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Israel And Hamas Trade Blame; Germans Protest Against Far-Right Party; Stinky Flower In Bloom. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired January 26, 2025 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to all of our viewers watching from around the world. I'm Polo Sandoval joining you from New York.
Ahead here on CNN Newsroom, trading blame, both Israel and Gaza pointing fingers, saying the other side is responsible for breaking terms of the ongoing ceasefire.
Thousands protesting against a far right party in Germany as tech billionaire Elon Musk addresses the AFD party's campaign launch.
And the so-called stinky flower spreading its petals, drawing some crowds in New York, let's take a look at the story behind this unusual bloom coming up.
It has been an extraordinarily busy weekend in the Middle East. In the next hour, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with his cabinet. And this comes as Israel says that Hamas is not keeping up its side of the ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The sticking point is 29-year-old hostage Arbel Yehud. The group holding her says that she's a soldier. But Israel says that she's a civilian and should have been released on Saturday. Israeli officials saying that until she's released, Palestinians will not be allowed to return to Northern Gaza. But on Saturday, some Palestinians tried to cross into the north anyway. The Israeli military stopped them by firing what it says were warning shots. In fact, you can kind of hear them in this footage. Israel says nobody was hurt in this incident.
Meanwhile, demonstrators in Israel say that they are seeing the hostages, the images of seeing the hostages being released in small groups is encouraging, but they want all of them to be freed.
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EFRAT, MACHIKAWA, RELATIVE OF HOSTAGE GADI MOSES: There are a few seconds where you feel so happy that it's almost feels like a euphoria, but then we're back to reality. There is nothing complete until every last hostage is coming home.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL: CNN's Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Diamond with more on the situation there.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Flanked by armed Hamas militants, this is the surreal moment four Israeli soldiers emerged from 477 days of captivity. But before they are freed, one final moment of Hamas propaganda, smiling and waving as a crowd of hundreds whistles and cheers. Their first taste of freedom looks more like this, rush of emotions as they embrace their parents for the first time on Israeli soil.
Hamas militants had taken them hostage 15 months earlier at the Nahal Oz military base near the Gaza border, where the four women served as field observers, monitoring militant activity in Gaza. Their warnings to commanders about Hamas preparations for an attack ignored.
In one of the most searing images of October 7th, one of the soldiers, Nama Levy, is seen being taken into Gaza, her pants stained with blood. Now she is reunited with her family.
In Israel, an entire country welcomed them back.
And that (INAUDIBLE) you hear behind me are hundreds of Israelis who are welcoming those four female Israeli soldiers just freed from Hamas captivity, who have now arrived at this hospital here, where they're about to be reunited with their families and begin their long journey to recovery.
For the family of Agam Berger, the last remaining female Israeli soldier in Hamas captivity, mixed emotions.
On the one hand, we feel great joy, her grandfather tells me. But on the other hand, there's also some disappointment. She was supposed to be among those released. Still, he says today has given him hope she will be next.
The four captive soldiers were exchanged for 200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, including 121 who had been sentenced to life in prison, three of whom were arrested for orchestrating deadly bombings that targeted Israeli civilians.
In Gaza, hundreds of displaced Palestinians gathered at the gates to Northern Gaza. They were meant to be allowed to return north today, based on the ceasefire agreement. For hours, they desperately waited on Al Rashid Street, carrying all their belongings, ready to finally return home.
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I've been here since 6:00 A.M., Yusra (ph) says. I miss the north and the soil of Northern Gaza. My house is gone, but I will live in a tent if I have to. The most important thing is to return north.
I'm counting the time, not just in seconds, but in milliseconds, this woman says. We left the north with tears of sorrow, and we will return with tears of joy.
That joy soon turned to disappointment. The Israeli government said it would not allow civilians to return to Northern Gaza as planned, claiming Hamas violated the agreement by not releasing a civilian female hostage due to be released.
Instead of returning home, hundreds ran in panic amid a hail of gunfire. Israeli soldiers firing what appeared to be warning shots towards the crowd. But as the sun set, many here remain undeterred, camping out by the checkpoint, waiting for their chance to return home.
Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
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SANDOVAL: But 70 of the released Palestinians that Jeremy just mentioned, they're not able to go home. You see, Israel's prison service said that they were being deported to other countries because they're deemed too dangerous to stay in the Palestinian territories.
Nada Bashir was in the West Bank when the rest of the released prisoners arrived.
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NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A show of force by Palestinian security forces as the occupied West Bank prepares for yet another release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention.
Buses have arrived now in Beitunia carrying those prisoners that are being released now on the second week of this exchange between Israel and Hamas. They are arriving now, escorted by Palestinian security forces here in the occupied West Bank after being released from the Ofer prison.
In nearby Ramallah, crowds gathered to welcome those freed. 200 male prisoners were released in exchange for the release of four female Israeli soldiers held captive in Gaza by Hamas.
Among the prisoners, 121 men serving life sentences, according to Palestinian authorities, three of whom were arrested for orchestrating deadly bombings which targeted Israeli civilians. A majority of those released were convicted on serious charges, including murder.
In Israel, it is a shocking scene. Prisoners, many considered to be dangerous, being celebrated and walking free. But for Palestinians here, this is seen as a moment of victory.
If there is anything we are proud of in the history of this nation, it is Gaza, Mohammed says.
Those now freed cling on to their loved ones. Many are visibly frail and exhausted. The conditions inside the prison, they say were horrific. We'd be beaten in the morning and beaten at night. They would bring out large dogs that were trained to attack us. Briad (ph) says. They would raid ourselves while wearing masks and beat us. This morning, they woke us up at 3:00 A.M. and attacked us with dogs.
Mohammed Lazar (ph) had been serving a life sentence for the murder of an Israeli citizen. Now released, he says, mistreatment of inmates grew more severe after the October 7th attacks.
Over the last 16 months, we experienced severe suffering, Mohammed says, we went through many difficult things.
The alleged abuse of Palestinians in Israeli detention centers has been documented by several NGOs, as well as the U.N. Human Rights Office. CNN has reached out to the Israeli prison service for comments.
While many here are celebrating this moment, it is hard to ignore the months which led to this point.
Of course, this is an important moment for our people, Leila Ghannam (ph) says, but we also feel remorse because the price was too high. The price of freedom was the blood of the Palestinian people.
And though the Israeli government has stressed that this is not a victory for Hamas, here, many say this is a moment of triumph for Palestinian resistance.
Nada Bashir, CNN, in Ramallah.
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SANDOVAL: U.S. President Donald Trump is spelling out his ideas about the long term solution in Gaza. You see, on Saturday, he suggested 1.5 million Palestinians could be moved to other Arab countries, places like Egypt or Jordan. Mr. Trump explained his reasoning while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One this weekend.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: And we just clean out that whole thing. You know, it's -- over the centuries it's had many, many conflicts, that site. And I don't know. It's -- something has to happen. But it's literally a demolition site right now, almost everything's demolished.
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SANDOVAL: Just an audio recording there from the commander-in-chief in the press gaggle.
Mr. Trump said that the relocation could be either temporary or possibly long-term, but his statement appears to break with longstanding U.S. policy, which favored a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. Well, despite the overwhelming destruction, Palestinians in Gaza are refusing to give up on their desire to return home. Some of them managed last week to actually return to their neighborhoods in Northern Gaza, including the bombed out city of Beith Hanoun to see what's left. Take a look for yourself.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
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SANDOVAL: The deadline for Israeli military forces to leave Southern Lebanon has now come and gone with Israeli forces still on the ground right now, a possible violation of Israel's ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which ended months of bloody conflict. Israel's military has also ordered displaced residents of some 67 Lebanese villages to stay away, some of these video that you're looking at showing residents trying to return to their homes despite the order.
Under the ceasefire deal, only Lebanese military forces and U.N. peacekeepers will be allowed in Southern Lebanon. Israel is blaming Lebanon for its recent redeployment in the region. And on Friday, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said Lebanon had not, quote, fully enforced its end of the deal.
