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Israel Says Gaza Ceasefire In Effect And Pulls Back Troops; 18 People Feared Dead Or Missing In Tennessee Explosion; Ukraine Reels From Massive Attack On Its Energy System; Macron Reappoints Lecornu As P.M. After Resignation Monday; Trump Administration Denounced Machado's Win, Trump's Apparent Snub; NBA Returns To China After Six- Year Absence. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired October 11, 2025 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:24]
BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. Wherever you are in the world, you are now in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta, and it is so good to have you with me.
Coming up on the show, relief and cautious optimism in Gaza as Palestinians head home. We're counting down the final hours until a hostage and prisoner exchange happens.
Devastating images after a blast leveled a bomb factory in the U.S. Right now, 18 people are missing or feared dead.
Plus, the White House goes after the Nobel Committee for not giving Trump the big prize.
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ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Ben Hunte.
HUNTE: We're currently looking at live pictures of Israel and Gaza, where it's now 8:00 on a Saturday morning. We're expecting a crucial hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas. And it could happen at any time before the Monday deadline.
About 200 U.S. troops have begun arriving in Israel as part of an effort to monitor and facilitate the ceasefire. Now, in its first phase, the Israeli military pulled back its forces to an agreed upon point in accordance with the ceasefire deal. The military says troops will still be present in some areas and is warning people to avoid approaching them, but the widespread destruction from two years of war remains.
Displaced Palestinians are packing up what little they do have, hoping to return to what's left of their homes. Thousands of people have been walking from the south of the enclave, north toward Gaza City. They describe feeling joy and relief that the fighting has stopped, while also mourning the lives lost and the fear of the uncertainty of the future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NIVEEN SALEH, DISPLACED PALESTINIAN FROM GAZA CITY: Two years felt like 100,000 years. I lost my husband. I lost parents, siblings and nephews. I lost half of my family. Praise God. We experienced a famine that we haven't imagined in our life. The situation was very difficult and may it not be repeated again. And goodness and aid return again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: UNICEF says more than 1,300 trucks are loaded up and ready to bring vital aid into Gaza.
The agency is calling on all parties to open access to the besieged enclave as quickly as possible. U.N. officials from a number of agencies say the promised surge of humanitarian aid has not happened yet. As part of the ceasefire agreement, Palestinians will be able to leave and enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing at the border with Egypt under security approval, according to Israeli officials.
The officials say the ceasefire deal stipulates that 600 aid trucks will be allowed into Gaza every day. The supplies will include cooking gas, food, medical supplies, shelter, equipment and more. Also allowed him equipment to repair critical infrastructure such as water lines, sewage systems and bakeries. It is not clear when the increase in deliveries will begin.
At the same time, new satellite imagery reveals the sheer scale and extent of the damage in Gaza. After two years of Israeli bombardment. The images taken after the ceasefire took effect on Friday show a colorless, burned out landscape. Many buildings and infrastructure reduced to rubble.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more on how Palestinians are reacting as they return to their war-ravaged homes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is no joy in this homecoming. Only mounds of rubble to step over and sift through. Israeli troops have withdrawn. A ceasefire is in place, but at 70 years old, Majdi al-Gor (ph) has returned to find his Gaza City neighborhood in ruins.
"I want to sleep on the rubble, but I do not even have a blanket or a cover to sleep on," al-Gor says. "I can't change my clothes. This is the only set I have. I want to take a shower, but I can't. I want to go to the toilet, but I can't. Where should I go?"
He is far from alone. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have begun to return to their homes in northern Gaza, trekking along the same coastal road many took to flee advancing Israeli troops just weeks earlier.
Here, the mood is still upbeat, despite it all.
"I feel immense joy. My heart is full of love, though also tired and weary," this man says. "Now we will go to see our homes and we hope to find them still
standing," Adel Abu Salama (ph) says. "Because almost everything around them is destroyed and the children were killed. God willing, we will find other people safe and well."
This is the rude awakening that awaits many at the end of their long journey.
[01:05:01]
The Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is one skeletal block after the next.
Khalil is still taking stock of the destruction after returning home to find everything destroyed.
"What are we supposed to cry for? What are we supposed to look for? Look, these are our cars. These are our homes. These are our lives."
As one chapter closes, another only just beginning.
