense that this continues to be the expectation.

I don't think anything we're hearing, despite the hostage releases, despite Hamas' efforts to derail a possible incursion. I don't think we're hearing an off-ramp for it at the moment. That was another detonation just heard in the background. Two fighter jets, two fighter jets, I think, in the sky behind me right now as well, Anderson.

The Israeli Defense Minister said today in a statement that Israel's preparing for what he called a multilateral operation. I assume that means by land, by sea, by air. Obviously, not a lot of detail in there. That's pretty obvious that it would be multilateral now.

It is. I mean, look, when you go in, you have to overwhelm whatever Hamas resistance there's going to be. On one way, you can do that is by air. I was just a couple of minutes ago hearing a helicopter flying by.

We don't see them too often here, but absolutely helicopters can be expected to be involved. Supporting troops on the ground, even dropping troops deeper on the ground. And by sea, either support by shelling or troops landed by sea, because of course, the top of the Gaza Strip is quite narrow. So you can bring troops in off the sea.

You can drop some by helicopter and others can come in by land. You can put a lot of forces on the ground concentrated in an area quite quickly, depending on the objective. And again, we don't know the specific objective jet, but the town behind me, two and a half kilometers away, Beethaloon. That was one of the first objectives back in 2014, and quite likely will be again this time on the same.

Yeah, the Robertson. Thank you again. Perspect for now on next reporting, joining us. Retired Army Colonel Peter Mansoor, former top eight general David Patreas and currently professor of military history at Ohio State University.

Colonel Mansoor, thanks so much for being with us again. Hamas could release all the hostages or all the civilian ones that they wanted to or all the wounded ones and the ones who need medication, releasing two at a time like that. What kind of, what do you see that is? What's the tactic there?

Well, they're sort of dribbling them out, showing goodwill, but not giving away their trump card, which is these hostages that they can use to release Palestinian prisoners. And as bargaining ships, I think that they will release those that are too ill to continue in captivity because if they die in Hamas's care, it does Hamas no good to have them, you know, a dead body on their hands and then they'll be blamed for killing them. So this is what we're seeing. And it may go on for some time, but I think the ground invasion will begin before those hostages are released.

You and I talked earlier today and you had said something that really got my attention. You said the fighting in Gaza city will be more complicated than it was for the US and Fallujah in Iraq, as well as Mosul. What are the rules of engagement for IDF forces when they are fighting in an environment where it's urban warfare and there are a lot of civilians around, as many civilians who have gone down to the south, there's still a lot of civilians and a lot of men, women and children in Gaza city and elsewhere. Yeah, exactly.

So under the rules of war, the Israelis have to do what they can to minimize civilian casualties. They don't have to eliminate them. You know, I've been thinking about parallels in history and what I came up with was the Battle of Manila in 1945. There were about a million Filipinos in the capital city.

The Japanese wouldn't let them leave. They used them as human shields and the United States forces attacked to clear the city and in the process, 100,000 Filipinos died, some of them by Japanese atrocities. This is a potential future for Gaza city if the Israeli forces use all the firepower at their disposal as the American army did back in February 1945. What is the calculation though for a soldier manning a weapon in Gaza city?

Is how do you determine when it's okay to fire? Who makes those choices? When it comes to the decision to pull the trigger, that's up to the individual soldier and his immediate leader. These are tough decisions.

We saw in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1992 when the Rangers went in, or maybe maybe 93, the Rangers went in to the center of Mogadishu and there were a whole bunch of Somalis that were used as human shields and the Rangers had to sometimes kill the civilians in order to kill the fighters hiding behind them. And this is something that the Israeli army is going to have to face and hopefully they're being trained up for these eventualities while they're waiting for the invasion to begin. Given the planning and training we saw from Hamas and they're sickening attacks on October 1 has to assume, correct me if I'm wrong, that they have planned for this Israeli response. And I guess the conundrum is if Israel does go in, are they doing what Hamas wanted and if they don't go in, how do they defeat Hamas because they can't do it from the air?

Yeah, I think the horns of a dilemma. I think this is exactly what Hamas wants. They want Israeli forces to go in, kill a lot of civilians. The Hamas fighters with 15 years of preparation can pop up in tunnels behind the Israeli forces, kill a lot of Israeli soldiers, that would be the ideal.

But even if they lose, a lot of their civilians are going to get killed in the process and that will inflame world opinion and turn the world against Israel. So it's damned if you do and damned if you don't and I don't envy the Israeli government having to make this decision on whether to launch this ground invasion. But my guess is that they are going to remain committed to doing it. Colonel Munster, I appreciate your time again.