U.S. President Donald Trump is giving Israel the option to acquire U.S. heavy bombs again. Officials saying that he has lifted a hold on the shipment of the more than 900-kilogram bombs that were imposed by his predecessor, now former President Joe Biden. The weapons can kill or injure people even if they're more than 300 meters away from the blast zone.
And Biden was concerned that they could be used indiscriminately in densely populated areas. In fact, the CNN analysis showed that Israel used those weapons extensively in the early stages of the war, which experts partly blamed for the high death toll early on.
Donald Trump is now taking a victory lap after the swift action of his of his first week in office at an event in Las Vegas on Saturday. President Trump bragging about basically stripping the federal government of what he described as woke crap, and that's a quote. And he also suggested that he would send some IRS employees to the border after he placed a hiring freeze on IRS workers earlier this week. The president attacked the Biden administration's initiative for more IRS hires and also suggested that the proposed increase in staff should instead be used to help his immigration agenda. Sources are telling CNN that President Trump's federal crackdown on immigration could target as many as 30 cities in the U.S. He declared an emergency at the southern border earlier in the week. And also the White House says that they've begun using military aircraft to continue the deportation flights that we'd also seen under the Biden administration, except not on those flights, on those kinds of airplanes. A Guatemalan official says that the U.S. has already sent 264 people back to the country on military flights.
Here's CNN's Rafael Romo with more.
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Guatemalan officials have been trying to put a brave face to weather the storm. They have chosen to seek cooperation with the Trump White House so that they can prepare for what could be a large number of Guatemalan citizens returning to their country.
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Santiago Palomo, press secretary for the Guatemalan president's office, told us several key things regarding the deportations. Number one, the government of Guatemala has been in what he described as permanent communication with the White House. Palomo also confirmed that 264 citizens of his country were deported on U.S. military flights on Friday to Guatemala, including six children. And, number three, this official also said that Guatemala is ready to handle around 18 weekly flights of Guatemalan citizens deported from the U.S.
The issue of the deportation seems to be a top priority for the government of the Central American nation. Guatemala and Vice President Karin Herrera personally welcomed back to her country some of the migrants deported this week, greeting them at a Guatemalan Air Force base just outside the capital.
Meanwhile, the official we spoke with says the deportations were not a surprise for his government.
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SANTIAGO PALOMO, GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT'S PRESS SECRETARY: Our authorities in the United States, led by the ambassador, Hugo Beteta, met this week with officials of Donald Trump's administration. There was fluid communication and they gave us detailed information about the flights that were expected this Friday.
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ROMO: And to put the issue of deportations of Guatemalan citizens in perspective, the U.S. deported more than 66,000 back to their home country in fiscal year 2024, according to data from U.S. immigration officials. That's nearly a quarter of all noncitizens removed by the U.S. that year. The Guatemalan official we spoke with said those returning to Guatemala are being treated in a dignified way through a government assistance program spearheaded by President Bernardo Arevalo called Returning Home.
Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.
SANDOVAL: Elections taking place in Belarus where Alexander Lukashenko allowing voting but little real choice.
Plus, a naturalized U.S. citizen is ranting against immigration and multiculturalism. How Elon Musk is working to influence European elections, that's coming up.
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SANDOVAL: Welcome back. We want to take you now to Belarus where voting underway in its presidential election, but critics say that the results is a foregone conclusion. Alexander Lukashenko, brand new video here, showing him casting his vote. He's been president since 1994. Four of the candidates are on the ballot this time, but after winning his last election with more than 80 percent of the vote, well, it's pretty widely considered a lock for an unprecedented seventh term for this leader.
His 31-year tenure now hinging on balancing the relationships between Belarus, Russia, and the west, sanctions and regional tensions put him under intense scrutiny both home and also abroad.
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So, ahead of their own snap elections in February, Germans are marching in Berlin against the rise of the far right anti-immigrant alternative for Germany party. Police say some 60,000 people attended the demonstrations. Protesters say that they want Germany to continue standing for democracy, openness, and diversity. These are all that pretty much the AFD stands against. Saturday's protests coincided with a much smaller AFD rally.
Also, billionaire Elon Musk appearing at that rally via video link. After donating a quarter billion dollars to Donald Trump's presidential election in the U.S., Musk has been backing populist political parties in Europe.
