Transcripts For MSNBCW Inside 20240702 : vimarsana.com

Transcripts For MSNBCW Inside 20240702



to increase the assistance getting into the gaza civilians who need help, and to facilitate release of hostages. who we know that innocent children in gaza are suffering greatly as well. because this war that hamas has unleashed is such with consequences. thousands have been killed, and from the earliest days of this crisis, i've worked closely with president sisi of egypt. israeli government, killing duel of jordan, and others that the region to expand the delivery of humanitarian assistance, to help innocent palestinians in need, who are not part of hamas. under this deal, in gaza, it has now been paused for three days. over that time, 58 hostages have been released, including the tie, filipino, and russian nationals. >> dozens of families have been reunited. they worked urgently, urgently to take advantage of the pause, to surge aid into gaza, we moved approximately 200 aid trucks into gaza each day. loaded with food, water, medicine, fuel, and cooking gas. more is needed, but this deal is delivering lifesaving results. critically aid is going in, and hostages are coming out. this deal is structured so that it can be extended to keep building on these results. that's michael, that's our goal. to keep this pause going beyond tomorrow, so that we can continue to see more hostages come out and search more humanitarian relief into those who are in gaza. we have seen, this is a day approach. nothing is guaranteed, nothing is being taken for granted. but the proof that this is working, and worth pursuing further, is in every smile and every grateful to we see on the faces of those families who are finally getting back together again. the proof is little abigail, and more than 20 other children, 18 years and younger, that have been released. they were released through this deal as well. they've endured a terrible deal, now they can begin the long journey towards healing. i'm going to continue working with the amir qatar, president sisi of egypt, and president netanyahu of israel to do everything possible to see the hostages are freed, all the hostages. i'm grateful for the personal partnership, as we -- this deal for each of those that i just mentioned. as we worked together to see all of this, and to try to extend it further. i will continue working with all of our partners to take the hard but necessary steps to build an intra graded and more prosperous and peaceful future in the region. a two state solution is the only way to guarantee the long term security of both israelis and palestinian people. to make sure israel and palestinians alike live in equal measure of freedom and dignity, we will not give up on working towards that goal. thank you very much, thank god she is home. i just can't imagine the -- i wish i were there to hold her. >> president, do you have an update on the other americans that are being held, and any sense as to when they will be released? >> we are hopeful, but i don't have anything firmly to tell you at this moment. >> sir, do you expect that you can use this momentum to extend the pause, have you extracted any guarantees a vote -- or do you have an expectation of how much longer you can push this pause? >> you know the deal calls for every ten hostages released we extend another day. so i'm hopeful this is not the end. it's going to continue. but we don't know, and i get a sense that all the players in the region, even the neighbors who haven't been directly involved, are looking for a way to end this so the hostages are all released and hamas's completely -- how can i say, it no longer in control of any portion of gaza. >> do they have control of all the hostages, or they're still other militant groups? >> we think there are probably other militant groups, but we're not certain. >> mister president, how is abigail doing? what's her physical condition? >> i haven't gotten that information, i just wanted to let you know they were going to cross into egypt, as you recall. but an older non-american elderly woman is very sick, who is in need of immediate medical help. so they arranged to cross directly into these real to take her to a hospital. all i know is that she's been held, i don't know, i haven't seen a photograph. i've just been in communication with my team, but she is safely in israel, but there's a lot more work to be done. >> how long would you like to see the polls go on for? >> i would like to see us move to a point where we are able to -- let me put it this way. i'd like to see the pause go on as long as prisoners keep coming out. all right, thank you also very much. we have to call you -- i know you, say that was only ten minutes or so. that's the notice i get, because we didn't know and i didn't want to be having this press conference if they weren't physically -- even when they're in the red cross ambulance, i didn't want to do it, because they were not out. they were still in gaza. so, i don't thank you enough, but thank you. >> we're here anytime. >> all right. happy holidays to you guys. >> we've been listening to president biden give an update on the release of hostages, happening in israel. as we speak. he said a couple of interesting things, one that the deal is structured so that it can be extended, he says he hopes it is extended as long as possible, where hostages would be released. our goal is to keep this going, he also said. he also talked about his ongoing work of diplomacy, talking with the countries and the egyptians in the region to keep this going. we have learned, of course, as he provided the update, that the hostages have been released to the red cross and are making their way home. it has been 50 days since they were abducted by hamas. this is the third group of hostages released as part of a four-day temporary truce between israel and hamas. as we heard the president say, we will learn one of those hostages is american toddler abigail mor edan, who just turned four years old on friday while in captivity. she is now free. as the deal stands right now, 50 total hostages are promised to be released in exchange for 150 palestinian prisoners. now, this is the first truce over the past couple of days after weeks and weeks of fighting. and a rare moment of positive news since the start of the war, but tomorrow is day four of this four-day pause. so the question is, what happens on day five? day six? day seven? president biden said, quote, the chances are real this could open the door to a longer cease-fire. and egypt said that it has received positive signals for an extension of this truce. but the israeli military has urged civilians