you're live in the cnn newsroom. i'm jim acosta in the newsroom. my colleague erin burnett is live in tel aviv. we begin with a growing death toll in the war. palestinian health officials say more than 4,300 people have died in gaza since the start of the war. that number, of course, is almost certain to rise. a short time ago, israel's military says it is increasing airstrikes beginning today. this new video shows israeli troops and machinery positioned along the border waiting for the

order to start the ground invasion of gaza. israel's top military leaders are saying that forces will enter gaza. for the first time since the war began two weeks ago, humanitarian aid briefly rolled into gaza. but the rafah border crossing is now closed again after the 20-truck convoy made it through. additional shipments of water, fuel and food are urgently needed and the hospital system is teetering on the verge of collapse. >> reporter: we just keep hearing about the water, the water, there is not enough water. it comes a day after the two american hostages were freed by hamas. one step closer to coming home to the united states. jude dlith raanan and her 17-year-old daughter are even reuniting today at an israeli military base. natalie's father that he's expecting her home by tuesday, her 18th birthday. her brother said he hoped she

would be home that day. the question is, will there be more hostages released we know of at least eight others. hamas has talked going friendly powers. like qatar or russia for the release of foreign nationals. not including israeli hostages. a huge question about that. president biden was asked about this earlier today. and he said to reporters, i am talking to the israelis. i suppose one of the questions, and you might have a better insight. whether or not hamas releasing these two american hostages has, and the israelis won't want to admit this, to some extent hit the pause button on the ground incursion. might that be the reason we are waiting for it to occur in. >> look. the speculation is that as well. whether it will put out a few at a time to delay and delay. that could be a tactic hamas is

using. israel said nothing will have them put anything on pause. nonetheless, here we are two weeks past. two weeks past, today. i was talking to a woman today. she was saying i can't believe it was two weeks ago today that this happened to me. i still cannot process what actually happened. she had been in the kibbutz, one of the survivors there. those strikes that you're talking about in gaza. when they say they're stepping them up. to give everyone in context. the idf put out numbers saying they had struck 205 times in one day. that's one day. we are 14 days past. and the people in northern gaza are under constant bombardment. we've been talking to some of them. the cell service is really spotty. sometimes they'll talk to you with 40% power left on their phone but they choose to do it because they want the world to hear them. she's a teacher, a retired art teacher. she went to gaza to visit her mother. her elderly and unwell mother and she is stuck there.

she's been sort of filing for us these little updates on what is happening. this is just what happened to her yesterday. >> thankfully no one is hurt. just the glass, the windows on the second floor shattered. but all the kids in here, all ten of them traumatized. many of them with fever this morning, body aches from being scared. and adults as well. everybody is so exhausted because we didn't have any sleep since then. >> reporter: they say they're afraid to go out in the night and they wake up and they're afraid to go out in the day. jeremy diamond is in ashkelon not far from gaza. and often you can hear the incoming and outgoing. as we wonder when these next steps from israel may commence, what are you hearing? what are you learning where you

are? >> reporter: tonight, what we are certainly hearing is a lot of outgoing. the idf is intensifying its strikes in preparation for a ground invasion to try to minimize the risk to its own troops as they prepare to go in. we have been hearing thud after thud. the rumbling sound of bombs dropping on the gaza strip. what we saw today as well as we drove along the border with gaza is an enormous massing of troops, of tanks and armored personnel carriers. you can see just one of those staging grounds. one of four different staging positions that we saw in an area about a square mile or so. we saw hundreds altogether on the four areas. hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers as well as what they use to clear the obstacles for the ground forces to go in. all of this as military's chief of staff says we will enter

gaza, telling troops that their task will be to destroy hamas infrastructure and operatives. at the same time, of course, hamas is continuing to fire rockets on israeli cities. right here in ashkelon, this is the most fired-upon city in all of israel. receiving about 25% of hamas's barrage of rockets on israeli towns and cities. we spent the day going around and meeting with residents in the city and also, their operation center to get a sense of what life is like under fire. >> go inside, go inside. >> reporter: this is life in ashkelon. the most fired-upon city in israel since hamas launched its first rockets 12 days ago. here fear still grips some. others carry on. ignoring the sirens' wails. >> translator: when we're outside, we're very careful.

