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Florida Residents Flee Ahead of Milton's Direct Hit; Bob Woodward Reveals Private Conversations with Trump and Biden in his New Book; Children in Gaza Taking Their Toil A Year Into the War; 14 U.S. States Sued TikTok for Allegedly Harming Children's Mental Health. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired October 09, 2024 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world and to everyone streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, Hurricane Milton closes in on Florida. As residents flee from the dangerous winds and deadly storm surge, the Category 5 storm is expected to produce.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns Lebanon could face destruction similar to Gaza as he urges the country to oust Hezbollah from positions of power.

And a new book by Watergate reporter Bob Woodward reveals private conversations from both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Thanks for joining us. Well, right now, Florida's heavily populated Western Gulf Coast is bracing for a direct hit from one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to ever form. In the latest update, Milton had weakened slightly, but is still at a rare category five strength.

Landfall is expected late Wednesday or very early Thursday, potentially as a category three. But even if the winds decrease, Milton is expected to double in size, meaning the damage could be far more widespread.

And here's what the traffic looked like on one of Florida's interstates just hours ago. Many people heeding the repeated calls from officials to get out while they still can. Statewide, about one in five gas stations are out of fuel due to the mass exodus, according to the tracking website GasBuddy.

A major concern with Milton is all the debris still left behind by Hurricane Helene, which hit just two weeks ago. Many fear that debris could become dangerous projectiles when Milton's powerful winds come ashore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR DAVE GATTIS, BELLEAIR BEACH, FLORIDA: I realized that we had a big problem because all the trash was on the street and we had another storm approaching. I had concerns, but now I have major concerns. If we have this storm surge, we have these high winds, which I suspect we will at least have the wind, if not the surge to go along with it, we're going to have trash, just projectiles flying all over the city. So it's definitely a dangerous area to be in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: But even with all the warnings, the size and intensity of this storm and all the damage they've already faced from Helene, some residents are still staying put, as CNN's Randi Kaye reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIMOTHY DUDLEY, DIRECTOR, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: This may be the worst storm that we've seen in a hundred years to hit west central Florida.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The west coast of Florida has barely cleaned up from Hurricane Helene as this monster hurricane takes its aim at Florida.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: The most important message today for all those who may be listening to this, in the impacted areas, listen to the local authorities.

KAYE (voice-over): A major hurricane hasn't made a direct hit on the Tampa Bay area since October of 1921.

MAYOR JANE CASTOR (D), TAMPA, FLORIDA: Helene was a wake-up call. This is literally catastrophic. And I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die.

KAYE (voice-over): A very real sense of urgency to leave before it's too late.

SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA: Don't gamble with your life or the lives of your loved ones. The time to get out is now.

KAYE (voice-over): This area could see storm surge of up to 15 feet.

MAYOR BRUCE RECTOR, CLEARWATER, FLORIDA: If you choose to stay in evacuation area, you're going to die.

KAYE (voice-over): Roads are clogged as residents heed the warnings to evacuate.

The search for gasoline getting more difficult, as some gas stations here are starting to run out of fuel. And for those who are staying, a rush on water and plywood as residents make last-ditch efforts to board up businesses and homes.

K.T. Curran and her husband Chris have lived on Siesta Key in Island Office, Arizona for the last 25 years. She evacuated for Helene, but her husband stayed behind to ride out the storm.

K.T. CURRAN, SARASOTA, FLORIDA RESIDENT: That night he got no power, he had no phone, and we lost touch with him. And we found out the next day there was a five-foot surge of water in the house and he was all night in the pitch dark in five-foot of water. And he sat there for hours on the top of a neighbor's high house until the water went down a little and then went back in the house and laid on a wet bed until light came up.

[03:05:09]

KAYE (voice-over): They lost all of their belongings and the house now has to be gutted due to mold in the walls. Now staring down Hurricane Milton, the couple has still decided to stay. This time in a friend's condo on the ninth floor of a building in downtown Sarasota which has windows built to withstand a category five hurricane.

CURRAN: Now, as this hurricane is barreling down directly on our community, it feels like maybe Helene was just a rehearsal for what's to come.

