welcome to "cnn newsroom." i'm jake tapper. i'm standing on a rooftop looking out over tel aviv. it's just after 2:00 a.m. here and in gaza, a a new phase of war begins, it has been 22 days since the horrific terrorist

attacks by hamas. >> i'm pamela brown in washington. we are also following breaking news in the united states including former vice president mike pence's stunning campaign suspension and new details about the horrific mass shooting in maine that killed 18 people. >> we start with what prime minister netanyahu called this evening a new long stage in the israel hamas war. israel's military says its troops and tanks are inside gaza now in what promises to be a bloody and complex battle in order to rid the gaza strip of the terrorist group responsible for the horrific october 7th attack that killed at least 1300 is israels. inside gaza, palestinians are trying to shelter and they are mourning in darkness amid a near total communications blackout. as the hamas controlled palestinian ministry of health is estimating hundreds of gazans have been killed by israeli air

strikes in just the last two days. meanwhile, the families of israeli hostages held in gaza are growing more terrified be i t by the hour. last night, they pressed netanyahu to make a deal that would secure the immediate release of each and every person held hostage while one pointed a photograph of their loved ones toward the wartime leader. we're going to start this evening with nic robertson who's live in israel. as israel says it has started the second phase of its war against hamas, you've been seeing huge explosions and hearing heavy machine gunfire tonight where you are, which is not far from the gaza border. >> yeah, the second phase sounds radically different to the first. the first was artillery and missiles. tonight, we're hearing absolutely every munition that could be used being used.

we've heard helicopter gun ships firing, heavy bursts of fire into the battle area. that area between the border fence and the towns inside the gaza strip. you're hearing the detonations there. we've seen missiles fired and different types of missiles that come from low altitude that we haven't seen before. in the midst of all this, hamas and other groups are still firing rockets out to different parts of israel. heavy tank rounds as well. there were flares in the sky above us a few minutes ago. there are these munitions that sort of drop and scatter red sub munitions or red tracers down towards the ground. there's an intense type of fire. helicopter gun ship is perhaps the newest thing we've heard and that's come over here in the last couple of hours or so,

jake. >> how is this intensifying assault impacting the hostage negotiations? >> according to the qataris, at least one qatari official who's informed about the negotiations, he said what you really need is trust and a period of calm. but he said despite that, we're continuing. what other choice do we have, he said. he made this point and it's an important point when it comes to negotiating for the hostages. he pointed out that prime minister netanyahu who said one of the two primary aims here is not only to rid the gaza area of hamas, but also to get all the hostages back. and we've also heard and this is another point being made by one of the qataris connected to the negotiations, said that the hamas' military wing have said

they believe that they have so many hostages they could empty the israeli jails of palestinian prisoners in return. they clearly think the qataris understand that hamas wants to continue to negotiate and talk. so despite the fact this is sort of aura and a moment where trust on the battlefield does not exist around the negotiating table for hostages despite difficult and trying conditions, there is still some hope, jake. >> all right. nic robertson, thank you so much . thousands of people, thousands in gaza, are in the dark following more than 24 hour of israeli bombardment and air strikes. thousands are dead. most of them no doubt innocent civilians. virtually all communication is cut off and a dire humanitarian crisis is being made all the worse. it's hard to imagine the condition of emergency services being made even more dire but no

doubt, it is. >> it is, jake. just catastrophic by all accounts. it's all happening almost in the dark. because of that near total communications blackout, it is getting harder for us and for everyone to get information out of gaza. but the little that is trickling out paints a very grim picture of the humanitarian situation on the ground where you have people saying that there's nowhere safe in gaza. they have no food. no fuel. electricity, water and now communications have been cut off. people of gaza have been almost cut off from the world, from each other. people inside gaza don't know if their loved ones are dead or alive. and jake, even before the intensification in the air strikes and bombardment over the last 24 hours, the humanitarian situation on the ground was already devastating and we have to warn viewers, our report they're about to see the graphic

