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Yahya Sinwar Believed to be Killed in Gaza; Israelis Confirming Whether Sinwar is Killed in Gaza. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired October 17, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Using DNA analysis to confirm whether Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th attack, has indeed been killed. We have a lot of perspectives to get on all of this. I want to go straight to the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, who is on the line with us. Mr. Ambassador, thanks for joining us.

If you could just explain to us the importance. I mean, I think we obviously understand the importance of all of this, but the significance of whether or not Yahya Sinwar has been killed to the Israeli people.

MICHAEL OREN, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: It's good to be with you, Jim. Thank you. It'd be very significant. People not have a sense of vengeance, but just a sense of closure. This would be the equivalent of the United States of the elimination of Osama bin Laden. And, you know, numerically speaking, you know, Osama Bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11, proportionally, Yahyah Sinwar killed about 40,000 Israelis, not 1,200. So, it's a very important moment for us. But it shouldn't be just for us, it should be for Americans as well. Among the 1,200 people that were massacred by Sinwar were 43 Americans, and he took 12 Americans hostage as well. So, this is a victory, I think, for the United States, for Israel, and for all the civilized world.

Having said that, someone will probably replace him and we don't know if this is going to bring out a thing about a fundamental change in Hamas' operations. It's opposition to ending the war. It's refusal to release the hostages. We don't know yet.

ACOSTA: And, Mr. Ambassador, at the outset of the Israeli operations to take out Hamas, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as you know, said that one of his goals was to crush the leadership of Hamas. If that has been achieved in taking out Yahyah Sinwar, have the Israelis achieved that military objective?

OREN: In part. I mean, the same thing can be held true about the situation with Hezbollah in the north. Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah was eliminated. The person who replaced him, so was he, and so too was the person who replaced him. But today, Hezbollah still fired 300 rockets at Northern Israel, and Hamas continues to fire rockets at Southern Israel. At the end of the day, Jim, nothing's going to change until there is a price exacted from the country that is behind both Hamas and Hezbollah, and that's Iran.

ACOSTA: Yes. But, Mr. Ambassador, does it have any impact at all, do you think, on these negotiations for a ceasefire, for a release of the hostages? I mean, the White House, as you know, is hopeful that is the case.

OREN: Well, we are hopeful. That's the case too. Certainly. And Hezbollah has said that if Hamas accepts the ceasefire, Hezbollah will accept the ceasefire. So, hopefully, now maybe someone in Hamas will come along and say enough is enough. We're willing to cut a deal.

And frankly, I'm not a spokesman for the Israeli government. I think most Israelis would agree to a deal in which the Hamas leadership got on a boat and just left and at least the hostages, we wouldn't even care where they went to as long as this war ended and the hostages are returned. And that would bring about a situation where Hezbollah would agree to a ceasefire, too, and comply with U.N. Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah to withdraw from the immediate border area of Southern Lebanon, north of the Litani River, about 20 miles from our northern border, which will enable 100,000 Israelis to go back to their homes.

ACOSTA: And, Mr. Ambassador, you've been at this for a long time. I mean, do you see a future where there is a peace, perhaps, after all of this? I mean, you mentioned the example of the United States taking out Osama bin Laden. I mean, one of the -- I guess one of the byproducts of that, one of the end results of all of that is, that to some extent, the war against al Qaeda was starting to wind down after that. Could we see a similar scenario play out this time around, or is that maybe being too optimistic? What do you think?

OREN: There's no such thing as being too optimistic in the Middle East, Jim. I think it's very important that we remain optimistic in the face of whatever evidence that can throw against us. But of course, this is a -- the removal of Sinwar from the scene is a blow, not just against Hamas, but it's a blow for peace.

He not only has killed dozens and dozens of Americans, innumerable Israelis, also before October 7th, but let's keep in mind that Sinwar was put in an Israeli prison some years ago. He was released in an earlier hostage exchange. But he was put in an Israeli prison not for killing Israelis. He was put in prison for killing Palestinians who wanted peace. And that's a very important point to remember today.

ACOSTA: Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for your time. We hope we can get back to you as the news developments come in throughout the hours ahead of us. But I want to go to CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. Peter is also joining. Peter, what's your sense of things right now?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, you know, we've been here before. I mean, we mentioned bin Laden, obviously, that was a blow to al Qaeda. But think about ISIS, which, you know, took over much of Iraq and Syria and recruited 40,000 Muslims around the world. I mean, ideologies and movements are hard to sort of completely extirpate.

[10:35:00]

I mean, Hamas is -- you know, it's not as large as Hezbollah, but clearly, it has thousands and thousands of fighters. You may recall back in July, Jim, that Mohammed Deif, who was regarded as one of the key planners of October 7th, was killed by the Israelis. Hamas continued fighting. Sinwar was obviously more important. And he was obviously somebody who was blocking the negotiations, it seems on the hostages.