KAYE (voice-over): Looking out the window of the condo where she'll ride out Milton, she wonders if they've made a mistake staying put.

CURRAN: They're talking possible 15 foot storm surge. None of us in a hundred years have seen anything like this. It is shocking.

KAYE: And while many of the residents have evacuated from Sarasota, this is what's left behind, their belongings in the street, left behind by Helene just a couple of weeks ago. You have a refrigerator, a dresser, a china cabinet, couches. We see this all around the neighborhood, on the streets, as we drive around. So this is a real concern that many of this could become projectiles, whether or not Sarasota gets a direct hit or not, or certainly this could be taken in the flood waters. So certainly a big concern for the people here.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Sarasota, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: We go now to CNN meteorologist, Chad Myers, with the latest forecast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, still a major hurricane right now. Still a very strong storm headed toward the West Coast of Florida and likely still will be a major hurricane at landfall. We'll still have to see what happens, how far it goes to the north or to the south, depending on where this really affects Tampa or places to the south of Tampa, which would be the middle of the cone, but you can't look at the middle of the cone. You have to look at the entirety of it because it could go left or it

could go right. If you are on the right side of that cone, the right side of the eyewall landfall that's where the real problems will be with 10 to 15 feet of storm surge. If you're on the left side that number goes down dramatically.

Still hurricane warnings though are in effect right now and we'll see 74 to 110 mile per hour winds all the way across the state and yes you see those category 3 or higher at least close for Fort Myers all the way to about I would say Tampa, Lakeland, will certainly see those type of winds and you will, without a doubt, lose power with that type of wind field.

There goes the wind field for all the way off the East Coast and the heavy rainfall as well, probably somewhere between 8 and 12 inches of rainfall in places that could make freshwater flooding, without a doubt. And here you see the high risk of that freshwater flooding. Only 4 percent of the days, and one of them is today, only 4 percent of the days of the year have this rating of high, but we have 40 percent of the deaths happening on those days.

Here's the storm right here. It's still a very impressive looking storm. We'll have to see what it looks like when daylight comes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Well, joining me now is Colin Burns, the Deputy Incident Commander for Pasco County in Florida. And we do appreciate you talking with us at this difficult time.

COLIN BURNS, DEPUTY INCIDENT COMMANDER, PASCO COUNTY, FLORIDA: Sure. Good morning.

CHURCH: So the blunt message of likely death if people choose to remain in their homes appears to be getting through as we see many Florida residents getting out before the category 5 hurricane hits land. But highways are packed with cars right now and fuel is running low and running out in some areas. So what is your advice to many people who haven't been able to get out yet but perhaps intend to?

BURNS: Our advice is do not hesitate. If you can get out, get out. We understand that there are traffic issues on our major thoroughfares throughout Florida. Our Florida Highway Patrol, Pasco County Sheriff's Office is doing all they can to alleviate that congestion we have on the roadways. So please, if you can get out, you know, and keep yourself safe, evacuate to an area where the storm's not going to hit. That's what we recommend.

CHURCH: And what is the latest on those evacuation efforts? And what can you tell us about available shelters and of course capacity at those locations?

BURNS: Sure. The evacuation has been going quite well. We did do a mandatory evacuation for our A, B, and C zones and also mobile homes, anyone living in a mobile home. We asked to, or we did a mandatory evacuation for them, excuse me. We did open up six shelters. The capacity we have in those shelters is quite high.

We also have another 10 shelters on standby if we need to open them up and assist our partner counties if they see the need to transport their evacuees from their shelters up here to Pasco County. So we are quite ready. All right, go ahead.

[03:10:08]

CHURCH: And do you -- Right, and do you have any idea how many people have made the decision to stay in their homes and hunker down and ride this out?

BURNS: We do not know how many people have made that decision to stay in their homes, but we do know that right now we're currently housing about 3,000 people in our shelter.

CHURCH: And what are some of your biggest concerns right now as this hurricane approaches the Florida coast?

BURNS: One of the biggest concerns that we had, which you spoke of previously on your program, was the debris field that we had out there from Helene. Over the past few days, we've thrown every piece of equipment and all of the manpower we have here in Pasco County at that situation to pick up as much debris as we possibly could, get it to a safe location so we would avoid as many projectiles, if you will, during the storm winds when they do peak.

