CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was caught in a tense moment live on air when missile alerts forced him and his crew to take shelter in Tel Aviv.
Cooper, a veteran correspondent, is currently on the ground reporting on the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Tensions have surged following U.S. airstrikes on Iran over the weekend, ordered by President Donald Trump, which have pulled America deeper into the volatile situation.
In a live broadcast in the early hours of June 23, Cooper was speaking with fellow CNN correspondents Clarissa Ward and Jeremy Diamond when their phones simultaneously went off with emergency alerts.
“These are the alerts that go out on all of our phones when you’re in Israel,” Cooper explained, per CNN. “It’s a ten-minute warning of incoming missiles or something incoming from Iran.”
As he spoke, a verbal warning echoed throughout the area, advising people to head for nearby bomb shelters. With time ticking down, Cooper and the team made their way to a designated shelter, cameras capturing every step.
“We’re fortunate to even get a ten-minute warning,” he noted. “It’s a luxury in circumstances like this.”
Once underground, the team continued their report from the safety of the bunker. Diamond updated viewers, confirming that at the time, 24 people had been killed in Israel, though the death toll could have been much higher without early warning systems and widespread shelter infrastructure in cities like Tel Aviv.
“We’re now waiting for the red alert,” Cooper said, referring to the final 90-second warning issued just before an expected impact.
The Iranian missile barrage followed a dramatic U.S. air campaign that struck three of Iran’s major nuclear facilities. The operation, initiated by President Trump, was framed as a decisive blow against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump said in a televised statement.
“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace, or face even greater attacks.”
While the rhetoric remains high and the situation unpredictable, Cooper’s live shelter dash served as a visceral reminder of how close this conflict now sits to the brink.
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