Thank you. Thank you. Coming up next, my conversation with the mother and father of a 23 year old American who was badly wounded when taken hostage by Hamas is being held tonight. Their reaction to video, they didn't even know existed at first and will tell you how they got to see it coming up.

Also report from a hospital in Gaza City on the grim horrible conditions there which could only get worse in the days ahead. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast in terms of service, the idea of writing a car with no driver can feel daunting and this technology raises questions about safety and the future of transportation. That's why I'm here with Nicole Gabel, head of business development and strategic partnerships at WeMo.

We've always been about safety, no distracted driving, no drunk driving. WeMo follows the rules of the road. Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts. So I've got news for your ears, the podcast.

I am your host, Michael Ian Black. His latest thing you see this yesterday was he finds the peace talks boring. Not my favorite guy, but I've got to be honest with you. I know exactly what he's talking about.

He's not negotiating. He's not in the room. But how do you think he receives the information? Because I got it.

Sir, because they all saw him. Sir, would you like to hear the latest update? They should make like a comic strip out of it. Have I got news for your ears?

Check us out on Apple, Amazon Music, wherever you get to podcast. Even better, you can watch the podcast on Spotify. I want to show you a picture about a 23 year old American Israeli, Hearst Goldberg, Poland. He's believed to be a hostage right now in Gaza.

Last Monday, I did a live interview with his mom, Rachel, and his dad, John. They told me that Hearst's arm had been partially blown off by Hamas gunmen who tossed grenades into the shelter that he was hiding in after he escaped from the Novo Music Festival. Eyewitnesses had told them that their son, Hearst, was put into a truck by gunmen and driven off. But they had no video of their son.

So during that live interview, a week ago, when we showed a picture of Hearst, this picture, I realized I actually had seen their son and had a video of their son on my phone. It had been shown to me by a soldier at the music festival. We recorded it off his phone. We had permission from him to do so, and it had never been released publicly.

I did not want to shock them during this live interview, so I waited until the interview was done, and then I called Rachel and John immediately, and I sent them the video, and it was their son, Hearst. I've been in touch with the family a lot this last week, and they now would like everyone to see this video. They want you to know what has happened to their child, and they want the world to know that they're seriously wounded people who were taken by Hamas. And this video is proof of that.

We've blurred out some parts of it, but we want to warn you it is disturbing. Aloha kma, aloha kma. God is great. He's recording on his phone.

He checks a car looking for anyone else hiding. Other gunmen shout as they bring survivors from the shelter. Come, come, they yell. That's Hirsch on the right with another hostage.

His left hand and part of his arm is blown off. The phone sticks out. The other hostage occurs immediately. The other hostage occurs immediately as well.

Another wounded hostage is dragged by his hair and tossed into the truck. A fourth man is thrown on top of that. When I sent the video to you, what was your initial? First of all, it's a crazy sequence of events that we talk to you through a computer screen and then get a phone call from you saying, I have a video of your son.

I didn't want to say a lot of television. Which we so appreciated. Of course. The way everything has unfolded, the gentleness that you used, because at the end of the day, you're a journalist and journalist want a story.

And that could have been dealt with in many other ways that were not kind and gentle. The first scene that video in general gave us a dose of optimism is horrible as it is as a parent to see your kid under gunpoint being pushed with one arm, the composure with which he's walking on his own legs, pulling himself with his one weekend, he's a left hand, his left arm is blown off, pulling himself with his one weekend onto the truck, gave me a real dose of strength that he's handling a horrible situation and he's doing it with composure. I mean, we're saying he walked out calmly, which he did, but I think it was from Schof. They have this photo taken inside the shelter before Hamas gunmen began throwing grenades inside.

Rachel says as many as 29 people were crammed together. As Hirsch, and this is his friend, honor Shapiro. So Hirsch and honor went to the festival together. They've known each other since they were kids.

Honor was by the door and honor by everyone's account who we spoke to. As they were throwing in grenades, he would keep picking them up and throwing them out, picking them up and throwing them out. All these witnesses said there were 11 grenades thrown in. He threw out eight.

Rachel says eight people survived and avoided capture by hiding under the blown up bodies of the dead, but honor Shapiro didn't make it out alive. His parents, they just came to our house on Friday and the people who are identifying bodies actually let them know that they identified him with DNA, but in his hand he was holding a grenade. His dead body had a grenade in it, in his hand. I mean, he's the real hero.

