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Israel Under Pressure To End Gaza Siege; Intelligence Suggests Israel Preparing To Strike Iranian Nuclear Facilities; Gunmen Kill Mexico City Mayor's Secretary And Adviser; South African President To Meet With Trump At The White House; Top Images Chosen for World Food Photography Awards. Aired 12-12:45a ET
Aired May 21, 2025 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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M.J. LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.
Israel under pressure. European leaders are taking political and economic action against what they call horrific decisions in the Gaza Strip.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa is on a working visit to the U.S., where he'll be meeting with President Trump to discuss why white South Africans have been resettled in the U.S. as refugees.
Plus from an octopus climbing out of a laundry machine to some old fiends enjoying a snack, we'll show you the winning images from the World Food Photography Awards.
And we begin this hour in the Middle East, where Israel is under growing pressure to end the aid blockade in Gaza and its new offensive. The U.K. is saying that it has paused trade negotiations with Israel, while the European Union is reviewing its trade deal with the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAJA KALLAS, E.U.'S FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: It is clear from today's discussion that there is a strong majority in favor of review of Article Two of our association agreement with Israel. So we will launch this exercise and in the meantime it is up to Israel to unblock the humanitarian aid. Saving lives must be our top priority.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: Article Two of the E.U.-Israel association agreement says, in part, relations between the parties shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.
Any pause in trade with Europe would hit Israel hard. The E.U. is Israel's biggest trading partner, accounting for nearly one-third of Israel's total trade last year. Israel allowed limited humanitarian deliveries to resume this week after nearly a three-month-long blockade on Gaza. But some world leaders say it is not enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The recent announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza, a basic quantity, is totally and utterly inadequate. So we must coordinate our response because this war has gone on for far too long.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: On Tuesday, the U.N. said Israel had given permission for dozens of aid trucks to enter Gaza, but aid groups say at least 500 trucks are needed daily to address the humanitarian crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANE DUJARRIC, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL'S SPOKESPERSON: So just to make it clear, while more supplies have come in to the Gaza Strip, we have not been able to secure the arrival of those supplies into our warehouses and delivery points.
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LEE: CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more from Tel Aviv.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, the United Nations says 100 aid trucks were approved by Israel for entry into Gaza. We know, of course, that this comes after Israel allowed just five aid trucks into the Gaza Strip yesterday following this decision from the Israeli Security Cabinet to allow a basic and minimal amount of aid into Gaza to prevent all-out famine from engulfing the Gaza Strip.
The question now really is how much aid is going to get in, and for how long will Israel continue to allow at least some aid to be brought into the Gaza Strip because humanitarian aid officials have made clear that the amount of aid that's gotten in so far represents just a drop in the bucket of the enormous need that currently exists in Gaza and stemming the hunger crisis that is currently taking over the Gaza Strip will require sustained aid to continue to make it into Gaza according to the United Nations.
Now, as this is happening, Israel is indeed continuing to escalate this expanded military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Since Thursday more than 500 people have actually been killed in Gaza by Israeli air and artillery strikes. The ground offensive that has been promised doesn't seem to have materialized in a very significant way, although we do know that tens of thousands of Israeli troops are mobilized in Gaza in order to carry out that offensive.
And it's already bringing a lot of pressure, international pressure onto Israel. France, the United Kingdom and Canada, all threatening to take concrete actions against Israel if they do not cease this expanded military offensive, which they call a wholly disproportionate escalation. The United Kingdom has already taken some steps, suspending negotiations with the Israeli government on a new trade agreement, also calling up Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom to discuss this matter further.
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The Israeli prime minister rejecting this criticism from countries that are traditionally considered allies of Israel. The real question, though, is what kind of pressure will the United States bring to bear. We know that they are working to try and bring about a new ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but so far no concrete signs of any real progress on that matter.
Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: And for more, I'm joined by Steven Cook. He is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Steven, it is great to have you. Clearly --
STEVEN COOK, SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Thanks for having me.
