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Israeli Security Cabinet to Vote on the Ceasefire Deal; Trump Picks Loyalist in the House Intelligence Committee Ahead of His Second Inauguration. TikTok Ban Takes Effect on Sunday, Unless the Supreme Court or the President Reprieves the Ban; South Africa Faces Criticism on the Crackdown of Illegal Mining Operations. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired January 17, 2025 - 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)
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."
Israel's security cabinet is set to consider the ceasefire proposal with Hamas, what it could mean for people in Gaza and hostages held by the terror group.
A break in the threat of wildfires for some Los Angeles communities, but dangerous winds could fan the flames again.
And the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to uphold the ban on TikTok. We'll take a look at where some of the app's users are fleeing.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: Well, just minutes from now, the Israeli security cabinet is scheduled to convene and begin discussing the ceasefire deal with Hamas. They're expected to vote on it before sundown, and it appears to be on track for a full cabinet vote on Saturday.
This comes just hours after Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed for the first time that his government had indeed reached a deal with Hamas to release the hostages, but the prime minister is now facing major political fallout.
There has been fierce backlash from far-right members of his ruling coalition, namely National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who's threatening to pull his Jewish power party out of the Netanyahu government, which could cause it to collapse.
The ceasefire deal would halt the fighting and lead to the phased release of dozens of hostages held in Gaza. It also calls for a surge of humanitarian aid into the territory and for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to be freed.
All right, I want to get right to CNN's Paula Hancocks, who's live in Abu Dhabi. So Paula, what's the latest on that cabinet meeting? PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kim, we are expecting it to
happen in just about 15 minutes or so.
We understand that the Israeli prime minister has a majority in the security cabinet and also in the cabinets as a whole, where there will be a vote potentially Saturday night. So it is expected to pass through.
But of course, the Israeli political system can be quite complicated at times, so there is always the chance of something unforeseen.
But as far as the prime minister is concerned, he has said that this deal has now been approved. He is going through the ratification process. And of course, the question now is whether there will be time for this ceasefire to go into place on Sunday.
We've heard from the U.S. that they believe that it is still on track. We heard from Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying that it was perfectly normal that in a negotiation that was as challenging as this, that there were going to be loose ends to tie up at the end.
And that's what he considered this to be. He said that he is confident and fully expects the deal to go into effect on Sunday.
So, that is the process as we are seeing it at the moment. But of course, there are many within or some within the coalition of Prime Minister Netanyahu who are dead set against this deal.
You mentioned there, Ben Gvir, the national security minister. He has threatened to pull his party out of the coalition if it's just him and his party. It wouldn't collapse the coalition if this deal goes ahead. Let's listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ITAMAR BEN GVIR, ISRAELI NATIONAL SECURITY MINISTER (through translator): If this reckless deal is approved and implemented, the Jewish Power Party will give the resignation letter to the prime minister. The Jewish Power Party will not be a part of the government and will withdraw from it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANCOCKS: Now of course, if there are others within the coalition that follow suit, that could be problematic for the prime minister, Bezalel Smotrich, for example, the finance minister. If he pulls his party out as well, then potentially that could collapse the coalition.
But we are also seeing the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, who is saying that he will step in with his party to shore up the coalition and make sure that this deal gets through.
Now, he is no fan of the Israeli prime minister. He disagrees with him on many counts. But there is a large contingent of this coalition that does want to see this deal go through. And of course, they are coming under pressure from the families of those hostages that are still being held in Gaza. They certainly don't want to see any kind of delay in this ceasefire going through and the hostages starting to be released.
[03:05:05]
The same on the streets of Gaza. They desperately want this ceasefire to start when it is supposed to, as we are seeing that there have been up to 90 people killed in Gaza due to increasing Israeli airstrikes since the announcement was made that this ceasefire would go ahead.
So, there are some ratification issues on the Israeli side. There are some complications within the Israeli prime minister's government. But as far as the Biden administration is concerned, Kim, this deal is going ahead by the end of the weekend.
BRUNHUBER: All right. So, Paula, assuming it does go through, let's look forward. What happens after phase one?
HANCOCKS: So this is actually when the hard work begins, when we understand from this first phase, when 33 Israeli hostages will be released, when there'll be a partial pullout of the population centers by the military, Palestinian prisoners released.
By day 16, the negotiations between Hamas and Israel indirectly with the help of the mediators has to start again to work towards this second phase.
And this is expected to be the harder part. The second phase is when the Israeli military pulls out completely from the Gaza Strip. And this is when those far-right members have said that they will walk away from the coalition if that happens.
