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CNN International: Marking One Year Anniversary Of Hamas Attack On Israel; Survivors From Devastated Kibbutz Determined To Return Home; Israel Says It Intercepted A Missile Fired From Yemen. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired October 07, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

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ISA SOARES, HOST, "CNN NEWSROOM": Welcome to CNN Newsroom, everyone. I'm Isa Soares, coming to you from London.

We begin in Israel with vigils, somber ceremonies, prayers and protests. People around the world are marking the one anniversary of a devastating attack on Israel that would reshape the Middle East for years, even generations to come.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

That siren, a painful reminder of the hostages still held in Gaza after the Hamas rampage on October 7th last year. Families of hostages gathered outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home, urging him to bring their loved ones back. And others in Israel marked the attack with a moment of silence that you just heard there. More than 1,200 people were killed when Hamas militants stormed across the Gaza border one year ago today. Israel responded with a blistering war on Hamas that has no end in sight. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including many women and children, and that war has now expanded to include Hezbollah in Lebanon, leaving the entire Middle East on edge. And communities across the region will never be the same in the aftermath of October 7th.

Our Matthew Chance visited what's left of a kibbutz in southern Israel, where more than 100 people lost their lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a painful wound that still has Israel reeling. Even a year since Hamas rampaged through kibbutz Be'eri and other Israeli communities near Gaza, that wound has far from healed.

CHANCE: Driving through the streets of Be'eri, and you really get a strong sense, the scars of the October 7th attacks are still very much here. Almost every one of the houses along these roads has been damaged and was overrun. The families inside, torn apart, people killed, abducted to Gaza, traumatized.

YARDEN TZEMACH, FARMER FROM KIBBUTZ BE'ERI: This used to be a family house, a beautiful home.

CHANCE (voice-over): Inside one burned out shell, Yarden Tzemach tells me how his neighbors, the Haran family, were killed and kidnapped from their home, bullet holes and scorch marks where Palestinian gunmen ran amok, Kibbutz Be'eri lost more than 100 people in the October 7th attacks, one of the unsuspecting Israeli communities worst affected. Another 10 residents were among the hostages still being held in this ongoing ordeal. It's hard to imagine people ever feeling safe here again.

TZEMACH: I believe that it's possible. It will be a big challenge, and it might take a long time for people to feel as safe as we felt before October 7th.

CHANCE: But, you said yourself that that feeling of security that you had on October 6th --

TZEMACH: Yeah.

CHANCE: -- that was an illusion.

TZEMACH: It was an illusion.

CHANCE: What I'm asking is, do you think that a community so close to Gaza can ever really be secure and safe?

TZEMACH: Once something happens, you know that it can -- you always have the -- in the back of your mind that it can happen again.

AMIT SOLVY, FINANCE CHAIRMAN FROM KIBBUTZ BE'ERI: They killed my sister over there. OK? She is one of them.

CHANCE (voice-over): But, among this close-knit community, brutalized and scattered, there is determination to rebuild.

SOLVY: Be'eri will recover. Most of the people will come back, rebuild their lives, rebuild their house, rebuild the kibbutz, and Be'eri will come again, I hope stronger than before, but there is no infrastructure for kids. There is no school. People with family cannot come back yet.

CHANCE: How difficult is it for people to come back emotionally --

SOLVY: Emotionally?

CHANCE: -- after what happened? It must be hard.

SOLVY: It's difficult. It's difficult. It's hard. I think that Be'eri recover again. It's take time. It will take time.

CHANCE (voice-over): Meanwhile, building is underway.

[11:05:00]

100 residents have already returned, though most are still living an hour's drive from the memories of home in temporary houses in the Israeli town of Hatzerim.

CHANCE: Hi. Hello.

AYELET HAKIM, DISPLACED KIBBUTZ BE'ERI RESIDENT: This is my son.

CHANCE (voice-over): Like Ayelet Hakim, who says a family's narrow escape from being killed in their Be'eri home is still keeping them away.

HAKIM: It's a trauma of living in a house where vicious terrorists invaded, and sitting in my safe room for hours and hours not knowing what's going on and being -- and felt like I've been threatened. So, I feel, in that house, I feel unsafe in that house.

CHANCE: But, in the kibbutz.

HAKIM: But, not on the kibbutz. No. If I have a house --

CHANCE: No. But, the kibbutz, you want to go back.

HAKIM: Yeah. Kibbutz has been my home. That's where I want to live.

