150-hostages being held now inside of gaza. thank you for joining us. we will be right back. from chrome to duckduckgo.

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>> a lot to get to this hour with sara sidner, i'm kate bolduan with john berman. and the pictures of the smoke hanging over gaza that you can see on the left of the screen. in the last 30 minutes, we are seeing the action picking up in what israel is describing as the large scale strikes that the idf is carrying out in gaza and israel, and the families are starting to bury their loved once killed in the attack. and secretary of state antony blinken is showing support for israel as he arrived there this morn.

>> we are also right now, waiting to hear again from antony blinken this morning as he continues what has become and always has had been a deeply emotional and personal time. he is on the trip to israel to reiterate america's support. last hour, a survivor of the terrorist attack on a music festival saturday shared this emotional moment with blinken. watch. >> we were saved by a miracle, but there were so many friends that weren't. >> i know. i know. >> thank you for being here. it is really important. [ singing in global language ] [ singing in global language ] >> and if there is any way to help and like the first priority, the first priority are our friends and family who are in gaza. we are strong here, and we are powerful here in this place in

tel aviv and everywhere. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. >> we are thinking of them and we are doing everything that we can to try to bring them home. >> thank you very much for being here and speaking to me. it means a lot. >> i am sorry that you are going through this. >> thank you. >> this is the reality and real life right now. becky anderson is standing by for us in tel aviv. becky, adding to the picture, the israeli prime minister's office now has just released photographs, some images of babies that they say were murdered by hamas. >> that is right. we know that babies have lost their lives and been killed in what was this terrible, terrible massacre by hamas militants in the kibbutzes on saturday morning and some six days ago,

and we know that because we have heard firsthand testimony from families who have lost their kids and loved ones. but today, we have seen the release of photographs as you have said from netanyahu's office of babies murdered and burned by hamas. and cnn is not showing those pictures, because they are horrific. i have seen them, and i am witness to them, and i can describe one baby slaughtered in an image in this bed. and two images of what appears to be babies burned. and netanyahu's office is describing them as bodies burned and murdered by hamas militants. and now, obviously, we can't testify to that, that these

images are indeed those, but that is certainly what the prime minister's office has released, and the prime minister here has shown the photographs to the ek is tear of state antony blinken who is here in tel aviv standing shoulder to shoulder with antony blinken earlier today, who was absolutely insisting that the u.s. stands in steadfast support of israel, he said, as long as america exist, it will be at israel's side through this. we heard prime minister benjamin netanyahu murdered an kd causin this mayhem and these taking of around 150 hostages, and they are described more as isis and terrorists and a difficult trip

for antony blinken, and for lori gelbalm who survived that massacre on saturday morning, it is she who you are seeing speaking to the secretary of state there, and you can see how emotional she is as she recounts what happened to her, and why it is so important that he is here today. he is jewish and he has spoken about his emotional attachment to this country. and he is here as we understand it with three aims, trying to secure the hostages that are captive, and trying to actively release these hostages for exchange of palestinian women and teenagers held in israeli jails, and that is first leg. and the second is humanitarian corridors and trying to open up the humanitarian corridors for

the gaza civilians, and not a lot of progress there from the sources i am speaking to here, and the third leg is to speak to the authorities about what happens next, because whatever happens next in this war if the gazans are going to be involved in this ground assault, it will be a heavy price of life paid. >> we go now to jeremy diamond, and you have had to take shelter now a couple of times. >> yes, we have had a couple of times of red alert sirens in the last couple of hour, and the most recent one came very, very close to our hotel, and the booms of the interceptions by the iron dome system with those projectiles coming from gaza

were much mch louder in proximity to our shelter in modern hotels in israel, and there is a shelter or two shelters in the case of the hotel on every single floor, and we went into there, and there was a family who has been sheltering here, and they fled from the city of ashkelon, and closer for the gaza strip, and hoping to come to get safety and hoping to not escape the situation, but we spoke to the father who is tellinging us abo the fear and why he hopes to move the family north. >> this is life in israel near the gaza strip. and as you can see, there a couple of families here near the hotel, and do you want to talk or speak english? >> yes, we from ashkelon, and we left our home.