LEE: Yes. The international pressure is growing. But what, if anything, is going to actually come from that pressure? You know, the prime minister appears very set on this new ground offensive. This so- called Gideon's Chariots Operation has begun. Is there any indication you are getting that he is going to be swayed by this kind of pressure?
COOK: Well, it seems unlikely that Prime Minister Netanyahu will be swayed by pressure from the Europeans or even close European partners like the U.K. and France. I think from the perspective of the Israeli leadership, the pressure that counts comes from both the White House and Israel's friends in Congress.
There's a view in Israel that they would be criticized by the Europeans no matter what they did in the field. And if they devised a military strategy that they believe will be successful, they're going to do it regardless of what the Europeans say.
LEE: That's interesting that you're saying the pressure that actually counts will have to come from the U.S. I wanted to ask you about the U.S.'s role in all of this. As you know, President Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, got a lot of heat from critics during his term for being too supportive of, too deferential to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
I wonder whether in the first four months of the Trump second term, you have seen the new administration taking a different approach from the previous administration.
COOK: Well, certainly when it comes to the situation in Gaza, the Trump administration has been as supportive, if not more supportive than the Biden administration. It is true that Biden took a lot of heat for being supportive of the Israeli government, but he did try to use American influence to shape what the Israelis were doing on the ground. He did pause weapons deliveries to the Israelis.
These were relatively small things in the broad scheme of things. But it's important to remember that President Trump has released all the weapons to the Israelis and given them a long runway to pursue this new military strategy in Gaza. He has said that he doesn't like the sight of Palestinian suffering in the Gaza Strip, and has said that more aid needed to get into the Gaza Strip. But thus far, the administration hasn't applied any kind of significant pressure or any pressure whatsoever to make that happen.
LEE: And Steven, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Tuesday that the conflict in Gaza was entering a dark new phase. He was referencing the fact that Israel had been blocking humanitarian aid from going into the strip for 11 weeks. But the humanitarian situation there has been really dire throughout the course of this conflict.
Do you agree that we are in a new phase of this conflict?
COOK: Well, it has been a very dark 19 months or so for Palestinian civilians who have been caught in the crossfire. The Israelis have pursued a new tactic here by using the humanitarian aid to pressure Hamas. Hamas has been absconding with amounts of humanitarian aid to fund their war against Israel. And the Israelis have said that they're not going to do that, and that this is going to be a new means of pressuring Hamas and pressuring the Palestinian population.
Of course, it is causing a tremendous amount of suffering. But really, how do you measure? How do you measure this suffering against the suffering that's gone on over the course of the last 19 months? It is just another phase in a terrible conflict in a region that has seen way too much conflict.
LEE: Another terrible phase is what you're saying. The prime minister is saying that the plan now is for Israel to take control of the entire Gaza Strip. There is obviously a lot of criticism of this idea of Israel reoccupying Gaza. But at the same time, I mean, there's hardly any consensus about what happens to Gaza when the fighting ultimately ends.
Where do you think things are headed on that front?
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COOK: This was utterly predictable. And in fact, analysts took a look at all of the day-after plans and notions about what would happen after the end of the fighting. And many of us concluded that really the logical outcome of what was happening, given the shortcomings of those plans, was an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. And that's precisely what Prime Minister Netanyahu has said.
He has said it in terms of military operations that this is a way to pressure Hamas and bring about the defeat of Hamas. But once the Israelis are fully in the Gaza Strip, they are then responsible for the Palestinian population. And that means providing for the health and well-being of that population. It is essentially a return to a pre-2005 situation. 2005 being the year when the Israelis withdrew all of their settlements and the IDF from the Gaza Strip.
It is potentially a very significant, significant change in Israel's position with regard to the Gaza Strip and very significant for the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.
LEE: All right. Steven Cook, thank you so much.
COOK: Thank you.
LEE: Sources tell CNN Israel may be considering a major move that could propel the Middle East into a broader war.
