'This Week' Transcript 10-15-23: Jake Sullivan & Peter Lerner

A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, October 15, 2023 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC "THIS WEEK" ANCHOR: And joining us now is the spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

The IDF says the assault will be by land, by air, by sea. Is this imminent, and can you explain the objective?

LT. COL. PETER LERNER, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES SPOKESPERSON: Good morning, Martha.

Yes, we are on day nine since the brutal massacre of families, men, women and children, in the south of Israel by Hamas as an orchestrated, strategic attack against the soft underbelly of our society. We are currently striking Hamas at -- in its entirety, from the leaders at the head, from Yahya Sinwar (ph), who has a mark on a – a target on his back, the – the mastermind of the massacre, the president of – the prime minister of Hamas, the person who subordinated (ph) the entire institution of Hamas to the terrorist actions of this terrorist organization, to all the way down to Billal al Kedra, who we killed last night in a strike, who was one of the Nukhba, the commander unit that is – Hamas's commander -- commander unit, that conducted an attack on the Saturday of October 7th in kibbutz Nirim.

And we will strike Hamas from the top, through its institutions, all the way down to the individuals that conducted the butchering of our babies.

We did not ask for this war, but we will win it.

RADDATZ: Meanwhile, you have 2,300 Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed. You have a million Palestinians who are still looking for a way to get out of northern Gaza and go south after you ordered an evacuation, but they have nowhere to go, and it is already a humanitarian disaster.

LERNER: So, we have instructed people living in the north of Gaza to exit towards the south to move down. And as we are seeing the images of people actually appearing (ph) to our message. You know, this is just what a humanitarian means in order to get – keep people out of harm's way so that we can deal with Hamas.

You know, people are moving, people are listening. And I don’t know if you’ve seen, but Hamas actually tried to obstruct their movement. They established checkpoints to try and prevent people. They disseminated messaging, telling people to ignore that – ignore that. And that just goes to show how Hamas is actually trying to put the people of Gaza at more risk. You know, they have no regard for human life, Israel or Palestinian.

RADDATZ: But – but the United Nation called your order impossible. And we’ve seen people trying to get out who can’t. They can’t go through Egypt. Doctors Without Borders says it’s outrageous. Israel has said they will follow the rules of war. So, why not allow everyone who needs to get out, to get out before this assault begins?

LERNER: As I said, we are directing people out of the north of Gaza before we increased our strikes there against the hub (ph) and heart of Hamas’ operations. And – and we are seeing that people are actually evacuating. Indeed, we would like to see the humanitarian organizations, assisting in the evacuation of people if – for the welfare of people and not side with Hamas telling them not to evacuate. That is ridiculous.

You know, we’ve seen Hamas orchestrate over the last days an attack on the people themselves in order to prevent them from evacuating. Yesterday, throughout the day, there were many images broadcasted around the world of a supposed convoy that is the idea (ph) attacked, causing 70 deaths or so. This was a false move. It was one of Hamas’ many manipulations. And, unfortunately, you know, we need to be very clear on, what are the facts that are actually happening. Before we – we report about these types of incidents on the ground, we need to have the facts clear. We can’t just deduce that this was an Israeli strike.

RADDATZ: Well, certainly people are trying to do this.

All – all of this is complicated, of course, by the hostages. One hundred and fifty hostages. What do you know about them? What can you tell us?

LERNER: So, we are very concerned, Martha, of their welfare. Indeed it is Hamas who has the responsibility to return them to Israel immediately. I – I want to be very cautious in anything I say because I don’t want to jeopardize any steps that could happen in order to bring to their release, hopefully. But it is a – you know, a component of our operational planning and it does influence. So, I think out of respect for them and – and hopefully for their welfare, I think we should leave it at that.

RADDATZ: OK, we have seen increased fighting on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. And Iran's foreign minister met with the head of Hezbollah and said, the terror group is ready to respond to any move Israel makes and that the opening the – and opening other fronts is a real possibility.

How are you preparing for that and how likely is that?

LERNER: So, we have recruited some 300,000 reservists in order to be prepared for any eventuality. Those reservists are both for the southern front, on the border with Gaza, so they’re in staging grounds preparing for a potential ground invasion as the government instructs it – instructs it to do so. But also there is both (ph) – and throughout the communities and on the border and frontier (ph) with Lebanon in anticipation for a potential uptick in violence with Hezbollah.

We have had several skirmishes along the border over the last few days. And even today, during the day, we’ve had anti-tank guided missiles fired at forces, indeed causing some casualties. So, we need to be prepared.

I would highly recommend that Hezbollah watch very closely what is happening to Hamas and their organization in Gaza as we speak. If they have – they should be very cautious of crossing that threshold because we are determined to defend the state of Israel.

With regard to Iranian involvement, of course they’re involved. They have trained and funded and – and equipped the terrorist organizations on our doorstep. They’re – you know, they’ve used millions and millions and billions of dollars in order to do so. So, of course they are involved. And – and we are watching that also very closely to see if that has any further influence on our fronts.

RADDATZ: OK, thanks very much for joining us this morning, Lieutenant Colonel.