fled to southern gaza not to return home. and has warned them that the idf is still preparing for the next phase of this war once this pause and. already, over 14,000 have been killed in gaza, according to health officials there. and although some aid is making its way in, and certainly a lot more over the last couple of days, the world health organization says much more is needed. so right now, even during these moments of joy and certainly abigail returning home is a moment of joy, major questions remain about the families still waiting. the hostages still held captive, and the civilians still trapped, in dire conditions. joining me now is white house principal deputy national security adviser jon finer. john, thank you so much for joining me this afternoon. i know this must of been a hectic morning for you. i want to start with the news of the return of four-year-old american abigail mor edan, who is among the hostages, as the president just talked about, who is returning home. i want to ask you -- there's nine other americans who are held either by hamas or other militant groups. do you anticipate tomorrow, when there is another day of this pause, that there could be additional americans released? this pause, that>> thanks john. as you say, this is a rare bit of good news in a situation that remains very difficult overall. as you said, israeli and other families, including american families, are worried about their loved ones in harm's way, and some of them are morning, including abigail's family, who got her back, but are mourning the murder of her parents, incredibly difficult circumstances in gaza for palestinian families as well. many of whom have lost family members. in terms of where this all goes from here, we know that there are two other americans who meet the criteria that the agreement is based on. women and children, 50 women and children, who would come out in the early days, four days of the agreement between israel and hamas. but we are reluctant to make predictions about exactly who and exactly when. we are dealing, as you know, with a terrorist group. so there's no trust involved in this. we have to see who actually ends up getting transferred to the red crescent, red cross, and then moved out of the country. until we actually see those people move, as the president said, we do not want to get ahead of any of this, because it's not fair to the families to indicate confirmation of things until we actually know what's happening. >> the president -- it sounds like qatar's foreign ministry says that to american passport holders will be released tomorrow, but i think what you're saying, john, is that you will believe it when you see it, and you don't want to get too ahead of where the processes at this point in time. i want to ask you about where these hostages could be held, because the numbers have been around 240 for some time, about hamas is saying about 100 could be held by other militant groups, the president was just asked about this. do you have any confirmation of how many are with hamas and how many are with other groups, and how confident are you about hamas's ability to work with these other groups to get these hostages back? >> so, one of the very difficult, many difficult aspects of this whole arrangement is that we do not have a lot of fidelity. a lot of clarity about the condition of the hostages, or exactly where they are held. we believe a large number of them, maybe the majority, are held by hamas. but we think that there are other significant number of hostages held by others, possibly islamic jihad as one, and maybe other hostages in custody of other smaller armed terrorist groups inside gaza. so just the sheer logistics of assembling all these people in one place, transferring them to the red cross, and then transiting them across the border either egypt and into israel takes hours and hours of works. there are snags that occur every day during the course of trying to execute this, we work through those snags. we have international partners, the qataris, the egyptians, the israelis, and others, and try to get done what has been agreed. we will do that exact same thing tomorrow, and if the deal is extended and hamas is willing to transfer more hostages, which we urge them to do if they would like to maintain a degree of calm and paul's in gaza, they will continue doing that day after day. because the president has said it is our priority to get as many of these people out as we possibly can. >> the president, during his remarks, said very clearly that our goal, as in the goal of the united states, is to keep this deal going as long as hostages are released. the end of the deal is tomorrow, do you anticipate at this point that it will continue until at least tuesday? >> so, i can't improve, jen, on what the president said on this. i think it's exactly right. as long as hamas is willing to continue releasing hostages, we believe that this deal can be extended and will be extended. whether they are willing to do that remains to be seen, i've seen the comments made by the government of egypt, i think we've also heard indications that it's possible that they will be going to continue to be releasing people beyond the end of the deal, which you said is tomorrow. but again, until that is agreed, until that is executed, i don't want to get ahead of things and start making predictions. but that will be a very intensive focus of our time and the presidents time, i can't overstate how personally involved, directly involved he has been with every aspect of this and will remain so again, until all these people are out. >> i do want to ask you about that, because he talked about his diplomacy and his engagement. we've seen the readouts and calls. but what the president said about the desire to continue this deal, or continue this pause, is that also the view of prime netanyahu and the israelis? >> so, the president has spoken almost daily with prime minister netanyahu, on a very regular basis about this. our understanding is that the israelis are open, again, to continuing this positive hamas agrees to continue transferring prisoners. but all need the actual confirmation of all of this to the two parties. that negotiation is ongoing, will continue, and is argued that it caused just continue to be released, the pot should continue. to the presidents involvement, as you just said, i think it's important to note, something that happened the other day, while the president was asked during a news conference he was giving after he met with xi jinping of china for an update on the hostage deal, he said i'm reluctant to give you too many more details because i have been