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ground, "60 minutes" surveyed the catastrophic wildfires around los angeles. tonight, we will introduce you to some of the heroes who continued to fight them. >> it's a total nightmare. >> and people who just barely escaped with their lives. >> oh, my god. my house. [ crying ] [ stopwatch ticking ] the fbi director is being forced out by president-elect trump. christopher wray spoke with us about imminent security threats most americans don't know about and the investigations that made trump and biden livid. >> investigations have to be driven by the facts and the law, not by the outcome somebody wants it to have. you know, truth is truth, not necessarily what you decide wants it to be.

[ stopwatch ticking ] >> all of which is in the state department -- >> tonight, meet the veteran state department officials who quit their jobs over the u.s. support over israel's war in gaza. >> you believe this has put a target on america's back, you said. >> 100%. >> those are strong words. >> yes. i don't say them lightly. [ stopwatch ticking ] >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm cecilia vega. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and more tonight on "60 minutes." [ stopwatch ticking ] [restaurant noise] allison. [swooshing sound] introducing allison's plaque psoriasis. ♪♪ she thinks her flaky, gray patches are all people see. ♪♪ otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. over here! otezla can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking.

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tonight, bill whittaker is covering the historic l.a. wildfires from the air and from the ground starting in altadena, california. >> reporter: the eaton fire burst out of the san gabriel mountains above altadena tuesday night. it has since dwevoured more tha 1,000 fires and homes. the death toll is rising. wildfires are a fact of life here, but nothing prepared people for destruction on this scale. rows of chimneys now stand like tombstones, towering palm trees like burned match sticks. we found fire crews still working to contain the inferno ad a dazed calvin family sifting through the ruins of their homes and their lives.

>> this is unreal. oh, my god. [ crying ] my house. >> zaire calvin and his family have called altadena home for three generations. >> just wonder if anything is left. the rocking chair for the baby. i literally just built all of this. >> reporter: calvin, a high school football coach, has lived on this block his whole life. he has seen a number of wildfires flare up in the foothills, but never in his 47 years had he seen anything like the firestorm that swept off the mountain this past tuesday. >> and out of nowhere, you see the fire up here cross lake street, and you could see it going up the mountain on our side. within an hour. for it to move that quickly and that rapidly and for it to shift

past that fast was insane. >> altadena gone, bro. it's over. >> reporter: his son, jamire, told us the winds kicked up and power went down across the neighborhood. >> it was like a hurricane, just fire, no water, 80 miles an hour plus. it felt surreal. >> was fire, like, racing down the hill at that point? >> yeah, man. >> that's what's scary about this. it was just shooting -- >> like a blow torch? >> like a blow torch. it was literally shooting off the mountain. >> it felt like you were being attacked by a storm. >> yeah. >> reporter: as the fire bore down on them, zaire put his wife, baby, and mother into the car. jamire grabbed what he could. >> i'm lucky to have the little bag of clothes i have left. as far as trophies, memories, diplomas, everything else just went up in flames. >> my mom just said it to me. she's like, everything's gone. you mean the books that we have,

nothing. i'm like, mom, it's all gone. all of it. every memory, all those things are gone. we have whatever's left in our heads to rebuild with. all of it it's gone. >> reporter: this fire in altadena was just one of eight destructive wildfires that lay siege to los angeles this past week. with almost no rain for eight months, hillsides and backyards were bone dry, primed to burn. investigators are still trying to determine how the fire started. but lit by ferocious santa ana winds, those blazes roared down city streets and spread like a deadly virus. no place seemed immune. neighborhoods not engulfed in flames were blanketed by smoke and ash. wealth and status offered no protection. affluent pacific palisades was

