♪ this is cnn breaking news. hello, i'm brianna keilar in washington with anderson cooper

in tel aviv. we are beginning with breaking news in the israeli/hamas war. sourcing telling cnn that the terror group hamas has released two more hostages believed to be american citizens, anderson. >> today's release is help from officials from qatar, involved in the other release as well as, as well as egypt at the time. and alex marquardt joins us on the details with kaitlan collins. kaitlan, what exactly do you know? obviously, we have some information that is not getting out in all of this is confirmed? it's a fluid situation, they are not in israel. >> right. this is a very fluid situation. we're holding off on details because this is a fluid situation. we want to make sure we get everything right. what we do know two more hostages released by hamas.

i'm told they're not actually in the custed to of the israeli government yet. but they are on the way there. but that is part of the sensitivity of the reporting around these hostages, obviously given their situations. this is significant. i am told they're both female hostages released. they, of course, are the third and fourth hostages in total to the hundreds we do believe, according to the idf, hamas has in their custody at this moment. what we're still trying to figure out, anderson, whether or not they are dual citizens. we do know they're israeli citizens, but maybe they have dual nationalities as we've seen with hostages and people abducted by hamas. those are the details people are trying to figure out. it does appear this came about from quiet mediation happening behind the scenes between the egyptian and qatari government, obviously playing a really significant role in trying to get these hostages released. israel has made it very clear from officials they are not personally negotiating with hamas for the release of these

hostages. and i do think this is a big part of what we're seeing, in terms of the timing, what everyone is waiting to happen next in gaza, the ground incursion, and there have been discussions with u.s. officials and other government officials, about holding off on that in more negotiations with these hostages can happen. right now, what we're working to confirm is the identities of these two hostages. where exactly they are now. and once they get into the custody of the idf, anderson, as you know, happened with the two hostages last week. they came to the gaza border, they were given over to the idf who brought them to a military base are in central israel. that's where they greeted their parents and had the medical checkups and kind of the debriefings of what they've been going through. >> alex, usually, this interim step there ended, usually, hamas is holding them, representatives of the international community of the red cross, then they make

that transfer to idf officials. these are two -- there were two -- there were two we talked about last week. let's talk about the timing of this. clearly hamas has many captives in their custody. they could release all of them, if they wanted to. they are releasing two by two. what does that tell you? >> well, it's certainly good news. no one's going to tell you otherwise, anderson. this is fantastic for those families and the raanan who saw two of their family members come back friday. no doubt, anderson, whether u.s. or israel or qatar leading the negotiations along with egypt, they would like to see much bigger numbers. we heard from the idf earlier today there are some 222 hostages who are in custody. we certainly don't want to see the hostages coming out two by two. the qataris are pushing for much bigger numbers.

dozens or scores of the civilians, foreigners still in custody. in terms of the mechanics, anderson, obviously, hamas is not going to come face-to-face with israeli officials as they hand over prisoners. so, you have the u.n. which operates independently inside gaza. you have the red cross which operates fairly independently inside gaza. what happens today, like it did on friday, the same mechanism of hamas handing the two captives over to the red cross, they will then be taken somewhere along the border. with don't know where. there are two formal large border crossings in southern gaza. one goes into egypt, one goes into israel. frankly, there are a number of places all along that fence line, where you are seeing today, all of those israeli troops where the red cross could hand those two israeli women over to the idf. as kaitlan mention they had will likely be taken to a military base to make sure they're okay. hamas has claims that the previous release was for

humanitarian reasons. it's not clear what shape the raanan women are in. but we do understand from the white house today, that the u.s. officials have debriefed, or are going to debrief the two americans to gather intelligence to get a sense how they were held, where they were held. any information they could glean from those two women. but obviously, anderson, everyone wants to see a lot more hostages being released. that is why there is this pressure by the israeli government to delay their incursion, anderson. >> and the government has repeatedly denied the access. and proof of life, last we heard, they have not received any of that along with those holding them from jihad or hamas. alex, kaitlan, we'll check in with you. kurt volker, the former ambassador to nato and former representative for ukraine negotiations. he joins me now, ambassador