Those eight people, and even the people who walked out and are now in Gaza, it's because of honor. How are you able to get through each other? I personally feel like we have to keep running to the end of the Earth to save him. And we have to try to go believing that somehow he got treatment and he's there and he's in pain and he's suffering but he's alive and he's there.

And there are also the moments in this universe that we now live where you say maybe he died on the truck. Maybe he bled out in that truck. Maybe he died yesterday. Maybe he died five minutes ago.

And there are those moments where you think, how are these thoughts even, I don't understand these thoughts, but they're real thoughts. They often go down to see their son's room. Is this Hirsch's room? This is Hirsch's room.

This is also our steel biller because it's our bomb shelter. You can feel him here close, his globe, his books and mementos. It's all just as he left them. People did make his bed however.

She wants it ready for when he returns. We have a porch that's facing south and I went out Friday night and I was screaming to him. I'm hoping. Because Friday night, you know, we bless our children and traditionally in Jewish homes, you bless your children on Friday night.

So I was screaming though, it's a traditional blessing from the Bible. And so I was screaming the blessing to him with my hands up. I usually put my hands on his head when he's home. What does the blessing say?

It says, me God bless you and keep you. May God's face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May God's countments be lifted up towards you and give you peace. What do you want people to know about Hirsch?

He's just a super curious kid and this wonderlust that he developed when he was six or seven years old has been his life obsession, always asking for maps and globes and atlases for his bar mitzvah. Really, these last few years, he's saved every penny to go on this trip that he has a ticket for on December 27. He was going to go to India and then all points east. Rachel and John were just on the cover of Time magazine.

They're trying to get the world to pay attention to the plight of the hostages, particularly those like her who have serious wounds or medical issues. As American Israelis, we've been embraced by the US government. The support is there. The empathy is there from the US.

We're obviously hungering for more than that. We want action. We want results. There are hostages from somewhere around 30 countries.

Why have we not yet seen prime ministers, foreign ministers, global leaders, screaming to get the wounded help? Rachel also got to be in a call with other American families and President Biden. And he stayed for 90 minutes. And he listened to us and he cried with us.

I know loss. I've lost two children. I lost my wife. And I'm telling you that you need to go through this.

But you also need to remember that you will be strong again for your family. And he said things that because he knows loss, so it wasn't platitudes. It was someone speaking who had lost children, speaking to a mother who lost her two children. And it was a real moment of coming together just as people who know what pain is.

This very excruciating part of pain. This is a particular kind of pain. Correct. That we know what.

Of the game daily, is he alive? Is he getting treatment? Did he die 15 days ago? Like we're on the head of a pin and every direction you fall is a bad direction.

So a lot of how we get through the day when you ask that before is we're trying to balance on the head of the pin and just get everything done with the hope that he'll come home to us alive and he'll go on that trip with one hand. John and Rachel with me now is I'll be my editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. I mean the situation with hostages is so sickening and horrific. Do you hear, I mean when you talk to people here, is that what people are talking about first?

What do you hear from people? Well I think Israelis are in a state of shock and a state of trauma. And they're also in this sort of waiting game, not knowing whether this ground offensive is going to happen or not. There are 360,000 people who are massed on the border and that affects families across the country.

We're talking about people, siblings, spouses, parents in some cases. And so I think that's what people are mostly thinking about. But of course the hostage situation is very much on people's minds. And that's been very much the conversation as well at this time.

Hamas could release all their hostages right away. I mean the game that they're playing of releasing 2x2, it's very clear there's a tactic there, there's a strategy there, the manipulation of it. It is incredible to me though that wounded hostages, infants, toddlers, people with severe medical conditions are still being held. It's shocking.

I mean there's no words to describe anything we've encountered over the past two weeks. I don't know if the English language has the vocabulary to enable us to describe what we're all going through. But the horror of having small infants, elderly people with disabilities or chronic illnesses who are still being held by Hamas as hostages and are not being released is unfathomable. And we don't know exactly what their calculus is, how they're deciding who they are releasing and who they're not.

But obviously we all hope that everyone's released very very soon. The thing that I think people who have not been here and have not been to be a re which you were at, have not been to Niroz and the Novo Music Festival site do not understand or don't want to think about is the personal nature of this brutality. I mean this is people looking each other in the eye and shooting to death, Barack Levinson in Niroz and logging onto her Facebook account and live streaming it for her friends and family to see. This is kind of a new, there's something particularly personal about this.

I think the cruelty of it all was so shocking to many Israelis. I think Israelis know Hamas, they're not new to Hamas. They know it's a terrorist organization that wants to murder Israelis and wants Israel not to exist. But I think for many years Israelis thought of Hamas as a somewhat pragmatic organization that was mostly tasked with caring for the people of Gaza and showing their economic well-being and so on and so forth.