CNN's chief U.S. security analyst, Jim Sciutto, has those details.
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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Myself and my colleagues, Katie Bo Lillis and Natasha Bertrand, have new reporting tonight that the U.S. has obtained new intelligence suggesting that Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. These officials caution it is not clear Israeli leaders have made a final decision, and there is deep disagreement within the U.S. government about the likelihood of such an attack.
However, this new U.S. intelligence assessment is based on both intercepted Israeli communications and on Israeli military activity, and that activity includes the movement of air munitions and the completion of an air exercise. One person familiar with the U.S. intelligence told us, quote, "The chance of an Israeli strike on an Iranian nuclear facility has gone up significantly in recent months," and the prospect of a Trump negotiated U.S.-Iran deal that does not remove all of Iran's uranium makes the chance of a strike more likely.
An Israeli source told me that if the U.S. were to make what this source described as a bad deal, Israel may very well decide to strike Iran on its own. And that's a key dynamic here that the U.S. and Israel might be at odds on a potential outcome of President Trump's negotiations with Iran. And now, as we noted, new U.S. intelligence indicates that Israel is at least making preparations for military action.
Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.
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LEE: Mexico is dealing with a rash of political violence. The latest attacks targeting members of the ruling party. Details on that and the reaction from the Mexican president.
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LEE: Attorneys for Vietnamese and Burmese migrants are accusing the Trump administration of violating a court order by deporting them to South Sudan. At least a dozen migrants were sent to South Sudan this week. Their attorneys say some of the migrants didn't receive proper notice of the opportunity to contest their deportation to a third country. That's in violation of a previous order issued earlier this year.
The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly confirmed the deportations. The U.S. currently has a do not travel advisory for South Sudan amid the ongoing conflict there.
Gunmen on a motorcycle have shot dead two close aides to the Mexico City mayor in what's being described as a direct attack. Political violence is common in Mexico, and these are the latest members of the ruling Morena Party to be targeted. That's also the party of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The killings come just ahead of key judicial elections there.
CNN Espanol's Gabriela Frias has our report.
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GABRIELA FRIAS, CNN ESPANOL ANCHOR: Sheinbaum still in an early morning press conference was underway when the news broke. Two close allies of the mayor of Mexico City were shot dead. Sheinbaum was listening to her Cabinet members offer an update to the media about the government's strategy to combat insecurity and violence. Then the secretary of National Security Omar Garcia Harfuch approached her.
Several minutes later, President Sheinbaum approached the podium and broke the news to the reporters present with the information from the Mexico City government. Ximena Guzman, personal secretary, and Jose Munoz, adviser to the mayor of Mexico City Clara Brugada were victims of a direct attack, Sheinbaum announced. She expressed condolences to the loved ones of the two officials and offered her support to the investigation.
She added, we will get to the bottom of this situation and ensure justice is served. The president said both Guzman and Munoz were well- known within the ranks of the official Morena Party. Three hours later, the mayor of Mexico City briefed reporters confirming the victims had died during a direct attack in the Moderna neighborhood.
As the mayor of Mexico City, Clara Brugada holds the country's second most powerful political office after the president, Claudia Sheinbaum. Brugada and Sheinbaum are allies in the Morena Party.
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Mexico City and federal authorities said they are investigating the motive for the attack and are analyzing surveillance footage to identify the gunmen. The Mexico City Attorney General's Office said the attack took place when the two officials were on their way to work, and their vehicle was intercepted.
Investigations are in the early stages. We expect President Sheinbaum to offer comments regarding this attack during her morning press conference.
Gabriela Frias, CNN, Mexico City.
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LEE: Italy's prime minister says Pope Leo is still eager to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Last week, the Vatican offered to hold the next round of negotiations but Moscow has given no sign that it is ready for peace and said it's continuing to bombard Ukraine with drone strikes.