It's also when the rest of the living hostages should be handed over to Israel in return to for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. And everybody you speak to that has been any part of these talks or will even watch them from afar says this is when things become extremely difficult.
Now, bear in mind, it has taken numerous months to be able to get to this point. This deal that we are seeing today, we've heard from the Biden administration and the U.S. president himself is remarkably similar to what he pitched back in May of last year.
So if it took that long to get to this point for the first phase, there are concerns that there are many hurdles that there could be stumbles at for phase two and three. Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely. All right. Paul Hancocks in Abu Dhabi. Thank you so much.
So as the region waits for that ceasefire to take effect, Israeli bombs haven't stopped falling on the Palestinian people. Gaza's civil defense says Israeli strikes have killed at least 86 people, including 23 children and wounded more than 250 since the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday.
Now, we just want to warn you, the report you're about to see does have graphic video. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh has more on the hope and heartbreak of the past 24 hours in Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Joy and relief with the announcement of a deal. Finally, the moment they've been longing for. We want to go back home. We just want to go back to school and learn,
she says. This is the most amazing day. At least that's what it seemed. But the bombs didn't stop.
Shortly after the agreement was reached on Wednesday, another round of Israeli strikes. The military says it's still going after Hamas targets. They brought those same horrific scenes the world has watched on repeat for 15 bloody months.
The ceasefire is set to begin on Sunday, and so many in Gaza fear the days before that will only bring more horror. And when the guns do fall silent, if they do, it will be the start of a new difficult and painful chapter for those who survived the bombs, the bullets, the siege and starvation.
As they begin to pick up the pieces of lives left shattered beyond recognition. Homes gone and loved ones who didn't live to see this day. I don't know how I'll go back to Gaza City to continue living without my children, Ahmed says. I dreamt of the day of going back with them by my side, playing. They were gone in the blink of an eye. Hala was four, Ahmed two, killed in an Israeli strike in the first month of the war. Two of nearly 18,000 Palestinian children killed.
A ceasefire only means the killing will stop, their mother says, and she will finally have the chance to grieve. Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: To Tel Aviv and Alon Pinkas, former Israeli consul general in New York. Thank you so much for joining us here again. So just to start, what do you make of these last-minute delays? Will this deal actually be finalized in the end?
ALON PINKAS, FORMER ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL IN NEW YORK: Good morning, Kim.
Well, O.K., there's a combination of things that delayed this by one day. The first is there was a substantive claim by Israel that Hamas was trying to reinterpret the agreement and in terms of the identities of the Palestinian prisoners who will be released.
[03:10:09]
That was a hiccup more than a hurdle. The second thing, which is more important, was Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister, grandstanding to placate his right-wing coalition, extreme right-wing coalition members, and to demonstrate how tough he was until the very last moment and how he stood resolute and firm in face of last-minute changes.
O.K., that's all behind us. I expect, as you said in your introduction, the cabinet to agree to this this morning, Friday morning Israel time.
But what it does do, and this goes to the second part of your question, Kim, what it does do is it portends a very tenuous process here, because, look, this entire deal, this entire agreement, the phased structure of it really hinges on the durability and sustainability of the ceasefire.
Now, in an area, this is not the end of World War I or the end of World War II or the end of any other war as we know it. This is a very small, very dense area that has been devastated and decimated with rubble all over the place, with Hamas gangs hiding in tunnels or beneath the rubble.
With the Israeli army basically controlling two-thirds of the Gaza Strip, to assume, Kim, that a ceasefire could be upheld here is quite a stretch and a difficult and tenuous proposition.
So if there were disagreements even before it went into effect, which is what we saw in the last 24, 36 hours, it is very depressing to think what would come next.
BRUNHUBER: But this deal, I mean, it hinges not just on the sustainability of a ceasefire, as you say, but also what you were sort of talking about earlier, the real political threat of the right here. What of that political crisis that threatens to upend Netanyahu's government, I mean, what does it mean for the coalition government and the prime minister's future?
PINKAS: Okay, for that we need to look at the agreement itself, because here's how it's going to, I mean, here's how I think it's going to play out.
The prime minister can get the support, well, the passive support of the extreme right wing. When I say passive, I mean they will vote against it but not necessarily leave the government in the first phase.
But the first phase is only 42 days long. Assuming it does work, the second phase is where he's going to confront major political headwinds because the second phase calls for an Israeli withdrawal, and, as President Biden said, a permanent ceasefire. That is something the warmongering right-wing in his coalition would not agree to.
So if we look beyond the next 42 days, again, assuming that it works smoothly, relatively smoothly, which I sort of doubt, but let's hope that it does work smoothly, it does proceed smoothly. In 42 days, if there is a phase two, and according to Hamas and
according to the mediators, the U.S. provided assurances that phase two will proceed, then he may not have a government anymore.