DIAMOND: As Palestinians begin to pick up the pieces, here in Israel, the families of the hostages are eagerly awaiting their return. The Israeli military on Friday at noon completed its withdrawal from parts of the Gaza Strip. And that set off a 72-hour clock for Hamas to return the hostages back to Israel.
That means that Monday at noon local time is the last possible moment when Hamas can release those hostages. Remember, there are 20 living hostages expected to be released. The bodies of 28 others, although at this point it seems unclear whether all of those bodies will be released right now.
That's because we understand that Hamas does not know the location of all of those bodies. The International Red Cross set to assist in finding and recovering some of those bodies over the coming period of time. And on Monday, we are also expecting President Trump to come and visit the region. His visit to Israel on Monday, set to coincide, it would seem, with the release of those hostages.
Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: Eighteen people are feared dead or missing after a massive blast devastated a military and demolition explosives manufacturing plant in Tennessee. Before and after images showed the extent of the damage. The facility, shown here on the left, was obliterated in the blast, which officials equated to a mass detonation. The explosion was felt up to 24 kilometers away.
CNN's Isabel Rosales has the latest.
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ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): About 11 miles from the military explosives plant, a neighbor's doorbell camera captured the early morning blast, leaving multiple people dead or still unaccounted for.
SHERIFF CHRIS DAVIS, HUMPHREYS COUNTY, TENNESSEE: Can I describe the building? There's nothing to describe. It's gone. It's probably been one of the most devastating situations that I've been on in my career.
ROSALES (voice-over): The company, Accurate Energetic Systems, about an hour southwest of Nashville, specializes in making military grade explosives like TNT and C-4 for the U.S. Department of Defense, according to its website, and explosives for uses like controlling avalanches and clearing roads.
The cause of the early morning explosion, still unknown, the stark before and after images show the large-scale devastation left behind. Debris found half a square mile away, according to the sheriff.
DAVIS: Do I see a short-term explanation? No. Do I see us being here for many days? Yes, I do see that.
ROSALES (voice-over): The small community left shaken and trying to come to terms with their loss.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to go anyplace in this rural community and not run into someone who has some kind of connection with this, with this business.
ROSALES: The same property suffered another blast back in 2014 that killed one worker and injured four others. That's according to CNN affiliate WSMV. Now, during that time, the building where that explosion happened was operated by a different company.
Meanwhile, Accurate Energetic Systems, federal data shows, has been fined in the past due to work safety practices, something that the company contested and eventually that was -- that came to a formal settlement.
Isabel Rosales, CNN, Hickman County, Tennessee.
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HUNTE: The Trump administration says it has begun firing federal workers more than a week into the government shutdown. The president is vowing to target workers he says are aligned with Democrats, who he blames for the closure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: How many layoffs have you authorized for this first round, and from which agencies?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It will be Democrat oriented, because we figure, you know, they started this thing, so they should be Democrat-oriented. It'll be a lot. And we'll announce the numbers over the next couple of days. But it will be a lot of people, all because of the Democrats. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Well, a court filing revealed that more than 4,000 federal employees were given layoff notices on Friday. Seven departments were impacted, with the most significant cutbacks hitting the Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury Department.
President Trump is now saying his upcoming meeting with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping is not canceled. That is despite his earlier comments on Friday saying he no longer sees any reason to meet with Mr. Xi during his trip to Asia later this month. President Trump is threatening economic retaliation after China ramped up efforts to impose export controls on critical rare earths.
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He says he will impose a new 100 percent tariff on China by November 1st, on top of the tariffs that are already paying.
The announcement, escalating his trade war with China sent markets reeling. Have a look at this. U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Friday after hovering near record highs in recent months. The Dow fell nearly 900 points. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 each posted their worst day since April.
It is a cruel twist which Ukraine is now used to seeing this time of year. Russia is targeting the energy system and anything else that can provide heat ahead of Ukraine's harsh winter. The latest attack came on Thursday night and Friday morning, wreaking havoc on Ukraine's electricity grid. But this time, Russia went even further than it usually does.