first to fall. thousands of structures were destroyed. thousands of people were forced to flee. >> the conditions that night were unbearable. there was a devil wind that came out. you know, that extreme santa ana wind condition. >> reporter: anthony marrone is chief of the l.a. county fire department, one of the officials overseeing the fire fight. he told us the devil winds hurled embers far ahead of the fire, like snowfall from hell. >> embers like this are transported in the smoke column. >> so, this is being blown by the winds -- >> thousands and thousands of burning embers this size and bigger being transported by that wind and that smoke column. >> reporter: chief marrone says fires normally run uphill. >> but with these winds, it was pushed downhill into these

neighborhoods. >> and some of these embers, blocks if not miles of it. >> right. and the embers were being generated not only by the brush on the hillsides, but by the homes that are burning. >> reporter: when the life-threatening winds started building, marrone told us he called up extra crews and engines. but the fires grew too big too fast. demand for water overburdened the system. water pressure dropped, and fire hoses ran dry, while the fires raged. >> people were complaining that there wasn't enough water or wasn't enough water pressure. was that a factor? >> so, the water system was stretched. metropolitan water systems are not designed to sustain a fire fight like this. your viewers can't expect a municipal water system to supply enough fire fighting water to extinguish every one of these houses. that's unrealistic. >> did you have enough resources? did you have enough

firefighters? did you have enough fire engines? >> no. and there's -- there's not enough fire engines for this. >> ordinarily, for one house like this, you might have three or four -- >> three or four fire engines. we think we've lost 8,000 structures. so, times three fire engines each, that requires 26,000 fire engines. i don't think the state of california has 26,000 fire engines. that could be at one place right now. >> your firefighters, your resources, everything, overwhelmed. >> absolutely overwhelmed. >> mother nature owned us, owned us, those two days. >> reporter: neighboring orange county fire chief brian fennessy has been fighting wildfires for almost five decades. he dispatched hundreds of firefighters to help chief marrone and beleaguered crews across l.a. one of the most powerful tools

in their arsenal, this fleet of choppers that can fight fires 24/7, dropping up to 3,000 gallons of water each pass. but with santa ana winds gusting near 100 miles per hour, the choppers were grounded during crucial early hours. >> the fires that they experienced this week were unstoppable. >> unstoppable. >> unstoppable. >> what's it like for you, a firefighter, to have to say words like that? >> makes me feel bad, right? i mean, that's not in our nature. i mean, we're -- we're fixers. that is the mindset. we're going to put our lives on the line. we're going to give a lot to save a lot. so, when you have a fire like, say, that's unstoppable, man that is -- it's uncomfortable. it's very uncomfortable. >> reporter: after an uncomfortable 27-hour delay, the choppers were able to get back

into the fight when the winds died down. >> thank you. >> reporter: thursday, chief fennessy let us join a reconnaissance flight so we could see the destruction from above. > reporter: we flew over the fire zones. >> we have active fire line all the way up toward the communication towers. >> reporter: and saw an ashen checkerboard of devastation stretched below us at pacific pali palisades. when we flew over altadena, where chief fennessy grew up, he found it hard to get his bearings. it really wiped it out. holy crud. >> the rose bowl is just down -- you can see the rose bowl from here. >> i had no idea it went this far. >> you can see grocery buildings. >> everything gone. >> reporter: chief fennessy couldn't reach his brother. although it was out of his jurisdiction, he drove up from

orange county. >> here's tommy's house. total nightmare. >> when he learned his brother was safe, he went to check on his long-time friend, tony goss, and this is what he found. >> i'm so sorry, tony. >> oh, my god, brother. >> this place was glowing. it was completely hot. there was a gas main over here that was venting. it was like a jet engine. it was pretty loud. tony was still in his pajamas. he looks like a firefighter. his face is black from all the soot. and he's walking around -- i don't know if you remember this. you walk around, kind of, talking to yourself. >> reporter: goss had tried to save his home, armed with just a garden hose. but the fire was too fierce. when we met him, he was still in disbelief that he'd been forced to walk away from his family home of more than 60 years. but this was gone. >> i knew it was time to leave. so, i pulled up, all my