Coming up, we’ll speak with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, about the effort to free the American hostages held in Gaza.

Our special edition of THIS WEEK continues in just a moment.

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR: That was President Biden speaking at the Human Rights Campaign dinner last night. We're joined now by his National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Good morning to you.

The US is supporting Israel's military plans but is urging Israel to avoid civilian casualties. But as we've said more than 2,300 Palestinians have already been killed. They're running out of water. They are running out of food.

Are you satisfied with the way Israel's carrying out this operation?

JAKE SULLIVAN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, thanks for having me on. Martha, as President Biden said, innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas should be treated just like innocent civilians anywhere which means they should have access to food and water and medicine. And we have made that clear, publicly and privately since the beginning of this operation in response to the absolutely heinous and savage terrorist attack that took place last Saturday.

We are in touch with our Israeli counterparts. We're in touch with the United Nations to help secure the necessary supplies of food, water and medicine to the citizens of Gaza, those Palestinians who have nothing to do with the barbaric terrorists who carried out this attack.

RADDATZ: Let me ask you again, are you satisfied with the way that Israel is carrying out this operation then?

SULLIVAN: What I’m here to do, Martha, is to explain what the United States’ position is. And our position as President Biden has stated it is straightforward. We believe in the protection of civilian life. We believe in the laws of war. And we believe in the full and necessary access to humanitarian supplies.

And we’re going to keep working on that. We’re going to work on it with Israelis. We’re going to work on it with the Egyptians and Jordanians. We’re going to work on it with the United Nations.

We’re going to do that every day and I’m not going to react publicly to every report of everything that’s happening. But rather, keep my head down, keep our heads down until we have been able to achieve what we believe is the necessary level of support to innocent people.

RADDATZ: So, how do the refugees get out at this point? How do the Palestinians get out? How do Americans get out?

SULLIVAN: Well, first, with respect to the American citizens in Gaza, Martha, we have been working round the clock. We have an entire dedicated team that is working on nothing but this, helping American citizens who are in Gaza be able to get safe passage through the border crossing to Egypt. That has been difficult because of the ongoing operations and, frankly, because Hamas has intervened in some cases to make it hard for Palestinians, Palestinian Americans and others to be able to travel to the border crossing and get through.

We’re working that hard. Our goal is to ensure that every American who is in Gaza has safe passage out and we will not rest until that happens.And then with respect to the Palestinian population more generally, Palestinian civilians, we are working again as I said with the United Nations, with Egypt, with Jordan and with Israel to ensure there are safe places for them to be able to go, where they will have access to food, water, medicine, shelter, and also where they will be safe from military operations.

RADDATZ: And what is the latest on the American citizens who have been taken hostage. President Biden told “60 Minutes” that the U.S. is going to do everything on our power to get them home if we can find them.

Do we not have any idea where they are in Gaza at this point?

SULLIVAN: Well, first, like Lieutenant Colonel Lerner who was just on your program, I’m going to be very cautious about what I say publicly on this because we want to make sure that we preserve our capacity to ultimately secure the recovery of the American hostages being held by Hamas.

But I will say this, it is a dynamic situation. We cannot say that we have a fixed location for every American or even that we know every American who is being held. We know there are 15 unaccounted for Americans at this point. We don’t know how many of those being held as hostages and we don’t know how many of those tragically are deceased and their bodies have not yet been identified.

So, we are working -- having sent hostage experts to Israel with our Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery actions, we are also working with third countries on every possible avenue to secure their release. And I won’t go further than that other than to say that for President Biden, he has no priority than to get those Americans back.

RADDATZ: I want to talk about the northern border. I talked about that with the lieutenant colonel as well. But as you know, the Iranian foreign minister met with the leader of Hezbollah and called on Israel to stop the attacks in Gaza. There’s a report this morning that Iran sent a message through the U.N. -- to Israel, through the U.N., that Iran would have to intervene if the Israeli operation into Gaza continues. Is that accurate?

SULLIVAN: I cannot confirm that report.

RADDATZ: Well, tell me what you’re seeing on that border and how concerned you are about what is happening with Hezbollah?

SULLIVAN: We are concerned. We see a real risk of escalation on the northern border and that is why President Biden has been so clear and so forceful in saying that no state and no group should seek to exploit the situation to their advantage or should escalate the conflict.

And in fact, he has now sent USS Eisenhower from the United States towards the region to give additional capacity to respond to any contingency and also to send a clear message of deterrence that no one should get involved in this, no one should escalate this. And the United States is showing that as well as saying that, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely on that northern border.

RADDATZ: You just said respond to any contingency. What are you talking about there? How could they get involved if this deterrence does not work?

SULLIVAN: Well, I’m not going to speak to hypotheticals. What I’m going to say is that the United States will have in the region a substantial amount of capacity and that the United States is going to continue to message both publicly and privately any potential actor not to get involved. As President Biden said quite simply and straightforwardly -- don’t. And that is the message the United States will continue to send.

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RADDATZ: Thanks for being with us this morning. We appreciate it.

SULLIVAN: Thank you.

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