♪ ♪ for the first time people getting out of gaza, an opening at the rafah crossing. hundreds of foreign nationals could getit out over the next f days. a second strike has rocked the refugee camp in northern gaza. what we are learning about this blast. the strike yesterday in the same area took out a hamas commander,

but dozens others feared dead, as well. donald trump junior set to take the stand in a $250 million trial where donald trump has been found liable for fraud. i'm john berman with kate bolduan. sara sidner is on assign. this is "cnn news central." two big developments right now in the israel-hamas war. first, let's talk about the rafah crossing. according to officials on the palestinian side of the crossing, as many as 110 foreign passport holders are traveling through the checkpoint at the gaza border. the crossing, you remember, has been closed since hamas attacked israel sparking this war. since then people have not been allowed through. now they are. the first people to officially cross into egypt were injured palestinians, we are told. ambulances were seen moving

through. this morning you see here, this is after qatar brokered the deal between israel, egypt and hamas all coming to an agreement on this. under the full agreement up to 500 foreign nationals including some americans will be allowed to leave gaza. also, moments ago we want to show you posted from inside of one of the checkpoint waiting areas. we have new images coming out. a woman holding a baby there in the waiting area. she waits to evacuate and other children seen with her, as well. john? >> yeah. by the way, that's all happening down here at the rafah crossing. this is the first time people are getting out because hamas would not let people out and egypt would not let people in, but after furious diplomacy that has changed. we are also watching developments out of the jabalya refugee camp in northern gaza. this is new video that cnn has obtained from inside gaza. this is purportedly following a second blast at the jabalya

refugee camp. we do not know what what happened. israel did confirm it conducted an air strike on the jabalya refugee camp. it was targeting a hamas terror leader. israel also acknowledges that civilians were killed there and israeli official would not tell me how many civilians were killed there. this is video that was said to be from another blast today. the israeli defense forces, israel defense forces have not commented to us on this alleged incident at this point. we've been asking them for a comment on this. civil defense officials inside gaza which is run by hamas, they say, basically hamas says that there are casualties here and people trapped in the rubble from a new blast there. that is the limits of what we know about this. let's get as much more as we

can. salma abdelaziz joins us now. what are you hearing about this? >> as you mentioned, john. you've done a great job there, of course, of laying out what we are trying to ascertain so far. this is something that just happened. we are seeking to obtain more information and important for our viewers to understand that things are extremely limited inside the gaza strait. getting information out is difficult, but what we know is there was yet another massive explosion in the jabalya refugee camp. a bit of content, this is not a refugee camp, these are historical terms and this is one of the most densely populated places in gaza. you are looking at an area where families were living with families were living with families. so any time a residential building is struck, is leveled, is hit, you are talking potentially about many, many, many dead. you can imagine the fear here this morning after already people were still digging for

survivors, still digging for the dead from yesterday's attack only for another one to occur yet again today. now jabalya is in the north of the gaza strip right up near the border with israel. israeli officials have said, look, we told people to evacuate from the north of the gaza strip, but here's the thing about that. that is extremely difficult. that's according to the united nations who have described that as an impossible task with children, with the elderly and disabled people to try to evacuate under bombardment and under siege to the south where there are also air strikes and that's according to our own producer on the ground who sees near-constant bombardment in the south, as well. that's why you hear so many people saying there is no safe place in gaza. you hear that over and over again from palestinians, from rights groups, from aid agencies. as for today's attack, we are obtaining more information, but the fear and the worry is that

we are going to be looking at more civilian casualties in an area that's already so overwhelmed with death and carnage in the last 24 hours. >> again, this is all happening in northern gaza. you can see the jabalya refugee camp right there. as salma correctly points out, that is a refugee camp and it's a densely part of the city and it is situated not far from gaza city which seems to be getting surrounded by israeli forces at this time. let's now move to the other side of israel right now, close to the israel-lebanon border. that's where our cnn's jim sciutto has been for days now. jim, tell us what you're seeing today. >> so today another day where you have some cross-border fire. there was an attempt by hezbollah militants across the border in lebanon to fire anti-tank missiles across the border and that was spotted by israeli forces in advance and they struck backfiring at that