CHANCE (voice-over): But, living after so much death and destruction here will never be the same.

Matthew Chance, CNN, in Kibbutz Be'eri, southern Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Let's go now to our Jim Sciutto, who joins us now from Tel Aviv. And Jim, as I've been seeing throughout the day in your lives, it has been very much a day of remembrance and a day of breathing. With that backdrop of incoming rockets, of incoming sirens, really giving us a sense that the fight against Hamas and Hezbollah is a fight is far from over. Just give us a sense of what you've been hearing today.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF U.S. SECURITY ANALYST: Well, let me tell you where I am now, if I can. This is a memorial for the victims at the Nova festival. You may remember, nearly 400 were killed that day at the Nova festival, about a third of the total killed by Hamas on October 7th, 4,000 survivors, and many of them are here, this is on Lake Tel Aviv, in the memorial today, trying to capture, I think, some of the spirit of the Nova festival, there is music. They've been making bouquets of flowers. They're painting. There are therapy sessions here. There is meditation, some of which evokes what that festival was meant to be.

Of course, the festival, much more of a celebration, and this one much more honoring those that they lost that day, the many hundreds of young people, and trying to regain some sense of peace, right, a year later, 366 days later, but the reminders are closed. There is a wall of the faces of those nearly 400 victims of the day. And I was looking at the wall earlier, Isa, and by and large, they're young people, right? I mean, they came to dance. They came to listen to music, and so many of them died that day. And you talk about reminders of just how close the war is. A few

minutes ago, it started to empty out here because there was yet another air raid siren in Tel Aviv, and we saw, we looked up in the sky and we saw the smoke trail of the interceptor missile flying into the sky, not quite clear what it was intercepting. But, this is a daily event here. There was another one earlier today where I got sent into the shelter.

So, we're seeing a number of events like this today. I was with some of the hostage families earlier today. They're trying to remember. They're trying to honor. They're trying to honor those who died. They're trying to keep the memory alive of those who are still being held in Gaza. And as they're doing that, the shadow of war is all around, and not just those air raid sirens, but of course, military activity expanding in Lebanon, the fight still going on in Gaza, where this all started on October 7th. And now the question as to how Israel responds to those missile attacks just a few days ago.

SOARES: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: A multi-front war. It constantly disturbs these moments. But folks, listen, they're doing their very best.

SOARES: Yeah. They are indeed, an incredible resilience that we have seen from so many members, so many hostage families. You were talking about interception. I've got more information on what you saw there, Jim. Israel, the Israeli military, saying that it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen towards central Israel. The purported missile triggered sirens in the area. Of course, it's the Iranian-backed Houthis who have been -- who were normally responsible --

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SOARES: -- for this, but they haven't commented on this. But, this speaks to what you were saying there, Jim, that this is a country at war, a war on many fronts, and a region really on the brink.

From the conversations that you've had there on the ground, how do Israelis want to see Prime Minister Netanyahu respond to this, specifically respond to Iran, following that barrage of missiles, of course?

[11:10:00]

SCIUTTO: It's a good question, because there is a lot of debate in this country over many things, the conduct of the war in Gaza, the expansion of the war now in Lebanon on the ground where Israel, of course, has a bloody history in ground invasions of Lebanon. And now this question about response to the Iranian attack.

And I will tell you, while I've heard disagreement on many fronts here, internally in Israel, particularly as it relates to a hostage and ceasefire deal to get those remaining hostages in Gaza home, on the question of responding to Iran, defending against Iran, I've largely sensed agreement here that they feel under threat, that that is, you'll often hear the phrase used, ahead of the snake, that Iran is the one that is pushing the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah, and that Israel must respond to that and must defend itself against Iran.

And I won't say, Isa, when folks say that to me that they minimize or don't imagine that there will be consequences, the fears of a widening war, but I do hear a lot of agreement in this country that something must be done, right, something must be done as it relates to Iran. Of course, the question is, what will that response be? How big it will be? And then the question after each attack is, how then Iran might respond to this latest response, this latest escalation?

SOARES: Jim Sciutto, appreciate you being with us on the ground. Thanks very much, Jim.

I want to turn now to the growing humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. The Lebanese government says more than 1,400 people have been killed, and over one million displaced ever since Israel launched its current campaign against Hezbollah. Earlier today, at least 10 firefighters lost their lives after an Israeli strike hit a fire station in southern Lebanon, and that is according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. And also today, an Israeli airstrike caused a large blast near Beirut's airport.