and they may find it disturbing. it's hard to believe this was gaza just a few weeks ago. little nor dressed in his finest, dancing with his brother at a wedding. his brother still can't believe her boy is gone. he was holding my hand as i took him to make him a sandwich, she says. he didn't get to eat it. shrapnel cut through his neck. he's now in heaven. god give me strength to deal with this. the air strikes that took 6-year-old nor and other rela relatives left her with injuries all over her body and the unbearable pain so many palestinian mothers are having to endure. there's a void in my heart. i can't even cry, she says. i really want to cry. but the tears are not coming out. why can't i get it out? i want to cry for my little boy.

recovering at hospital, she just wants to get back to her three other children. now homeless, sheltering at a school. hell is raining down on gaza. israel says it's going after hamas and doing what it can to spare the innocent but it is the innocent who are paying the heaviest price and the few hospitals barely standing. pictures are too graphic for us to show, but faces here tell of the horrors they survived and this living nightmare they can't escape. 3-year-old judy hasn't uttered a word in 16 days. she won't eat or drink, her father says. still in shock with a piece of shrapnel lodged in her head. what did these children do? we have nothing to do with the resistance, he says. they're just targeting palestinians. they're killing children because they're palestinian.

to them, we're not humans. they don't know if she'll be able to walk again. judy is one of the lucky ones, if one can call them that. she still has her father by her side. baby arwa keeps asking for her mom. she's lost her mother, her brother, and her sister, too. she shows the camera her ouchie. in every corner of every hospital, so many heart wrenching stories of loss so hard to comprehend. dean only wakes up to cry, her aunt says, in a room with her 7-year-old brother. the two were the only ones to survive the air strike that killed their mom, dad, brother and dozens of their family. he doesn't say much these days. he asks me if we have internet here. he says i want to call mommy and

daddy. doctors in these overwhelmed hospitals say every day brings a constant stream of children with no parents and a flood of injured they just don't have enough to treat. with the little they have, they do what they can, but how do you begin to deal with so many going through so much? and jake, there are growing calls for many in the international community for immediate, humanitarian pause, for a cease fire and warnings that what is happening in gaza is violations of international humanitarian law. >> thank you so much. egypt's president warning today that the middle east will become a quote ticking time bomb as the war between hamas, which is the government of gaza, and israel, rages on, threatening to expand across the region. this as the palestinian

authority president in the west bank is calling for an emergency summit with arab leaders. melissa bell is in cairo, egypt for us now. melissa, how is the arab world reacting to israel's latest phase of the war in gaza and what do we know about where negotiations to release the hostages held by hamas stands? >> jake, there was across the arab and muslim world already a great deal of anger of what's going on in gaza, but this latest ratcheting up, the start of the ground operation has led to a fresh round of condemnation from egypt. you mentioned abbas in the call for an emergency session here in cairo, really reflecting a lot of what the leaders have said today or representatives of the country's foreign ministries that far from leading to that

cease fire that the world is so urgently calling for, friday's resolution of the united nations has prompted israel to bomb more and destroy further. i think that has been reflected. we've also heard today from the turkish leader speaking at a large rally in istanbul in favor of the palestinian cause repeating his words that hamas are freedom fighters. words so strong in fact that israel has sent turkish diplomatic representatives home. there is of course in the middle of all this growing tension and anger, the question of the hostages. now, the families of the hostages met today with the israeli prime minister netanyahu had said earlier on in the day, look, we need him to look us in the eye and tell us this latest escalation is not going to put our family members in danger. what we've been hearing not just from the israeli prime minister himself who said that was one of

the main aims of the operation, but saying he believed they could be brought home. we've also been hearing from representative from qatar's foreign ministry speaker to becky anderson explaining that the qataris and israelis were keeping a close eye also on hamas' willingness and that he believed there was still a great deal of room for him and negotiation happens. >> mediation only works when you have under this kind of conflict, this kind of comp pli education, it becomes more difficult. we can't give up. clearly, we can't give up on this. nobody can afford to give up on this and leave it to the military people to let decide what happens to the future. >> so encouraging words there from the qataris who have been spearheaded the efforts. the fate now of 229 very much in