And what you saw on Saturday, the seventh was an organization that is insatiable and it's just a murder, Jews in the most horrific and cruel ways. And I think that is a way to call for many Israelis. You're trying to figure out how to grab with that and how does Israel move forward in this country? There's also this, obviously the political situation in Israel has been incredibly divisive over the last year or so.

How does that impact, I mean the lack of confidence many people have in Netanyahu, how does that impact the way people think now about the possible ground operation or does it? Well, I think the fact that we now have an emergency unity government is helpful in that respect because you have the whole idea of the emergency government. Exactly. The Prime Minister's primary opponent of course is Benny Gantz, who was the defense minister under Netanyahu and they had a major falling out, is now a part of the government, part of the decision-making circle.

I think that's helpful in ensuring that the people who do have the confidence that this government can lead the country forward and do whatever it must to ensure that Hamas never has a capacity to carry a mass to go like this ever again. The number of people from the intelligence community, from the military leadership, they have accepted a level of responsibility for the intelligence failure to the lack of response, so apologize in some ways. Netanyahu has not done that. Is that something you hear from people?

Are there many Israelis who want that or are they not thinking about that? Oh Israelis are very much thinking about that. I think right now they're just thinking about how to move forward, how to ensure that Israel does whatever it must ensure that Hamas doesn't have the capacity to ever do this again. But we know that there's going to be a reckoning after all this.

There's going to be a commission of inquiry. I don't see quite frankly how to now survives this politically. This isn't something that's just going to get pushed down the road. No, this is a cataclysmic event.

I think this is a turning point in Israeli history and we're going to see a totally different political map at the end of this. I'll be married. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks for coming up. We've got a lot more ahead. Of course, award is back with us with you reporting on the situation in Gaza. What's the latest on aid getting in?

You're reporting from Egypt tonight. So Anderson, through the rough crossing between Egypt and Gaza, another convoy of trucks of aid went in today. That brings the total number of trucks in the last three days to just over 60. I'd like to give you some perspective that's 60 trucks in about 16 days compared to what would normally be in the same time period, more than 7,000 trucks of aid.

And all of this is happening against the backdrop of some of the most relentless and punishing bombardment, more than 300 strikes in Gaza last night alone. And it's the hospitals, Anderson, that are really feeling the pressure, the situation, going from critical to dire. You are enjoying the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. This is just one minute and one day.

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.

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's nowhere else for them to go and no safe way to transport them out.

We had the mass scheduled this once or twice a day. But now we have every half an hour, casualties. So it is overloaded. Our emergency department and our LBT department are overloaded with the patients.

Dr. Marwan Abu-Sada 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. If you do run out of fuel in two days, what will you do?

I mean, what can you do? I think the international community will be part of the process of killing of our people. If they don't have to put an air to Israel, they're allowed to get this fuel into into together. What to do for the people who are in the ICU and mechanical refrigerator?

What about the neonatal units? They're small babies. We have more than 130. And now in neonatal, I see units.

What to do with them? They will, okay, I think we are allowing them to die in business. They should if we don't have a fuel to run our generators in the hospital. Just a trickle of aid has been allowed to cross into Gaza, none of it fuel.

Blocked by Israel, it says over concerns it 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.

I mean, there's babies, of course. Can you talk about why fuel has become such a sticking point here? Well, from the Israeli perspective, Anderson, they say that Hamas has been stealing fuel. They are concerned that if more fuel goes in, that they will co-opt it and take it and use it for their own purposes.

At the same time, it is abundantly clear from talking to humanitarian organizations on the ground, talking to the UN, talking to Dr. Abu Sada at the El Shifa Hospital in Gaza that fuel is essential, not just even for the generators, Anderson. Fuel is essential also for their desalination plants. Dr.

Abu Sada talked a lot about how people are now drinking brackish water because there isn't fresh water and they need to keep these desalination plants going. So fuel is life for the people of Gaza, but so far there is just a paralysis, an inability, it seems, for everyone to come together and try to come up with some kind of mechanism that could satisfy Israel's concerns, but ensure that that desperately needed fuel gets to where it needs to be Anderson. I mean, organizations, you know, the UN has people on the ground. Or does the UN say that Hamas take stuff from them?

I mean, the UN has not publicly said anything like that. And you know, we haven't, the only place we have heard that from on the record is from the IDF. Actually, they reiterated a claim on our air earlier tonight. They said that Hamas had stolen fuel and that they have a thousand leaders of fuel that they could be giving to the hospitals, that they do have fuel.

