Anderson Cooper was in the middle of a live broadcast in Israel when sirens started ringing, signaling imminent danger in the area. The CNN journalist was speaking with international correspondent Clarissa Ward and Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond when the alert rang out just after 3 a.m. local time.
The trio was on a hotel balcony with the city of Tel Aviv behind them and remained calm as they explained what was happening to viewers. “These are the alerts that go out on all of our phones when you’re in Israel,” Cooper explained. “It’s a 10-minute warning of incoming missiles, or incoming something, coming from Iran. The location we’re in has a verbal alarm telling people to go down into bomb shelters. So we have about a 10-minute window to get down into a bomb shelter.”
The cameras recorded the journalists as they decided what to do on-the-spot, with Ward even questioning if they should stick around for a minute to finish the segment. “We should probably go down,” Cooper pointed out, and she agreed.
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
But reporting the news was still a top priority for Cooper, who made sure he had capabilities to continue broadcasting amid the journey to the shelter. As he made his way towards the elevator, he gave live updates.
“As you can hear, the sirens are going off. This is from the hotel, they’re warning all the hotel guests to go down,” he shared. “This is the first time today that we have had an alarm like this. It’s obviously something that many here in Tel Aviv have gotten used to over the last 10 or 11 days since this began. We saw one alarm shortly after the first strikes on Iran by the United States. This is the first one we’ve had this morning.”
Ward and Diamond joined him on-camera once they were in the elevator. “What we’ve noticed, I think, is fewer barrages, but quite high intensity, particularly [yesterday] morning,” Ward explained.
Diamond added, “There’s also been reports that the Iranians have been using different types of ballistic missiles, some reports of cluster munition use, as well, and we’ve seen the kind of impact that that can have on the scene.” He recalled visiting a site north of Tel Aviv that was “almost completely obliterated by the power of that blast.”
The conversation continued as they took the elevator down to the bomb shelter. “The damage is enormous,” Diamond said. “More of these ballistic missiles are getting through those air defense systems. But, quite incredibly, we haven’t seen any fatalities in, I believe, a week now.”
The signal was eventually lost and cut back to CNN’s studio to continue the broadcast.