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Lesley Stahl: “On a knife’s point” one year after October 7th
One year ago today, Hamas militants stormed across the border of Gaza.
In communities along the border and at a music festival, they killed more than 1,200 Israelis, raped and sexually assaulted women, and took more than 250 people into Gaza as hostages.
60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl said the pain of that day is still felt amongst Israelis and will be for me some time.
“It traumatized the Israeli population, and I think they’re still suffering from it,” she said.
Now, the war in Gaza that followed rages on, with over 41,000 Palestinians have lost their lives. The Israeli death toll is about 1,500. But the battlefront has now expanded to include Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran.
“The United States has tried so hard not to allow this to happen…the war has expanded, deepened, and escalated,” Stahl explained.
In an interview with 60 Minutes Overtime, Stahl reflected on the events of Oct. 7, her reporting in Israel over the last year, and the expanding war that has brought the Middle East to a “knife’s point.”
Oct. 7, 2023
In the days that followed the Oct. 7 attacks, Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes producers Shachar Bar-On and Jinsol Jung reported from Israel.
They spoke to Amir and Miri Tibon, residents of Nahal Oz. They had hidden in a safe room with their children while Hamas militants rampaged through their kibbutz.
“It’s a moment I will never forget, when we started hearing the automatic gunfire. And we looked at each other and we just both had the same look of horror,” Amir said.
“We heard the Arabic. I’m like, ‘Amir, they’re here,’ Miri told Stahl.
The 60 Minutes team also met Bar and Lior Matsner, survivors of the massacre at the Nova music festival.
They tried to flee in their car but had to abandon it and hide under dead leaves until help arrived.
They told Stahl that Israel would never be the same again, and that they wanted to move to another country with their two children.
“It was a surprise. Israeli intelligence… didn’t see it coming, even though there were warning signs. The army wasn’t ready. It was a Jewish holiday, so a lot of soldiers were not at their posts,” Stahl told Overtime.
“It was a total massacre. Israelis say it’s the worst massacre of Jews anywhere since the Holocaust.”
In December of 2023, Stahl interviewed Alon Gat, who was abducted by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 along with his wife, Yarden, and daughter. The militants also shot and killed his mother.
He and his daughter managed to escape. His wife was held hostage for 54 days and eventually freed in a prisoner swap. But another family member was taken that day and remained in captivity at the time of the interview: Alon’s older sister Carmel.
Alon described the agony of not knowing what was happening to her sister and the other hostages.
“I’m scared for…Carmel and for all the other hostages. I’m scared that something will happen to them— every day, every second.”
Sadly, Alon’s sister Carmel was executed by Hamas, along with five other Israeli captives, after nearly 330 days in captivity.
“It was very painful because… her family expected that she would be coming out in what they thought would be [another] imminent prisoner swap,” Stahl said.
Today, 100 of the 250 hostages are believed to remain in Hamas captivity. But Israelis fear only half of them are still alive.
War in Gaza
Almost immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel began an assault on the Gaza strip. The war is still ongoing one year later.
Now, as the war enters its second year, more than 41,000 Palestinians have lost their lives in Gaza. Many more have lost their homes. The Israeli death toll is about 1,500.
“There’ve been charges of indiscriminate bombing [and] terrible pictures coming out of Gaza, of children being killed and maimed. This has hurt Israel’s image around the world,” Stahl told 60 Minutes Overtime.
In February, 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi interviewed an American doctor, Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, the former medical director of MedGlobal, who worked at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza and had just finished a two-week stretch.
Dr. Ahmed told Alfonsi that she would see between three or four waves of mass casualties on any given night and noted that supply shortages made treating patients difficult, sometimes impossible.
“A regular day for me was seeing children with shrapnel injuries I have never in my life seen before, with traumatic brain injury, death happening in a fully treatable situation because the supplies are not available,” she told Alfonsi.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health estimates that women and children make up a majority of the over 41,000 people killed in Gaza since October 7th.
Hezbollah
On an almost daily basis in the months following Oct. 7, Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters fired rockets and sent explosive drones into Israeli territory, and the Israeli military fired back into Lebanon.
Israeli residents near the border, more than 60,000 people, have evacuated the area for their safety. Residents in southern Lebanon also evacuated as the fighting intensified.
In April, Stahl and a 60 Minutes team traveled to northern Israel and reported from these deserted communities.
The town of Metula has almost been completely abandoned. But a few residents, like the town’s mayor and others, have stayed behind to monitor incoming fire from Hezbollah militants.
Stahl and the 60 Minutes team were taken into an underground bunker complex, with a war room and cameras facing the hillsides of Lebanon to monitor incoming attacks.
Watching a camera feed facing Lebanon, the town’s mayor told Stahl that it takes a Hezbollah missile eight to 20 seconds to reach Metula when fired from across the border.