Frederik Pleitgen explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ukraine says that Russia launched what they call a massive attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in the night from Thursday into Friday. And the Ukrainians are saying that that attack was not only gigantic in scale, with some 450 drones being used and 30 missiles being fired at Ukrainian territory, but also as far as the length of that attack is concerned as well. Folks on the ground in Kyiv telling CNN that air raid alerts were on for about seven to eight hours as that attack dragged on. The Ukrainians are saying that even in the early morning hours, during times that are normally there for commuter traffic, that the air attacks were still going on.
Now, all of this, of course, had major consequences for Ukraine. There were big power failures in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Again, folks on the ground telling CNN that large parts of the inner city of Kyiv were without power for several hours, but also the left bank of the Dnipro River. Of course, that's the massive river that runs through the Ukrainian capital also without power for an extended period of time. The Ukrainians are also saying that one boy was killed in the southern
city of Zaporizhzhia and several people were wounded in the area of Kyiv and the surrounding areas as well.
The Ukrainians claim that what the Russians are trying to do is literally to freeze the Ukrainian population into submission, especially now with those power failures and also in some cases, failures of heating, having a devastating effect as the weather in Ukraine grows colder.
The Russians have a very different take on things. They also commented on the situation. The Russian defense ministry confirming that they were behind these strikes. They called them high precision strikes using drones and ballistic missiles, including hypersonic ballistic missiles. And the Russians are saying that all of this was for was retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: U.S. First Lady Melania Trump says Russia has allowed eight Ukrainian children to reunite with their families. She says it happened after President Vladimir Putin responded to a letter that she sent him in August, offering details about some Ukrainian kids in Russia. Mrs. Trump also said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, U.S. FIRST LADY: President Putin and I have had an open channel of communication regarding the welfare of these children. For the past three months, both sides have participated in several back-channel meetings and calls, all in good faith. We have agreed to cooperate with each other for the benefit of all people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Russia is accused of abducting thousands of Ukrainian children. They're often sent to reeducation camps or adopted by Russian families. Mr. Putin is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children.
But the Trump administration has cut funding to the main group that was tracking those children.
It has been a rollercoaster week in French politics, as President Emmanuel Macron returns Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to his post. And this is just days after the P.M. quit the job. The move has outraged Mr. Macron's far-right rivals, who are demanding he calls snap parliamentary elections or resign.
CNN's Melissa Bell has more for us from Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: France has a new prime minister. It is Sebastien Lecornu, the very man who resigned on Monday morning after he'd appointed his government Sunday night. There had been a sort of rebellion within those ministers he named. By Monday morning, he was resigning.
The French president then urging him to stay on. He did so, and it was negotiations on Friday where Emmanuel Macron gathered together the leaders of all the main French political parties, apart from the far left and the far right at the Elysee, that seem to have led to some kind of consensus being reached, it appears.
And of course, the urgency here is to get through the budget for 2026 that they seem to have agreed on the idea of a number of compromises, for instance, changes to the pension reform to please the left, the idea that this government wants Sebastien Lecornu names, it will not be using the controversial measure that had allowed previous governments under Emmanuel Macron to force, through legislation in parliament.
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Will those compromises be enough? Well find out next week.
The urgency for Sebastien Lecornu when he, on Monday morning tries to push this budget through will be to get consensus on that the need for a smaller budget for 2026. Already, though, there are some voices from the leadership of some of France's political parties urging for his government to be toppled once again. We'll see whether he manages that daunting task.
But Sebastien Lecornu becomes the sixth prime minister to be nominated since the start of President Macron's second term. And for the second time, most unusually in French politics. But an indication of just how unstable this period has been.
Initially, he was considered a very close ally of President Macron. That was one of the reasons a lot of people were put up by the idea of his nomination the first time. Will the compromises work that the government is working on, that President Macron has promised these parties will find out next week whether parliament accepts, and whether he's able to put together that government again with the very daunting task of pushing through a budget for 2026 and in the next few days.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: Okay. Still to come, the NBA returns to China after a six year absence. We have the latest on the first of two preseason games, next. See you in a bit.
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[01:20:29] HUNTE: Welcome back.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize says it belongs to the people of Venezuela. Maria Corina Machado was awarded the coveted prize on Friday for, quote, "keeping the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness", according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The Venezuelan opposition leader has been in hiding since last year after a disputed election.