volker, there's a lot we do know which we are not saying at this moment. we are waiting to see these two former hostages in israeli custody. what are your thoughts on hearing this news? >> well, i think that this is a very difficult situation for israel. the longer this goes on, and this is clearly hamas' strategy, is to drag this out, the trickle of hostages here and there, harder for israel to go ahead with a full-scale invasion. and that means that time goes by and increasingly public opinion is trending against israel. and many countries around the world. so this is a hamas tactic, from the beginning. taking the hostages as a way to try to hold off an israeli full-scale assault. >> one of the things that hamas has said in the last couple of days is that some of these hostages may be being held by

other groups whether islamic jihad which early on claimed to hold about 30. or individual families or mob organizations in gaza may have crossed over, during the terror attacks and stolen people that they had seen that in the past. and hamas had said that they are, or want to locate where all of them may be and account for them all. whether that's true or not sun clear. but certainly, israeli officials have said that in past experiences there have been individuals or families or other groups which have taken hostages. and then they're sort of moved up the chain, ultimately to a group like hamas. hamas, though, could release all of the hostages that they have. there's nothing stopping them? >> that's right. they took these hostages on purpose. and i think it suits hamas' purposes for these hostages uld. then they can say, oh, well, we don't even control all of them, it's all part of a positioning

of hamas to try to keep the israelis from launching that full-scale assault anytime soon. and i think it could be both ways it could be that yes, there are individuals or other groups that also took advantage of the mayhem to kidnap a few people to see if they can get ransom or payment from a higher level palestinian terrorist organization. but it also could be that hamas did this, and then distributed the hostages in order to create the very conditions where they can then claim, well, we can't even get them all right now, we have to work on it. >> ambassador kurt volker, thank you for your time. >> pleasure. >> joining us now lieutenant colonel for israeli forces. colonel, what you can say about this news? >> yes, i don't have the official idf confirmation. i see israeli reports and other reports out there, as soon as we

have hands-on and the idea for issuing the official confirmation of the situation. of course, happy, or better news. and we want, of course, all of those held hostage, the women, the children, the babies, the men, the soldiers, all of them released. and not just the two being released now. >> in terms of how the hand-over process goes on the israeli side, can you talk about that, in past exchanges? >> yeah, i meaner there's a special -- there's a designated lead here, a farmormer idf brigadier general, in charge of the whole mechanism, at the level of israeli offices and institution. he and his people are represented on the ground at the

hanover, where the former hostages are hand over to islam. usually by an intermediary. last time it was red cross. we'll see who it is this time. i suppose it will be the same. and once they are in israeli hands, they are brought back to an idf base, to make sure that, you know, for medical and psychological evaluations to be reunited with their family. and for additional interviews and cooperation. >> in terms of the operation itself, the potential nor a ground operation, how does this trickle of hostages being released, how does that affect military planning? >> everything affects, but i think that we can see through the very obvious efforts that hamas is doing, probably, trying

to play for time and play for legitimacy, using the hostages, the civilians and hostages that they've taken. we see through that. and we demand all of the hostages back. we are ready to maneuver. we are ready, and every minute that goes by, we are more ready. more preparations, more practice. and better honing of all of the capabilities. so every minute that goes by is not necessarily a minute that is in the best intention of hamas. >> do you have any has the red cross been able -- last i heard, red cross was not able to get proof of life of any these hostages. they haven't been able to visit these hostages? >> yeah, i know requests have been made. but as of now, i do not have information of actual meetings which is what the red cross is

supposed to do under its convention. and what we all accept from it. but we've seen that in the past. we saw it with the other israelis held hostage. hamas doesn'tal allow anything that is in accordance with humanitarian international law. no visits no verification of anything. i'll remind everybody watching that there's still two bodies of dead israeli soldiers that have been in hamas -- that have been held by hamas for many, many years. that we have been asking the international force to access and to get anything from. so far, without anything substantial. if we bring focus back to what's happening now, very cynical apractice by hamas, one that we are able to see through. we're happy to see people released, but from our perspective, all of them should be home. and they should be home quickly.