tied up for the last four hours, so i don't have the latest. he was tied up, obviously, talking to president xi of china. but that gives you some indication of how closely he is following this, that for hours goes by and he believes that he needs even further up to date information before he can comment. he's really following this hour by hour in a direct way. >> i've been there not for this, obviously, but for past moments when the president has been very engaged in diplomacy. give us a sense, is he spending hours in the situation room, back and forth into the oval office, getting ten updates a day, six updates a day, constantly on the phone? what is happening behind the scenes? >> oh, as you can probably picture very well, based on your experience, the presidents national security team has been in and out of the oval office providing him updates. also during the course of the last few days, during thanksgiving holiday, providing him with near constant updates by secure phone, when we get more information, we transfer it directly to him. we get his guidance if we think it's useful for him to make a phone call to push or to council one of his foreign counterparts, one of the fellow heads of state. we have him do that, and he has made, as you said, a number of calls directly on this issue to try to make sure things stay on track and for him, i think, that's going to have to continue over the days ahead if we are going to finish the execution of this first phase of the deal, and ideally extend it. >> one of the arguments prime minister netanyahu has made publicly is that the military campaign put the necessary pressure on hamas to actually release hostages, or he was making this argument in the lead up. is that an argument that the united states agrees with? >> however it ends up getting done, i think the military campaign is playing a role, we think that diplomacy probably has played the largest role behind the scenes, quite diplomacy, but very firm and very direct. we are now at a place that many people did not think we could be, which is a genuine pause in the fighting. it is enabling, by the way, not just the release of hostages, but also the significant expansion of the amount of humanitarian assistance that's going into gaza. we have never conditioned assistance on a hostage deal. we said that assistance should go in, and go in significant amounts regardless. but the fact that there is this much fighting going on in gaza over the past few days, has meant a dramatic ramp up in assistance that is making our lives a bit easier for the past while, and the people who remain in gaza, including hundreds of thousands of people, as you know, who have been displaced from their homes. we've had more than 200 trucks, of assistance, going over the past couple of days. that's far more than what's the case for the hostage deal, and we would like that to continue as well. >> one of the challenges, one of the many challenges is the lack of visibility into what's actually happening on the ground in gaza, and there have been a range of reports of casualty numbers, including estimates of up to 15,000. does the united states have an estimate of the number of casualties in gaza at this point in time? or is that not information we even have from the government? >> we candidly, sort of like what i said about the hostages and their condition of themselves, because we are not on the ground in gaza, and because we don't speak directly with authorities there. we don't have the ability to give accurate estimates that we can verify, of things like casualty numbers. what i can say is that we believe, as has been reported everywhere, that the casualty numbers are historically high, beyond the level that we have seen in other conflicts in gaza, and there are a large number of innocence, tragically, who have been killed in this conflict. and that is something that all of us i think take incredibly seriously, that we speak directly to the government of israel about, in terms of how they're prosecuting this war and how they may continue prosecuting this war, if and when the cease-fire that has occurred for the last four days, this pause, ultimately ends. but it is quite obvious to everyone that the level of suffering is quite high. i should also say, the predicate for this phase of the conflict, what occurred inside israel, the 1200 or more israelis who were killed by hamas terrorist attacks, is also a historically high number. a predicate that is really unprecedented, in the previous gaza conflicts. and that's the reason why we are in such a severe situation right now. >> white house principal deputy of national security adviser jon finer, i know this is a very difficult situation with difficult questions. you just outlined many of them, but some moments of joy. congratulations to all of you and the role you played in helping bringing these hostages home. -- out of today's hostage release and gaza, four-year-old american abigail mor edan is now in israel. she's among 17 hostages just released by hamas, the israeli government confirming that in the past hour. i want to bring into people that have been involved in these type of negotiations on behalf of the u.s. government. joining me now, former cia director for president obama john brennan, and former national security adviser to president obama ben rhodes. -- i want to start with you, because i think we're all trying to understand what happens next now. there are nine americans who remain hostage, some may be by hamas, some by outside militant groups. you are an expert on the region, i should. so what happens now, with these negotiations between hamas and the qataris and the egyptians, and also these outside militant groups, as we are trying to get these americans home? >> i think the effort is to build on these first three days. which is a very hopeful sign, because it appears as though both sides have adhered to the terms of the agreement, sufficiently, to allow the other side to follow through with its obligations in terms of releasing hostages, as well as releasing prisoners. and so i do think that as president biden so correctly stated, it is the intention of the u.s. government to extend this pause for however long as possible, to try to get out more hostages. including the other americans that are still being detained by hamas, as well as maybe by some other palestinian militant groups. so i do think the goodwill, if i can use that term right now in this situation, has been built up in terms of the adherence to the agreement, so far by both sides, it is something that the countries, the americans, the egy

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