Our Ben Wedeman is live for us in Beirut, where he is tracking this rather escalating conflict. And yet again, Ben, I'm throwing to you, and I can hear drones just above your head, I imagine, give us a sense of what you've been seeing today, fresh airstrikes and with fresh -- further, I should say, evacuation orders here, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. We've got this drone overhead. It's been flying very low this morning, this Israeli drone. And as you mentioned, there was this large explosion dangerously close to Beirut International Airport, which, despite everything, continues to function. Now, the Israeli military put out a statement that it was a targeted strike, but without mentioning its proximity to the airport, the closest one we've seen yet.

Now, I'm just going to step out of the frame and let cameraman, Sharbil Melo (ph), focus in on, you can still see smoke rising from a variety of strikes. We were here late last night, as more strikes were coming in. This is the pattern every night, every day, heavy strikes at night, sporadic strikes during the day, with this drone buzzing all the time overhead, over the heads of people in a city that are exhausted already by this war that certainly has escalated dramatically in the last two weeks.

Now, as far as the situation in the south goes, what we see is that the Israelis continue to conduct intense airstrikes and artillery barrages, continue to conduct what they called limited, localized and targeted raids inside Lebanese territory. Today, the Arabic spokesman for the Israeli military yet again put out a long list of villages in south Lebanon with evacuation orders, telling people to go north of the Awali River, which is well away from the border, and not to drive back south and not to return to their homes until further notice.

So, what we're seeing, in addition to that, of course, is continued firing by Hezbollah inside Israel. Last night, their missiles reached all the way to the city of Haifa for the first time. So, the expectation is that there is going to be an Israeli ground incursion, an invasion, I think we can call it that, an intensification of back and forth fire between Israel and Hezbollah, basically setting the scene for what's going to be a full-scale war yet again between Israel and Hezbollah and Lebanon. Isa.

SOARES: Ben Wedeman for us there in Beirut. Thanks very much, Ben.

Let's continue this discussion with Firas Maksad. He is a Senior Fellow and Senior Director for Strategic Outreach at the Middle East Institute.

[11:15:00]

Firas, really appreciate you being with us. Let me pick up where our Ben Wedeman, and I am not sure if we could hear him, where he left off, and that is that incredibly dangerous moment for Lebanon, indeed, the region as a whole, he was pointing out, the IDF issuing more evacuation orders, not just in Lebanon, but also, as you've seen in Gaza, implications on Lebanon front of a broader ground attack, and not the limited offensive, of course, that the IDF had stated. How do you assess this moment for us?

FIRAS MAKSAD, DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC OUTREACH, SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Well, Isa, obviously, on the eve of the anniversary, the first year since the October 7th attack, one has to start by saying that the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, got the war that they both wanted. From day one, Sinwar wanted to expand this war so that Hamas is not fighting in Gaza on its own, to drag in Hezbollah, a much more capable force into this war, to drag in Iran, and we're talking today about an Israeli response to Iran, a direct Iranian-Israeli confrontation.

And at the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu wanted his opportunity to underscore that he is Mr. Security and to readdress the balance of power in the region against Iran to take a blow to that Iranian ring of fire around Israel, including Hezbollah in Lebanon. So, unfortunately, a year after the October 7th attack, the Middle East today is more dangerous than it was a year ago. In Lebanon -- go ahead.

SOARES: Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

MAKSAD: No. In Lebanon, Israeli military officials keep saying that this is a limited incursion --

SOARES: Yeah.

MAKSAD: -- to create some sort of buffer zone. But, again, the Lebanese have a long history of Israeli incursions that end up being not only just invasions, but also years and years of occupation. And so, when these warnings that Ben Wedeman was talking about, to evacuate large swaths of Lebanon, some 25 percent of the country, when those warnings are issued by Israel, that evokes 1978, 1982 when the Israelis went all the way to Beirut and laid siege to the city. So, Israel has done quite a remarkable job striking blows to

Hezbollah's leadership, decapitating the leadership, killing Nasrallah, but a ground invasion is a whole different ballgame that changes the narrative. And it's quite telling that even Hezbollah, despite the blows that it's been dealt, is still putting up quite a fight --

SOARES: Yes.

MAKSAD: -- on these border villages. A weakened Israel can't seem to make much progress.