So, you know, maybe there will be more movement on the hostages, but the, you know, you could also make the counter argument. We don't know who's going to replace him. He may not have -- whoever the replacement is, may not have quite the same juice that Sinwar has in the movement. And you know, Bibi Netanyahu may decide to take the win, or he may decide to just continue as before. So, what this means, the hostage negotiations are not clear.

It certainly is not the end of Hamas as a movement. It's certainly not the end of Hamas as an ideology. It is, as the ambassador just said, a victory for the Israeli people, for sure, and a psychological victory. That's quite important. But, you know, new generations of Sinwars, unfortunately, are going to be coming out of this conflict. You know, I --

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Peter, I mean, as an expert on al Qaeda, as an expert on Osama bin Laden, what's your sense of the parallels between how Sinwar may have been taken out here and the way bin Laden was taken out? I hate to draw an exact analogy. I mean, that's obviously not going to hold up. But are there some parallels here in how this went down?

BERGEN: I think there are -- I think there's some actual -- some differences. I mean, al Qaeda was never a large movement. It was never a -- it never claimed to govern. It never was elected to office. I mean, Hamas did win elections back in 2007. It was running Gaza. Al Qaeda was -- you know, had no pretensions to governmental kind of organization. It was not a mass movement. And so, you know, there are differences.

On the other hand, clearly, if it's true, that Hamas killed Sinwar, they clearly had pretty good intelligence. And they've continued -- and they obviously had very good intelligence on Nasrallah, who they killed several weeks ago. So, in the sense that all these operations are intelligence led, you know, that -- unless they just got lucky with Sinwar, there are some similarities about -- potentially, about how this operation was conceived.

ACOSTA: All right. Peter Bergen, thank you very much. Of course, we're continuing to follow the breaking news at this hour. Israeli officials are right now in the process of making the determination as to whether or not a DNA analysis can confirm that they have killed the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar in an operation in Gaza. We have more experts on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

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[10:40:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Welcome back to the breaking news. Israeli officials are now in the process of trying to determine whether or not the leader of Hamas, Yahyah Sinwar, was killed in ground operations in Gaza earlier today. I want to go straight to CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller.

John, I do want to take us through a little bit of what we know so far. Israeli forces encountered a man believed to be Yahya Sinwar during routine military operations. They encountered three militants near a building in Gaza and engaged with them. Troops found a body resembling Sinwar's and alerted senior commanders in the Israeli military and intelligence services are now essentially trying to do the work of identifying the body through DNA. Your sense of things right now? I mean, obviously this downgrades Hamas' abilities in a major way.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it does. And remember, it's a pathway that started with the Israeli assassination of Haniyeh, who was the political leader, followed by Mohammed Deif, who was another leader, and that caused Sinwar to move up into both of those positions. And now, Sinwar. So, you see a steady degradation of Hamas leadership.

Right now, if you had to look and say, who's next? What's next? It could be Sinwar's brother, Mohammed, who right now is in charge of the Qassam Brigades.

But, you know, Jim, you remember, we've seen this dynamic before with organizations like al Qaeda, while they hunted bin Laden and Zawahiri, the number three person in al Qaeda who was running operations usually only lasted a few weeks before they were taken out. And that breaks an organization down, which is what Israel's intention with Hamas is to eliminate it. And they have been doing that with leadership, just as they have been doing simultaneously with Hezbollah on the northern border.

ACOSTA: Yes. John, I mean, what do you make of what the Israeli ambassador, Michael Oren, just said a short while ago, that this is sort of like taking out Osama bin Laden for the Israelis?

MILLER: Well, it is. And Sinwar was a particular challenge. Jim, when you look at how he's been operating and why he has been able to survive this long, even as other leaders have been taken out, is, you know, he operated in the tunnels. He operated constantly moving from location to location. He was not communicating. You would not hear him on the phone. He would not be in an electronic intercept. He was giving broad commands, I'm told from my sources, by sending out notes on little pieces of paper with couriers to military commanders.

[10:45:00] And, you know, the only times that he would show himself might be once a month when he would come out to, you know, have a meeting or give some instructions and then he would go to his next and newest hiding location.

Today seems to be this remarkable moment, which is Israeli soldiers, on a routine patrol, encounter a small group, it appears three armed men, engage them. There's some kind of shootout. And then, we are told may have called in an airstrike after that -- after these people were pinned down or limited to a smaller area, and managed to, by luck, more than the difference, which would have been based on intelligence and Israeli special forces this is the equivalent, of what, in police work, they would call routine patrol.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, John, I find it just fascinating what you were saying a few moments ago, because what it sounds like is the Israelis were essentially chasing a shadow. And that Sinwar was obviously very aware of signals, intelligence capabilities and so on. And so, he was essentially a man on the run, in hiding.