BRUNHUBER: Interesting. So your read is that a second and third phase are essentially dead, despite the fact that we'll have a new president here in the U.S. who will be pushing for presumably just the end to this war.
PINKAS: That's an excellent point that you're raising, because this is the problem that Netanyahu is going to face. It's a problem of his own making, because let's not forget or let's not -- let's remind our viewers that this agreement could have been done last May and again in July and again in August.
But here we are in mid-January. So Netanyahu is caught in a bind here. He needs to placate his right wing, extreme right wing coalition members on the one hand.
But on the other hand, he is extraordinarily scared and anxious about what reaction he's going to get from Trump, because Trump may not be interested in the details and may not.
You know, we all call him transactional because he is transactional in his approach to politics. There's no transaction here other than the quiet you get in the Middle East, the relative quiet, the end of the war.
And if Mr. Netanyahu and his government somehow resumed the war or if it is resumed because Hamas violated the ceasefire, then Trump is going to get extraordinarily angry with Mr. Netanyahu.
And so he's right now caught. He can't satisfy both Trump and his right-wing coalition. Something has to give. And this is basically the political position he's going to find himself in. He already finds himself into it and he's going to find himself way deeper in the next few weeks.
[03:15:09]
BRUNHUBER: Listen, we'll have to leave it there. But as always, appreciate your analysis. Alon Pinkas in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much.
PINKAS: Thank you, Kim.
BRUNHUBER: We're following a developing story out of Pakistan, where a court has sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan to 14 years in prison in a land corruption case.
It's the largest case in terms of financial wrongdoing faced by the politician. The verdict was delivered by an anti-graft court in a prison in Rawalpindi, where Khan has been jailed since August 2023.
There's been a major shakeup in Congress days before Donald Trump's inauguration, U.S. House Speaker chose Republican Rick Crawford to be the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He's a Trump loyalist who's voted against additional aid for Ukraine.
Congressman Mike Turner, a vocal supporter of Ukraine, was ousted from the role Wednesday. Here's what he told my colleague Erin Burnett back in 2023.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Do you believe it is still worth it for the United States to send whatever needs to be sent to Ukraine?
REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Thursday's confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's cabinet picks put the focus on his domestic and economic agendas. His nominees faced a third day of hard questions from lawmakers, but most are expected to be confirmed.
CNN's Manu Raju reports from Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MANU RAJU CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Republican leaders are confident that Donald Trump will get most, if not all, of his picks confirmed to fill out his cabinet.
And this in the aftermath of a number of confirmation hearings, both on Thursday, Wednesday, really all throughout the week, as GOP leaders prep for getting some of those confirmed, including on the first day when Donald Trump takes office on Monday.
That's when we expect there to be a vote in the House and the Senate. Armed Services Committee for Pete Hegseth is picked to be defense secretary, perhaps the most controversial of his picks.
Hegseth, though, seems to be on a path to confirmation after Republican senators started to fall in line in the aftermath of despite of all the concerns about these allegations of misconduct, these allegations of sexual assault, Hegseth has denied all of this.
Democrats went after him at his confirmation hearing earlier this week, but it was not enough to dissuade GOP senators, including one senator, a freshman senator, John Curtis, who was seen as a potential swing vote. But it indicated to me that he is on board despite these allegations.
These issues of personal misconduct for Pete Hegseth, it seemed like that did not was not an overriding concern for you. Is that fair?
SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): I had to balance right between giving the president deference, giving my own standards, right. And what happened and what didn't happen. And I think it's fair to say because of the length of the time of my decision that I took all those things into consideration.
As you know, there was a lack of people willing to step forward to actually validate those.
RAJU: Now, a number of other Trump picks are on the glide pad to be confirmed. Expect Marco Rubio to be the first, if not one of the first, if not the first nominee to be confirmed next week, the secretary of state pick.
But also some other ones. Treasury secretary nominee or expected to be nominee Scott Bassett was on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He's expected to be confirmed potentially with some bipartisan support as well.
And even Pam Bondi, who had a controversial and contentious at times confirmation hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. She is expected to be confirmed as attorney general, maybe not next week, maybe the week after, as Republicans are indicating that they will fall in line.
One person to watch, though, is Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence pick. She is someone who has taken views that have conflicted with some of the more hawkish views of GOP members like the former Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
He -- I asked him on Thursday whether he was willing to get behind Tulsi Gabbard. He indicated that he is not ready yet to make an announcement and he would in the coming days. One of the big questions, will he fall in line behind Tulsi Gabbard or RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services Department?