position and taking out before they were able to fire. this is a regular back and forth that we're seeing across the length of this northern border of israel with lebanon. the thing is, john, as you look at that map there, the fear in israel today and the reason you have so many thousands of idf forces including tanks like the ones behind me situated now across the northern border is that these iranian proxies outside of gaza where hamas is, hezbollah and lebanon proxies and syria to the northeast and the houthis in yemen which does not border israel, but it is within missile range and they will all make a decision to jump into this war in numbers. to date, they have been taking shots at israel. you had missile attempts more than once from the houthi rebels and highly capable precision missiles, and you have multiple shots per day coming from lebanon and you've had similar from syria. the worry is that that all happens at once.

in much greater volume to overwhelm not just the ground offenses, but also the missile defenses and john, with that in mind, a lot of attention in this country is focused on this friday when the leader of hezbollah, nasrallah is going to speak, he hasn't spoken in public for some time and the worry is that he might. we don't know this, he might announce a greater involvement of hezbollah in this war, and order his troops to attack. we don't know that yet, but there is a great deal of attention being paid to that day and that speech to see if that might signal an expansion for this war and that's been from the beginning. >> talk about the terms of threats on israel from iranian proxies, missiles from yemen, rockets from yemen, the houthis there, in syria, the iranians have proxies inside syria that have been firing missiles and lebanon and hamas, as well. you can see israel faced with possible rockets and missiles being shot from every direction

here and jim, as you note, i think the hottest position is certainly the israel-lebanon border in the north there where there's been fire back and forth. any ground activity, jim? >> yes. there have been attempted i infiltrations by a small group of hezbollah fighters. they were intercepted by israeli forces and not in great numbers yet. i think you can call those probing attacks, but serious ones, right? potentially deadly and by the way, they're lobbing bombs across the border all the time and that creates enough fear here to have triggered the deployment of 70,000 israeli forces to the northern border and that's a decent sized chunk and you and i talkeded about this yesterday, john. they've evacuated the communities here and they're like ghost towns and some under mandatory evacuations and some

under voluntary evacuations and homes are empty and schools are empty. they are taking steps already here in preparation for an attack that they hope doesn't come in number, but they're certainly preparing for it. and the mere fact of those tanks behind you, jim, shows you what israel is prepared for even as they hope eventuality doesn't come. great to see you. kate. also this just in, u.s. officials telling our colleagues m.j. lee and jenny hansler that they expect more than 5,000 foreign nationals could ultimately be released from gaza into egypt as part of the deal announced today with one senior official saying the total could be 7,000 people. though, of course, they stress it's hard to get a handle on the firm numbers here. now you see the scope of how big this deal to open up the rafah crossing could really be. we are joined now by joel ruben to talk about this, former

deputy secretary of state in the obama administration and also running as a democrat for congress. joel, thanks for coming in. let's talk about the rafah crossing. getting the rafah crossing open again has been a real priority of the u.s. state department from the beginning of this war, and now we are seeing some of this. what do you think this means for the war effort and where the focus of diplomatic efforts should be? >> look, kate, it's great to be with you, and you're right. this is a significant diplomatic victory and a long time coming several weeks now in negotiation with the united states with our american partners in qatar and egypt and obviously, negotiating with israel and hamas to get this done. it's super -- to use that term, it's crucial to have security for these individuals getting out. it's really important that all civilians who are able to leave leave, and i think what this

demonstrates is that american leadership diplomatically makes a difference and right now secretary blinken heading out to the region on friday. he's going to lean in further, and he's been telegraphing that quite publicly as well on the humanitarian side for the palestinians to make sure that humanitarian assistance gets in. now that we can prove that people can get out, it's time to make sure that goods do get in in a robust way to take care of palestinian lives as this war continues. >> yeah. we also have now new reports of a second blast at the refugee camp in northern gaza. this is one day after we know that the idf has said it has hit hamas terror targets in the same area. the idf says that that attack yesterday took out a hamas commander along with other hamas operatives hiding with him in underground tunnels and it is also believed that dozens of others at the refugee camp were