SOARES: Yeah. And I was going to ask you about that, because, like you said for us, Israel has had plenty of tactical victories, and we've reported on this. We've discussed this. It's, like you said, decapitated Hezbollah leadership, going after Hamas for almost a year. But today, we saw both attacking Israel again in the last few minutes. In fact, we saw Israel -- Israeli military saying that it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen. So, Houthis here. Has -- how effective, in your view, has Israel's military strategy been in trying to weaken Iran's proxies, be it the Houthis in Yemen, or even Hezbollah or Hamas in Gaza?

MAKSAD: Isa, there is no doubt that Israel has delivered devastating blows to Hamas and to Hezbollah, less so perhaps the Houthis, but Hezbollah really is the cocked gun in Israel's head, the Iranian gun in Israel's head, and the first line of defense the regime has should Israel decide to attack it and attack its nuclear installations. So, it's not insignificant that they have essentially been able to decapitate Hezbollah's military leadership. What we're seeing today is Iran being more directly involved in the direction of Hezbollah.

Let's remember that, in those bunkers, together with Nasrallah, who lost his life, top Iranian generals have also lost their lives. They are directly involved in this war. So, increasingly, what we see with Hezbollah is a decentralized organization where the foot soldiers on the border are defending their own villages, and one can expect them to put up a valiant fight in that regard. But, the leadership in Beirut is increasingly under the direct control of Iran, and it's increasingly apparent to most Lebanese, who do not want this war, that this is an Iranian-Israeli war that's unfolding on their territory.

SOARES: Let's talk about diplomacy -- on the failures, I should say, of diplomacy. I don't know if you heard for us, President Biden on Friday, basically implying that Israel shouldn't strike against Iranian oil fields, though, important to point out, of course, that Prime Minister Netanyahu hasn't heeded much of President Biden's advice.

[11:20:00]

Do you think Israel retaliate? How would you think it will retaliate, given though we are so close to U.S. election, of course?

MAKSAD: Yeah. There is no doubt in my mind that the Israeli retaliation is coming. Again, this is Benjamin Netanyahu's opportunity. This is the war that he wants to have as Mr. Security, and he will have it. Now, from an American standpoint, obviously, during an election, a contested one, a very closely contested one, President Biden doesn't want to see oil at $200 per barrel, and the Iranians have made it very clear that, whether directly or indirectly through the proxies in Iraq and elsewhere, they will attack regional oil installations, other oil installations, to cause that global price of oil to skyrocket. So, there is an American aversion to that.

Whether Netanyahu actually takes that into consideration or not is an open question. One would certainly expect that he can go after IRGC targets, after military targets, besiege targets that would only deepen the divide in Iran, given the America -- the internal resentment against the regime. But, whether he will go beyond that, I think is an open question.

SOARES: Very quickly, because we're running out of time, I mean, we've heard so much about military successes. We haven't spoken much about any sort of peace plan. I mean, who do you think can bring the region back from a war, really, from a broader war here? Because so far, it seems to have failed. We're not hearing enough about this.

MAKSAD: Yeah. Isa, the irony is that the pathways towards a more peaceful outcome are very clear, and it does involve the return of the swap of hostages for prisoners --

SOARES: Yeah.

MAKSAD: -- between Hamas and Israel, and in Lebanon, everybody understands that there is UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the last war, which, by the way, also calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon, and that includes Hezbollah. That will then unlock a pathway towards an election of a President in Lebanon and rebooting the political system there. So, the pathways are very clear. The political will is not there, and the U.S. administration cannot unlock these in the absence of the will amongst the local players, so, Netanyahu and Sinwar and Hezbollah, and that will is not there, and they understand that there is a window of two, three months now until a new President is elected and a new administration takes office on January 20th, where pretty much the region is afloat.

SOARES: Firas Maksad, as always, appreciate your analysis. Thanks very much for us.

MAKSAD: Thank you.

SOARES: Now, one year later, and dozens of people still remain hostages of Hamas. We'll hear from two mothers caught in the middle of this wall. We'll have that in just a moment.

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[11:25:00]

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SOARES: Welcome back, everyone. Today marks one year since the Hamas attacks on Israel. Dozens of people taken hostage on that day are still in the hands of Hamas. Over the past year, Israel has launched retaliatory attacks on Gaza. They've destroyed much of Gaza's housing and infrastructure and killed more than 41,000 people, according to Palestinian officials. It's been a year of anguish, especially for the mothers whose sons and daughters are caught in the middle of this war.

Here is CNN's Jeremy Diamond with their story. And I have to warn you, some of the images in this report are graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMONA STEINBRECHER, MOTHER OF HOSTAGE IN GAZA: I want her back alive, not in a bag. I want her alive that I can hold her.