neighbors are there. i said, oh, it's time. i said, i don't need to die today. >> reporter: chief fennessy then went down to the road to his brother's house. the block was in flames. he discovered the gas meter at the house next door was surrounded by fire and about to ignite. and, he said, there was no water. >> so, i needed to cool this down. >> reporter: so, fennessy got creative. >> i ended up forcing entry through the front door and went through the house into the kitchen looking for bottled water, anything that i could use. so, i ended up finding a carton of milk and a couple of beers or sodas, whatever the heck they were, and came out here and really literally had to go in there under the heat, wet it, and then get out because it was just -- this house was just burning. and i had to do that i a few tis until it was done. >> bet you've never saved a house with milk before. >> no. >> to do nothing, a home is

going to be lost. in this case, yeah, a little bit of milk and a couple of beers really saved the day. >> reporter: the houses he fought to save are the only two left standing on the block. the devil winds are forecast to intensify again tomorrow through wednesday. evacuation orders have been expanded. the city remains on edge. >> these fires are going to be an impact, you know, to the community, families, people for many, many years to come. this is one of those fires, if not the fire, that they're going to be telling their grandchildren about. >> this is just -- it's just rubble. what is this? >> reporter: in the chaos of evacuating his baby and elderly mother to safety, zaire calvin got separated from his sister, evelyn. she lived next door. >> everybody's yelling, get out. i'm thinking that she's getting

out, and the next day after the storm, i come back and her car is still there. so, at that point, in my brain, my soul is shaking. >> reporter: he and his cousin found evelyn's remains in the rubble. >> evelyn, why didn't you leave? >> reporter: zaire's grief is shared. five calvin family members lived on this block. four lost their houses. but they're trying to hold on to the hope that they can rebuild their beloved community. >> everyone's in the same boat. everybody you would depend on, everybody you would go to, they're all homeless also. they just lost everything. they've lost all their memories, all the joy, everything that we've built together in this neighborhood. we all lost together. and i hate it. i hate it because i love

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the fbi director christopher wray is stepping down nearly three years early because president-elect trump is replacing him. any change is consequential because the fbi is a top agency in crime fighting, counterterrorism, and counter-espionage. americans rely on the director to save lives, jail criminals, and not abuse his tremendous power. christopher wray's term was among the most politically fraught in the bureau's 116 years, with investigations targeting donald trump and joe biden. in his only interview since

announcing his resignation, we asked wray about the political investigations. but first, given the recent attacks in las vegas and new orleans, we started with perhaps a more urgent question. >> what is the greatest threat facing the incoming trump administration? >> well, the greatest long-term threat facing our country, in my view, is represented by the people's republic of china and the chinese government, which i consider to be the defining threat of our generation. >> what has the fbi found about chinese penetration of u.s. cyber and infrastructure? >> china's cyber program is by far and away the world's largest, bigger than that of every major nation combined, and has stolen more of americans' personal and corporate data than any nation, big or small combined. even beyond the cyber threat, i

think there's another side that hasn't gotten the attention i think it desperately deserves. that is chinese government's prepositioning on american civilian critical infrastructure to lie in wait on those networks, to be in a position to wreak havoc and can inflict real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing. >> the chinese have already insi insinuated malware into critical american infrastructure. >> that's correct. >> like what? >> things like water treatment plants. we're talking about transportation systems. we're talking about targeting of our energy sector, the electric grid, natural gas pipelines. and recently, we've seen targeting of our telecommunications system. >> reporter: telecommunications, including intercepts at high levels. >> they have been listening to the telephone calls of people in the united states government? >> some people, we believe that they have collected their

content, the actual communications, of those people. . >> reporter:way wouldn't say it, but we have confirmed china gathered communications of u.s. national security officials, the kamala harris campaign, and donald trump himself. it's part of a world of trouble, including the chaos in the middle east spawning new threats of terror. >> there was a guy in pakistan just a few months ago who we worked with our canadian partners to arrest. this guy was trying to get into the u.s. to get to new york to conduct a mass shooting at a jewish center in brooklyn. and in his words -- not my words, his words -- he wanted to conduct the largest attack in the u.s. since 9/11. so, what i would say to the american people is that when you think these things are happening half a world away, it's like that little inscription on your mirror in your car, objects in the mirror are closer than they