Twenty minutes after they arrived to tour the bunker, Stahl and the team were told they had to shelter in place. An explosive drone had been spotted hovering above them.
Israeli fighters tried to shoot it down, but the explosive drone would eventually explode, wounding two Israeli soldiers who would later die from the injuries.
After waiting an hour, Stahl and the team were told they needed to run to their cars and evacuate the area. They heard explosions in the distance as they drove off.
“Now, this war since then has heated up. It’s escalated. It’s intense,” Stahl told Overtime.
Israel is in the midst of an air and ground invasion to fight Hezbollah inside Lebanon.
At the same time, Israeli airstrikes have rained down on towns and cities in southern and eastern Lebanon. They’ve reached as far into the country as Beirut, the country’s capital.
Lebanon’s health ministry said over 2,000 people have been killed and one million displaced since the airstrikes began.
“Civilians caught in the middle, as always, are the ones suffering the most,” Stahl told Overtime.
The Israeli military said it is targeting Hezbollah leadership with the airstrikes. Last week, an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.
“Israel, I think feels pretty confident that they’re winning at this point,” Stahl told Overtime.
Stahl said it is unclear how long the fight with Hezbollah will continue, and when residents in northern Israel will be able to return to their homes.
“We have seen no signs that they’re allowing Israelis to move back at this stage.”
Iran
Since Oct. 7, another battlefront in the war has emerged between Israel and Iran.
On April 12, Iran launched over a hundred projectiles at Israel in an unprecedented, direct attack, in retaliation for the assassination of a top Iranian general in Damascus, Syria.
It was a massive and synchronized attack: about 170 explosive drones, over 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.
Israeli pilots shot down the drones and cruise missiles, and their “Arrow” defense system took down ballistic missiles. Only a handful made it through.
A coalition of allies, like the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, assisted in the interception, and other Arab countries allowed Israel to fly over their air space to take them down.
In April, Stahl spoke to Brigadier General Omer Tischler, who is second in command of the Israeli Air Force.
General Tischler showed 60 Minutes the control room where he sat on the night of April 13th as one of the leaders who helped direct Israel’s defense.
In an interview, he said that the attack was something Israel had never seen: a direct attack that was launched from Iran itself, and not one of its Iranian-backed proxies.
“Till that night, Iran [attacked] us using its proxies from Yemen, from Iraq, from Syria, from Lebanon. But on that night, Iran [attacked] Israel directly,” he told Stahl.
“And Iran knows that we are capable of attacking at any given time.”
Last week, Iran attacked Israel again: about 180 missiles were launched from Iran directly at Israel.
Israeli defense systems and American Navy destroyers were able to intercept most of the incoming missiles, but a few landed in southern and central Israel.
Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu, on the eve Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, vowed retaliation for the attack: “We will stand by the rule we established: Whoever attacks, we will attack them.”
Fears are growing that Israel may try to attack Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a retaliatory strike. President Biden has made it clear that the U.S. will not support that.
On Wednesday of last week, a reporter asked, “Would you support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites by Israel?”
“The answer is ‘no’…they have a right to respond, but they should respond in proportion,” the president said.
“Netanyahu has a habit of not listening to [President] Biden. So, that’s up in the air,” Stahl told Overtime.
“On a Knife’s Point”
Stahl told 60 Minutes Overtime that today, on the anniversary of the October 7th attacks, there is a palpable feeling of uncertainty due to the escalation of war in the Middle East over the last year.
“Right now, we’re in the fog of war. Everything’s unclear,” she told Overtime.
“[We’re] on a knife’s point right now in the Middle East. Everybody in the West is working hard to try and cool things off, but it’s awfully hard to convince Iran and Israel to step back.”
At the same time the U.S. presidential election is under way. Stahl said that whoever wins the presidential election will be a “wartime president.”
“Every couple of years things explode over there. And our presidents, certainly in my lifetime have been a huge factor…a strong ally of Israel in that part of the world,” Stahl told Overtime.
“It’s not going to be easy for the new president, whoever it is, to manage this time.”
The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
Photos and video courtesy of Getty Images, AFP, South First Responders and IDF
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Almost 10 million pounds of meat and poultry dishes recalled due to possible listeria contamination
A company is recalling nearly 10 million pounds of meat and poultry products made at an Oklahoma plant because they may be contaminated with listeria bacteria, which can cause illness and death.
BrucePac of Woodburn, Oregon, recalled the roughly 5,000 tons of ready-to-eat foods this week after U.S. Agriculture Department officials detected listeria in samples of poultry during routine testing. Further tests identified BrucePac chicken as the source. The recall includes 75 meat and chicken products.