FATEN MERAISH, MOTHER OF CHILDREN KILLED IN GAZA (Interpreted): At night, I wish to jug my son Jude. I always hug his pillow all night. This is all I have left of him.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Words alone cannot capture a mother's pain, but the anguish on their faces paints a devastating picture of the countless lives upended by Hamas' October 7th attack and Israel's war in Gaza one year later, Faten Meraish is still grieving the loss of her two sons killed in an Israeli airstrike this summer. Simona Steinbrecher doesn't know her daughter's fate. She is being held hostage by Hamas. Stepping inside the home where she was abducted is like going back in time.

STEINBRECHER: They broke the windows. They come from the window.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Shards of Glass still crunch underfoot in a home upturned and uprooted from the peace it once provided. And in the bedroom, a mother recounts her daughter's abduction.

STEINBRECHER: She was very afraid, because you can hear from the voice that she said, "they take me, they take me." She was really afraid.

DIAMOND: She was on the phone with you when she was being taken.

STEINBRECHER: Yes. And we don't know nothing about her, what happened with her. We don't know if she's alive. We don't know nothing.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Doron Steinbrecher's cry for help captured in one final voice note.

DORON STEINBRECHER, HOSTAGE IN GAZA (Interpreted): They've caught me. They've caught me. They've caught me. They've caught --

DIAMOND (voice-over): She was one of 251 people taken hostage on October 7th, 2023, after Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history, carried out at a music festival in people's homes and against those who fled into bomb shelters.

In Kfar Aza, this small kibbutz on the Gaza border, Hamas kidnapped 19 including Simona's daughter Doron.

DIAMOND: Did you ever imagine that you would be sitting here a year later --

STEINBRECHER: No.

DIAMOND: -- and she would still be in Gaza?

STEINBRECHER: No. Never. But, now we see that there's another day, another week, another month and nothing.

DIAMOND (voice-over): The first sign of life came nearly four months later, Doron, gaunt and pale, appears in a Hamas hostage video.

STEINBRECHER: I was happy that I can see that she's alive. But then I can -- I look at her, and I can see the difference.

DIAMOND: What does the government tell you?

STEINBRECHER: They tell us the family that they make everything that they will come back. But, they are still there. So, something is wrong, something is not working.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Those frustrations shifted into overdrive in August, after Hamas executed six hostages, families like Doron's now fearing the worst.

DIAMOND: You feel like the longer she is there, the less likely it is --

STEINBRECHER: Yes.

DIAMOND: -- that she could come back alive.

STEINBRECHER: They don't have time.

DIAMOND (voice-over): For nearly 10 months, Faten managed to keep her family safe, fleeing from one place to another as Israel pummeled the Gaza Strip with bombs and missiles, a school, a relative's home, a tent.

MERAISH (Interpreted): We tried as much as possible to create an atmosphere in which there was no terror, no bombing. Wherever there were safe areas, I would take the children there.

DIAMOND (voice-over): But, nowhere in Gaza is truly safe. CPR cannot bring her five-year-old son Jude back to life, but Faten cannot believe it. She had only just left the tent they were living in to buy Jude Indomie, his favorite instant noodles.

[11:30:00]

But, as she cradles her youngest, her eldest son's body arrives at the morgue. Mohammad is dead too, his mother and father in agony. Amid their unspeakable grief, there is also anger at Israel, at Hamas, and that a world she feels has abandoned them.

This is all that is left of the tent where Mohammad and Jude were staying when a missile struck just a few feet away, where their mother now asks what her children did to deserve this fate.

MERAISH (Interpreted): They are more precious to me than the light of my eyes. When I lost them, I lost a piece of my heart.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Jude would have turned six-years-old last month.

MERAISH (Interpreted): We used to celebrate his birthday every year with a cake, and invite the loved ones, because he is the youngest one in the family. But this time Jude was not with us. There was only a box of Indomie that I was handing to children his age.

DIAMOND (voice-over): More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military over the last year, and at least 11,000 are children like Jude and Mohammed, according to Oxfam, making it the deadliest conflict for children in a single year this century.

DIAMOND: How much is too much, sir? At what point is it time to end this war?

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Well, we'll end the war when we achieve our war goals, making sure that Hamas can't repeat such atrocities, and I'm not going to change my policies, humanitarian policies, vaccination policies, combat policies to minimize civilian casualties.

DIAMOND (voice-over): But, is Israel any closer to achieving its war goals?