Another question mark as those confirmation hearings are yet to be set. But the Trump team is hoping that they will be confirmed in just a matter of weeks. Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Joining us now is Thomas Gift, the director of the Center on U.S. Politics at University College London. Good to see you again. Thanks so much for being here with us.
So just to start going back to what I opened with there, the ouster of Mike Turner. What do you think it signals?
THOMAS GIFT, DIRECTOR, CENTER ON U.S. POLITICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Well, it's great to be with you, Kim. Thanks so much for having me.
I mean, it again signals exactly what we've seen time and time and time again since Trump has been elected, that Trump is going to surround himself by individuals who express not just loyalty to him, but fealty to him.
[03:20:09]
That's essentially been the main criteria for each of Trump's cabinet nominees. And it's also been true of other government officials who are going to be around the office during his next administration.
So, Trump really perceived the main mistake he made during his first term as not surrounding himself by people who had shown their self as committed to him. He's not making that mistake again.
BRUNHUBER: All right. So you spoke of the cabinet nominees. Let's go to the confirmation hearings that were held this week. So looking at them sort of as a whole, what do you make of just how far the Republican Senate has fallen into line behind Trump's picks?
GIFT: Well, this is really peak Trump right now. He won the Electoral College in the popular vote. Virtually all of his legal problems are gone.
And Republicans are definitely lining up behind Trump to voice their support for his cabinet nominees.
I really think that Pete Hegseth was a very important case, precisely because I think there was some concern among Republicans that if he didn't get through, then there could potentially be a domino effect, essentially create permission for other Republican senators to vote against other Trump cabinet picks.
But when Joni Ernst said that she was coming out in favor of Hegseth and Republicans generally seem like they're going to do so, I think that it was a sign of strength for Trump, really. And I would be surprised if any of his cabinet nominees maybe don't get through now.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. And then, you know, importantly, Trump stood by him, unlike Matt Gaetz. So when we look at then yesterday's picks and the answers they gave, they were focused on the Trump administration's domestic priorities.
Scott Besant for Treasury, for example, the big themes there were the Trump tax cuts and how to pay for them. So just looking at what was said, what stood out to you?
GIFT: No, absolutely. I think Scott Besant is going to sail through. He's a relatively uncontroversial pick, but it does show some fractures, I think, within the MAGA base. There's this oversimplification to assume that all MAGA-Republicans share identical beliefs, but that's definitely not true.
You know, Trump is much more transactional than ideological. He's not a fiscal conservative. I think that that's probably the most important point to note here.
And he even floated the idea of raising or eliminating the debt ceiling during a recent spending bill. In contrast, you know, you have individuals like Scott Besant, who I think are much more attuned to some of the economics, you know, more of a fiscal moderate or fiscal conservative.
So it's going to be an interesting dynamic, I think, within the White House. That's also true on trade issues where I think Scott Besant is going to try to ratchet back some of Trump's impulses to just apply tariffs on every single import coming into the United States.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, exactly. I was going to mention that. Exactly. So let's look ahead here. Still a number of controversial picks to get through. We have Kash Patel for the FBI, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. So who's at the most risk, do you think? Or will they all get through?
GIFT: I actually think that they're all going to get through, but my sense is that Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence will have the most uphill battle. It was reported earlier this week that there was a paperwork issue regarding Gabbard with the Office of Government Ethics.
But critics of Gabbard highlight her limited intelligence experience, her controversial relationships with adversaries of the United States and her past favorable comments about leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Her meeting with the post-Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 has also drawn scrutiny. So you're absolutely right, Kim, there's no shortage of controversial Trump picks, including RFK Jr., Kash Patel and others.
But I wouldn't be surprised if there are some Republican holdouts in the Senate when it comes to Gabbard.
BRUNHUBER: All right, we shall see if there's been a through line of our discussion here. It's been sort of this idea of loyalty, peak Trump, as you say. So many people from politicians to CEOs have been falling in line with Donald Trump. Do you expect to see any significant cracks in the MAGA-verse to kind of show up in the coming weeks after inauguration?
GIFT: Well, I think that the main issue is going to be right from the outset, this issue over tariffs. Of course, Trump has promised to impose tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on all imports into the United States and upwards of 60 percent tariffs on imports from China.
The thing is, though, Trump doesn't really need any help to get that through. He can more or less do it unilaterally without Congress. So I think that that's one issue to watch.
And then again, the other issue, as kind of we noted, was whether Trump, who is much more of a populist, sort of a big government conservative, doesn't subscribe to conservative economic principles, whether that's going to run into the House Freedom Caucus that seems to have as their race on detract raining back spending.
So I think that those are two cracks that could emerge early and potentially often during the Trump administration.