when we're inside, god is protecting us. every missile has an address. we don't need to be afraid. >> reporter: in a city where 90% of businesses have closed, this supermarket is a life line. >> a lot of businesses are closed. >> the rocket is working because people have to eat. they have to drink. >> reporter: do you come once a week? >> once a week. i'm very afraid. if they send now rocket, i was lying on the ground, and to put my hands on my -- >> reporter: getting to a bomb shelter isn't an option for vin here prompting the city to help evacuate thousands. >> we still have around 35,000 people that actually live without shelters. so each and every rocket, it means direct risk for them so we're trying to find solution

for them. >> reporter: more than 1,200 rockets have targeted ashkelon. while most are intercepted by the iron dome, about 200 have made direct hits. displacing families from their homes, causing casualties, and shuttering businesses like this bakery. >> translator: when we got here, everything was in pieces. the door was out of place. there was the smell of gunpowder. everything was destroyed. we are starting to put things right. >> reporter: in the basement of an unassuming building, ashkelon's ceo takes us into the city's emergency operations center where officials try to shorten response times, tracking incoming rockets headed for the city. >> rescue teams, police, ambulances, everything is going from here. >> so before the rocket even lands, you can see where it would land. >> yes. >> reporter: until then, the first responders wait -- ♪

and pray. >> reporter: four people have been killed in the city of ashkelon in the last two weeks. 35 people have been injured by rocket fire and 1,200 have been displaced after rockets hit their homes. the iron dome missile defense system does intercept the overwhelming majority of those rockets coming in. but some of them still do indeed get through which leads to this fear and anxiety. the psychological impact this war has here. and even just yesterday, three of those rockets making it through the iron dome system in the city. two of them hitting residential buildings and one of them hitting a parked building. >> all right. jeremy diamond there for us. coming up, a volunteer medic will join us. how she is living through the horrors of war and what could be ahead.

for two weeks now israel and gaza have been at war and the region is confronting all the horrors of what that actually means. i want to bring in a volunteer medic. on the afternoon of the hamas attack, and i want everyone to know, you're at work. you're out saving lives. that's what you do. yeah, i know you are. i appreciate you taking a few minutes to talk to us. i know that you want the world to know and to be very aware of what happened and you think it is important. that day, on the afternoon of the hamas attack, you were on call looking for anyone who survived. you were getting the calls. you were going to the kibbutzim on that border. how do you even cope with what you saw? before we even talk about what you saw, how do you cope with it now? >> so right now, thanks to the

the organizations in israel, i have a full psychological treatment every other day. special treatment. it is called emdr. it's a system that works on the brain, that helps you cope with traumatic events before you develop post-traumatic symptoms. so i have that. >> reporter: i'm very glad. yes. i know that you witnessed horrific things with your own eyes as you were trying to save lives. you have chosen to talk about this because you don't want the world to be able to turn away and forget what happened. what you saw with your own eyes. what do you want people to know about what you saw? >> the first thing that i want them to know, probably hamas,

the acts, the horrific things we see are beyond words. beyond anything that can compare for any r movie that you could ever imagine seeing anywhere. beginning with the babies that we saw dead, the bleeding, beheaded, to the women that we saw in the same situation. the same poses. the blood. the elderly. take your pick. everything. >> naomi, i have, i think along with many others, felt frustration that beheading became a part of this. the horrific things that everyone knows occurred, why that would be something that needed to be proven when so many horrific other things happened. i want to be clear that you did

see those acts. you did see people who had been beheaded. >> unfortunately, i have seen that. i have seen people, their limbs were taken out. a teen mother dead on top of their babies that were also dead. i've seen burned bodies of young girls, young men, people of all ages. burned babies. they burned them. i can't even start to describe the smell. at the beginning, you don't even realize what you're smelling. it smells like barbecue. it doesn't make any sense. and when you take a look -- [ inaudible ] you realize that it is burned meat.