MILLER: He was. And, you know, when you look at the structure of Hamas, you have the military leader, that was Sinwar. Then you have the political leader, that was Haniyeh. So, Haniyeh was based in Qatar, where he was at the table negotiating for these ceasefires, negotiating for the potential return of hostages, while Sinwar was, you know, trying to hold the organization together militarily and attack Israeli forces as they could in the streets.

Once Haniyeh was killed, they did the unusual thing of saying, well, now Yahya Sinwar is both. He is both the political leader and he is the military leader. And, Jim, the problem that created is, the political leader has to show up. I mean, that has to be that person in Qatar, or at least the person who's telling the new person in Qatar, you know, what you can give in the negotiations and what you can't. And I think that put additional pressure on him.

But it was a strike today that the question is going to be, will -- does this end Hamas? Does this destroy Hamas? And the problem with that is whether it was al Qaeda or whether it was ISIS, you can take out the leader after the leader. There's always someone who's going to step up and try and fill that void, it's just that they're reaching deep down into the organization now.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. All right. John Miller, we knew you would have perspective on all of this. Thank you so much for all of that. We appreciate it. We'll get back to you as well. But in the meantime, the breaking news, we continue to follow it here at CNN.

Israeli officials continue to do the work of trying to determine whether or not Yahya Sinwar was, in fact, killed in a -- what it sounds like a routine military operation in Gaza. We're still learning details as to how all of that went down. But as you heard from John Miller a few moments ago, it may have just been stroke of luck on the part of the Israeli forces and taking out Sinwar as the Israeli officials continue to do that determination. We're going to gather the facts, gather more information be back after a quick break. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Back to the breaking news. Israeli officials now trying to determine whether the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was killed in a routine military operation in Gaza. I want to go back to CNN Military Analyst Retired Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel Leighton, I mean, we were just talking about this with John Miller, the ambassador, Michael Oren, a few moments ago, the significance of this, I mean, you really can't -- you know, you really can't understate it at this point. This would be a massive operation that was successfully concluded if it actually comes to pass that this is Sinwar, but the comparisons to Osama bin Laden have been raised time and again. What do you think?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: AND U.S. AIR FORCE Yes, I certainly agree that -- Jim, that those comparisons are valid in a limited sense, in that, you know, major leader of a major terrorist organization and in fact, they were the hunted, you know, both Yahya Sinwar and Osama bin Laden had bounties on their heads, literally.

And you know, in the case of bin Laden, of course, there was a major intelligence effort and a major operational effort that went after him. In the case of Yahya Sinwar, the same thing. The differences, at least appear to be at the moment, that the intelligence piece and the deliberate planning to go after him were part and parcel of the whole operation. You had to have that special operation in order to eliminate him.

With the Yahyah Sinwar, it appears that an Israeli patrol on foot found -- engaged three terrorists and he was one of them. So, in that sense, you know, the meeting of him with these Israeli soldiers was coincidental. But everything was shaped, in both cases, by the broader intelligence and operational environment that each of these leaders, terrorist leaders, found themselves in.

[10:55:00]

ACOSTA: And currently -- I mean, obviously, we can't show them just yet, but there are photos circulating of the body that is believed to be Sinwar. Obviously, Israeli officials are looking at that. They have his DNA from his time in prison years ago. And so, one has to think that within the next hour or so we may get official confirmation from the Israeli government that Sinwar is indeed dead. And perhaps what we're in the middle of right now is Israeli officials getting the wheels in motion for some kind of major announcement from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or the leader of the IDF. Is that essentially where we are now? Just very quickly.

LEIGHTON: Yes. I think so, Jim. I think that's what's happening. I have seen some of those pictures that you're referring to and the person that's depicted in those pictures does look a lot like Yahya Sinwar. So, it seems to me, you know, looking at this from, you know, of course, several thousand miles away, but still looking at it with an eye for these things that it is probably him.

But we obviously need specific confirmation and, you know, the fingerprint analysis, the DNA analysis is going to make all of that, you know, a key part of, you know, whether or not that government announcement from either the IDF or the prime minister whether that comes fairly soon.

ACOSTA: All right. And we are waiting for that to happen at any moment. Colonel Leighton, as always, we thank you. We're going to take another quick break. Be right back. More on the other side on the Hamas leader believed to be killed in Gaza. Israeli officials in the process of making that determination, maybe on the verge of making an announcement that that is indeed the case. More after a quick break. Be right back.

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