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CNN International: U.K. To Deploy Fighter Jets To Saudi Arabia Amid Houthi Strikes; Pope Holds First General Audience Since Lung Cancer Surgery; New Cases In Nigeria And Kenya; Outbreak Spreads In DRC. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 21, 2026 - 04:30   ET

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

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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: As Trump tries to inflict economic pain on Tehran and on the Iranian regime, Iran has the ability to do that right in return. The cost of gas, economic turmoil because of the closures of the Strait of Hormuz and disruptions on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Iran has -- has repeatedly shown that they're not going to rush into an agreement. They have their terms and conditions, and if they compromise on those, it's only because they want to, Lynda. So, if they come to an agreement, it's because they've made that decision, not because they feel they've been forced into one by the U.S.

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR: Oren Liebermann, always good to have you with us live from Jerusalem. Thank you.

Pope Leo is just weeks away from his scheduled visit to Latin America. What we know about the pontiff's trip, given his recent lung cancer surgery, we'll have a live report next. Plus, new cases of Ebola confirmed in Nigeria and Kenya. The outbreak spreading in the DRC. We'll get the latest on the efforts to contain it.

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KINKADE: Right now, Pope Leo is in St. Peter's Square holding his first general audience since his lung cancer surgery. Massive crowds have turned up to greet the pontiff and to wish him well. The Pope is expected to visit South America next month, and his surgeon says he could recover fully in time for the trip. CNN's Vatican Correspondent Christopher Lamb joins us live from Rome.

Good to see Christopher. So, this -- this is happening this hour. The Pope giving his first general audience since his lung cancer surgery. What do we know about how he's doing and his condition?

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CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lynda, the recovery of Pope Leo seems to be continuing pretty well. He was out there in the square on the Popemobile for the first time since that surgery eight days ago. The Pope blessing babies in the crowd. There was a, you know, a good welcome for the Pope. He gave his remarks. He sounded a little bit weaker than usual.

Obviously, he's still in the recovery stage of the surgery. The big question, of course, in the Vatican and across the church is, will he be able to carry out this visit to Latin America scheduled from the 6th November to the 17th of November?

That visit to include a kind of homecoming for him to Peru, a country he spent many years as a missionary and bishop. There were Peruvian flags in the crowd today as the Pope circulated amongst the square. The surgeon that operated on him has said he is clear to travel. However, there are other factors that need to be considered, and there has been no official confirmation yet of that trip, so that is still pending.

But today, Wednesday, the Pope out amongst the crowd in the Popemobile and addressing people for what is the longest public event since that hospitalization for lung cancer surgery, Lynda.

KINKADE: Yeah, he -- he looks remarkably well. So hopefully his recovery continues to do just -- just fine, and he can make that a scheduled trip coming up next month. Good to have you with us. Christopher Lamb, with us from Rome. Thank you.

Well, Nigeria has confirmed a case of Ebola in its capital Abuja. The health minister says the female patient had traveled from Uganda. She's in isolation at a hospital where she received treatment for several days before the diagnosis. Uganda reported 20 cases in May and June before the World Health Organization declared it virus-free in August.

While a new Ebola case has also now been confirmed in Kenya, bringing its total number of infections to nine, all of the cases have been linked to a person who traveled from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the center of the outbreak, to Nairobi. The U.S. State Department has warned Americans to reconsider travel to Kenya, and a new report from the DRC says the ongoing outbreak has now spread to an eighth -- eighth province.

The country has recorded about 9,400 confirmed cases of Ebola since May. Almost half of those infected have died. This has become the largest and deadliest ever Ebola outbreak in the DRC. Well, Heather Kerr is the Country Director of the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She joins me now from the capital of the DRC. Thanks so much for your time.

HEATHER KERR, COUNTRY DIRECTOR, DRC, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: Thank you for having me.

KINKADE: So, Heather, you wrote in the New York Times that you've never seen an Ebola crisis like this. You said the outbreak was getting ahead of the response, and now a week later, cases have been reported in Nigeria as well as the DRC in Kenya. How much worse has the situation become, and are we losing the race to contain it?