killed, as well. does this pose a problem diplomatically for the united states and for israel? >> you know, kate, it obviously does, without a doubt. the question of strikes where civilians are killed and harmed is increasing pressure on israel and on the united states regarding humanitarian pauses. calls for ceasefires are out there. i believe that israel does need the time and space to conduct its military operations effectively, but even from a practical level when civilians are harmed in the way that they were yesterday that undermines the ability of israel to maintain global support and american support, as well. this has not been a quiet discussion. secretary blinken and the president have publicly and consistently stated that israel needs to take care of civilian lives when it conducts its operations and it's right to go after the terrorists who

masterminded october 7th, but the fallout of these attacks undermines israel's ability to conduct and to continue to conduct these operations from a political level. so it needs to take good care and that's part of the message that we will continue to see, as well. one thing to add. look, qatar, egypt, they are able to work with and negotiate alongside israel and hamas in good faith because they have relations. what we don't want as americans is to have qatar and egypt and other arab governments to have relations with israel to not be able to continue to have those kind of discussions. so israel does need it take care of how it conducts its operations and minimize civilian casualties. >> another horrible -- we can call it fallout. let's call it fallout from the terrorist attack in israel. >> yeah. >> and the now war of israel taking on and trying to take out hamas has very sadly been a shocking and dangerous rise in

antisemitism and islamophobic hate. chris wray said antisemitism is reaching historic levels in the united states, joel. i want to play a little more for everyone what he said. >> the reality is that the jewish community is uniquely, uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum, and when you look at a group that makes up 2.4% roughly of the american population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes, and so they need our help. >> this is real, and it should not be ignored. what can be done, though, about this? i mean, are you seeing enough coming from the biden administration to try to tackle this?

>> kate ths, this is very perso for me as an american jew and i grew up in squirrel hill in pittsburgh where the tree of light synagogue was hit and spent time there as a kid. five years ago the worst terrorist attack against jews massacring 11 individuals who were just going there to pray. since that time it almost feels like that's sort of a naive moment in our experience in the united states. what we have seen now has shocked the senses beyond anything that any american jew expected, the largest massacre of jews in history of the world since the holocaust took place on october 7th and it's only facilitated more jewish hatred here in the united states and so to your question, yes, president

biden and his team, they've been ahead of the curve on this and putting out the antisemitism strategy and they've been very robustly engaged and i don't think anybody saw the level of vitriol coming. it requires leadership, and it requires people to speak out and heads of universities to not bury their heads in the sand and to defend jewish students publicly and call out those who are engaging in hate speech and engaging in aggressive actions toward jewish students just for being jewish. to call out lynch mobs for who they are. it requires local leaders and local government to stand up and define what is exactly occurring and to call on citizens to not do it. we are americans. we are all americans. i'm fifth generation american, and i'm proud of my grandfather and his brothers serving in world war ii and on and on. our history is tied tightly with the united states, and this is anti-american at its core, and so i'm grateful that we have a leader in the white house. i think it requires leadership

across the board at every institution as well as in our home and our education and the way that we speak, but without a doubt, this is a very frightening and very eye-opening and quite frankly, depressing moment for the american jewish community. >> you put it in a way that i haven't heard yet which is important in a terrifyingly sad statement about the world right now. the largest and the worst massacre of jews since the holocaust has seemed to only facilitate a further spike in antisemitism around the world and in the united states. that is a terrifying statement. joel rubin, thanks for coming on. john? >> all right. a big day for the trump family. donald trump's eldest son don junior may take the stand. what prosecutors are hoping to learn about the family business, and this morning new cnn polling out of the key primary state of

south carolina. who is making the biggest gains on donald trump?

today in new york donald trump, jr., may testify in the civil fraud trial against him, his father and the family business. he will be the first of trump's children to take the stand in the coming days. don junior is named along with his brother eric, as a defendant in the $250 million lawsuit.