their hands since they are the ones leading those negotiations hoping that once it is those tunnels in which the hostages are being kept, jake, that are be so ferociously bombarded again by israel again tonight, that still negotiations continue and they could yield results. >> all right, melissa bell in cairo, egypt. thank you so much. as we learn of dire conditions of hospitals in gaza, some americans are among the medical staff. my next guest has connections to a doctor at one hospital. what he's hearing, nexext. stay w with us.

and we're back live in tel aviv. israel's stepped up military action in gaza has had devastating consequences. we want to warn you that some of the video you're about to see is graphic and disturbing. video shows doctors operating on a young man right on the floor

of the hospital in gaza. the journalist who shot this video told cnn that israeli artillery shelling quote did not stop today. there are u.s. citizens working at many of the hospitals in gaza. one of those americans is sue farazi. she's been the director of the ali arab hospital in gaza for three decades. her father, sorry, friend, father porter joins me now. thanks for joining us. when was the last time you heard from her? >> thanks for letting me join you tonight, jake. i last spoke with her on thursday evening. >> and what had she been -- go ahead. >> sure. sorry about that. so she has been telling me that she is under constant bombardment. like many others, she's sheltering in a private home

with many other individuals. they are in fear of their life. we know all it takes is one of those precision guided missiles to miss from one direction or another and it's the end. she's an older person. and she along with many other american citizens is hoping and praying for a way out. >> and she has been director of the hospital since the late 1980s. tell me why she thought it was so important to serve the people there. >> so, she has been the director of the ali arab hospital in the gaza strip since the 1980s. frankly, jake, she is really the mother teresa of the gaza strip. she has dedicated her life to

healing and serving the sick, the poor, really the poorest of the poor. she has given up opportunities to have a family and be married to serve others. for her, this is service to the people. and service to her god. suehala is a greek orthodox christian and is a regular worship at the church just nearby that was also struck by a missile earlier last week. >> you were just in jerusalem when the wore broke out. i'm told you traveled through amman, swrjordan to get back toe u.s. what was that like to leave friends in the region? >> in a word, heartbreaking. these are women and men and younger people that i, too, have dedicated much of my life to

serving and caring for and seeking to give a better future to. when i left early in the morning, i could, i had that sense, jake, that whatever did end up happening and we're watching that unfold now, it would never be the same. when i come back. it's it's heartbreaking. like so many others. trying to cross. it was chaotic. fortunately, some friends met me on the other side, but many others are not that fortunate. particularly suehala and about 600 other americans in the gaza strip. they've been advised by the state department earlier in the week to go to the rafah

crossing. they went. and nothing happened. the gate never opened. >> yeah. yeah. >> and now -- >> we've been advocating for them to get out for a while. yeah. >> and please continue to advocate. they, you know now that there's very limited communications, it's even harder now to see or even imagine how they're going to be given the right instructions to exit the country or exit gaza into freedom in egypt. you know, it strikes me that we need to hold the state department accountable in its care for all american citizens. you know, we are all equal under the law. and we are all equal citizens and just as citizens have been

evacuated very promptly from jerusalem and israel, so it should be from gaza. >> absolutely. i'm going to have the national security adviser, jake sullivan, on state of the union tomorrow and i will absolutely ask him about the 5 to 600 american citizens, many palestinian americans but others, just plain americans, still stuck in gaza. you have my word on that, sir. thank you for joining us. god speed, sir. much more ahead from tel aviv but we're also following the 2024 race and a major republican candidate has just sususpended s campmpaign. wewe're back i in a momentnt.

as we continue to monitor developments in the middle east, we are also staying on top of a major political development here in the u.s. today.