appear. >> what is the latest on the terrorist in new orleans? >> it's pretty clear so far that this is a guy who was radicalized online and who was determined to try to murder as many innocent people as he could in the name of i.s.i.s. >> was he in touch with i.s.i.s. directly or just inspired from afar? >> the investigation is very much ongoing. but what i can say right now is he appears to have been inspired from afar by i.s.i.s. and it is, in many ways, the most challenging type of terrorist threat we face. you're talking about guys like this who radicalize not in years but in weeks and whose method of attack is still very deadly but fairly crude. and if you think about that old saying about connect the dots,

there's not a lot of dots to connect. >> if it's such a dangerous time, why resign? >> well, my decision to retire from the fbi, i have to tell you, was one of the hardest decisions i've ever had to make. i care deeply, deeply, about the fbi, about our mission, and in particular about our people. but, you know, the president-elect had made clear that he intended to make a change. and the law is that that is something he's able to do for any reason or no reason at all. my conclusion was that the thing that was best for the bureau was to try to do this in an orderly way, to not thrust the fbi deeper into the fray. >> reporter: the fray is all 58-year-old christopher wray has known since he was appointed by president trump. it was 2017. trump fired fbi director james

comey, as the fbi investigated whether trump campaign associates schemed with russia to sway the 2016 election. wray had deep experience, yale law, a justice department official on 9/11, and years in private practice. but trump soured on wray after the fbi investigated the alleged plot to overthrow the 2020 election. >> our job, as investigators at the fbi, is to follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it. and i add that last part because one of the things that i've seen over my 7 1/2 years as fbi director is that people often claim to be very interested in independence and objectivity until independence and objectivity lead to an outcome they don't like. you know, truth is truth, not necessarily what either side

wants it to be. and ultimately all we can do at the fbi is make sure we stay focused on doing the work in the right way, following our rules, and not letting preferences, partisan or otherwise, drive or taint the approach. >> and were those the rules followed in starting the investigations against the president-elect? >> we tried very hard to make sure that we stayed faithful to those principles and those rules in every investigation that i can think of that's been occurred on my watch. >> >> reporter: trump is also livid about the fbi search in 2022 for classified files at his home. a trump lawyer certified that all classified papers had been returned to the government, but the fbi said later it found 72 documents marked top secret or secret, at least one about u.s. military strength. >> i want to be careful not to discuss too many of the specifics of an investigation.

but what i can tell you is that part of the fbi's job is to safeguard classified information. and when we learn that information, classified material, is not being properly stored, we have a duty to act. and i can tell you that in investigations like this one, a search warrant is not and here was not anybody's first choice. we always try to pursue the least intrusive means. first trying to get the information back voluntarily, then with a subpoena. and only if, after all of that we learn that the agents haven't been given all the classified material and in fact those efforts have been frustrated, even obstructed, then our agents are left with no choice but to go to a federal judge, make a probable cause showing, and get a search warrant. and that's -- that's what happened here.

>> what influence did the biden white house have on any of these trump investigations? >> i haven't had any interaction with the biden white house about investigations in the former president. >> anybody at the fbi? >> not to my knowledge. >> reporter: wray's fbi also investigated president biden for keeping classified documents and separately investigated biden's son, hunter, who was convicted on gun and tax charges. biden pardoned his son last month, calling the investigation, raw politics. >> but you're being criticized by a democrat president and a republican president. what does that tell you? >> this is a hard job. you're inevitably going to make different people very angry, often very powerful people. but part of the essence of the rule of law is to make sure that facts and the law and proper predication drive investigations, not who's in