they're accused of knowingly participating in the scheme to boost their father's net worth. cnn's brynn gingras is outside the courthouse now. brynn, what could we learn from don junior when he does take the stand? >> kate, we can learn about his involvement in the preparation of these financial statements. you said may, and when i saw you yesterday, kate, we were talking about how the schedule could shift just a little bit. a quick note on that. right now an expert witness is on the stand being questioned by the state's attorneys, if there will be cross-examination. so it's possible don junior's testimony doesn't happen today and it could get pushed to tomorrow, but when he takes the stand that's what he will be asked about, the heart of this case. how did he prepare or help prepare those staptements of financial condition? how was he involved in the company's assets and his father's net worth. we know that he's somewhat distanced himself because of a

deposition that he was under oath back in 2022 where he essentially said, listen, i have a business degree, but i would rely on my legal team and accountants to bring me the paperwork and i would sign it. he said, quote, i had no real involvement in the preparation of the statement of financial condition and don't really remember working on it with anyone. so we'll see how he sort of steers around sort of that whole issue when he does take the stand and then we do expect eric trump to take the stand after his brother possibly some time before the end of this week. more pointed questions likely for eric trump since he does a lot of the business for trump organization and has been mentioned many times throughout the course of this trial so far. kate? >> all right. brynn, thank you so much. john? with us now former federal prosecutor renato mariotti. good to see you. a great legal mind said this testimony is a minefield for the

trump children. the great legal mind is renato mariotti why is this a minefield for the trump children? >> they want to maintain their relationship with their father, but at the same time they have their own liability. these financial statements are like poison. they're, like, radioactive. of course, they want to say they want nothing to do with them and they weren't aware of what was going on and weren't paying attention, but at the same time they don't want to say there was something wrong with the business or that they, for example, were told by somebody else by donald trump to do this or just sign without reading these things carefully. so i think they're in a very, very challenging position which is why they took the fifth so many times when they were questioned previously. >> of course, when you take the fifth in a civil trial, how is that different from a criminal trial? >> well, it's a really good

question, john. in a criminal trial the jury is told that you cannot have that used against you. they should not consider it at all. in a civil trial the jury or in this case the judge can use that against you. in fact, essentially they are to assume or presume that the testimony would have been negative. so it would have worked against your interest, when, for example, eric trump was asked did you engage in a scheme to defraud and he takes the fifth, essentially the judge can presume that in fact he did. >> so donald trump who has been fined by this new york judge for comments that he has made outside the courtroom on social media. he posted again last night on truth social. i'm not going to read it verbatim here, but he attacked the attorney general. he attacked the judge. he attacked michael cohen who was a witness in this case and using all kinds of colorful language, and i don't mean to

make light of it there. so what do you think the judge -- how do you think the judge will react to this? >> i've got to tell you, john, it's a fantastic way to win the judge over. since he's the one deciding this since there's no jury, obviously, i'm being sarcastic. it's obviously a bad strategy given that the judge is deciding the fate of donald trump's businesses. so i think at the end of the day, regardless of the judge's reaction, it's going to be a problem for donald trump, but i imagine the judge will keep ratcheting up the fine. we saw 5,000, $10,000 fines and obviously that may be pocket change to donald trump. i think the judge will continue to ratchet up the punishment until trump understands that ultimately this is not going to be productive for him. ? trump obviously doesn't care. trump knows this could get him fined again. at what point does it have against him? he's been found liable in this

case, what more bad can happen to him and would this translate, do you think, to when he takes the stand as soon as next monday? >> there are degrees of losing, okay? and so i think that the whole reason we're having this trial is because there's a number of counts that have not been yet decided. there's been an extent of what the remedies would be, what the judge could impose, and i do think the judge is ultimately going to be the one trying to find out what will happen with the entities under trump's control. so there are some consequences there, but i do think the judge is being pretty cautious about imposing penalties for the specific conduct and there's speech involved and first amendment issues, and the judge is being careful and i think he'll ratchet up the fines and i don't think the fines will deter trump from doing that again. renato mariotti, thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> kate? a student at cornell university now under arrest after posting dangerous, violent threats targeting his jewish classmates. what he told the fbi ahead of his first court appearance. we'll have that for you next.

