Anderson Cooper and his CNN team were forced to evacuate live on air while broadcasting from Tel Aviv.
The CNN anchor was talking about the current Israel-Iran conflict with the network’s chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, and Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond, when alarms began to sound early Monday morning.
‘I should just say that we’re now hearing an alert,’ Ward said as alarms blared in the background.
Cooper informed the audience that they were all getting an alert saying Israeli forces expected a missile to hit their area in 10 minutes.
“These are the alerts that appear on everyone’s phones when you’re in Israel,” Cooper mentioned. “It’s a ten-minute warning for incoming missiles or something coming from Iran.”
“Currently, our location has a verbal alarm instructing people to head to bomb shelters. We have approximately ten minutes to reach a bomb shelter,” he explained.
The mainstay anchor then asked his crew if it would be possible to continue their broadcast as they evacuated.
‘And we’ll continue to try to broadcast from that, that bomb shelter. And even if we can, on the way down,’ Cooper said.
Anderson Cooper and his CNN team were forced to evacuate live on air while broadcasting live from Tel Aviv
Cooper was discussing the ongoing conflict with chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward (center), and Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond (right), when sirens rang
Cooper informed the audience that they were all getting an alert saying Israeli forces expected a missile to hit their area in 10 minutes
He then asked a member of his production crew if they were able to keep broadcasting while fleeing the area.
‘All right. I think we’re going to head down to the shelters. Chuck, do we have capabilities as we go down?’
‘Just checking your microphones. Be ready in a second,’ the crew member replied.
Cooper then continued to talk through their evacuation, explaining as the crew walked from their hotel room to the bomb shelter.
While waiting for the elevator, Diamond discussed the damage he witnessed from Iran’s airstrikes in Israel the day before.
The crew’s connection briefly dropped while they were in the elevator, then came back on as Cooper, Ward and Diamond approached the shelter.
As the pundits continued to talk, a final 90-second alarm sounded, warning residents that it was a ‘red alert’ and to seek safety.
It was the first Monday morning that an alarm went off in the city, as Cooper remarked: ‘It is a luxury to have a 10-minute warning.’
The IDF released a statement on X informing citizens sirens were sounding ‘across central Israel due to a missile launch from Iran.’
Israeli security forces and first responders gather at the site of an Iranian strike that hit a residential neighborhood in Tel Aviv
A social media account associated with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a post portraying missile strikes on a darkened city with a giant skull bearing the Star of David on it.
‘The punishment continues,’ the post read.
Iran has launched its retaliation in Israel after the US military struck three of its nuclear sites Sunday morning.
They fired off a wave of missiles at Israel that wounded at least 21 people Sunday morning, according to CBS News.
The missiles made impact at four sites in Israel, in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Be’er Yaakov and Nes Ziona.