>> ashkelon is closer to gaza. >> and we left because of the bomb, and the children are hearing and crying, and they don't sleep at night. and it is a lot afraid, child. it was -- >> reporter: so you came here looking for more safety hoping -- >> the manager of the hotel gave us five days to be here for free. >> reporter: for free? >> yes. a good man. a good man. yes. >> reporter: do you feel safer here? >> yes. the children they feel safer, but when the noise, the noise. >> reporter: they get afraid. they get afraid. and we actually spoke afterwards with that man's wife who explains that they don't have a shelter built into their

home which is why they decided to go further north and to come to the hotel where there are bomb shelters on every floor. now, at the same time as we talk about the psychological impact and the very real possibility that these rockets are not 100% intercepted by this iron dome system, and we have seen the hits in sderot and in ashkelon where this man and his family live, and also in gaza where the military has been pummeling the very congested and highly populated area with air strikes and the death toll there now rising above 1,400, and the civilian casualties among those as well. so, important to talk about the reality on both sides here as civilians are too often caught in the crossfire. >> jeremy, you have done such good reporting, and showing pictures there of the iron dome

intercepts above ashdod, and also the pictures of gaza and devastation there, and you have brought us so much information, and thank you for showing us the family there who are trying to deal with the trauma there. and thank you to becky anderson who is in tel aviv for us. john? >> thank you. we want to bring in the colonel of the defense ministry, and we are learning that the prime minister has released the pictures of the babies who were killed in the hamas terror at a tacks, as -- terror attack, and reason i bring this is that if they were willing to kill babies, how is that is going to affect your thinking of going into the ground incursion of what they might be willing to do to hostages?

>> well, that is going to be doing worst. the situation on the ground is hamas has over 100 hostages, abductees that are being held unwillfully in the gaza strip by hamas. they have decided strategically to do this and our role is to bring them home, and to destroy hamas' capability, and so they can never hold this over our head again. >> and what is your understanding of the current military capabilities of hamas within gaza here? >> so, hamas has developed over the last years advanced capabilities, and one of them was the force that is their commander unit. they have special force training. they breached the perimeter, and stormed into israel and many of

them involved in butchery of the civilians and into military out posts on the front lines, and they are the focusf our operations at this time. we are taking out their capabilities and intercepting them, and also, identifying them from the videos they shot themselves, and some of the pictures that becky was referring to, i have seen them as well. they have put out their own videos of people being butchered and beheaded, and they are letting it out because they are proud of what they are doing, and what they did. when we are looking at our forces, we are able to see the operational capabilities of tunnels of rocket launchers against israel, and tunnel capabilities that we are currently striking. and the leadership of hamas, and from the political leadership

that have directed an strategically decided to go on this offensive, and bring us to this war. and of course right down to the operatives that we will seek out, and take out those who are involved in the attack against us. >> we talk about the density of the population density inside of gaza, and more than 70,000 people here inside of gaza city, and where can they go at this po point? >> that is the question that the people of gaza should be asking hamas. and while it is a relevant question, our role is not to restore safe-- our role is to restore the safety of the people of israel.

not for hamas. they are the governing body in palestine, and so they need to be held accountable by gaza and the world. secretary of state blinken's very strong words goes to show that there are people who are choosing to be on the right side of history and our job as the idf is to defend id reel. our enemy is hamas and not the people of gaza, and our targets are hamas targets, and we will do our operations in accordance to the laws of armed conflict in order to minimize the killing of civilian, and it is a density populated people, and it is a dense task, and some people will be paying the price, but you cannot expect us not to defend

the people -- >> i think that i lost contact there with lieu ten naent colonel peter lerner of israel duty to get into gaza and crush hamas and the air strikes they are conducting which are against hamas targets. kate? >> all right. coming up for us. a community left in absolute wreckage after hamas terrorists went door-to-door massacring families. one of the victims is an 8-year-old girl. after the commercial break, we will bring to you what her father shares with cnn how he learned of what happened. how he is doing now in the face of this horrific tragedy. >> they just said that we found emily.

she's dead. and i went yes! i went yes. and smiled. because that is the best news of the possibilities that i knew.

we alerted you to this earlier. now we do have the photo, one of the photos.

prime minister benjamin netanyahu has released these horrifying photos of the babies murder and burned by hamas monsters as he has put it. this is graphic. it is horrific, and we want to give you a chance to look away, and warn you to give you time if you need to leave the room. there are three photos, and some of them show two babies whose bodies have been burned beyond recognition, and a third of an infant with a body that is blood-stained. we have becky anderson live for us in tel aviv, and becky, you mentioned in the last few minutes that you had seen this picture that we are about to show. i don't even want you to describe it, but tell us your reac reaction. >> well, i'm am a mom, and it is not my story, and it is not