In a statement posted on social media, she writes we have forged a formidable civic moment, overcome the barriers the regime built to divide us and united the nation in one powerful yearning, peace and freedom.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he spoke with Machado on Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today called me and said, I'm accepting this in honor of you because you really deserved it. A very nice thing to do. I didn't -- I didn't say, then give it to me, though I could have said, I think she might have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTE: Well, before that conversation, a Trump administration official denounced the Nobel committee for honoring Machado with the award.
As CNN's Tom Foreman reports, Trump has made no secret at all of his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After campaigning, pleading, prodding for years --
TRUMP: Where's my Nobel Peace Prize? They don't talk about it.
FOREMAN (voice-over): President Donald Trump has lost again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025.
MARIA CORINA MACHADO, FORMER DEPUTY, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF VENEZUELA: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
FOREMAN (voice-over): The winner is Maria Corina Machado, an outspoken defender of democracy in Venezuela, where she's been forced into hiding by the authoritarian regime. Trump has previously praised her, but as her win was announced, a White House spokesperson griped, the Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace. On Capitol Hill, the President's party is bristling, too.
REP. BUDDY CARTER (R-GA): That's why he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, and that's why I'm introducing a resolution for a sense of Congress today that will honor him with the Nobel Peace Prize.
FOREMAN (voice-over): It's not clear how that would work, but they're not alone. Team Trump's peace efforts in the Middle East, past and present, prompted Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to mock up a fake image of Trump with the medal and send a letter to the Nobel Committee.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: It's nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well-deserved. And you should get it.
TRUMP: Thank you very much. This I didn't know.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Leaders in Pakistan and Cambodia have also praised Trump's peace efforts, parts of Africa as well.
I believe that he does deserve a Nobel Peace Prize, the president of Gabon said, and even Ukraine says it will back the prize for Trump if he ever delivers the peace he has promised their nation.
But Trump's unprecedented attacks on democratic norms at home, his calls for armed suppression of protesters, his legal pursuit of foes, pressure on education, business, the free press, and free speech, have all spurred sharp criticism of his claim to being the peace president.
JIMMY KIMMEL, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE" HOST: The peace president is sending a platoon to invade a yoga studio in Portland right now.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Perhaps that's why Trump himself admits he may never get a piece of that glory he so clearly craves.
TRUMP: They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It's too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: After a six-year break, the NBA is returning to China for two games between the Phoenix Suns and the Brooklyn Nets, one of the two preseason games was played on Friday in Macau.
Basketball and NBA are extremely popular in China, drawing large crowds from all over. The games come at an increasingly tense time between the U.S. and China, providing a rare moment of sporting peace for the two geopolitical rivals.
CNN's Ivan Watson has more for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The NBA is back in China for the first time in six years. And as you can see, fans can take photos next to this statue of Steph Curry, play all sorts of different kinds of games here at this enormous casino in ,Macau where the NBA has basically pulled out all the stops, with games and stars coming out here. [01:25:04]
And there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. Because the NBA is incredibly popular in China, the association boasts that it has more than 420 million social media followers in this country, and people are thronging here to attend two sold out preseason games between the Phoenix Suns and the Brooklyn Nets. I talked to a dad who spent thousands of dollars on tickets, and he says people in China are crazy about basketball.
So this is a big deal, the NBA coming back to China, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
WATSON: Huge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huge. We hope that NBA can come every year.
SHAWN MARION, FORMER NBA PLAYER FOR PHOENIX SUNS: You hear the rumble in the arena right now before the game even started. So that's telling you how big the game is and how much they love it here in China. And I love coming here.
WATSON: The NBA was effectively kicked out of China because of a tweet. In 2019, the Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, he posted in support of protesters in Hong Kong during what had been a year of political unrest there. The Chinese government clearly didn't like it, and the NBA was no longer welcome here.
So, it's taken six years to see NBA teams once again playing here to the enthusiastic response of fans, and there are hundreds of millions of Chinese fans, hundreds of millions of Chinese basketball players.
So if this relationship is to continue, players and teams will have to navigate some pretty challenging political and cultural minefields. And as we've seen, the stakes are incredibly high.
Ivan Watson, CNN, Macau.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTE: That's all I've got for you. Thanks for joining me in the team. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta.
"CONNECTING AFRICA" is next. We're going to be back in 30 minutes with so much more CNN NEWSROOM. Bye.
(CONNECTING AFRICA)