since the october 7th hamas attack on israel there has been

a dangerous rise in antisemitic incidents across the united states. the antidefamation league says acts of antisemitism have increased by over 388% since this time last year. an fbi director chris wray just yesterday warned that this is especially a problem on college campuses of recent. we'll show you a map highlighting z some of these attacks and some of these incidents and some of these threats have been reported at universities in the recent weeks. at cornell university, as we've been discussing, a student is about to have his first court appearance today, arrested and charged for threatening to kill jewish students and shoot up a mainly kosher dining hall. on the flip side, students in georgia are coming together to stand with their jewish classmates. cnn's ryan young is at emory university for more on this. ryan, what are you seeing? what are you hearing? what are they saying there? >> we are about an hour away from this happening, but when

you talk to police departments across the country, this is something that they are concerned with and the greater jewish community wants everyone to understand these security threats are real. we've been talking about things that happened at college campuses across the country and even here in the state of georgia there have been incidents and i have a rabbi here with me that will be leading. >> that's correct. we've had an echo of what's happening across the country here in the state of georgia and on all of our campuses across the state. we've had an assault. we've had humiliation, and we've had the biggest thing is fear because of what's happening and because of the protests that have created a very unhealthy environment on college campuses, our students are constantly on the lookout for things that are happening. >> before we jump to today, can you tell me how that student is doing after being assaulted? >> the student is okay, thank god, but he's shaken up as are many of his friends and the jewish students on that campus

in particular. the problem here is that just because something happened doesn't mean all of a sudden anything will go away. there's a fear on camp us that it can happen to anyone because this student had no markings that he was a jewish kid. there was no key pod, no star of david and no identifying markers and he'd been targeted and many students know each other on college campuses and that's the bigger problem that we have here. people that you never knew thought certain ways all of a sudden campuses have changed after october 7th. >> we've been talking about this march just a little bit and this is to get the word out and to show people that not only you are here and you're hoping the greater community put their arms around you and i've been talking to students who say they are fearful. do you think people can understand what's going on for college campuses? >> for sure. this is not a protest and it's not a rally that in 2023 in america for jewish students to

be fearful that they're walking on campus that something might happen to them just is outrageous and part of what we're asking for right now is an awareness that there is a legitimate fear after incidents that happened at emory, that happened at the university of georgia, that happened all across our state and the sidewalk is filled with antisemitic rhetoric and the problem is here and what we're looking to do is bring awareness. >> my last big question here. does this break your heart to see what's happening across these college campuses? >> yeah. universities are supposed to be that moment in a student's life that they have identity building and they find out who they are and they see the expanse of what the world is and what they can do and what their role is and now what they're finding is that that identity growth is also about protection, safety and security and ultimately what is the definition of humanity and how can we look at each other in the eyes and say i see you, i feel you, i understand you, you,

too, are made in the image of god. >> thank you so much. the rally starts today. the march starts today at about 12:30. i'll be marching along with them and you can understand that there is rell fear in the college campuses. >> what we are seeing in emory, coming together, standing up, speaking out and being together. thank you so much, ryan. i appreciate it. john? >> we have new polling in the republican race for president. has ron n desantis relinququish hihis title againsnst donald t ?

so polling from the palmetto state. >> oh, well played. >> right? it's a gift.

a literation gift. donald trump is way ahead. he's at 53%, but there is a clear person in second place now. you'll have to take my word for it. former south carolina governor nikki haley is now clearly in second at 22%. >> it is also the second round of good news for nikki haley after the iowa poll we talked about earlier this week showing she was gaining ground there, as well. cnn political director david chalian back with us to make some sense of it all. blip or trend, david chalian, for nikki haley? what do you see in these south carolina numbers? >> either way, as nikki haley herself said when she was in the primary in south carolina. there is still someone you need to catch up to and they don't hand out second place prices -- >> no second-place trophy? oh, darn it. okay. >> which is not to take away from nikki haley's success in moving her campaign along.