And just to give you perspective, when we interviewed Dr. Marwan Abu-Sada, he said that even when they turn off the electricity and the AC, that one hospital goes through 9,000 leaders of fuel a day. And there are many hospitals in the Gaza Strip right now, all of them desperate for fuel, all of them on the brink of running out. So even if this claim that Hamas has taken this fuel and is holding this 1,000 leaders of fuel is true, that would potentially help one hospital to operate for maybe a few hours Anderson.

All right, there's a word. Thanks. Just a head. Difficulties Israel is now facing from the fact that it's not just security threats from Lebanon to deal with the report from the West Bank.

Next. In addition to Israel fighting in Hamas in the south and Hezbollah to the north, we're also closely watching a increasingly volatile situation in the West Bank. Israeli forces have increased incursions into the occupied territory targeting what they say are Hamas operatives. The Hamas control Palestinian health ministry says 95 Palestinians have been killed there and more than 1,800 injured since the October 7 attack.

Sir Sider has more on the growing tensions between Palestinians and Jewish settlers there. He's had enough. The Tan-Duak is doing his normal bad duties. But this scene is not at all normal.

Everything has changed in their Jewish settlement in the West Bank. We need to protect ourselves because we're surrounded by people who don't necessarily like us. Since the October 7 attack to their south by Hamas on Shabbat, Duet rejoined the army and is patrolling his fortified neighborhood instead of working his factory job. At the end of Shabbat we say a prayer asking God to help us and to keep our children safe and to keep our soldiers safe.

And some of these words, I just couldn't say them because, you know, we weren't safe on October 7. Jewish settlement presence in the West Bank has always been fraught deemed illegal by international law because they're built on occupied Palestinian land. But this is a different kind of fear, he says. Pan-Nashwari is a Palestinian activist and a former Palestinian liberation organization official.

They tell you they're afraid, why are you committing a work time? Why are you living on Palestinian land? Allegedly. Just because it's as you can.

This is occupied territory. And she says then there's the growing settler Palestinian violence. Violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinian has been caught on camera for decades. One of the latest shows settlers throwing rocks and firing guns at Palestinian homes.

In another incident after a confrontation, a Jewish settler shoots an apparently unarmed Palestinian man in the stomach. We asked Yulzi Badan, the governor of some 60 settlements in the West Bank, about this incident. How do you defend the Palestinians who have been killed by settlers? I'm supposed to explain to CNN why terrorists that tried to kill civilians or soldiers were shot by security forces.

The police or the army? With all due respect, I don't really understand the question. We clarified in English and Hebrew showing them the video. So this is why I'm asking this.

Because this information is out. This groups are saying, look, the settlers, it's not the IDF, it's people fighting against Palestinians and shooting them. What you are showing me now is an edited, ten-dicious video of attempts of terrorists to hurt and kill Jews that are protecting themselves. This happens a lot, and unfortunately, there aren't two equal sides.

The video you're saying is not edited, but Palestinians agree with one thing he said. The sides are not equal. They say they are the overwhelming victims in this. In the two weeks after October 7th alone, more than 90 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank from attacks by settlers and the Israeli security forces, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank.

Back in settlement, Kiryat Nithafim, Durek does his patrols to protect his family and neighbors like Leop Hartov. I live here for 24 years. I never feared. Never.

We work with them, we talk with them, we work with them in the industrial zone, just across the road. They're friends, we're friends with them. It was always like that. And now?

Something has been cracked. Something is not the same anymore. Sir Sider joins me now from Jerusalem. The issue of settlers is a hugely controversial one here in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu who has been very encouraging, certainly, of those settlers.

Yeah, they have. And look, I told us the woman you just heard there, that she basically moved there because the land was cheap in part, but many settlers also moved there for religious reasons. They believe that it is part of the Jewish biblical homeland that they refer to as Judea and Samaria. Of course, international law says something very different, says that they are occupying Palestinian land illegally.

And what happens in all of this is as more and more of these settlements occur, the Palestinians see this as less and less of a chance for them to have their own state one day at their own official state as their territory is literally shrinking. Anderson? Yeah, Sir Sider, thanks very much. We'll be right back.

For information on how to help the humanitarian efforts in Israel and Gaza, CNN's impact or world has gathered a list of vetted organizations on the ground responding to the crisis. And go to cnad.com forward slash impact. You can also text the word relief to the number 707070. CNN's coverage in Israel continues the source with Caitlin Collins starts now.

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