and these practices are very clear what hamas is trying to do. basically using hostages to play for time. >> in a kibbutz near nir oz where we hamas slaughter people, there were other young men, kids, who crossed over gaza in their wake, some of them armed, some of them not, looting, is it believed some hostages have been taken by other actors in this, whether it's not hamas, not islamic jihad, but opportunists or criminal gangs? i mean, in the past, have you seen that? >> well, in the past, no, as far as i recollect, we've never faced a situation like this. and yes, i am aware of those reports. and i've seen the video footage. our perspective on this is that they are all hamas responsibility. hamas bears full accountability

and responsibility for the actions, for the atrocities of october 7th, for crossing and butchering and raping and maiming and murdering and burning people alive. all of that is on hamas. they will pay the full price for it. they will be dismantled. and whether or not our people were taken initially by young enthusiastic and bloodthirsty palestinians that are not necessarily members of hamas, less important, they are all under the responsibility of hamas. >> and in terms of the movement of people that you have been tracking from the north of gaza, down south, as we know, hundreds of thousands of people have made that trek. families have moved down. do you believe, currently, and i think we spoke about this a little bit yesterday that hamas operatives have also moved further south? >> they may have. which is part of what

we assessed would happen. part of the risk assessment. we understand that hamas has that tendency, like all other terrorists, whether they face real fighters and not grandmothers and babies in shelters, but when they face real fighters, they have that tendency to flee, either hide underground in tunnels or try to look like a civilian and flee down south, using the safety of those civilians. and we've calculated that in. and we still advertise our intentions, because we want the gazan civilians away from what is going to be a very intensity, combat area. it's a risk that we take. we will get our hands on those hamas terrorists as well. we're hunting them, and we've had quite a lot of success over the last days with tactical commanders. we have a special task force that is interrogating many of

those so-called elite forces, many of them were apprehended in israel. they're being interrogated by the isa. and the live intelligence that is extracted is helping us in targeting the whereabouts of those that were able to get back to gaza. and that has led to quite a lot of successful strikes on their whereabouts. we continue with that. none of them will end this war alive. >> lieutenant colonel jonathan conricus. thank you so much. more of this breaking story. two more israelis have been released. trying to find out, as soon as we know, that they're in israel, have more details. stay with us.

♪ house republicans are getting ready to, again, start the process of trying to pick a new speaker after nearly three weeks with no one in that top job. these are nine candidates that are now running. they're going to deliver their pitches to their gop colleagues during a closed-door candidate forum that is set to begin about three hours from now. and then tomorrow morning, members will take an internal secret ballot vote, with the goal of selecting their nominee. the big question, who can get those 217 votes that are needed to win the gavel. joining us now is republican congressman larry bucshon of indiana. sir, thank you for being with us. who are you planning to support for speaker, you have many options? >> at this time, i'm noncommitted. i want to listen to what the nine have to say, i know all of them very well. i want to see what they have to say tomorrow because it's challenging times.

right now, i'm not committed. some people who have been in leadership positions, chair people, have a leg-up organizationally, but i think everyone's in the game at this point, so i'm not committed. >> that would bring me to, you supported candidates who could get the most support. why not tom emmer, he's apparently the front-runner at this point in time? >> well, tom and i are friends, he did a great job from the rnc from two perspective, he's on the w.h.i.p. team. i'm on the w.h.i.p. team. and you have to get the other majority to agree with that, the other candidates, some are pretty strong. we'll see, at this point, personally, i'm still uncommitted. >> does the fact that tom emmer voted to certify the 2020 election as you did as well, disqualify him with a significant part of your conference? >> well, i would hope not. i voted to certify eat ethe ele,

because as you just mentioned, constitutionally it was the right thing to do. i don't think it's disqualifying, and it won't be for tom. >> it seems we're watching the conference moving with candidates with more, though still not support for a candidate with less, and obviously still not enough support. how is is that a strategy for electing a speaker, how is that going to turn around? >> well, let me just say, i supported kevin mccarthy. i supported him as speaker and throughout his career. he helped me start from the beginning. i'm a big kevin mccarthy supporter. going forward, of course, he's not in this race. so, i think what you have to do is look at the candidates. and once conference picks a solid candidate, i would expect all the conference members, except for maybe a few, to vote for them. so, i was telling someone this earlier, the lack of confidence and faith in our traditional institutions in the u.s. is the issue, government, law enforcement, faith in general.