So we've worked on that effort for quite a while. We're going to try to keep that effort going as long as we can tomorrow until the weather conditions dictate that we need to get off the roads. But we're going to really give that, you know, a good try to get as much of that material out so we can make it as safe as we can for the community members, which you mentioned before, that are going to stay behind.

CHURCH: And there is an incredible amount of debris from Hurricane Helene, isn't there? So how much of that do you think, given the very few hours that you have left to clear that, how much of that will you be able to clear and what other preparations are progressing?

BURNS: Well, hopefully we'll be able to, I think we've been ranging somewhere from eight to 10,000 cubic yards of debris a day. Yes, it is a massive amount of debris that we have from Helene, but like we said, we're just going to try and get as much of it off the right of way as we can before the storm hits tomorrow night.

CHURCH: Colin Burns, we want to thank you so much for talking with us and we do wish you and your crew all the best. Do stay safe.

BURNS: Thank you very much.

CHURCH: A top Hezbollah official is saying for the first time the group supports a ceasefire with Israel even without an end to the fighting in Gaza. Now it comes as Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon have expanded to the west despite the IDF claim that its campaign would be limited. Israeli airstrikes hit Hezbollah targets in southern Beirut again overnight. Lebanese state media report massive destruction, including the collapse of four residential buildings. Israel says it's still assessing whether it killed the successor to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nazrallah. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Tuesday that Hashem Safi Yehdeen had been eliminated. The IDF says it's still checking.

So we do want to go now to CNN's Paula Hancocks. She joins us live from Abu Dhabi. Good to see you again, Paula. So what more are you learning about the claim from Israel that it may have killed Nasrallah's replacement?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, we're hearing something fairly definitive from the Prime Minister himself, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that Safedin has been killed, saying it was in an air strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday. We're not hearing such conviction from the military side there.

We heard from the Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, telling troops that he was probably eliminated, also the military itself saying that the results of this attack are still being assessed. But let's listen to what Benjamin Netanyahu had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We've degraded Hezbollah's capabilities. We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah's replacement, and the replacement of his replacement. Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it's been for many, many years. Now you, the Lebanese people, you stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice. You can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: Now there's no doubt that there have been a significant number of Hezbollah commanders that have been killed over recent months really, not just during the past couple of weeks. We heard from the IDF that they say 50 fighters were killed in southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours. They say that six senior commanders from the southern fronts and Radwan were among those that they killed.

[03:14:56]

Now what we've also heard from Benjamin Netanyahu is really a message, you heard some of it there, to the Lebanese people, saying that the destruction in Lebanon could be similar to what we see in Gaza, saying that they are falling potentially into the abyss of a long war.

Now, it's very different to what he had said just a few days ago talking about the ground offensive being limited, being localized, targeted, and we Heard from an Israeli official that they have no interest in a long drawn-out war or of reoccupation of parts of southern Lebanon.

But we have heard from U.N. officials, the United Nations, saying that what they're seeing in Lebanon is very reminiscent of what we saw in the early days of the war in Gaza, just when it comes to the sheer power and the scale of the warfare and what Israel is doing with its aerial bombardment, certain areas really have been destroyed as of this point. And also there is one village, Maroun Al-Ras in southern Lebanon, that we saw Israeli military planting an Israeli flag in that area.

Now, this is something that obviously is problematic to the Biden administration. We heard Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesperson, saying obviously it is inappropriate. This was fairly close to a UNIFIL base as well, that's the United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

We have asked the IDF about the situation, but again it goes in the face of what Israel had said when it started this grand offensive that it would be limited. We also heard from the State Department that Israel needs to comply with what they have said, that it is a limited incursion and they're not looking to gain territory. Rosemary.

CHURCH: Alright. Our thanks to Paula Hancocks for that live report from Abu Dhabi.

Still to come, a flurry of high-profile interviews. We'll look at the Harris campaign's media strategy in the final weeks of a very tight race.