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen following that.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The far right alternative for Germany, AFD, kicked off its election campaign here in the Eastern German town of Halle an der Saale with a flurry of speeches, including by the party leader, Alice Weidel. And they're hoping to get their campaign supercharged with the help of U.S. billionaire Elon Musk.
He did make a surprise appearance here at the party conference via video link, where he said that he continues to support the AFD. He called for less migration in Germany. He also called for Germany to close its borders and to do more for German citizens, things that we've heard from Elon Musk in the past.
Now, the head of the AFD, Alice Weidel, she thanked Elon Musk for his support. Of course, the two are known to be quite close. They have done a video link with one another before. She also wished Donald Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance, all the best.
And one of the things that we can see is that many of the positions of the Trump administration are also positions that the AFD has as well. For instance, they say they want to close Germany's borders. They say they want to deport more people from Germany as well.
Now, we know that other politicians in Germany, including from the German government, have called what Elon Musk is doing by supporting the AFD meddling in the German election process. A lot of them have vowed not to work with the AFD.
However, the AFD itself right now is riding high in the polls and after the election coming up in February could be one of the strongest political forces here in this country.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Halle an der Saale, Germany.
SANDOVAL: Dormant plants now blooming in New York City and it's stinking up a greenhouse in Brooklyn at the botanical gardens there. But it's still drawing in some crowds of all ages. Still ahead, we'll bring you the reactions when visitors get a whiff of it for the very first time.
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SANDOVAL: Yes, this next one really stinks. It's the stench of a rare bloom, which is turning heads and noses at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The corpse flower, which is a beautiful but putrid-smelling plant, it has blossomed there for the first time in seven years.
CNN's Allison Chinchar has more on visitors reactions and the significance of the flower's return.
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ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice over): Not everything smells like roses, but with a pinch of the nose, visitors at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden got a whiff of something rarely seen or smelled in nature, the bloom of what's known as the corpse flower.
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GIRY NATHAN, BROOKLYN RESIDENT: So many different smells. We got some stinky cheese, some poop smells, some kind of sweaty. Well, now I get the sweaty sock smell.
ISA FRANCISCO, NEW YORK RESIDENT: I think it smells like something growing actually in the earth, and I do think it smells rotten, but more like rotting food almost.
CHINCHAR: It's easy to figure out how the flower got its nickname. Native to the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, the corpse flower only blooms once every two to ten years, and even then only opens for about 24 hours. Botanists say it's a sight to behold and its signature smell may not appeal to everyone, but some creatures dig it. KATE FERMOILE, DIRECTOR OF INTERPRETATION AND EXHIBITIONS, BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN: The plant is emitting this smell to attract pollinators. So, it is attracting the pollinators that it wants the most, so carrion beetles that would be attracted to stuff that smells kind of putrid.
Flowers that smell beautiful are, you know, attracting bees, or they're attracting hummingbirds, or other birds. This is attracting beetles and flies.
CHINCHAR: It's the first time this corpse flower has bloomed since it arrived in Brooklyn seven years ago. And only the nose knows when this awakening of the senses will happen here again.
Allison Chinchar. CNN.
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SANDOVAL: kind of a Haley's Comet kind of effect. I mean, another seven years before that happens, maybe again, and I live in Brooklyn. Some friends telling me there were actual lines of people waiting to catch a glimpse of the stinky flower.
But how about we take it to the other side of the world for this next one? There are some cities across China. There are a light right now with excitement. Right now, they have all those preparations for the spring festival that are underway. It is lighting up the scene there. 15 days of festivities officially kicking off on Wednesday. The purpose of the festivities here celebrating the Lunar New Year. Of course, expect light shows some of these bustling markets, a lot of picture taking and certainly also the transformation of streets and landmarks.
The whole point of this, though, is to bring communities together to honor tradition and also welcome the year ahead. As you know, certainly we are likely to see many of the Lunar New Year celebrations all around the world, including here in New York City, where I am particularly looking forward to that.
Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. Connecting Africa is next. Then I'll be right back with in about 30 minutes with more of your headlines.
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