[03:25:06]
BRUNHUBER: All right, we'll have to leave it there. Always appreciate speaking with you, Thomas Gift in London. Thank you so much.
GIFT: Thanks, Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Some residents of Southern California go back to their communities to see what's left of their homes after the devastating wildfires, while others will have to wait.
Plus, imagine your home surviving the fires, only to be destroyed by a mudslide. We'll meet the man who lived here next on "CNN Newsroom." Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRUNHUBER: All red flag weather warnings have expired for now in the Southern California fire zones. Forecasters expect dangerous winds to pick back up again next week.
More than 170,000 people are still under evacuation orders, and authorities are warning residents who can return to be careful of hazardous materials, including chemicals and lithium ion batteries.
Now some evacuees were allowed back into their Altadena neighborhood on Thursday. Officials say they've checked 90 percent of the homes there for bodies. The Palisades and Eaton fires killed at least 27 people.
One couple in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles got hit with a double whammy of bad luck. One of their homes burned to the ground, another was destroyed by a mudslide. CNN's Nick Watt has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That little blue house with perfect views of the Pacific somehow survived the raging Palisades fire, destroyed days later by a mudslide.
Steve Edwards owns the place. He lived around the corner in another home with his new wife. That house, that whole neighborhood, burned to the ground.
WATT: Does it feel any different to have a property survive the fire and then get destroyed in the aftermath?
STEVE EDWARDS, LOST HOME IN MUDSLIDE: Well, it's just a gut punch because my wife and I thought, oh, well, at least we have this house, we can go live there.
WATT (voice-over): We drove Steve into the evacuation zone to take a look for the first time.
EDWARDS: So then that light right there.
WATT (voice-over): Here's what the little blue house looks like up close.
WATT: I'm sorry, Steve.
EDWARDS: My kids are sad. You know, my wife's sad. As of Thursday night, we're like, oh, look, it's standing, it's intact. We're going to come live here. OK, great. New life.
Let's do it here. And then you get kicked in the teeth.
WATT (voice-over): The mudslide hit Friday morning.
Steve is a composer, scores a lot of movies and T.V. shows. A favorite piano is still in that crumpled house.
WATT: 1904 Steinway just sitting right there.
WATT (voice-over): Right against that wall. And I'll bet it's intact. Those things are built like Sherman tanks. Now, of course, what I'm thinking is, how do we get that piano out? It's just leaning up against that wall.
WATT (voice-over): Mudslides could become more of a problem around here.
[03:30:00]
MARK PESTRELLA, CIRECTOR, L.A. COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS: If you have slopes behind your homes or if you're located on the top of a slope, these slopes have become fragile. There are mud and debris flow hazards that are existing even when it's not raining.
WATT (voice-over): Back in 2018, mudslides killed 23 people just a little further north in Montecito when heavy rain fell just a few weeks after a wildfire had stripped the hillside. Vegetation helps hold hillsides together.
A lot of that burned these past ten days and we've seen a lot of water flowing down the streets. Pipes burst.
STEVE EDWARDS, LOST HOME IN MUDSLIDE: Why the water didn't get shut off? There's going to be a lot of questions about that.
WATT (voice-over): This might never be rebuilt.
EDWARDS: I'd have to completely rebuild the hillside, cost millions of dollars, and my poor neighbors.
WATT (voice-over): Steve wants to return to the Palisades one day, but for now he's playing a borrowed piano in someone else's home.
Bridge over troubled water. Makes sense.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Alright, still ahead, anxiously awaiting a ceasefire in Gaza. Palestinians exhausted by 15 months of war, along with families and loved ones of the hostages held captive. They're all waiting to find out if Israel's government approves the deal with Hamas.
Plus, as the clock ticks down towards TikTok's U.S. ban, some users are hoping for a last-minute reprieve. More details after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom." Israel's Security Cabinet is expected to meet at this hour and vote on the Gaza ceasefire deal. The full cabinet is expected to vote tomorrow.
Now, if the government approves the deal, it's set to take effect on Sunday, with a pause in fighting and the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners over a number of phases. But until then, Israel continues to bomb Gaza.
Palestinian officials say Israeli strikes killed at least 86 people, including 23 children, and wounded more than 250 since the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday. That marks the highest daily death toll in Gaza in more than 10 days.
[03:35:04]
Now, among those with high hopes for the ceasefire deal are Adi and Yael Alexander. They're the parents of Edan Alexander, an IDF soldier who's been held hostage since the Hamas rampage on October 7th.
The militant group released a video of him less than two months ago, which was the first confirmation for his parents that they have, that he's still alive. 20-year-old Edan was born in Israel, but grew up here in the U.S.