the debates have been really successful for her. she has been able to get into this battle with ron desantis now as sort of the one person that can now move forward and take on donald trump and who will emerge from that, but guys, you noted it right at the top, the story of the poll is the story we're seeing in every poll nationally, in every early state that donald trump is in a dominating, commanding position right now in this republican primary. >> look, if you add up everyone else in this poll besides donald trump, trump is still beating the field. trump is leading the field. everyone. and, but, david, you know who thinks nikki haley is in a different position than she was rate now? ron desantis. his campaign and super pac keeps on now taking new swings at nikki haley. what's the feeling inside desantis world? >> yeah. they are slow to admit it, although follow their actions and the money and the super pac

and you can see that they are concerned about hailey occupying space here that they thought they had to themselves, but they always say, oh, they're in a one-on-one race with donald trump. that is clearly not true right now, and i think you're going to see that dynamic play out on the debate stage in miami because donald trump won't be there and so all of the attention on the debate will be focused on the desantis-haley competition that has e merged. >> the first major candidate has dropped out, mike pence and has always remained in the single digits and never was a real threat to donald trump in the primary, but still, i asked his longtime advisor mark short and he joined us with what the lesson is here and what the lesson is that he take away from the short-lived pence campaign. let me play this for you. >> the reality is that donald trump remains the front-runner for our party and other

candidates will have to make decisions about timing for them, but i think some of the conventional wisdom that is out there would suggest hey, we need to narrow down to one-on-one, and i don't think that that applies here. i think the reality is as candidates drop out it will build more inevitability of donald trump as a nominee, and so i do think it is a different dynamic. >> i thought that was interesting. >> i totally agree with you. it's not something you hear very often and there's some evidence to back up what mark is saying there. if you look at the iowa poll that came out, you see a lot of desantis, for example, second choice. if you choose desantis as your first and who is your second choice? a lot could potentially -- you can't imagine, but if desantis were to get out of the race you can imagine donald trump improving his standing by that development and less so with

haley supporters and less so with someone like chris christie supporters. we see a field where in our south carolina republican party, more than six in ten republicans say they're locked into their first choice and a little more than a third say they're open to having their minds changed, and remember, even those open to having their minds changed, some may change to donald trump and that gets to mark's point about the potential inevitability. >> david chalian, great to see you, my friend. >> thanks, guys. this just coming in, senate minority leader chuck schumer says he will not let tommy tuberville hold up crucial military promotions any longer, and if you've been following, it's been going on for months. we have new reporting about what s schumer is planning to do about it.

news just in from capitol hill. chuck schumer has a new plan to get hundreds of military promotions confirmed. t tommy tuberville has single handedly stood in the way, but schumer says he will go around him. selma is with us with the details. what's schumer going to do? >> reporter: this is potentially a very big break in this st stalemate for months that have is left military personnel, three four star generals in limbo. this is his effort to circumvent what tuberville has been doing holding up 300 military p

promotions. schumer going to the floor moments ago just this morning announcing that he's changing course. he now will potentially allow a resolution to hit the senate floor that would allow the 300 military promotions to pass in plok rather than having to do it one by one. here's what schumer said opt floor this morning. >> we absolutely must ensure that our military is fully staffed and fully equipped to defend the american people. it begins by confirming these vital norminations that are kurnltly hold. >> reporter: this has been a the battle for months. notably, this is a very typically very routine thing that happens in the senate. the nominations get approved in mass and pushed forward, but this is is something that has been at a log jam for months because of the hold. notably, the hold on the nominations is about something unrelated. it's about abortion policy at

the pentagon, a new policy that went into effect earlier this year in february that is in essence expands access to service members and their family choosing to get an abortion. so this is something unrelated and potentially this move by shooumer today pushing forward these nominations. >> we will watch and see how it does in the senate floor. thank you so much for that report ing. >> thank you for joining us. this is "cnn news central." "inside politics" is up next.