is a problem. i think you're seeing that reflected somewhat amongst house republicans. you know, you need to pick a candidate, that the majority of the people choose. and then you need to go to the house floor and you need to vote for them. that's my approach. so, i've supported our nominees at this point. i've supported congressman jordan because he was picked by the conference. a lot of people now are not doing that. i think we need to change that. >> to your point there, do you want to see in this internal ballot, a candidate get to 217 before they take this to the floor, so that you don't see another situation like you saw with jim jordan? >> yeah, ideally that would be the case, but i don't think that will happen. i think, you know, to get 217 in the conference, probably won't happen, and here's the other thing. that doesn't guarantee that people will not -- still go to the floor and not vote for the person that they said they would. so, we've had that happen in the past. i've been here since 2011, and

with speaker boehner, we had a number of people who defected from speaker boehner, when they said they were going to support him. i don't think it's that important. it would be nice, but i do think we need to have a strong majority supporting our candidate. because if we just have a barely supported candidate and another candidate who is close, then it makes it difficult to get to 217 votes. we saw that with congressman scalise who i also would have been supportive of, had he gone to the floor for that vote. >> when do you see this ending? do we get to the shutdown date three weeks from now and still not have a speaker? >> i don't think so. i think it's going to get resolved fairly soon. i'm hopeful it will get resolved this week. it should. we'll see where it goes after this evening. i think house republicans know this is very detrimental to the country, not having a speaker. look at what's going on in your reporting before this segment,

about what's going on in israel, what's happening with ukraine, all of the other things happening in the world, including in our own country. we need to get a speaker so that we can move forward. >> do you worry that your party, your conference, has put itself in a position of weakness going into negotiations ahead of the shutdown? because this is time we're watching this circus, that they could have spent negotiating ahead of this shutdown date. and they haven't done that, so you could see where americans might be more inclined to blame them over other parties. >> well, i think it does put us at a disadvantage, absolutely, we don't have a speaker. we're in the majority. it's on us to choose a speaker. so, of course, you know, we don't have someone who is the speaker of the house to negotiate with the white house, with senate democrats who are in the majority in the senate. so it does put us at a political disadvantage.

and honestly, disadvantage -- it's a disadvantage to the country, if you don't have everyone in place that can come up with deals that they think is the best for the american people. so, absolutely. it puts us at a disadvantage politically, but also practically for the country. it's not a good thing. >> congressman, really appreciate your triime. we're certainly looking to see what comes out of this candidate forum, as i know you are. so thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure, thank you. we do have breaking new details on the release of two israeli hostages by the terror group hamas. we'll have that information for you, next.

♪ with all of the breaking news in the israeli/hamas war the international community of red cross now confirming it helped facilitated two more hostages out of hamas. they are now transported to israel. egypt and qatar helped with the releases. the hostages last week as you know, two american hostages were freed. i want to bring in chief global correspondent matthew chance joins us now. obviously, for the families, this is fantastic news. we have not seen the names in we have complete confirmation. there are still many americans

readings, watching this, glad that these two are out, wishing their loved ones are out. particularly families of wounded hostages, babies, infants. >> reporter: yeah, remember, this is well over 200 hostages about that held inside the gaza strip by hamas. and other palestinian groups according to israeli officials. yes, this is obviously a very, very good news for those two individuals and for their families. and it does give yet more hope, doesn't it, that, you know, this process which has been under way for the last couple of weeks, negotiations between united states through qatar with hamas, to release some of the people is actually bearing fruit. and it's one of the reasons, i mean, it's one of the reasons why we think that has been a kind of pause or delay in these ground operations. it's great that they haven't, and one of the reasons may be that they're giving space for