And bombshell new details about Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin. A new book offers a behind-the-scenes look at their conversations, including multiple phone calls and a secret shipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We'll have details just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back everyone. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is doing a burst of interviews this week as she tries to pull ahead in the neck and neck race for the White House. The latest CNN poll of polls gives her a razor thin lead over Donald Trump among likely voters, meaning there is no clear leader.

CNN's Eva McKend has our report.

[03:19:58]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVA MCKEND, CNN U.S. NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Vice President Kamala Harris in the midst of a media blitz as the Democratic presidential nominee tries to reach as many voters as possible in the coming weeks of a campaign that is exceedingly close.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS (D), U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is good to be with you.

MCKEND (voice-over): Among the flurry of unscripted interviews, most of them are non-traditional news shows, including an appearance on "The View", where Harris was asked if she would have done anything differently than President Joe Biden.

HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.

MCKEND (voice-over): Harris later pointed to one way she would differ from Biden if elected.

HARRIS: I'm going to have a Republican in my cabinet. Because I don't -- I don't feel burdened by letting pride get in the way of a good idea.

MCKEND (voice-over): The Trump campaign quickly seized on the vice president's comments, saying in a statement, if you're a voter who wants to turn the page from Joe Biden's failed economy, open border and global chaos, then Kamala Harris is not the candidate for you.

With four weeks until election day, Harris also calling out the former president's series of falsehoods about the federal response in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

HARRIS: It's profound and it is the height of irresponsibility and frankly callousness. This is so consistent about Donald Trump. He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level.

MCKEND (voice-over): In addition to "The View", Harris also sitting Tuesday with Howard Stern and late night host Stephen Colbert following a wide-ranging interview with CBS' "60 Minutes", this section posted online.

BILL WHTAKER, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary?

HARRIS: I think there's an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands, okay? This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles. What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my highest priorities.

MCKEND (voice-over): Harris telling Stern the high stakes of the election is causing her to lose sleep.

HARRIS: I literally lose sleep and have been over what is at stake in this election.

MCKEND: And Harris' media strategy, not only to preach to the converted, but to speak to Americans more broadly as she tries to remind them of some of the chaos that came to characterize the Trump presidency. She argues that he's easily manipulated by dictators and had a botched response to the pandemic.

Eva McKend, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Legendary journalist Bob Woodward has captured a rare look behind the scenes at the highest levels of global politics. His new book called "War" reveals conversations from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, often about or involving other world leaders.

He describes previously unknown details about the relationship between former President Trump and Vladimir Putin, including that there may have been as many as seven calls between the two men since Trump left the White House. And a secret shipment of COVID-19 testing supplies Trump sent to the Russian president at the height of the pandemic.

Jamie Gangel has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: These are never-before- revealed phone calls that Woodward is reporting about between Trump and Putin, including this verbatim conversation where they discuss what you mentioned, that President Trump apparently secretly sent the Russian president this scarce shipment of COVID test machines for his personal use.

So here is the exchange from the book.

Putin - Please don't tell anybody you sent these to me.

Trump - I don't care. Fine.

Putin - No, I don't want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you. Not me. They don't care about me.

Former President Trump today denied sending the test to Putin. President Biden, reacting to the reports that Trump had sent these, according to Woodward, said, quote, "what the hell's wrong with this guy meeting Trump?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Our thanks to Jamie Gangel for that report.

And among other new details, Bob Woodward reports that Biden's national security team at one point believed there was a real threat, a 50 percent chance that Putin would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

And during a conversation about his son's legal troubles, President Biden said he, quote, "should never have picked Merrick Garland to be U.S. Attorney General," and he criticized former President Barack Obama for his handling of Putin's invasion of Crimea in 2014, concluding that Obama quote, "never took Putin seriously."

[03:25:08]

Ron Brownstein is a CNN senior political analyst and senior editor at "The Atlantic." He joins me now from Los Angeles. Appreciate you being with us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST AND SR. EDITOR, "THE ATLANTIC": Thanks Rosemary. Hi. CHURCH: So just 27 days to Election Day in America, and it's still too

close to call. But I do want to start with some stunning revelations from legendary journalist Bob Woodward's new book called "War", which looks at behind-the-scenes conversations within the Trump and Biden administrations.