mike pence announced he is suspending his campaign for the republican nomination for president. the former vice president made the announcement at the republican jewish coalition summit in las vegas. >> now, i'm leaving this campaign but let me promise you, i will never leave the fight for conservative values and i will never stop fighting to elect principled republican leaders to every office in the land. so help me god. >> let's bring in kristen holmes who is in las vegas. in many ways, the writing has been on the wall for mike pence with his lackluster fund raising, troubling garnering support ahead of the debate. talk about the lane he was trying to carve out in this race that was not sesuccessful for h. >> i talked to his advisers a number of times when he was entering the race and they believed there was this lane for a reagan republican. a traditional conservative republican who could show up on

conservative social values. people who could appeal to people who found the events after january 6th appalling an one of the things an adviser said to me tonight is they learned this lane did not exist. when you talk about the fact he was not raising the money. he had not yet qualified for the the third republican debate in two weeks, we were told that was a big part of this. but the other part of this was the fact that as you mentioned, he had no lane to go down. he saw the writing on the wall and what's really significant about this moment is it shows just how far the republican party has come. back in 2016, mike pence was put on the ticket to essentially relieve some conservatives who didn't believe that donald trump was a true republican. was a true conservative. he was supposed to be the conservative voice in the white house and now here we are two turns of the wheel later. two cycles later and there's no room for mike pence within the

current republican party that is really the party of donald trump. i will say donald trump spoke about an hour after pence. did not mention his former running mate dropping out of the race but he is going to speak again later tonight in las vegas. we'll be listening very closely to hear if he does address that. >> thank you so much. we turn now to cnn political analyst, s.e. cupp. what does it mean for the republican race now for the white house now that pence has bowed out? >> well, something like this does tend to shake loose fund raising dollars. it can shake loose some staff, infrastructure, resources, surrogates. so it could have a minimal effect on the race but the energy is still with donald trump. so i'm not sure that that is really affected by his dropping out. >> right. you know, yes, the question what does this say about the republican party. it just reaffirms, right, that

that is the party of trump. that his former vice president is dropping out. do you think that pence might speak out more now that he is not a candidate as the criminal trials against donald trump play out and might he have more influence on the race from the sidelines now? >> no. i mean, as mike pence said, it is just not his time. and listen, i've known him for a very long time. mike pence came to congress in 2000 as a deficit hawk. he was eager to cut spending but he had missed the republican revolution. george w. bush and house republicans went on to spend trillions and he said at that time, i was like the frozen man. frozen before the revolution and thawed out after it. it wasn't his time then either. and it's not his time now. after abandoning his commitment to slash debt and deficits. he went into administration that blew up the debt and the deficit

and did all kinds of things that are anathema to the mike pence i had covered and known. so for a lot of fiscal conservatives, he abandoned his principles and for a lot of maga trump voters, he was seen as traitorous for not overturning the democratic election in 2020. so that left no one left. for mike pence. there are no real other lanes of republicans for him to get. so, this was sort of, this was sort of baked in the day he decided to join donald trump on the ticket in 2016. >> do you think this would put more pressure on others to bow out? >> listen, i think there is a desire and a feeling like the field must consolidate if it's going to have any chance of you know, ousting donald trump or taking trump down from the top

spot. and very few people are willing to do that even though the writing is pretty clear and they know they'll have to shrink the field if any of them are going to have a chance and the energy is really with nikki haley and ron desantis. everyone below them is real far below and so it would be a smart thing to do to start shrinking the field. >> thank you so much. an update on the deadly mass shooting in maine. officials say the body of the suspect was found friday evening with an apparent self-inflicted gun shot wound. residents of lewiston say they are relieved, however, victims like elizabeth seal who lost her husband says she has mixed feelings. here's what she told cnn through a sign language interpreter today. >> i wanted him to be found, apprehended. i wanted to ask questions that will not be answered. why did you do this? what was the motive?