And his parents spoke with CNN a few hours ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YAEL ALEXANDER, MOTHER OF EDAN ALEXANDER: The deal is going to happen. Like, we are going to see something on Sunday or Monday. We're going to start seeing releases of hostages.
It's very emotional. Like, yesterday I was sitting, watching the television, seeing the prime minister of Qatar giving the statement that the deal is on, and then President Biden.
And, you know, and I'm crying. And I'm not, like, it's very, it's very emotional to know that the deal is coming.
We are not sure that our son is in the list, and we don't know when we are going to see him.
ADI ALEXANDER, FATHER OF EDAN ALEXANDER: We haven't seen our son for more than a year. But other hostages that were released back in November of 2023, they saw Edan in the tunnels.
And he was seen also on October 7th, being taken into those tunnels. But we saw him for the first time on Thanksgiving Saturday.
We have to stay hopeful. And just to convey the message to the negotiating teams, both Qataris and Israelis and our American team, do not wait those 16 days in order to move to a second phase. We have to start to negotiate immediately for the second phase. Five
minutes from now. So hopefully between now and 42 days from now, we will see our son getting out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: TikTok users here in the U.S. have just two days left before a new ban on the app takes effect. Many of the 170 million users are hoping outgoing President Joe Biden, incoming President Donald Trump, or the U.S. Supreme Court will intervene at the last minute. CNN's Brian Todd has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's down to a matter of hours before one of America's most popular apps could face a shutdown in the U.S.
A ban on TikTok takes effect Sunday, unless the Supreme Court steps in to block it, or TikTok's Chinese owners suddenly sell the app's U.S. operations to American buyers. Both scenarios unlikely.
ELLIE HONIG CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: A sale of TikTok between now and Sunday is virtually impossible, because among other things, the Chinese government has said they don't intend to approve a sale that quickly.
TODD (voice-over): There have been other possibilities floated. President Biden does have the option before he leaves office to impose a delay on the TikTok ban for up to 90 days.
But that would require proof that significant progress has been made on a deal to sell TikTok. There's no indication of that, and a White House official has told CNN it will be up to the next administration to implement.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: We'll take a look at TikTok.
TODD (voice-over): Sources tell CNN President-elect Donald Trump is weighing a potential executive order to sign when he gets into office that would delay the ban to give more time for a deal to purchase TikTok.
But legal experts question whether a president could reverse a law using an executive order.
HONIG: The president usually does not have the authority to simply say, O.K., Congress just passed a law by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, executive branch, I order you to ignore it. That would be an aggressive and, I think, controversial legal move.
TODD (voice-over): Trump once favored a ban of TikTok in the U.S., but changed course.
TRUMP: We love TikTok. I'm going to save TikTok. ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES":
Behind this whole debate right now of TikTok and tech and national security, there was a real also political incentive to connect with a younger group of voters. The president-elect feels were key towards his election win.
TODD (voice-over): This comes as sources tell CNN TikTok CEO Shou Chew is planning to attend Donald Trump's inauguration. Chew joins tech leaders like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others.
Many of them courted Trump recently at Mar-a-Lago, have changed their company's policies to realign with the new MAGA momentum, and are being rewarded with seats on the inauguration stage.
KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST, "ON" AND "PIVOT": Toys on a shelf. He's put them up there to show them off. These are the world's richest people who could be anywhere else, and they're sitting there at the behest of Donald Trump, and they're going to sit there and take it from him because he's now the president of the United States.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans.
TODD (voice-over): President Biden warned in an Oval Office address against tech CEOs who he believes are more interested in unfettered profit than the public good.
BIDEN: Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.
TODD: TikTok has declined to comment on the possibilities that Donald Trump or Joe Biden might take action to save the app.
[03:40:04]
Even though TikTok's parent company ByteDance has long been adamant that it won't sell, some serious offers have come in, including a bid from "Shark Tank" Kevin O'Leary and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, which values the app at about $20 billion. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: Ukraine is getting more promises of possible security guarantees if there's a ceasefire with Russia. They came from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday. The two countries signed a 100-year partnership agreement, pledging to cooperate on maritime security and other issues.
Other European leaders also worked in recent days to strengthen Ukraine's hand in possible peace talks, which could be pushed by the incoming Trump administration. Here's Keir Starmer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We must look at how this war could end, the practical ways to get a just and lasting peace. We agree that it must be a peace that guarantees your security, your independence, and your right to choose your own future.
We will work with you and with all of our allies on steps that will be robust enough to guarantee Ukraine's security, guarantee any possible peace, and deter any future aggression. That conversation will continue in the months ahead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: The two leaders also visited an exhibition of military drones. Zelenskyy says Ukraine plans to double the production of some of its drones, partly with Britain's help.