The foods include products like grilled chicken breast strips that were made at the company’s facility in Durant, Oklahoma. They were produced between June 19 and Oct. 8 and shipped to restaurants, food service vendors and other sites nationwide, government officials said.
The products have a best-by date of June 19, 2025 to Oct. 8, 2025. Officials said they’re concerned that the foods may still be available for use or stored in refrigerators or freezers. The products should be thrown away, they stressed.
There are no confirmed reports of illness linked to the recall.
Eating foods contaminated with listeria can cause potentially serious illness. About 1,600 people are infected with listeria bacteria each year in the U.S. and about 260 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Listeria infections typically cause fever, muscle aches and tiredness and may cause stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. Symptoms can occur quickly or to up to 10 weeks after eating contaminated food. The infections are especially dangerous for older people, those with weakened immune systems or who are pregnant.
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Human remains found on Mount Everest apparently belong to famed climber who vanished 100 years ago
A documentary team discovered human remains on Mount Everest apparently belonging to a man who went missing while trying to summit the peak 100 years ago, National Geographic magazine reported Friday.
Climate change is thinning snow and ice around the Himalayas, increasingly exposing the bodies of mountaineers who died chasing their dream of scaling the world’s highest mountain.
Briton Andrew Irvine went missing in 1924 alongside climbing partner George Mallory as the pair attempted to be the first to reach Everest’s summit, 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) above sea level.
Mallory’s body was found in 1999 but clues about Irvine’s fate were elusive until a National Geographic team discovered a boot, still clothing the remains of a foot, on the peak’s Central Rongbuk Glacier.
On closer inspection, they found a sock with “a red label that has A.C. IRVINE stitched into it,” the magazine reported.
/ AP
The discovery could give further clues as to the location of the team’s personal effects and may help resolve one of mountaineering’s most enduring mysteries: whether Irvine and Mallory ever managed to reach the summit.
That could confirm Irvine and Mallory as the first to successfully scale the peak, nearly three decades before the first currently recognized summit in 1953 by climbers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
“It tells the whole story about what probably happened,” Irvine’s great-niece Julie Summers told National Geographic.
The first documented ascent of Everest came nearly three decades later when New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay scaled the mountain on May 29, 1953. In 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to reach the summit.
Hundreds of climbers have died on Everest
Members of the Irvine family reportedly offered to share DNA samples to confirm the identity of the remains.
Irvine was 22 when he went missing.
He, along with Mallory, was last spotted by one of the members of their expedition on the afternoon of June 8, 1924, after beginning their final ascent to the summit that morning.
Earlier this year, Mallory’s final letter to his wife was digitized for the first time and published online by Cambridge University. In the letter, he wrote that his chances of reaching the world’s highest peak were “50 to 1 against us.”
Irvine is believed to have been carrying a vest camera — the discovery of which could rewrite mountaineering history.
Photographer and director Jimmy Chin, who was part of the National Geographic team, believes the discovery “certainly reduces the search area” for the elusive camera.
More than 300 people have perished on the mountain since expeditions started in the 1920s.
Some are hidden by snow or swallowed down deep crevasses.
Others, still in their colorful climbing gear, have become landmarks en route to the summit and bestowed with gallows humor nicknames, including “Green Boots” and “Sleeping Beauty.”
In June, five frozen bodies were retrieved from Mount Everest — including one that was just skeletal remains — as part of Nepal’s mountain clean-up campaign on Everest and adjoining peaks Lhotse and Nuptse.
Washington — Two U.S. Navy SEALs drowned as they tried to climb aboard a ship carrying illicit Iranian-made weapons to Yemen because of glaring training failures and a lack of understanding about what to do after falling into deep, turbulent waters, according to a military investigation into the January deaths.
The review concluded that the drownings of Chief Special Warfare Operator Christopher J. Chambers and Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Nathan Gage Ingram could have been prevented.
But both sank quickly in the high seas off the coast of Somalia, weighed down by heavy equipment they were carrying and not knowing or disregarding concerns that their flotation devices couldn’t compensate for the additional weight. Both were lost at sea.
U.S. Navy
The highly critical and heavily redacted report – written by a Navy officer from outside Naval Special Warfare Command, which oversees the SEALs – concluded there were “deficiencies, gaps and inconsistencies” in training, policies, tactics and procedures as well as “conflicting guidance” on when and how to use emergency flotation devices and extra buoyancy material that could have kept them alive.
The Associated Press obtained the report upon request before its public release.
The mission’s goal was to intercept weapons headed to the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began a year ago. U.S. retaliatory strikes haven’t deterred their assaults.
Chambers and Ingram, members of SEAL Team 3, died during a nighttime mission to board an unflagged ship in the Arabian Sea. Their names were redacted in the report, but officials have confirmed Chambers slipped and fell as he was climbing onto the ship’s deck and Ingram jumped in to try to save him.