why would you hurt so many families? >> cnn's shimon prokupecz has this update on what officials are saying about a possible motive. >> police releasing more information than they have for several days. they said they were able to do that because the suspect in this case is dead. the shooter is dead. so what they tell us is that they're leaning towards mental health issues as one of the motivations behind this shotting. they say that the shooter was hearing voices. he believed that people were talking badly about him at these locations that he targeted. they say they also found a note and in that note, they didn't describe it as a suicide note, but certainly what this shooter talked about and what he was telling family members sort of gave the impression that when this note was found, that the shooter thought he'd be dead and in that note, he talked about

bank accounts. information for his bank accounts. he talked about his cell phone. the pass code for his cell phone that family members would be able to access and all of this is happening as law enforcement and the fbi and other law enforcement officials are continuing to pore over the crime scene, gather evidence. they say that's going to go on for several more days. then now comes the healing for these peeople, the victims and people who live in this community. that is something we're going to start seeing in the next couple of days as vigils across maine are planned to give an opportunity for the victims, the families, for those who have truly suffered in these neighborhoods to get together and share their memories and share their grief. >> our thanks to shimon prokupecz for that report. tonight, the israel defense forces are saying they're aware of 230 hostages held by hamas. that's one up from 229. 230. a man desperately waiting for

word on his wife and daughter who were kidnapped will join us ahead as our breakaking news coverage f from israelel contin.

his daughter called to check on his safety after the hamas rocket attacks began. his wife and their daughter and their dog were visiting family at kibbutz, a tribp he would hae been on if he didn't have the flu. that was the last time he heard from his wife and daughter. he later learned their phones were traced back to gaza. he joins me now here onset. and first of all, i'm so sorry we're talking under these circumstances. 21 days. horrible. i know some of the families that

have kidnapped family members, beloved family members in gaza are feeling very anxious right now. as the military campaign enters its second phase. and i'm wondering how you are feeling. are you worried? do you wish that the ground campaign were not happening? what's going through your mind? >> well, first of all, thanks for having me. i appreciate the opportunity to tell me family's story. as far as my feelings go, i usually don't like to discuss this because the way i see it, i'm not part of the story. but that having been said, i will say of course like all the other families, i'm just as apprehensive. i try to keep myself busy because this is not something that's within my purview. i have no control over it and i just have to deal. >> yeah. >> so of course, you can't not be apprehensive in a situation like this. >> so i'm told this is not what

you normally look like. you shaved your head recently. obviously, we're showing pictures of your beloved wife and daughter, 17-year-old mia. why did you shave your head? >> mia as you can see from the pictures, she's got a very lustrous head of brown hair and she's very proud of it and sensitive about it and one of my fears is that sometimes in these situations, the captors shave the captives' heads. i know if that happens to my daughter, she'll take it very hard. it will be very difficult for her. so this is my joining her when she comes home in saying look, we'll regrow our hair together. >> you shared a video of your sweet daughter playing with your dog. which we're rolling that now. what do you want people to know about gabriella and mia?

>> first of all, thank you for that question because it's a very important one. it's very important that the audience knows we're talking about human beings here. we're not talking about numbers. we're not talking about statistics. we're talking about actual human beings and they have a very big effect on their surroundings. so it's not just the families or even their friends at school, but it's society in general. and it ripples outwards. somebody always knows somebody who knows something and it affects everybody. my wife, she works with young, autistic adults and they miss her dearly. and it affects them in horrible ways because for them, a blow like that is very difficult to cope with. there's a little clip put out by the parents of some of these young adults that was, where they talked to them and you see the reactions and you see my wife works with both israeli jews and israeli arabs.