KERR: Well, I very much hope we're not losing the -- the race to contain it, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down. It really is the scale of it. It's one of the reasons why I decided to write this piece was because I've worked in two previous outbreaks, the West Africa and the one in Beni, but they were not on this scale. So, I thought people needed -- needed to know.

So yes, I mean, in the latest SIT rep we've had from the Ministry of Health, in one day there were 92 new cases. You know, that's an awful lot. So, it's not slowing down. What has changed is there are fewer cases in Ituri and more cases in North Kivu, but Ituri still remains the -- the epicenter of the outbreak.

And you know, I mean, the -- the problem with this outbreak as well is that we're -- we're just not capturing all the information about contacts. Many -- most people are not presenting in health centers; they're staying home and they're dying in the community. So, we don't have all that. We haven't followed the contacts.

KINKADE: Is the reason they're staying home and dying at home because of a distrust of the medical community? Can you explain? Give us some context as to why that's happening.

KERR: No, absolutely, there's a lot of mistrust in this particular outbreak, and it's the thing that we really, really need to improve on. So, as we all know, you know, Ebola response is a medical response, is a health response, but what's needed alongside it, is the building of trust in the communities, and we -- we just haven't got there yet. You know, we need to be listening to the community leaders, to the religious leaders, to the youth, to the guys that ride the motorbikes who take people everywhere.

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They're the people who can influence people in the community. So, we need to do more listening and more work in the communities. So, we have the medical response alongside a community response, where we try and gain people's trust.

KINKADE: And of course, this particular strain of Ebola has no vaccine, no treatment. How does that change the challenge facing healthcare workers right now.

KERR: Oh, it's big. I mean, it was one of the things that changed things in the last outbreak in Beni. We got the vaccine during -- during the outbreak, and so all the frontline health workers, the contacts, the contacts of contacts, they were all able to be vaccinated, and it slowed things down, and it brought it much more under control.

So that's what we need here. I mean, vaccines are obviously being trialed, but we don't have them yet, and we don't have any actual treatment for this species, Bundibugyo, of Ebola. So, it would make a big difference to have the vaccines, so the sooner they can get here, the better.

KINKADE: And you've also argued that cuts to international aid have weakened the health system in the very region where this outbreak began. Can you explain how? Like, give us some context. KERR: Well, the -- the health system was -- has been on its knees in DRC for -- for many years, but obviously the cuts, the shutting of U.S. aid, and the cuts to various programs didn't help at all. So, we had to close our work in -- in all the health clinics that we were working in, in Ituri. And many other people had to do the same thing. And we were actually providing free healthcare at the time, so that has -- so that has a real impact.

But as I said, the health system generally has been weakened over years, and this is what happened at the beginning of this this outbreak. People were presenting in health centers, but people weren't recognizing the symptoms of Ebola because there hadn't been any surveillance training or disease outbreak recognition training for so many years, and it took a very long time at the beginning for people to realize that there was a large Ebola outbreak happening.

And I mean, as you know, this outbreak was declared on the 15th of May, but it's very likely that it started in March or perhaps even earlier. And in those areas where it started, it's still -- it's still not under control.

KINKADE: Well, Heather Kerr, we wish you and your team all the very best, and appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining us.

KERR: Thank you so much.

KINKADE: Still to come, how Palestinians in the West Bank are living in fear as Israeli settlers burn their olive trees, destroy their homes, and threaten their lives with impunity.

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KINKADE: Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank is ramping up. In recent days, settlers have attacked not just Palestinians, but a veteran Washington Post journalist and a group of European diplomats. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports on how Palestinians are living in fear amid the attacks.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For more than two decades, these attacks have been an inescapable reality for Palestinians in the towns of Qusra and Jalud. Israeli settlers, often descending from a hilltop outpost named Esh Kodesh, have broken windows, set homes on fire, and beaten local residents.

BASHAR QARYOUTE, PALESTINIAN PARAMEDIC (through translator): You can't describe the tragedies we've witnesses inside this ambulance. We've seen tragedies, disasters, bodies, injured.