easy. and nobody will find it easy, but you don't have to be a mom the respond or to understand how horrific these images are, and as we, before we show our viewers that image, and we do want to have people to move away, these are three images that benjamin netanyahu's office has released photographs as they describe them babies murdered and burned by hamas. these are amongst a set of photographs that benjamin netanyahu has shown the secretary of state today, antony blinken who was here of course in tel aviv. these are as described by benjamin netanyahu's office horrific photos of babied murder and burned by the hamas monsters. he said that hamas is inhumane, and hamas is eye circumstances and this was posted on benjamin netanyahu's social media. the picture is now available, and so i am going to warn our

viewers again that what you are about to see is the body of a blooded infant. and that is the image. an image releaseded by benjamin netanyahu's office. it is one of three images that have been released. cnn of course cannot verify where these images were taken or when, but what i can tell the viewers is that i have heard firsthand accounts of family members whose kids have been killed in this massacre on saturday morning. and a massacre at the kibbutz' around the southern border of gaza, and so we know that children have been killed, murdered, but these are the images as i say that we can't necessarily verify when or where they were taken, but these were

shown to the secretary of stateo images are small bodies burned beyond recognition, and as network, we have decided that it is not necessary to show the images because one can sadly only image how horrific they are. guys. >> becky, thank you for your compassion, and also, thank you for your reporting. it is important to convey the horror of what happened there. we so often talk about numbers, 1,200 people killed in israel. but sometimes the most important number is one. it is one when it is your baby, your child, your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, and each life is precious, and a small life like that to see it is truly

horr horrific. >> and with that, that is the image that prime minister of israel benjamin netanyahu showed to secretary of state antony blinken, and in the war, there is always one enduring image, and this is one of them. >> and people on both sides of the conflict, there is a hope that they can come together and agree that these innocents deserve none of this, and they should not be put in the position, because adults can't figure out themselves, and figure out the conflict without the violence, and the surprise attack of hamas. >> this is a result of a terror

attack on a child. >> and there are also images coming out of gaza that are for many people just as horrific, and children there, too, none of these children should be put in this position, none of them. >> all right. this is the special live coverage, and we are waiting to hear from the secretary of state antony blinken, and when we be right back.

and waiting for live pictures from secretary of state tony blinken where he was visiting a donation center and greeted by swarms of people thanking him to be there and chanting of "usa, usa," and the singing of the national anthem, and he will be taking questions from the gathered press and we will hear from what was discus discussed today, and where he going next, and it may be qatar which may be the only nation who

has more influence over hamas other than iran. so that is interesting. and we will hear from the secretary of state next. >> and that is going to be very important, and so we will bring that to you. back in the united states, the house of representatives still don't have a speaker of the house, and yesterday behind closed doors, the republicans gave support to steve scalise, but he fell short of getting the full support to take over the job that speaker kevin mccarthy left. and lauren, kevin mccarthy has something to speak out publicly about what is going on with this house speaker race. what is he saying? >> yeah, former house speaker mccarthy was quiet yesterday as the house republicans gathered to nominate ultimately steve scalise to be the speaker

designee, but when he arrived on capitol hill, this is what mccarthy said. >> reporter: do you think that it is possible that you can get the votes? >> possible. that is a lot of votes. 150. >> could it be jim jordan? >> reporter: you can hear that there is not a vote of confidence that scalise can pull it off. so walking behind the math. behind closed doors he got 115 votes, and to win the nomination, assuming that the democrats would provide any help which we don't think that he would, needs 217 votes to lock down the nomination, and right now, he has more than a dozen republicans concerned or saying they will not vote for him for the speaker, and some of them saying they will never vote for steve scalise, and that why

mccarthy is saying it is an uphill climb. the house republicans are scheduled to meet behind closed doors at 12:15 when some members are hoping to get into the room and figure it out, but i would point out that the republicans have been in rooms together since monday, tuesday, wednesday, and they still do not have a speaker that the full conference can rally around. >> sara, can you break out -- and sara you as well, but lauren, can you break out the crystal ball, and where is this headed now? i mean, they need a speaker in place, and no question about it. but time is of the essence. like, are they going to take this to the floor and do another 15 rounds? >> well, this is critically important, and does steve scalise want to go to the floor to grind it out? there are a lot of republicans and some who do not support steve scalise saying it is time to go to the floor to see where everyone is, and have a full

accounting. if they were voting behind closed doors with the secret ballots, the argument is to get it moving in front of everyone, and the question is if you are moving so many votes on the floor, how do you come back, and obviously, kevin mccarthy is someone who went 15 rounds and got the job, but ultimately, he stayed in the job for a matter of months, but that is ultimately going to be the question for steve scalise to get, but we will get more information after this 12:15 meeting. >> really good at meeting. not at action, but good at meeting. good to see you, lauren. >> two words come to mind, hot mess. and now, we are looking at the podium where antony blinken is set to make remarks as soon as he begins.