all had representatives who spoke this this video and there was a local newspaper article where they discussed this and there was a mother whose daughter was formerly associated with my wife and when the daughter found out, she started crying hysterically and they couldn't calm her down for the better part of 48 hours. my daughter has classmates who are completely shattered. i had to go to the school and have them come to my house and talk to them and tell them certain aspects of the situation that we know that give i can't say a positive light, but you know, it's not all doom and gloom like when the house was investigated by the military authorities, there were no traces of blood or violence other than like ransacking of the house. so, they went without injuries. so that's a very positive and upbeat side i like to spread

outwards. my daughter, the kids in her class love her. there's a young woman, there's a video the school made and she talks on that video and she says in english very beautifully that mia will have a day where she's depressed or sad and if she has a friend who's also not having the best of days, she'll go and console them. so she's a very giving and loving child. when i went to have my haircut and i spoke to the barber, mia has a part-time job in a stationery store not far from where we live. he said, my god, i was just in that stationery store a couple of days ago. had to get my toner replaced and she ran all over the place looking for the toner he needed and she got it for him. so she touches everybody. she talks to the neighbors. and she tells them how proud she is of one achievement or another. she's taking driving lessons now.

and about her job and hear them say to me she was just talking to me about this. she's such a wonderful child. she takes the dog out for walks regularly which is not simple with kids that age. >> no, i know. i have teenagers of my open. it's not necessarily easy to get them to do that. >> but she does. >> i know they were visiting your sister-in-law. and you have other family members that are missing. >> yeah. they were visiting my sister-in-law about three kilometers from the border with gaza. they were there for a family event and instead of, on friday, instead of driving back and forth the same day, my wife wanted to rest up and spend time with her siblings so they went to the kibbutz. my sister-in-law was at the same event. they were there with her and her life partner and my brother-in-law. so the five of them. they're all argentinian citizens. they were all taken.

>> all of them. >> all of them. the dog was with them. we're still looking for her. >> stay in touch and obviously i hope they're all back in your arms soon. >> thank you so much. >> and you know, it's just not fair. none of this is fair. >> if i could say another word or two. >> yeah. >> it's random. i was supposed to be with them. i have had the flu. so i had to stay home. i couldn't even take care of the dog so that's why they took her. this can happen to anybody, anytime, any place on the planet under different local circumstances. but it can still happen. people need to understand that. this is several times the magnitude of other events. i don't want to make comparisons. but again, it can happen. this is part of our reality know. so i think it's important that the audience understands that and the last thing i would like to say is that i would like to express my personal gratitude to

the president for all of his assistance. >> president of the united states? president biden. >> yes. president biden. >> okay. it's okay. he's not your president, he's ours? it's okay. >> yeah. >> all right. we'll be right back.

welcome back. despite most communications bhg cut off seemingly intensionsly by the idf we've tried to keep in contact with some people stuck in gaza, americans mostly. abood okal is an american from massachusetts. he was visiting gaza with his wife and their 1-year-old son. he started in northern gaza and went to the south, the israelis

told everyone to go to the south near the rafah border crossing. we've stayed in touch. he sent us a voice memo today, just hours after israel began launching the heavy air strikes into gaza. >> last night was the hardest we've experienced so far. it's been a mix of sounds all night between air strikes, explosions, probably the -- the most noticeable and scariest of all is the sound of missile whistles that you could hear flying over the house. and as my wife mentioned yesterday in her update, that fear controls us, and no matter how strong one can be the last news we saw before the blackout last night was footage of what's basically carpet bombing at night, and the sky has been lit up with red and orange colors

from the intensity of these bombings. then basically all telecoms and internet was lost completely. so no news since that moment, and we actually went to sleep not knowing if we would wake up in the morning or not given the last footage that we saw. >> another clip from abood, and when you listen to this think about how you and your family might have slept last night. >> we tried to go to sleep last night, but we actually didn't get much of it. the four of us, my wife, yusef, our son, and the newest family member that we took in, we all huddled together so close so that in case something happens, unpredicted, we would all at least face the same fate.

we would stay together or basically be gone together. >> we're going to continue to follow abood okal's story. behind the scene we are doing everything we can to get him and his family out. coming up next, how the israeli government explains another night of bombardment in gaza, and netanyahu's claim that the next phase of this war will be long. stay with us.

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welcome back to "cnn newsroom." i'm jake topper. it is 2 -- tapper. it is 2:00 a.m. in israe