One of the most shocking involves Donald Trump, who at the height of the pandemic in 2020 apparently sent COVID testing kits to Russia's President Vladimir Putin, an adversary of this country, and now of course at war with Ukraine. What was your reaction to that revelation, as well as others, including perhaps the most stunning, that Trump has made multiple private calls to Putin since leaving office?

BROWNSTEIN; My first reaction was this was the kind of revelation that earlier in Trump's career but it prompted a whole series of Republicans to raise alarms and that today there was silence you know, maybe that, maybe the turning point with the death of John McCain.

But it does reinforce a message that Harris is really pushing in fact is pushing on the air which is how many not only former Republican national security officials from other administrations. But Republican national security officials from his own administration are warning and arguing that Trump is not fit to be president again.

And I suspect, as Harris emphasizes, that cross-party support, Liz Cheney and others, that she will be talking quite a bit about that specific example of Trump sending the COVID tests to Vladimir Putin when Americans were struggling to get them themselves.

CHURCH: In the meantime, of course, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has been on a media blitz that has not surprisingly been criticized by rival Donald Trump as she calls out his multiple falsehoods and answers some pretty tough questions.

What's your assessment of her many media appearances so far, particularly on "The View" Tuesday when she said that nothing came to mind when asked if there was anything she would do differently to what President Biden has done?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. Well first of all, I think in all of these, I've listened to the podcasts; the two podcasts that she's done and Howard Stern and "The View." I'm struck by how much emphasis she's putting on personal relatability rather than emphasizing her agenda.

I mean really focusing on making each of these different audiences young women, black men, younger men which is the Stern audience and of course kind of working class middle-class women in "The View" feel that they can relate to her personally in a way they can't with Trump.

And I think that's a way of trying to get at her response on the economy, right? I mean, if you ask people who they trust more on the economy in a macro sense they say Trump. If they ask who, if you ask who you care -- who cares more about people like you, who's trying to improve your family's life, Harris does much better.

And I think by and large that's what she's going at in these -- in these media appearances, I did not think it was a great moment for her. I'm surprised you didn't have an answer ready to, sort of, the effect that obviously there have been some but I'm not going to and air our internal conversations here in public.

I do think overall "The View" appearance was the best one of the four by far for, it was pretty close pitch perfect in terms of both the policy agenda, in terms of Medicare, creating a Medicare program for home health care for seniors, but also that personal relatability and the creating an ability for working class moms to see her as someone who would get their lives because she's lived something like it herself. I thought that was a very effective performance.

CHURCH: And Harris is, of course, campaigning hard to be the change candidate, trying to differentiate herself from President Biden. But the latest "New York Times" and Siena College poll asked likely voters which candidate better represents change.

And 46 percent said Kamala Harris, compared to 44 percent saying Donald Trump, again, still within the margin of error. What do you make of this and other polls, including those from critical battleground states, where the two candidates have been campaigning hard for votes?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, well, first of all, you know, Harris is her message of change, right? She embodies her message. She's a 59 year old woman of mixed race running against a 78 year old white guy. So even though she is the vice president of the current administration, it's not entirely surprising the voters would see a change. We've never elected a president who looks like Kamala Harris.

[03:30:00]

I think the polling actually tells us a very similar story which is that Harris at on a national basis is ahead two to three points and the question of course is whether that translates into 270 electoral college votes because of all of the swing states that the two sides are contesting are slightly more Republican in the nation as a whole.

And I think if you look across the board right now, most politely agree she has a slight lead in the three Rust Belt swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which have voted the same way in every presidential election since 1980, except one.

She's probably trailing a little bit in three of the Sun Belt battlegrounds of Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina. And she may have a small lead in Nevada. That is enough, if it holds, to make her president. But these margins are historically tight for both of them. And I think in the end, we're going to be talking about somebody winning these states by 20, 30, 50,000 votes and that person becoming the president.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: An incredible moment for sure. Ron Brownstein, thank you so much for being with us. I Appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me. CHURCH: One year of war in Gaza. CNN takes a closer look at the

devastating toll of the conflict on a whole generation of Gaza's children. We'll be back with that in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Top U.N. officials are raising concerns that Lebanon could become another Gaza. A spokesperson for the Human Rights Commissioner says civilians are paying the ultimate price. With destruction everywhere, a million people displaced and hospitals and schools closed. He also says Israel is using the same means and methods of warfare in both conflicts.