And the president of Russia's main drone supplier, Iran, is expected in Moscow in the coming hours. Masoud Pezeshkian and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are expected to further close their ranks by signing a comprehensive partnership agreement.
As Clare Sebastian reports, Russia is already reaping huge benefits from its friendship with Tehran.
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CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was March last year. Then six months later. Satellite images revealing breakneck expansion at a drone factory in southern Russia, a facility set up two years ago to produce Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones.
JON ALTERMAN, DIRECTOR FOR MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM, CSIS: Building a drone factory in Russia for the Russians was an almost unimaginable step forward, both for the Iranians and for the Russians.
This admission from the Russians that they need that kind of help, the willingness of the Iranians to do that kind of overseas expansion.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): That deal with Iran has shaped Russia's attritional war. A CNN investigation from December found production rates at the factory in Tatarstan more than doubled last year.
And Russia has stepped up attacks. Over 11,000 Shahed or Shahed-type drones were fired at Ukraine last year, according to a CNN tally. That's more than four times the previous year's total.
Iran has consistently denied providing weapons for Russia's war. And yet by the time Putin and Iran's new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, met in October, there was talk of something even deadlier.
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The provision by Iran of ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): This Russian cargo ship suspected by the U.S. of transporting those ballistic missiles across the Caspian Sea.
UNKNOWN: It is definitely a significant escalation.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Though no evidence has yet emerged of their alleged deployment, the revelation helped persuade Ukraine's allies to let Kyiv use Western long-range missiles on Russian soil.
The incoming Trump administration wants to engage with Russia.
TRUMP: President Putin wants to meet. He's said that even publicly.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): While at the same time cracking down on Iran.
UNKNOWN: For the United States, a policy of maximum pressure must be reinstated.
ALTERMAN: I think there's a lot of wisdom in driving a wedge between Russia and Iran for all kinds of reasons. Whether the Trump administration is going to do that, I don't know.
SEBASTIAN: How dangerous has this partnership been and could it be going forward when it comes to this war?
ALTERMAN: The Iranians certainly have some worrying capabilities. The Russians certainly have demonstrated a willingness to use worrying capabilities. And so it seems to me that the danger is quite real.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
In South Africa, a tragic ending for many trying to scratch a living from an illegal mine. We'll have the story after the break.
And Pope Francis spent Thursday in a series of meetings. Just ahead, we'll tell you why the pontiff had his arm in a sling. Stay with us.
[03:45:02]
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BRUNHUBER: South Africa is facing heavy criticism for its clampdown on an illegal mining operation after at least 78 bodies have been pulled from the mine. In November, the government allegedly cut off food and water to hundreds of miners underground.
The bodies were retrieved in the course of a court-ordered rescue operation searching for survivors. Police said at least 166 people had been rescued alive from the mine shaft in Stilfontein. But more than 100 others are believed to have died from starvation and dehydration.
Now survivors spoke of what drove him to enter the hazardous mine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOEKETSI KHATI, MINER AT ILLEGAL OPERATION: I took that decision to take my own risk. To risk about my life and go to the abandoned shafts to get some gold to end living, our government doesn't provide us with jobs. So we saw job opportunity for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Now earlier, I spoke to mining expert David van Wyk in South Africa. He's lead researcher with the Bench Marks Foundation and was part of the effort to get the miners out. I asked him whether what the authorities said was true, that the miners could have got out of the mine if they'd wanted to. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID VAN WYK, LEAD RESEARCHER, BENCH MARKS FOUNDATION: There was one single rope that the community had put down, 2,000 meters to pull people up, and they could pull up one person every three hours or so, and there were hundreds of people underground, so that was not going to really work, and people would not willingly starve.
If we consider that in court most of these guys were given six-month sentences suspended for six years. Now, most small-scale artisanal miners, informal sector miners, know that the courts really don't have much of a case against them, so they would come up if they could come up.
At that particular point they couldn't come up because most of the shafts where they could come up were blocked, and it's extremely difficult when you've run out of batteries and you've got no light to traverse the tunnels underground, and you could get lost in the maze of tunnels where you could fall down other shafts and so on, and die in the process.
With the 78 dead bodies that have come up, we believe there's more than 109 people that died underground. Not all the bodies have been retrieved.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, just absolutely tragic. There have been calls for an independent inquiry. What's the likelihood anyone will actually be held accountable for these deaths?
VAN WYK: Well, the Minister of Mining certainly should be held accountable. He appeared at the scene of this tragedy on Monday. This is after this thing started in August last year already. It escalated in November.