this process to yield more, very possibly results from that. >> the flip side of that, of course, hamas took these people, killing many of their family members. many of them were wounded. they could release them all now. they're doing it two by two. on the eve, almost of every evening, when people think there may be some sort of a ground operation. >> yes. they're using these hostages are cards, and they're playing that hand of cards as best they can. obviously, they want to avoid -- so they can get better prepared, an israeli land invasion. remember, tens of thousands israeli troops are poised at the border with gaza that are going to go in. and they're going to go in hard. and, you know, they've determined those troops that hamas is going to be dismantled and destroyed. that means, you know, thousands of hamas fighters who are there, who are going to, you know, kind of be in the sights, literally, of the israeli army, and hamas

trying to delay that as much as possible. in some ways they're being very smart of this. >> i want to go back to kaitlan collins with the names of the hostage. >> anderson, we told you we're being very careful, we have confirmed this not just from sources, hamas has released names, the families of these hostages have confirmed, noreet cooper and havid, we have listed her age as 85 years old. these are the two hostages released that the red cross has confirmed have made it to that rafah border crossing inside their way to israel where presumably they'll have medical checkups debriefed situations. looking at those ages, 79 and 85, puts into perspective with

natalie raanan, 17 years old, she turns 18 tomorrow, shows you the scope of people that hamas captured in gaza. ranging from 17 years old to 85 years old. these are two hostages now hopefully reunited with their families very soon. >> yeah. we should point out, they as took we know younger people, the 12-year-old was taken from nir oz, aries calderon and a number of children as well. our special coverage continues after a quick break. we'll be right back.

just in, new details on a

major midair scare over the weekend. an off-duty pilot tries to cut the power on an alaska airline flight by pulling the emergency fire extinguisher handles while the plane was at cruising altitude. this is coming from a memo that cnn obtained sent to alaska air pilots. now, 44-year-old joseph emergency roomerson is charged with 83 counts of attempted murder among other offenses. an air traffic control audio recording captured part of the incident which took place on sunday on a flight from the seattle area to san francisco. the flight was diverted to portland, where it landed safely. >> we got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit. and he doesn't sound like he's causing any issue in the back right now. i think he's subdued. other than that, yeah, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground. >> cnn safety analysis david

soucie is here with us. he's a former faa safety inspector. david, explain to us pulling of the fire extinguisher handles what this would do in a situation like this? >> well, depends on which one he pulls of course, if you're shutting down the fire extinguishers on the engine, it causes the engines to shut down because it's telling you there's a fire on board. the pilot also saying he was trying to shut down the engine, that might not have been the only thing he did. >> and there's no recovering, if you have the extinguisher pulled. i mean, the plane basically becomes like a glider? >> well, you can pull both, typically, you only pull one or the other. this guy sounds like he was trying to shut down whatever he could. at that point, there would not be a lot of recovery at that point, other than glide to the aircraft, they do still glide if you have good landing ahead of you. typically in that situation, at

that altitude, you might not have that many options. >> the pilot on that recording sounds amazingly calm. i cannot match timagine this wa calm moment. >> not at all, brianna. if you look at the flight records it went from two minutes to three, 450 knots to 370. altitude 20 from 31,000 feet to 27,000 feet. there's 5,000, 6,000 feet of altitude that would drop very quickly. so it was a very dramatic thing. they must have had a lot of trouble in that cockpit. it's not easy to subdue someone in that jump seat area. i've ridden many times in that jump seat. pilots are very vulnerable to whoever is in that seat. >> so you're talking about a struggle, like a pretty serious struggle that would have occurred? >> absolutely. to try to turn back to one of the pilots, someone has to fly the aircraft, obviously, someone has to maintain what's going on,