it's people. it's people. and it's something that i don't think i will ever be able to erase from my head or my mind or my dreams. >> naomi, was there anyone that was in a position that you were able to help them? when you got there? >> it was around -- it took us so much time till we found people that were actually alive. when we did, we were able to help, yeah, thank god. but compared to the dead people and the amount of dead, wasn't a lot. wasn't a lot. but yes. we were able to save a few families. we loaded the ambulance with four or five injured at the same time because there was no time. we were under fire and we had to

load the ambulance with as much injured as we can. and they were severely injured in their lungs because they breathed the smoke for at least three or four hours because the terrorists, hamas, burned their houses once they realized they cannot go into the safe room. so they just burned the whole place down. the family, they were alive and we were able to help them and save them. and some of them not. >> my god. the fact that some of them were alive and you were able to save them. what a miracle. what a miracle that is. naomi, obviously, this is how you reacted in a moment that no one can comprehend going in. you went in and you talk about being under fire as you try to save people. did you realize that you could have died? did you realize this was all still happening while you were there? did you even process it?

>> at that time, you don't stop to process it. you just think, i'm here. i'll do my best to stay alive. i have to save more lives. i have to get back to my family. so even you're under fire, you try the best as you can to stay alive. lying on the floor, trying to hide behind cars. if it is staying really, really quiet. even though you're in an ambulance driving through the night. but you don't turn the light on. you drive in complete, complete darkness because you know, if you stay alive, then you can save more lives. and that's what you do. hour after hour. >> well, that's what you do. so many of us, i listen to you and it's truly unbelievable. it is an inspiration that is even hard to comprehend and you're still doing it. you're still going out. you're still able to work now?

>> yeah. i took a few days off this past week. now i'm back. i'm in ashkelon right now. i have my crew with me. my ambulance on the other side over here. i have my ambulance behind me. >> i see you trying to show me. >> i can't be inside the ambulance. i have to be outside. we have safe places. if there is any alarm, we have to go into the safe place and only when it stops, we can go out and see if we can rescue people and hoping that no one got hurt. that's our best hope. >> well, naomi, i want to thank you very much. before you go, i just want to ask you a very simple question. now that you've taken the time to share these horrors and to relive them because you want people to hear that, is there anything else you want to tell people who are watching about what is happening in israel? about how you feel? is there anything else you want the world to hear?

>> i want the world to know that this thing should never happen again. you should know that hamas is isis. the act that we saw is against any humanity that possibly be existing in this world. go home to your families and hug your kids and love them. and be with them. from what i saw, you can never know if it is the last day or the last moment. just tell your family that you love them every day. if you're in a situation, try to do your best to help others. sometimes even the smallest help could change the world for someone else. >> naomi, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. so for taking the time. as you can see in ashkelon, israel. out, the emt going to save lives even after what she has endured

and taken the time and agony to share with all of us. our coverage continues in just a moment.

20 days later and there's no end in sight for house republicans' quest to find a new speaker. moments ago, i spoke to one of the eight gop lawmakers who voted to remove kevin mccarthy as speaker and he said he has zero regrets. >> the trouble is we followed the rules. the rules that kevin mccarthy voted on, that were voted on unanimously by our conference. we followed them to a t. if they didn't like those rules, they shouldn't have put them in place. >> joining us, and political commentator and republican strategist, anna navarro. let me start with you. no regrets but no plan for a new speaker right now.