Well a year into the war in Gaza, the Israeli government's objective of defeating Hamas still seems far from reach. Israel is now ramping up military activity in the enclave, announcing new operations and civilian evacuation orders. The war has taken a staggering toll on civilians, with many of the victims being Gaza's most vulnerable: children. CNN's Nada Bashir has more but a warning. Her report contains disturbing images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Where is the world? Look at this, this man shouts. Beside him, two young boys, wounded in an Israeli strike, left bleeding out on the cold tiles of the hospital floor.

[03:35:00]

A scene of chaos and anguish that has played out day after day in Gaza, now for an entire year.

These are all civilians, this father says. Look at this child, does he look like a fighter to you?

Across the ward. This little girl is left shaking and calling out for her parents. Outside, another unbearably familiar scene. The body of a limp child being rushed into the already overrun hospital.

This little girl is three-year-old Hanan. She was pulled from the rubble of her now-destroyed home in central Gaza. Her injuries are so severe that we've had to blur part of this footage.

Against all odds, doctors were able to save Hanan's life. But they had no choice but to amputate both her legs. Hanan's one-year-old sister, Misk, was also severely injured. Like her sister and so many other children in Gaza, she too has had to undergo an amputation.

Both now robbed of their ability to play like they used to, and in many ways, their innocence too. Mama, she calls out. Misk is too young to know that her mother, Sheyma, has been killed. Relatives say it's unclear whether their father, who is still in intensive care, will survive.

I don't know how Hanan will continue with her life without legs, without her mother, with all the pain that she has suffered, Hanan's aunt says.

In the ruin of what once was Hanan and Misk's home, survivors comb through bloody debris, gathering fragments of flesh and bone with their bare hands.

Many were killed and injured in the blast, Moad says. The majority of them were women and children. The whole place has been destroyed.

In just one year, more than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, among them over 16,000 children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The data is staggering and has even led the U.N.'s chief to describe Gaza as a graveyard for children.

As Israel's blockade on Gaza continues and as famine now advances across the strip, the U.N. has warned that more than 8,000 children have already been diagnosed and treated for acute malnutrition.

Medical supplies are also scarce, posing a huge challenge to doctors operating under the most difficult of circumstances. With thousands of children injured, and having to undergo amputations, in some cases even without anesthesia.

The reality on the ground is hard to ignore. And yet, a year on, the people of Gaza are still begging for the world to take notice and to take action.

For Gaza's children, an entire generation has already been lost to the brutality of a war they had no part in.

Nada Bashir, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And this just in to CNN. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden are due to speak later today, that is according to an Israeli official. The call comes after CNN reported Netanyahu instructed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant not to leave on Tuesday for the U.S. where he was scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin today saying he wanted to speak with Biden first.

And we'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows a link between social media use and mental health among teens. The CDC's new Youth Risk Behavior Report surveyed 155 schools across the country. The data reveals more than three in four high schoolers are frequently online using social media several times a day with about 30 percent tapping in more than once an hour. The report also found that 43 percent of students very active on social media say they feel persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness compared to 32 percent who use it less often.

Well, 14 U.S. states are suing TikTok for allegedly harming the mental health of children. They are accusing the social media app of addicting young people with its endless feed and challenge videos that can sometimes encourage risky activities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREA CAMPBELL, MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL: Our goal is to hold the company accountable for its unlawful conduct and to stop the company from engaging in practices that exploit our young people for profit. This case is not about regulating the content that is shown to TikTok users. It's about TikTok's own bad conduct. It's intentional design choices that trap young people's time and attention and hurt them in the process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: TikTok says it strongly disagrees with the claims. TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is also battling a law that could ban the app in the United States.

And I do want to thank you for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. Have yourselves a wonderful day. "Marketplace Middle East" is next. Then "CNN Newsroom" returns at the top of the hour with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane. Stay with us.

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[03:45:00]

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