“Encumbered by the weight of each individual’s gear, neither their physical capability nor emergency supplemental flotations devices, if activated, were sufficient to keep them at the surface,” Rear Adm. Michael DeVore wrote in the report.
The report said Chambers was “intermittently” at the surface for 26 seconds after his fall and Ingram was at the surface for about 32 seconds.
“The entire tragic event elapsed in just 47 seconds and two NSW warriors were lost to the sea,” DeVore wrote, referring to the Naval Special Warfare Command.
Flotation equipment that was properly maintained, working well and used correctly would have been able to keep them afloat until they were rescued, the report said. Other team members told investigators that while they knew the importance of their tactical flotation system – which includes two inflatable floats that attach to a belt and foam inserts that can be added – few had ever operated one in training and there is little instruction on how to wear it.
How Chambers and Ingram died
The report said the team was operating in 6- to 8-foot seas and, while the vessel they were boarding was rolling in the waves, the conditions were well within their abilities.
As time went on, however, the rolling increased, and Chambers tried to board by jumping from his combat craft’s engine compartment to the top rail of the ship they were boarding, the report said. Some of the commandos used an attachable ladder but because of the waves, others jumped to the top rail, which they said was within reach but slippery.
Chambers’ hands slipped off the rail and he fell 9 feet into the water. Based on video of the mission, he was able to grab the lower rung of the ladder but when he turned to try to get back to the combat craft, he was swept under by a wave.
Eleven seconds after he fell, Ingram jumped in. For at least 10 seconds, video shows they were above water intermittently and at times were able to grab a ladder extension that was submerged. But both were knocked about by waves. The last sighting of Chambers was about 26 seconds after he fell.
At one point, Ingram tried to climb back on the ladder but was overcome by a wave. He appeared to try to deploy his flotation device, but within two seconds, an unattached water wing was seen about a foot away from him. He also seemed to try to remove some of his equipment, but he slipped underwater and wasn’t seen again. The sea depth was about 12,000 feet.
Both were wearing body armor and Ingram was also carrying radio equipment that added as much as 40 more pounds. Each of the inflatable floats can lift a minimum of 40 pounds in seawater, the report said.
It said members of the SEAL team expressed “shock and disbelief” that Chambers, their strongest swimmer, couldn’t stay at the surface. The report concluded that the conflicting and meager guidance on the flotation devices may have left it to individuals to configure their buoyancy needs, potentially leading to mistakes.
While SEALs routinely conduct pre-mission “buddy checks” to review each other’s gear, it said Ingram’s flotation equipment may have been incorrectly attached and a more thorough buddy exam could have discovered that.
SEAL team members also told investigators that adding the foam inserts makes the flotation device more bulky and it becomes more difficult to climb or crawl.
The report said SEAL Team 3 members began prompt and appropriate man-overboard procedures “within seconds,” and there were two helicopters and two drones overhead providing surveillance, light and video for the mission.
After 10 days, the search was called off because of the water depth and low probability of finding the two.
“The Navy respects the sanctity of human remains and recognized the sea as a fit and final resting place,” the report said.
Chambers, 37, of Maryland, enlisted in the Navy in 2012 and graduated from SEAL training in 2014. Ingram, 27, of Texas, enlisted in 2019 and graduated from SEAL training in 2021.
Losses prompt training changes
In response to the investigation, Naval Special Warfare Command said changes are already being made to training and guidance.
It said the command is considering developing a force-wide policy to address water safety during maritime operations and is setting standard procedures for buoyancy requirements.
Other changes would refine man-overboard procedures, pre-mission checks and maintenance of flotation devices. It also said it’s looking into “fail safe” buoyancy equipment and plans to review safety processes.
Rear Adm. Keith Davids, who headed the command at the time of the mission, said it would learn from the tragic deaths and “doggedly pursue” recommended changes. Davids left the job in August in a routine change of command and is in the process of retiring.
The report recommends that Ingram receive a commendation for heroism for giving his life while trying to save his teammate. That recommendation is under review. Both were posthumously promoted one rank.
According to a separate Defense Intelligence Agency report, the Jan. 11 mission seized Iranian “propulsion, guidance systems and warheads” for medium-range ballistic missiles and antiship cruise missiles destined for the Houthis.
Almost 10 million pounds of meat and poultry dishes recalled due to possible listeria contamination
Human remains found on Mount Everest apparently belong to famed climber who vanished 100 years ago
Drownings of 2 Navy SEALS were preventable, military probe finds
Almost 10 million pounds of meat and poultry dishes recalled due to possible listeria contamination
Human remains found on Mount Everest apparently belong to famed climber who vanished 100 years ago