>> when i look at the news, i really feel like a level of motional and political schizophrenia. right? it's so ridiculous to be on the one-minute listening to heroic israelis who had to confront terrorists, people who are having to bury their dead, and war going on in that region. and then the next minute, here we are covering this embarrassing clown show. this organization, this stupidity. republicans cannot look more petty, more small, more disorganized. it really is, i feel like vicarious embarrassment for the republicans in the house. and yes, there is no plan. it play changed. there were eight people running. these crazy eight took out kevin

mccarthy with absolutely no plan. and i think that as of today there is no plan. >> molly, i've seen less chaos at a chuck e. cheese's. former speaker candidate jim jordan, he didn't become the speaker, only the candidate. he was asked during a press conference yesterday whether he still thought the 2020 election was stolen. let's listen to that. >> do you believe the 2020 election was stolen? >> i think there were all kinds of problems. i've been clear about that. >> molly, how can you become speaker of the house of representatives for the united states government and be that delusional or dishonest? >> he's reflecting the view of a lot of the base. i would say what's really interesting about this jim jordan thing. he had the endorsement of trump. it is hard to think of a speaker

who would be more trumpy and friendly to donald trump than jim jordan. jim jordan was not able to get the votes. so either trump is so distracted by his criminal cases, which he may very well be, or he has diminished power with the base. because jim jordan was not able to get the votes. so i think it is very upsetting but i think it is worth wondering if there is a sign of trump's diminished power. >> yeah, anna, what about that? do you think that trump has been diminished in all of this? is this a sign that the moderate republicans, the gop establishment are starting to stand up for themselves? >> you asked molly a question about, can somebody who thinks the 2020 election was stolen be speaker of the house? and if i can just weigh in on that. kevin mccarthy didn't think it was stolen initially but a few

days later, he was kissing trump's ring. so many of the eight that are running have that, and do think, that the election was stolen. and it is unbelievable to me. when i heard the phone calls to the wife of congressman bacon who had not voted for jim jordan. the things that were being said. how every single republican in the house is not loudly condemning that. and feeling shame for the level of discourse and just how low they have gotten. i have no words for it. as to trump, look. his ability to control the house may have changed. interestingly enough, some of the people did not vote for jim jordan are people that trump has endorsed and that have endorsed trump already, including some from south florida that i know

personally. carlos jimenez and mario diaz gerard. but regardless of what may be happening there, at the other end of the spectrum, you have trump leading by leaps and bounds in the republican primary. the thing that actually matters. and you've got a republican primary where trump is not really participating and beating everybody else like a drum. >> yeah. what about that, molly? it's still his party. even though he didn't get his own speaker. it is still his party. >> it's definitely his party. nobody else is anywhere close to him in this republican primary contest. it is interesting to me that he wasn't able to sort of whip the votes. and kevin mccarthy -- kevin mccarthy! jim jordan is like the most trumpy of this crew. now there are a ton of people running just like with the republican nontrumpy republican field. and you know, eight, nine, i

think pete sessions just stepped in. so it will be a big group. i think it is interesting that people still want this job. it is not a great job. and this republican party has such a schism right now between the burn it all down caucus which really just wants to burn it all down, the matt gaetzes, and the republicans who want to at left a try to do some legislating. >> it's a great job when you are nancy pelosi and you actually wield power and get legislation through. and you get a great office with the best view at the capitol and all sorts of perks including a hideaway which i guess is now in my demand. so it is a great job when you have authority. it is not a great job when you do the things that kevin mccarthy did in order to become speaker, which is give away all the power even before he had it.

>> right. kevin mccarthy was complaining about the crazy 8s which was a card game i played with my mom when i was a kid. but kevin mccarthy went along with these ground rules. and i asked earlier, how does the next speaker come along and want to have the same ground rules in place where one of the crazy 8s can pull the rug out from under you? >> no. i think there has to be some kind of reckoning. and the republicans will have to agree to have a regular, to take away that motion. look, kevin mccarthy was so desperate for this job, he agreed to a lot of stuff and he made a lot of promises. and we still don't know nine months later all the stuff he promised people but it was certainly his downfall. i think this is, i think a lot of people don't want this job. if you look at the speaker pro