AMI AYALON, FORMER HEAD OF SHIN BET: Even if we shall kill all Hamas activists and all the political leaders, and we shall destroy all the military installations, on the day after, two Palestinian children that lost their families will try to achieve to get a knife and to kill Israelis, unless you will defeat the ideology, and the only way to defeat the ideology is to present a better ideology.

DIAMOND: And so, one year later --

AYALON: Yes.

DIAMOND: -- is Israel safer than it was?

AYALON: No. No way. Israel is not safer because if you look on the day of tomorrow, no one can tell you that we shall not face a regional war in which Hezbollah and Iran and the West Bank and Syria and the Houthis will not fight. It will be a regional war with a global impact. So, nobody can tell you today that we are safer than on the 6th of October.

DIAMOND (voice-over): But, for two mothers at the heart of this painful conflict --

MERAISH (Interpreted): Who knows when it will end, or what else I might lose? Would I lose my sister, my brother, or some relatives, or someone dear to me? God knows. We don't know.

DIAMOND (voice-over): -- a plea for it all to end. STEINBRECHER: There is no time for someone to finish wars or something

like this. They don't have time.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Jeremy diamond, CNN, Kfar Aza, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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[11:35:00]

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SOARES: Welcome back. You are watching CNN Newsroom. Isa Soares in London. Here are some of the international headlines we are watching for you.

A day of anguish as well as remembrance across Israel and the world, one year after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th. In the next few minutes, U.S. President Joe Biden is set to hold a candle lighting ceremony at the White House in memory of the victims. Earlier, survivors and families of those killed gathered at the site of the Nova Music Festival in Israel that became, of course, one of the biggest targets in the massacre. And images of those taken by Hamas were projected onto the walls of Jerusalem's old city yesterday, a powerful reminder, they are not forgotten. And on this somber anniversary of the attacks that claimed some 1,200 lives, questions remain unanswered about warnings ignored and a catastrophic failure of Israeli intelligence.

Our Jim Sciutto has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: One year after October 7th, visiting the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel brings Eyal Eshel both a chance to honor his daughter, Ronnie, and the most painful memories.

EYAL ESHEL, FATHER OF OCTOBER 7 ATTACK VICTIM: From here, they came in the October 7th.

SCIUTTO: This is where they entered the place?

ESHEL: Yes. This is the way they came from Gaza.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Roni was one of more than a dozen IDF soldiers in an all-female observer unit who raised the alarm as Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel that morning, after warning for months of an impending attack.

RONI ESHEL, IDF OBSERVATION SOLDIER, NAHAL OZ BASE (Interpreted): I see two armed people running towards the fence, confirm received.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): As Hamas fighters overran the base, even filming themselves as they did it, Roni and her fellow observers waited six hours for a rescue that never came. They were killed, along with more than 30 other Israeli soldiers at the base, while several others were taken hostage. For Eyal today, each location inside the base brings pain --

ESHEL: Here is the table that the girls was sitting and eating and smiling and laughing.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): -- just what they were doing the very night before the October 7th attack, in this video recorded by Roni's fellow soldier.

This week in the destroyed operations room, Eyal lit a candle to mark the Jewish New Year, at the very same spot where Roni issued those ominous warnings, and close to where she died.

ESHEL: We don't have any holidays. We hate holidays. She is not here. She is not with us.

SCIUTTO: This is where the observer unit was based. This is where they were issuing those warnings prior to the attack that something was coming, and sadly, on the morning of October 7th, this is where many of them were killed.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): The IDF's failure not just to heed the observer's warning, but also to come to their rescue, remain crucial questions a full year since October 7th, part of a much broader security failure that day. It was on these now burned up computer screens that Roni and her colleagues told their parents they had seen worrying signs from Hamas, including accounts of fighters testing the fence line. The Israeli military ignored other warning signs as well, including these training videos Hamas posted openly online in the months before, and earlier intelligence since uncovered by Israeli media about Hamas' intent to attack Israeli communities and even take multiple hostages.

Retired Brigadier General Amir Avivi is former Deputy Commander of the IDF's Gaza division.

AMIR AVIVI, FMR. DEPUTY COMMANDER, IDF GAZA DIVISION: They thought that Hamas is mostly worried about the stability inside Gaza and the economy.

SCIUTTO: So, you're saying it was a misreading of Hamas, rather than not listening to internal warnings.