all right. as we mentioned, house republicans back at it on capitol hill, but they can't figure out who the speak ser going to be because the votes are not there, and republican from north carolina greg murphy is joining us. and the stakes are high, and government funding is going to be running out in less than 40 days. you've got one of the u.s. biggest allies, israel in the midst of a full-scale war, and ukraine dangerously low on munitions according to the pentagon. how long is this going to take, because the house is paralyzed right now, and how long do you see this taking before you are able to get a speaker in place? >> well, we will have a meeting at 12:15 today, and speaker nominee scalise is going to be basically saying, lay the cards out on the table, and see what the grievances are. steve won yesterday, and jim is

an excellent individual, but steve is the nominee. it may take a while. and we have a 24-hour news cycle, and these things, they have happened before, and this is how the sausage is made. it is absolutely a difficult situation that we are n and i h hope that we get to resolve something. >> i know that you put 24-hour news cycle has ruined korngs because you have dems and republicans chasing the camera, and you are here in front of the camera, and can you tell us who you up support? >> at this point in time, scalise is the nominee, and i support scalise. >> i wanted to read something here, that if the votes were cast today, scalise would not likely win, because he has plenty of detractors and one of whom talked to our kate bolduan and i wanted to let you listen to that.

i apologize, we don't have that. but i do want to talk to you about this, another of your colleagues before mr. scalise entered congress he delivered a speech to a former ku klux klan david duke who said, that i'm david duke without the baggage and that is why nancy mace could not vote for him, and what you think about the racist stain on his record, and that something that the public can forgive? >> well, for ms. mace, it is unfortunate, because she sure took his money and support in the other races. put it this way, there are other individuals who are trying to push this crisis for every fund-raising dollar that we can get, and we have seen that behavior on both the democrat and the republican side, and it is unfortunate, because the american public sees it as

unprofessional and it is bad name on congress, and yes, i am here on camera, and i'm not on 15 programs a day and i don't chase it, but we have those individuals who think their word is greater both and the democrat and the republican side. this is a team sport, and it is not an individual sport, and individuals have to know that. >> to be fair to you, i do not see you on 15 different shows a day, but once or twice talking about the important issues here. but another one of your republican colleagues michael mccaul from texas said this, the world is watching. they are seeing a dysfunctional democracy here in the united states, and that what the ayatollah of iran wants and chairman xi wants, and he said that last bit is important, and we have to prove them wrong here in america, and do you worry that it is one more thing that diminishes the u.s. position in

world? >> yes, winston churchill said that democracy the worst form of government except for all of the others. and it begins with biden's disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan, and this is when the american foreign policy especially has gone down, and i adamantly believe that ukraine started because of the vacuum that was seen in afghanistan and now we are seeing other things that have gone off worldwide because of the incompetency i believe of the biden administration in foreign affairs and $6 billion was given a few weeks to iran for quote humanitarian purposes, and we all know that money is fungible, and can be used for whatever, and it is a different thing. it is one thing to have a outlook to get along and wouldn't bit wonderful to live in a world like that, but it is not the reality when you dealing

with evil regimes like iran, and china and north korea, and yeah, democracy is messy and especially with the 24-hour news cycle. but this is what happens, and i still believe it is the greatest form of government. >> the critic of the republican former president donald trump would say that some of the deterioration came down to trump being close to leader of north korea and treating him as an equal rather than nemesis, and a number of arguments are being made, and the most important is that congress gets it together and able to function, and thank you, greg murphy for taking time to speak with me. have a great day. >> yes. >> and he doesn't do a dozen shows everyday, but he does the important one. [ laughter ] okay. on high alert, the potential threats of anti-semitic threats of violence in the united states which is on the wake of the hamas attacks on israel. from chrome to duckduckgo.