and someone has to turn around. and it is way behind you. the jump seat person has access to the center console with the throttle, with the fire extinguishers, basically everything to do with power is right there in front of the jump seat. that's why they take so many precautions for who gets to ride in that seat. >> but it's not unusual, right? normally, there's -- frequently, you have a pilot who is off duty who needs to get back to whatever. he or she is riding in this seat. does anything about this indicate to you that this particular pilot maybe plotted this and thought this through? >> i would think that he would, it doesn't sound like an instantaneous thing, gee, i think i'm going to do this. it seemed that hi plotted to be there and pull the engines, particularly when he did which is not a really vulnerable part of the flight. it's not as if he did it during takeoff or landing which would certainly result in fatalities. but the altitude he was at,

there's less chance there would be fatalities, but it's still -- to me, it sounds like something he thought about and decided to do. it's not something that just spontaneously had a mental lapse or something. >> you mentioned this loss in altitude. and what was shown, presumably, the passengers were aware of this. what do you think they were experiencing? >> yeah. there was no question something was going wrong. very wrong, at the time that this was going on. just by the fact that you can see how quickly the aircraft dropped. the turns that it made. and unscheduled and unplanned terps that were made. so there was something going on in the cockpit. and i think the passengers probably knew something was going on, but they didn't know what. very uncertain time for them. >> yeah, thank goodness, this ended well. david soucie -- >> that pilot, i can't believe how calm they were. >> unbelievable, i agree. david soucie, thank you so much, i appreciate your time. and this just into cnn, we have images of the two israeli hostages just released by the

terror group hamas. their names are nurit cooper and yocheved lifshitz, her daughter saying i will remain focused on the release of my father and all of those 2 after innocent people who remain hostages in gaza. we're going to don't bring you the latest developments on this story as these details come in. stay with cnn. z.

this just in, u.s. officials

telling cnn that iranian-backed militias appear ready to ramp up attacks in the middle east as iran plans to capitalize on the backlash over washington's support for israel. cnn's natasha ber tran is here with details. >> these iran-backed militias across the middle east, they're intending to ramp up their attacks on u.s. forces across the region. we've already seen that begin on u.s. troops stationed in iraq and syria as part of the anti-isis coalition. this has happened before. these iran-backed groups have tried to attack u.s. forces with drones and other attacks in recent years. the u.s. is now very concerned that they are going to be increasing their attacks even further in light of the war between israel and hamas and the increasing anger in the region against the u.s. for supporting israel in that war. what we're told is in terms of iran's role specifically, they

do fund and support these militia groups across the region. their role right now is kind of more as encouragement and less explicitly directing these attacks. we're told they're not intervening when these groups launch these kind of attashs on u.s. forces, and they're not saying these groups will be punished in any way for doing so. it's kind of tacit encouragement rather than explicit and direct support. u.s. officials still hold iran responsible for the attacks we've seen over the last few days, including one as recently as this morning when a drone was launched at a u.s. military location in syria. the drone was shot down and no forces were injured. t this is exactly why we're seeing this huge forced posture increase by the united states in the region. secretary austin, the secretary

of defense said he's sending additional air defense systems to the region, including additional patriot units, the sophisticated air defense systems, because of the threat that these iranian-backed proxy groups are going to continue to escalate even more than they have been. it's a huge concern for the u.s. in terms of protecting troops over there. it really is all the result of the escalating tensions in the regions that iran is trying to take advantage of, brianna. >> how is this related to those intercepted missiles and drones from yemen. we learned from cnn reporting there were so many of them, and this u.s. navy ship was quite busy for several hours intercepting them. >> yeah. this is a really major event last week, last thursday, a u.s. navy warship intercepted nine missiles and shot down 14 drones, from the houthi rebels

from yemen. that's another iran-backed group that is trying to stir up attacks against u.s. and israeli targets. now, according to u.s. officials, they were not trying to a target the u.s. specifically with those missiles, they were instead targeting israel. enteringly they have missiles that can reach that far. still, the u.s. getting involved here and risks the potential for further escalation. >> natasha, thank you so much for the reporting. we do appreciate it. "the lead with jake tapper" starts after a quick break.