[11:40:00]

AVIVI: Generally speaking, yes, but I think that also at a certain point, what the observers said again and again and again that I think things that are out of usual, at a certain point, there were commanders who said, OK, that's it. We don't want to hear about this anymore.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): The IDF and Israeli government have insisted a full investigation into what went wrong that day. It cannot take place while the country is fighting a war on multiple fronts now.

ESHEL: We've put the picture of the whole girls.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Today, Eyal and the other families have built a memorial for their lost daughters overlooking Nahal Oz base.

ESHEL: Here is Roni.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): But, they're still waiting for what he wants most now, accountability.

SCIUTTO: Has anyone from the army or the government ever said to you, I take responsibility?

ESHEL: No one. No one.

SCIUTTO: Has anyone ever said, I'm sorry?

ESHEL: No one. I need answers, and I need the responsibility, and I need the truth.

SCIUTTO (voice-over): A father's simple demand after the worst loss imaginable.

Jim Sciutto, CNN, Nahal Oz, southern Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: Powerful piece there.

I want to bring in Avi Mayer, the former Editor-in-Chief of Jerusalem Post. Avi, really appreciate you being with us. We have been seeing throughout the hours, from our correspondents, just scenes of grieving across Israel. Against this backdrop, Avi, of incoming rockets, really, a reminder that the fight against Hamas and Hezbollah in the last, what, 41 minutes, the Houthis in Yemen too, is far from over. In fact, it rages on. Just your assessment of where we are a year on.

AVI MAYER, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE JERUSALEM POST: Well, Isa, about a year ago, exactly a year ago, actually, today, I wrote a piece that appeared on the front page of the next day's paper calling this Israel September the 11th attack. And at the time, that was the only analogy we could imagine. But, I remember the September 11th attacks. I'm sure you do as well.

SOARES: Yeah.

MAYER: I was a high school student in the Greater Washington, D.C. area. I remember the trauma that day, but I remember the day ending and this healing process starting, where we also were able to move on as a nation. The challenge in Israel is that we haven't been able to move on. The trauma is still present in our lives every single day. 101 hostages remain in Gaza. We don't know whether they're alive or dead. Tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced from their homes, not knowing whether they'll ever return to those homes. Thousands upon thousands of families are mourning, grieving the loss of their loved ones, grappling with horrific injuries, wounds, emotional trauma. And so, that, coupled with, as you said, the reality of an ongoing

war, means that we are still admired in the trauma that day, and we don't know what we're going to emerge from it.

SOARES: Yeah. And like you said, it's -- Israel right now is that country at war, and a country facing a war, in fact, having on many fronts. And I really want to tap into to your sources, your contacts, to get a sense of the mood just across the country, of course, as the region kind of teeters on the brink of a regional war. Where do Israelis, Avi, where do they stand on not just the wars that being waged and the methods being used, but the support? Is there support, I wonder, for retaliation against Iran whenever it comes, if it comes from Prime Minister Netanyahu? Give us a sense of the mood.

MAYER: Well, Israelis are an extremely resilient people, and also quite determined to ensure their own safety, to ensure that those people who have been evacuated from their homes will be able to return free of the threat of rocket fire and missiles by Hezbollah in the north or Hamas in the south. And so, there is widespread support for whatever military action is necessary to secure Israel's boundaries and for the safety of the Israeli people.

At the same time, there is also tremendous support in Israeli society for some kind of a deal, unfortunately with Hamas, that will entail the release of probably thousands of convicted Palestinian terrorists in order to bring those 101 hostages home. I think that was brought into extremely stark relief just a few weeks ago when those -- the bodies of those six hostages were found in Gaza, those six young people who had been murdered by Hamas has, I think, produced this ground self-support in Israel for some kind of a measure in order to bring those people home, pretty much at no matter what cost.

SOARES: Yeah. And we've heard, in fact, Israel Defense minister say that everything is on the table, and what relates, of course, to Israel's response to that barrage of missiles that we saw raining down on Israel. How -- I mean, do you have a sense of how Israel may respond to this? How -- what do Israelis want to see here?

MAYER: Look, Isa, at the end of the day, all roads lead back to Tehran. Iranian regime has been beyond, I think, a lot of this activity.

[11:45:00]

We see them as being a key sponsor of Hamas, of course, the primary backer of Hezbollah, and of course, they themselves have become directly involved by lobbying these hundreds of missiles at Israeli territory. So, there will be an Israeli response. I think that is fairly clear. Israel has said so. The Americans have said so. There will be dire consequences to this very dangerous and escalatory Iranian action, and we have to see, what can be taken, what steps are necessary at this point to ensure that there is a severe enough response, but one that doesn't draw an even further escalation and a further deterioration of the situation in this region.