tem right now, he doesn't want it. the republicans, since trump came to office, there is been a lot of this threatening, stuff like that. you already see some of trump's people are threatening some of the candidates now. this is kind of the way maga does business. it's terrible but it's not so surprising. and i think, you know, it makes the job ten times worse. >> yeah. i think we'll go from crazy 8s to go fish. no jim jordan? go fish. i think that's what we'll see this week. pardon the dad jokes. trying to lighten things up a little bit on this weekend. appreciate it. >> they are dad jokes. >> they are, they're bad ones, too. >> i'm glad you admitted that. listen, maybe you can be speaker of the house. >> no way. thanks, ladies. appreciate it. all right. we're going back to israel in a few moments. you're looking at live pictures right now of gaza. 1:34 in the morning. the tanks are lining up along

the border.

a spokesman for the israeli defense forces says it will start firing more airstrikes starting from today, and that a ground invasion will begin once military conditions are optimal. joining now, negotiator for the middle east, aaron miller. thank you to you both. let me start with you. we know that israel has been ready to go for days. the military has been ready. a state of incredible readiness. they are now giving 24-hour leaves to soldiers, we've heard. they come in, they go out. they are ready. and yet, they have not yet gone. what do you think is giving the pause? >> first of all, thank you for having me. a lot of factors. number one, there's weather.

number two, there's israeli indecision about the breadth and depth, precisely how they'll do this. number three, the president's visit, i think, may eventually have engendered a good bit of thinking on the part of the israelis with respect to the way they would do this. and finally, i think the dilemma is hostages. israel is torn between their commitment, not necessarily to avenging the deaths of 1,400 people. but to preempting the possibility this could ever happen again, on the one hand, and their commitment to redeem the living. you've been there. you've seen, you've talked to the families. hostage redemption, retrieving israeli soldiers and civilians dead or alive is a national priority. so this is the cruelest dilemma of all. although i think in the end, undermining hamas and destroying

its capacity to govern in gaza will probably be the greater priority. >> yes. it appears they are making that as clear as they can. the families of the hostages sometimes with anger, sometimes with acceptance, seem to know that. there isn't any ambiguity with that. one can imagine the cruel reality for those families who are so desperately hoping. juliette, the thing is, as israel waits, is ready and waits, there is the military issue of that which is how long can you be at such a state of readiness with 360,000 people at a border and wait. how long can you stay down on the start line, right? there's also the question that as they wait, the frustration builds around the world. the protests that we've seen. obviously, they've been widespread around the region. one particular one that i keep mentioning, i think the scale really hits me. 80,000 people protesting outside

the consulate in turkey. it's not a place that most people in the united states have even heard of. 80,000 people. they had to shut that consulate. so what are the risks? >> the risks are multiple. these are the ones that president biden has been trying to highlight to the israelis based essentially on our lessons in afghanistan. one is after we were attacked on 9/11, what is the end game? i think one thing to say for those of us in counterterrorism, we are going to make hamas not able to govern in gaza. then what? are the israelis actually anticipating being the governing body in gaza? and if not, then who is? right in so that is first question. the second is civilian deaths. going back 20 years, we were probably not thinking about what civilian deaths meant in afghanistan.

essentially, it meant that you were radicalizing population that's might not have otherwise been radicalized. the human rights issues are key. the third is, if you don't have an answer to the first two questions, how do you stop a regional conflict? biden's success so far is what's not happened. the israelis have not gone in yet. there's a regional anger and there is lots of criticism. but you haven't had the kind of unrest that one might have anticipated last saturday. so that's the dialogue that has to go on. but what's the end game hear for israel? you're not going to govern gaza. that's their challenge. >> but it also comes as there has been an incredible back lash in the united states. not just pro palestinian rallies, of course. it's horrific things like paula