The European Union and the U.K. are presenting a united front announcing a new round of sanctions against Russia on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Europe for its support, but he's also urging the U.S. to remain committed and involved in the peace process and in pressuring Vladimir Putin. The Trump administration, though, is now walking back its promises of further sanctions on Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Our belief, the president's belief is he doesn't -- he believes that right now, if you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking. And there's value in us being able to talk to them and drive them to get to the table.
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LEE: The U.S. and South African presidents will soon meet in Washington. A controversial refugee program for white South Africans is looming over those talks. Why the Trump administration claims it is in the U.S.'s national interest, just ahead.
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LEE: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm M.J. Lee. Let's take a look at today's top stories.
Israel is facing mounting pressure to end the aid blockade in Gaza and its new offensive. On Tuesday, the U.K. announcing it is pausing trade negotiations with Israel and the European Union, Israel's biggest trading partner, said it will review its trade agreement with the country.
Sources tell CNN the U.S. has new intelligence suggesting Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Officials say no final decision has been made, but a strike would be a major escalation and it would break with the U.S., which is pursuing a nuclear deal with Tehran.
Severe storms are now marching across parts of the southeast U.S. This was the scene in Huntsville, Alabama, late Tuesday amid a tornado warning. Millions of people in the eastern U.S. are still in the path of dangerous storms. In recent days nonstop severe weather has killed at least 28 people. The Syrian government is getting a boost from the West at a critical
time. The European Union announced it will lift its economic sanctions on Syria just days after the U.S. made a similar move. But the E.U. says it will keep its sanctions related to the regime of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, along with sanctions based on security grounds, including weapons and certain technologies.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the new Syrian government needs all the help it can get just months after toppling the Assad regime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBIO: It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up.
The good news is that there is a Syrian national identity. It is one of the places in the Middle East where Alawis and Druze and Christians and Sunni and Shia have lived along, and Kurds, have lived alongside each other underneath the banner of a Syrian identity until it was broken by a butcher, Assad, who pitted them against each other.
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LEE: Rubio also told lawmakers the two biggest threats to Syria are now ISIS and Iran, but the country is also facing challenges because of what Rubio called deep internal distrust, as well as mass displacement from years of war.
Secretary Rubio also defended the Trump administration's controversial decision to prioritize white South Africans for refugee resettlement in the U.S. He says it's in the national interest of the U.S. because they are a small subset who are easier to vet than others seeking resettlement.
The South African president is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House in the coming hours.
CNN's Larry Madowo has the has more on this controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): White South Africans, many of them farmers, entered the American dream. Some too young to know they've also entered an international firestorm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome. Welcome to the United States of America.
MADOWO: The U.S. government says it's taking in these refugees fleeing alleged racial discrimination at home.
That's why they've opened the door for them.
CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: Yes. And they don't fit that bill. Those people who have fled are not being persecuted. The American government has got the wrong end of the stick here.
MADOWO: South Africa's president has come to the U.S. to set the record straight and is expected to meet President Donald Trump Wednesday, hoping to reset the two countries' relationship.
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It was his signing of a controversial land seizure law in January that invoked Trump's wrath: allowing the state to take unused farmland without compensation if deemed just, equitable, and in the public interest.
South Africa's majority black population still owns just a small percentage of farms more than 30 years after apartheid officially ended, while most are owned by the white minority.
There were 36 murders at farms between April and December last year, but only seven of the victims were farmers, according to police data.
But President Trump calls it a, quote, "genocide" against white farmers.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They're being killed. And we don't want to see people be killed.
It's a genocide that's taking place.
MADOWO (voice-over): The accusation partly stemming from this apartheid era song made popular again by far-left opposition leader Julius Malema.
JULIUS MALEMA, FOUNDER, ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS: Kill the Boer, the farmer. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) power (ph).
MADOWO (voice-over): But AfriForum, the conservative white Afrikaners lobby group, won't explicitly say there is a white genocide.
KALLIE KRIEL, CEO, AFRIFORUM: There's a call for -- genocidal call. People are being killed, and people are being tortured. We need to prevent this from going further.
