CNN host Anderson Cooper and two of his fellow on-air personalities had to take shelter early Monday morning after their phones lit up with warnings of incoming Iranian missiles.
Cooper was broadcasting live from a rooftop in Israel’s second-largest city of Tel Aviv when their phones started to sound the alarm around 3 a.m. local time.
He noted that meant they had 10 minutes to get into their shelter below the building.
“We should probably go down,” he said to CNN’s Clarissa Ward, Jeremy Diamond, and the camera crew.
They agreed and began to depart, with Cooper telling his audience, “We’re gonna to head down to the shelter.”
“This is the first time today that we have had an alarm like this. It’s obviously something many here in Tel Aviv have gotten used to over the last 10 or 11 days since this began,” he added, as the CNN team headed toward an elevator to get down to their shelter.
Ward agreed, offering that there had been fewer barrages recently, but the ones that were coming were of a higher intensity.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond evacuate after receiving a 10-minute warning of an incoming missile in Tel Aviv, Israel. pic.twitter.com/h0MfOjwcXj
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) June 23, 2025
Diamond highlighted just how effective Israel’s early warning system has been.
Do you support Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities?
“We haven’t seen any fatalities in … a week,” he said.
“That’s, of course, a credit to the aerial defense systems, but more importantly, perhaps, to the early warnings that are getting us into bomb shelters and getting millions of other Israelis …,” Diamond further stated, at which point CNN lost the signal for a time.
🚨Sirens sounding nationwide as Iran launches another missile attack pic.twitter.com/5ndSN0kMSR
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) June 23, 2025
CNN eventually got back to Cooper and his team as they entered their shelter.
“It is a luxury to have a 10-minute warning,” Cooper said.
He pointed out that there is no such luxury of time when Hamas fires missiles from the Gaza Strip or, presumably, Hezbollah shoots missiles from southern Lebanon.
In addition to striking spots in Israel, Iran also launched missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, targeting U.S. military personnel in retaliation for the U.S.’s bombing three of the regime’s nuclear facilities.
Footage captures the launch of PATRIOT interceptors in Qatar, engaging incoming Iranian ballistic missiles targeting Al Udeid Air Base. pic.twitter.com/AOvcTRTpu0
— GMI (@Global_Mil_Info) June 23, 2025
As noted by Reuters, Al Udeid “is the forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command, which directs U.S. military operations in a huge swathe of territory stretching from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan in the east.”
“The Middle East’s largest U.S. base houses around 10,000 troops,” it reported.
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