And for the Minister of Mining not to have shown any interest all this time, no interviews, no discussions, no disclosures to the public or anything from him in particular.
[03:50:09]
You know, we are in a country that is in transition from large-scale industrial mining. The gold mines are largely no longer profitable for large-scale industrial mining.
But no one has planned for smaller and medium-scale mining, and tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs. And mining towns are practically dying when these towns could actually be better used, and jobs could be created within these towns around renewable energy and a whole range of other activities using the very same infrastructure of the mines which have been abandoned illegally.
It's illegal to abandon a mine in South Africa, but corporations do that with impunity because the government does not hold them accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Pope Francis is nursing an injured arm after a fall at the Vatican on Thursday morning. The 88-year-old leader of the Catholic Church still managed to attend several meetings later in the day. CNN's Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb is in London with more details on the pontiff's health.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Pope Francis on Thursday morning had his right arm in a sling after he fell at his residence, the Casa Santa Marta. The Vatican saying the sling was a precautionary measure following the fall which did not cause any fractures.
Nevertheless, this is the second fall the Pope has had in recent weeks. In early December, he hit his chin on his bed stand and had a large bruise as a result.
Now, Francis said in an autobiography released this week that his health is good, but he is suffering the effects of old age. At 88, he is one of the oldest pontiffs in the Church's history. But despite these falls, the Pope has shown a determination to keep going.
On Thursday morning, he greeted people in the Vatican with his left hand, among those coming to see him a group of priests from the Argentine College in Rome.
And on Sunday evening, the Pope is due to appear once again on the Italian talk show "Che Tempo Che Fa." Christopher Lamb, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: The film director David Lynch, a master of surreal and erotic images in the movies, has died at the age of 78. Lynch gained fame with his haunting T.V. melodrama "Twin Peaks" about the murder of a homecoming queen. It had everyone asking, who killed Laura Palmer?
He made the seedy conspiracy "Blue Velvet", which started with a severed human ear, set against a college student's return home. Lynch also plunged an aspiring Hollywood actress into a cryptic underworld in "Mulholland Drive."
Lynch's use of bizarre images often left filmgoers gasping for meaning, but fans loved the puzzles and called him a visionary. He won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and received four Oscar nominations. Lynch had emphysema, but his family gave no cause of death.
Kyle MacLachlan, star of "Twin Peaks" and "Blue Velvet", said Lynch embodied a creative ocean, saying, "I will miss him." SpaceX was celebrating a picture-perfect launch, but it only took eight minutes for its Starship spacecraft to break into pieces. What Elon Musk said about the failed mission just ahead. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: SpaceX chief Elon Musk says it looks like a propellant leak caused the Starship spacecraft to disintegrate just minutes after launch.
[03:55:03]
Video shows burning fragments falling from the sky over Turks and Caicos. Commercial airline flights in Florida were briefly delayed to avoid the debris.
No one aboard the Starship spacecraft. Well, there was no one there, which was set to deploy mock satellites as part of a demonstration. SpaceX managed to capture the reasonable super-heavy booster rocket between two extended arms in a tower off the Texas coast.
Meanwhile, in outer space, a pair of NASA astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station for a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk.
Suni Williams and Nick Hague made some repairs and got a look at the SpaceX capsule floating nearby. Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stranded in space since the launch of what was supposed to be a week- long trip. Now, this was the eighth spacewalk for Williams and the first for NASA astronauts since last summer.
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You're looking at and listening to rare video of a meteorite crashing to Earth last summer. It was captured on a doorbell camera outside a home on Prince Edward Island in Canada. The homeowners saw grey dust in a star-shaped pattern on their walkway and checked the recording.
They collected fragments and sent them to experts at the University of Alberta, who confirmed they were indeed from a meteorite. Scientists say the space rock was from the asteroid belt beyond Mars.
All right, have a look at this time-lapse video of the eruption of the Mount Ibu volcano in Indonesia. It was recorded by a surveillance camera. The eruption sent a cloud of thick grey ash about 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles, into the air on Wednesday.
About 3,000 people who live nearby are being evacuated. This latest activity follows a series of volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has 127 active volcanoes.
Thousands of people in the Brazilian state of Bahia took to the streets for a traditional festival. The event dates back more than two centuries and honors a patron saint who's translated as the Lord of Good End. It happens each year on the second Thursday in January and blends
Catholic and African faith traditions. Revelers wear white and blue, take part in cultural performances, and enjoy local foods. Then it ends with the washing of church steps and a mass.
All right, thank you so much for joining me. I'm Kim Brunhuber, in Atlanta. More "CNN Newsroom" now with Max Foster in London.
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