MADOWO (voice-over): AfriForum is described by the U.S.-based Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist group. They have the ear of the U.S. administration, but they're not leaving South Africa.
KRIEL: At every forum, we say our future is in Africa, because our ancestors came here more than 300 years ago.
MADOWO (voice-over): South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk has fanned the accusations against his homeland, frustrating locals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they are lying. There's no genocide in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Elon Musk is overhyping the situation. There's no such as genocide. JOHN STEENHUISEN, SOUTH AFRICAN MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE: We mustn't mischaracterize things as a genocide. There's no mass expropriation of land taking place in South Africa. There's no genocide taking place.
MADOWO (voice-over): Musk reportedly wants approvals for his companies to operate in South Africa.
MADOWO: Well, is Elon Musk invited when you have that face-to-face meeting?
CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: Well, I don't know. They will determine whether Elon Musk is part of it or not.
MADOWO (voice-over): President Ramaphosa hopes to mend the rift and convince Trump to attend the G-20 summit in Johannesburg in November.
Larry Madowo, CNN, Nairobi.
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M.J. LEE, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: And still to come, we'll look at some of the winners in a unique competition that celebrates food photography.
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LEE: Tributes are pouring in for actor George Wendt, who died Tuesday at age 76. He was best known for playing the beer-loving Norm Peterson in the 1980s sitcom "Cheers," who always made a big entrance at the local bar.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE WENDT, ACTOR: Afternoon, everybody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Norm!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Norm!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Norm!
TED DANSON, ACTOR: How you doing, Norm? What do you know?
WENDT: Not enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEE: Wendt's performance on that show earned him six consecutive Emmy nominations.
A family representative says Wendt died peacefully in his sleep and that he was a doting family man and confidant to all those lucky enough to have known him.
French police have recovered a sculpture of the Doors frontman Jim Morrison that vanished from his Paris gravesite 37 years ago.
Authorities say the stolen bust was found by chance during a court- ordered search. The Jim Morrison estate told "Rolling Stone" magazine that the statue is a piece of history and that its recovery is gratifying.
Morrison died in 1971 at age 27, and his grave is one of the most popular in the French capital. Crowds gather there every year on July 3, the anniversary of his death.
Thousands of pictures of food that stand out or tell a good story were vying to win this year's World Food Photography Awards. The unique honor celebrates the best in food photography from around the globe.
CNN's Lynda Kinkade shows us some of the winners.
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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This image of five old ladies sharing Chinese spring rolls and perhaps a little bit of neighborhood gossip, is the winner of the World Food Photography Awards, sponsored by Bimi, a broccoli brand.
The picture was taken in Sichuan province in China and won the photographer almost $7,000.
The contest drew more than 10,000 entries from 70 different countries. The pictures range from great unscripted moments like the Wine Photograph of the Year, showing pinot noir grapes being harvested at night; to expertly posed ones like these shots of spaghetti and meatballs that won the Food Stylist Award.
The judges said these pictures showcased both the messy and meticulous nature of pasta.
There were numerous shots of food being prepared, where the people are as much of a star as the food.
The winners even included food before it becomes food, like the Innovation Award Winner that looks like an octopus crawling out of a laundry machine.
Or this undeniably cute image of black piglets that took home the Food in the Field prize. It's titled "Hogging the Limelight."
Lynda Kinkade, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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LEE: And it was a night of firsts in London as the International Booker Prize was awarded to "Heart Lamp," a collection of short stories.
The award celebrates achievements in translated fiction, and "Heart Lamp" is the first ever book written in the Kannada language to win the prize.
Author Banu Mushtaq took more than 30 years to write about the lives of women and girls in patriarchal communities in Southern India.
She shares the award and the prize money with translator Deepa Bhasthi, the first Indian translator to ever win that award.
Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm M.J. Lee. I'll be back with more news at the top of the hour. WORLD SPORT is next.
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