power, not who wants it to be so or not so. >> reporter: christopher wray oversaw the largest case in fbi history, the attack on the capitol in 2021. president-elect trump has vowed to pardon many of the 1,500 people who were charged. >> i do think it's important to step back and remember that we're talking about hundreds of people who are convicted -- most of them pled guilty -- of serious federal crimes. heck, i think 170 or so of them pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement, dozens of them with dangerous or deadly weapons. and there's a whole bunch that were convicted of seditious conspiracy. we had a case in tennessee just a couple months ago where a jury convicted a january 6 defendant who had actually doubled down on his crimes by putting together a kill list to murder fbi agents. now, where i come from, violence

against law enforcement, threats against law enforcement, is serious business and totally unacceptable. >> reporter: trump is nominating for fbi director kash patel, who must still be confirmed by the senate. patel served in national security roles in trump's first administration. this is patel outside the 2024 republican national convention. >> and donald trump is a warrior titan. he demolishes the deep state, the fake news, that is something a warrior titan can do. >> reporter: in 2022, patel wrote a children's book in which an all-seeing wizard named kash protected king donald. in 2023, patel wrote an adult book naming officials he considers corrupt. >> he calls you a government gangster.

are you concerned that they would turn the fbi on you? >> you know, i'm not going to weigh in on specific people or their rhetoric. from where i sit, facts and the law driving investigations, not politics or partisan preferences. >> reporter: the president-elect weighed in too, writing that wray's resignation was a great day for america. trump wrote, the fbi illegally raided by home without cause. and said that wray had done everything to interfere with the success and future of america. >> he's saying that christopher wray is corrupt, out to sabotage the country. >> listen, i'm accustomed to people expressing all sorts of opinions about me just like about everything else. i can tell you that i have been my whole life, my whole adult life, a conservative republican.

more importantly, a strict by the book law enforcement professional. >> i did take very seriously attacks against our people and the fbi. and i will tell you that the fbi that i see every single day is 38,000 career law enforcement professionals. not one of them is a political appointee, not one of them. and they tackle the job with a level of rigor and tenacity and professionalism and objectivity that i think is unparalleled. and i will tell you it's been the honor of a lifetime to serve with them. [ stopwatch ticking ] >> hear from more outgoing fbi director christopher wray. go to 60minutesovertime.com, sponsored by -- odt. ..light l. with nurtec odt, i found relief.

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[ stopwatch ticking ] as the biden administration prepares to leave the white house, it is making a final push to secure a ceasefire in the war between israel and hamas that began on october 27, 2023, when hamas-led militants stormed israel taking 251 hostages. 95 of them remain in captivity. it is unknown how many are still ali alive. in a study published late this last week, the medical journal, "the lancet," said the death toll has likely passed 70,000 people. the war has been fueled by american weapons and billions of

taxpayer dollars. tonight you will see graphic images from inside gaza. you will also hear f department officials who quit their jobs and their concerns about how far washington is willing to go to support an ally who they say has conducted a war that runs counter to american values and threatens national security. >> reporter: this is the scene filmed in may by cbs news in gaza. children on top of rubble playing with ammunition casings, the same casings used to prop up these tent cities. a close look reveals where they come from. printed on the side, usa, dod, for department of defense. across this now decimated 25-mile-long strip of land, america's stamp is everywhere. >> what is happening in gaza would not be able to happen without u.s. arms. that's without a doubt. >> reporter: hala rharrit was an

american diplomat who spent nearly two decades posted in asia, africa, and the middle east, where she worked on human rights and counterterrorism. she was stationed in dubai on october 7th, where part of her job was to monito arab press and social media to document how america's role in the war was perceived in the middle east. we've obtained daily reports rharrit sent to senior leadership in washington containing gruesome images and her warnings. >> i would show the complicity that was indisputable, fragments of u.s. bombs next to massacres of mostly children. and that's the devastation. it's been overwhelmingly children. >> when you try to speak out, vocalize what you saw happening in gaza, you feel like you were told to shut up. >> yes. i would show images of children that were starved to death. in one incident i was basically berated. don't put that image in there. we don't want to see it. we don't want to see that the children are starving to death.