SOARES: Yeah, indeed. That is the concern. Avi Mayer, appreciate your insight. Thanks very much, Avi.

We're going to take a short break. We will back on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOARES: Well, another powerful hurricane is heading toward Florida. Right now, Hurricane Milton is now a Category 4, and quickly, as you can see, getting stronger in the Gulf of Mexico. It is expected to hit Florida's Western Gulf Coast by the middle of the week, and the blow, of course, coming as Florida continues its recovery from Hurricane Helene.

For the latest on the hurricane, let's bring in CNN Meteorologist Elisa Raffa, who joins us from the Weather Center in Atlanta. Elisa, we are seeing Milton right there really exploding in strength. Just give us a sense of trajectory and what this means for so many.

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is rapidly intensifying so quickly this morning, a Category 4 hurricane. When I went to sleep last night, it was a Category 1. It's just a totally different picture right now, 155 mile per hour winds at the center, gusts up to 190 miles per hour, just the trajectory of how much this has intensified in the last 24 hours. The wind speeds at the center of the storm have increased nearly 100 miles per hour in just 24 hours. That is mind boggling at how quickly this thing has gained strain.

So, we are looking at a Category 4 hurricane later on today. That will sideswipe the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. As it heads towards Florida by Wednesday and into Thursday, it will start to wane in strength a little bit, but we're still looking at some damaging winds. Isa.

SOARES: Elisa, I'm going to interrupt you, because we are seeing President Biden at the White House, I believe, lighting a candle. Let's just have a listen.

RABBI AARON ALEXANDER, HEAD RABBI, WASHINGTON'S ADAS ISRAEL CONGREGATION: (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) at memorial services, at funerals, and on the year anniversary of an individual's death.

[11:50:00]

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE). God, full of mercy who dwells on high, grant fitting rest on the wings of the divine presence to the holy and pure the brave, for the souls of the holy ones, men, women, and children who were killed on October 7th. For this, we pray for the ascent of their souls. May they rest in the Garden of Eden. May you shelter them in the shadow of your wings forever, and may their souls be bound up in the bond of everlasting life. May they rest in peace, and we say. Amen.

We're now going to light the Yahrzeit candle, the memorial candle, and then observe a moment of silence. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

SOARES: You have been listening there to Rabbi Aaron Alexander. Alongside him was President Biden and First Lady lighting the candle there in remembrance of the victims of the October 7th attack. 1,200 were killed when Hamas stormed across the Gaza border one year ago today. More than 100 hostages are still being held. The rabbi recited, as you heard him there, prayer which translates to God full of mercy. It is a Jewish prayer being told for the soul of a person who has died, and is recited during burial services and memorial services. In his recitation, the rabbi also mentioned areas in Israel that were attacked on October 7th.

We heard today President Biden and Vice President Harris calling for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. We also heard President Biden talking of the unspeakable brutality of what happened on that day.

Our Nic Robertson has been following developments and brings us this report from the memorial earlier at the Nova festival site in southern Israel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: This is what we're seeing around us here, young people coming back, grieving for siblings, parents, grieving for siblings, people who survived coming back, looking for closure, not finding it. Families coming, telling me this is like the day after it happened. They don't believe that their loved ones are dead and gone. I don't think you can -- I can't put it into words for what this means for people. Everyone just flinched just now, because not far away there is an artillery position that sort of firing towards Gaza. There is a huge military presence around here, but also reinforcement around Gaza, in essence, to allow this commemoration to happen so close to Gaza, just a couple of miles away. We know that they've been military operations inside of Gaza over the past couple of days, 25 people killed yesterday when the IDF targeted a mosque there.

[11:55:00]

They said it was a Hamas location. It's clear that the tempo was picked up in the past few days. But here, I think what you're seeing is the mood set here for a very solemn and very somber day. And I think the images from here a year ago that really were the first powerful images for people, as they were trying to grapple with what was actually happening. Of course, everyone here fleeing for their lives, but those images of rockets flying over the music at the festival, everyone in panic, everyone running, trying to get in their vehicles, and gunned down, not just here at the festival site, 340, more than 340 killed. But, people also chased and gunned down at the nearby kibbutzim, all around the area, hundreds more gunned down there.

So, this was kind of the moment when the country, when it got the images from here, began to understand, and the world began to understand what was happening.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)