DIAMOND: Bashar al-Qaryoute has been a medic here for 25 years, witnessing that settler violence up close. As we're driving through the town, I mean, it's like every 20 seconds or so, Bashar is stopping to point out yet another place where a settler attack took place. For as long as Bashar has driven his ambulance, Esh Kodesh has stood here illegally under both international and Israeli law.

But that changed in December when the Israeli government retroactively legalized it. Israel's Finance Minister, who directed the approval process, was among the first to show up at the newly minted settlement, which is still considered illegal under international law. But the violence didn't stop; it intensified.

Esh Kodesh is one of 104 new settlements approved by the Israeli government since 2023. In just this area alone, Esh Kodesh is one of six new settlements, five of which were previously illegal outposts. Settlers have established hundreds of these outposts over the last three years, affecting dozens of Palestinian communities across the West Bank. That's because where there are outposts, there is almost always violence. Attacks against Palestinians have surged, doubling in the last three years. Mahmoud Tubasi is all too familiar with that reality.

MAHMOUD TUBASI, VICTIM OF SETTLER ATTACKS: (Foreign Language)

DIAMOND: He says he watches this security camera, his two homes there, 24 hours a day. Three months ago, Israeli settlers forced him to flee the homes he built for his family. What would happen if you went back?

TUBASI (through translator): They would kill me.

DIAMOND: That nearly happened last month after the Israeli military acted on a Supreme Court order to return the Tubasis to their home. More than a hundred settlers attacked, grilling stones and setting fires. Tubasi sees it as yet more evidence of the Israeli government's support for violence.

TUBASI (through translator): Why does the army have the power to stop Palestinians but when it comes to those settlers, suddenly it has no power? No, the army has exactly the same power. It simply does not want to stop them.

DIAMOND: It is a cycle of impunity Tubasi first experienced 25 years ago when he says he was shot by an Israeli settler near the Esh Kodesh outpost.

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TUBASI (through translator): Instead of imprisoning him, instead of restraining him. They legalized the settlement as a reward. This confirms that the government encourages every settler to attack Palestinians.

DIAMOND: Facts on the ground bear that out. A month after the government legalized Esh Kodesh, settlers established new illegal outposts, violence surged. We saw firsthand how settlers besieged another home in the area. The Israeli military deployed troops, but failed to clear out the settlers. The Israeli Prime Minister has condemned the violence, but he has also downplayed it. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The settler violence thing

is a tremendous hoax, not because there isn't settler -- it's not settlers actually. It's about 150-200 juvenile delinquents who are doing this.

DIAMOND: Netanyahu's government, the most right-wing in Israel's history has emboldened the settlers, funneling more than $6 billion to settlements, including $450 million to support newly legalized outposts. His ministers of defense and national security have weakened law enforcement of Jewish violence against Palestinians, with only 6 percent of cases leading to an indictment.

Bashar's colleague was shot and killed while driving this ambulance. He says no one was ever arrested, and the attacks continue.

QARYOUTE (through translator): It's terrible, whenever I go out in the ambulance, I expect I wont return home.

DIAMOND: Bashar says much of it can be traced back to the government's outpost legalization.

QARYOUTE (through translator): Anyone who commits a crime is supposed to be punished, but instead they are rewarded for committing crimes and this is a very dangerous precedent taking place in the Esh Kodesh area and this entire area southeast of Nablus.

DIAMOND: The cycle is now repeating itself across the West Bank. The settler playbook now well established. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jalud, the West Bank.

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KINKADE: We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with much more news.

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KINKADE: The Australian lawmaker who was hit by a car in what's being called a deliberate attack has now had both her legs amputated, but she remains in a stable condition. 64 -- 65-year-old Helen Haines was hit on Monday outside her office in Northern Victoria. Her husband says they had hoped her right leg could be saved, but the surgeon needed to remove it. He added that her heart and mind are in good shape.

Well, the suspect has appeared in court. His lawyers say he has a rare brain condition and is currently unmedicated. He faces multiple charges. Police say they are trying to determine a motive for the alleged attack.

Thanks so much for watching. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Do stick around. CNN Headline Express is next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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