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we're showing you live pictures out of tel aviv. secretary of state antony blinken is going to be speaking shortly. he's been on the ground since this morning to meet with leaders of israel, including the prime minister. and also as we saw, he stopped by a donation point, where with he met with quite a lot of people in the moments we brought you throughout the show. he's also continuing -- i wouldn't even call it a tour, but an important mission in the

middle east. while he was in tel aviv this morning, he's declared his unwavering support for israel, and while overseas, as we have just learned this morning, he's also going to be adding a stop in qatar. noteworthy considering kwuter's strong ties to hamas. alex march kwaurs joins me. what are you hearing about this new stop. >> i think this does speak to what a high priority this is for the biden administration, how fluid things are, how important this is for america's top diplomat. as far as these trips are concerned, they are usually planned long in advance. this one was certainly not. because this is such an important situation with israel on the cusp of an invasion of gaza. we only learned a couple days ago blinken would be going to israel and on to qatar. it speaks to the fact that the biden administration and blinken in particular are reaching out to really anybody who can help

with the variety of issues that both israel and the u.s. are now facing. when it comes to qatar, the focus is hamas. hamas leaders have been hosted qatar for years. they live in the cap can tall. he's been living in qatar for a long time. we reported several days ago that qatar has been helping specifically when it comes to speaking with hamas about those hostages. we know from the israelis there are 150 hostages. that's something that the u.s. hopes qatar can help with. there's also the possibility to tack on other regional stops because there are other co countries that can help with this quickly involving situation. >> it's good to see you. we'll bring you tony blinken when he begins. as he continues, we'll bring you remark when is they begin.

new this morning, the nypd is stepping up security after a former hamas leader encouraged protesters to show anger at demonstrations tomorrow. all officers must report in uniform as a precaution. there will be extra security around police precincts. with us now is a former senior director on counterterrorism at the national security council and it's been interesting over the last 24 hours to hear from the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and then the secretary of state antony blinken compare hamas to isis. why do you think they are making that comparison? what's the significance here? >> the language we're hearing is a flexion of the tactics used in these devastating attacks over the weekend. hamas was a a violent terrorist organization and directed a number of attacks against

israel. but these commando assaults, the murder of civilians, the kidnappings and all the other terrible atrocities coming to light, hamas had previously never done things like that. that's what we have seen going back several years in 2010. so that's why the isis terminology is coming up now. >> and now they have hostages. maybe more than 100 more. what's the csignificance there? >> this is going to be an incredibly difficult part of the next phase of the israeli military operation. any hostage rescue effort and recovery effort or even one person just takes an amount of planning, intelligence to find the location of that person or persons and then the military force that you need that is trained and specialize to go in and get the hostage out or person out.

if it's that difficult and complex for one person, there's numerous example os of that complexity throughout recent history. imagine what it's going to be like for dozens of people and whether they are in gaza or other places. this is going to be just such a dangerous component of that particular phase of the operation, and no one knows how that will play out going forward. >> i want to ask you about something that happened within the last hour. the israeli prime minister's office released three photos, we showed one on tv. we're not going to show it now, of a dead baby. a baby killed in the hamas attacks. the prime minister's office releasing this so people can see the horror of what happened. for hamas, when they see that photo being published around the world, what is the impact on them? >> so this goes back to the isis-style savagery of these

attacks. and again in the past, they didn't go to this level of just wanton brutality. it seems based on the reporting that this was a deliberate part of this assault plan, and the question is, why? why did they choose to do that now knowing the global outrage it would cause and the heavy response israel was going to inflict on hamas. and are they prepared for that? did they not think through the implications. but from just an operational perspective, hamas has never done that in the past. now they are going to pay a heavy price, on top of all the other terrible things that happened. >> we have about 30 seconds left. thomas freedman wrote that maybe israel should do the opposite of what hamas wants right now. his suggestion is an o overreaction in gaza. how do you do the opposite of

what hamas wants? >> again, this is another thing that has to be thought through. if hamas did this on purpose or conducted these atrocities on purpose to lure the military into gaza, that's possibility. and one would think hamas has ha time to prepare and plan for that. gaza might be a difficult operating environment for the idf once this invasion kicks off. so that's going to be another component that has to be managed. >> wonderful discussion. thank you so much for helping us understand everything that we're seeing right now. >> thank you. there's so much noise around this war, but we're hoping beyond hope that we can all recognize the sering trauma and destruction of life occurring to the most innocent among us, the children suffering the consequences of the actions of

adults. these are graphic and disturbing pictures. i'm sorry we're showing them, but it's the aftermath here of a terror attack. the entire country is grief stricken. today prime minister benjamin netanyahu released horrifying photos of baby murdered and burned by hamas. we are just showing you one of the three photos that showed two babies, whose bodies had been burned beyond recognition. the third we have been showing you of an infant's body that was laying dead bloodstained. in jerusalem, there's a family mourning a 23-year-old soldier skill kilned. you can see the sorrow on their faces as they bury him. in gaza, a humanitarian crisis is growing by the hour. hundreds displaced. there's an image shared from the gaza health ministry that's in a hot.