sandoval was just reporting with the head of a synagogue being stabbed outside her home. there are horrific things happening. there is a back lash that is building. and the reality of it is, how dangerous is this in the u.s.? >> that's a great question you and i could talk about probably for days given the divisiveness, the polarization, the hate speech, social media, the behavior of certain american politicians which courage this. i think it is extremely dangerous. islam phobia. clearly it is being if he had by what happened on october 7th and israel's response in gaza. no question about that. our own broken house is in some respects is in full display. and the president's remarks the

day before yesterday, he addressed this question. but i think it is slatly critical that we continue to talk about the importance of tolerance and mutual understanding, and of course, as juliette knows, the department of homeland security, the fbi, follow these groups, if in fact you're talking about organized responses, as closely as possible. >> the president did, of course, talk about how horrible both things are. islam phobia. our special coverage continues after the break.

how do you plead to count 15, conspiracy in indictment 2 c -- >> guilty. >> that was trump attorney kenneth cheseboro pleading guilty yesterday in the georgia election interference case. he admitted to conspiring with the former president to overturn the 2020 election including false slates of electors. it come one day after sidney powell pleaded guilty to tampering with voting machines as well as other legal charges. let's go to the georgia prosecutor, amy lee. we were talking about this earlier on this program, in this program. and shan had a theiry and i'll bounce it off you. it's possible that sidney powell

and kenneth cheseboro, they did crack. they will cooperate with prosecutors but it may not be a full-on flip. they may go into the rest of the case and perhaps not provide as much information as the prosecutors might like. how does that grab you? is that possible that they could get away with something like that? or do you think they are cooperating? >> good evening, jim. the language of the plea agreement says that they will testify truthfully. not cooperate fully. there is a real difference there. to get these plea deals, both had to do a video proffer. sidney powell got an extraordinary deal to plead guilty to misdemeanors. even six misdemeanors. that's still an extraordinary deal when you are facing felony rico charges. she had to submit the video proffer prior to the prosecution offering her that plea agreement. i think what she had to say in that video proffer, she can't back down from. it's going to be pretty potent.

i think that's the reason why she got the misdemeanor deal. so they may not be embracing the deals with cooperation. they may not be all in with their hearts and minds but they have committed something to video which they will be stuck with. >> in your view, how damning is this for the former president? a lot of folks saying, this is devastating for trump. having covered him, he's a little like harry houdini in his ability to get out of all sorts of hot legal water. your sense of it? >> it certainly doesn't help him that two people in the inner circle are speaking out against him. sidney powell was in the oval office on december 18th of 2020 where they discussed things like a military effort to remove voting machines from various places. and she would be in charge of that. she can certainly give some real background to what that call,

that face to face conversation was about. that can't help the president. as far as cheseboro, i know his attorney has come out and said, listen, he didn't really implicate trump. he'll testify truthfully but the president doesn't have anything to worry about. he did have to give a video proffer and he had to admit that he made a false statement and it was materially false. and will it was that these folks were the duly elected state electors of georgia. >> it sounds like the prosecutors have a strategy to get these plea deals with these other co-defendants. who do you think might be next? what would you be looking for? >> sure. well, let me step back from that and answer this other question, too. so prosecutors will say that the investigation ends at the time the verdict is entered. so you've seen this in the case. mr. hall, the bail bondsman, who knows a lot about a number of

different things. i was surprised at the breadth of what he was charged with. he was the first to cooperate. he got the misdemeanor deal. one of the things he knew about was the coffey county vote go breach. i think that probably led to miss powell's guilty plea. that's where she was first and foremost in this particular indictment. with respect to the coffey county deal. her plea agreement came on the heel of the gbi discovering 15,000 emails on misty's computer that weren't previously disclosed. so as more evidence come out. as these video proffers circulate among the defendants, i expect more people the plead guilty. i think the most immediate ones are the other two in the scheme. they have two people, scott hall and sidney powell who are all about the coffey county scheme. and i would expect to see deals

with kathy lantham. >> thank you for joining all of us. see you again tomorrow night starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern. our special coverage continues after the break.

welcome to our continuing