>> who told you that? >> a colleague. >> a superior? >> yeah. i was told the contrary by others. keep them in. we need to see it. >> reporter: three months into the war, rharrit says she was told her reports were no longer needed. she resigned last april. after october 7th, president biden became the first u.s. leader to visit israel during wartime, reiterating america's unwavering support. >> i come to israel with a single message, you're not alone. >> reporter: the u.s. has sent $18 billion in american military assistance to israel since the war began, largely in the form of taxpayer-funded weapons. >> most of the bombs come from america. most of the technology comes from america. and all of the fighter jets, all of israel's fleet, comes from america. >> reporter: josh paul spent 11 years as a director in the state department's bureau of political

military affairs, one of the officials in charge of signing off on major weapons deals to u.s. allies. >> there is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in gaza and the u.s. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an american-made plane. >> these israeli air strikes you could say are made in america. >> they are. >> reporter: ten days after the october 7th attacks, paul became the first person in the biden administration to publicly resign in protest. >> after october 7th, there was no space for debate or discussion. i was part of email chains where there were very clear directions saying, here are the latest requests from israel. these need to be approved by 3:00 p.m. >> expedited? >> correct. >> how high up did this go? >> this came from the president, the secretary, and those around them. >> there are people who would argue this isn't a time for debate, particularly in those immediate days in the aftermath

of october 7th. >> i would argue exactly the opposite. i think the moment of october 7th was a moment of incredible worldwide solidarity with israel. and had israel leveraged that moment to press for a real just and lasting peace, i think we would be in a very different place now in which israel would not be facing this increasing isolation around the world and in which its hostages would be free. >> reporter: among the weapons israel requested from the united states, 2,000-pound bombs, one of the most powerful in the u.s. arsenal, typically used to destroy large targets like weapons depots. nearly three weeks after the october 7th attacks, the israel military posted a video on social media of an air strike in gaza city, saying it targeted a hamas tunnel. more than 100 people were also killed, including 81 women and children, according to air wars, a british non-profit that monitors civilian harm in

conflict. this is what the neighborhood looked like before the strike, and this is the aftermath. several sources we spoke to say israel likely used multiple 2,000-pound american bombs. two months later, president biden warned that israel was losing support for what he called indiscriminate bombing. last may he halted a shipment of the 2,000-pound bombs. >> the israelis were using those bombs in some instancs to target one or two individuals in densely-packed areas. and instances we saw that was in question how israel was using it, and those weapons were suspended. >> reporter: andrew miller was the deputy assistant secretary of state for israeli affairs. he resigned last june, not in protest, but to spend time with his family.

he is the highest ranking biden administration official to go public with his concerns about the war. >> did the u.s. ever say to israel, we support you, but these are our red lines? >> there were conversations from the earliest days about u.s. desires and expectations for what israel would do. but they weren't defined as a red line. >> the united states has supplied billions of dollars in weapons to israel. you're saying the government did that without setting any red lines as to how those weapons would be used? >> i'm unaware of any red lines being opposed beyond the normal language about complying with international law, international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict. >> what's the message the u.s. has sent to the netanyahu government? >> i believe the message that prime minister netanyahu receive second degree that he was the one in the driver's seat, and he was controlling this.

and u.s. support was going to be there, and he could take it for granted. >> the push is, if the u.s. stops supplying these weapons to its ally, that our own adversaries would not only go after that ally, it would make the region significantly less safe. >> there is a danger that if the u.s. was not providing support to israel, hezbollah, hamas, iran, would see that as an opportunity to go after israel. however, we could have said, we are taking this step because we believe this class of weapons is being used inappropriately. but if you use this moment to accelerate your attacks against israel, then we are going to immediately lift our prohibition. >> reporter: in may, the state department issued a report saying it is reasonable to assess that israel may have used american weapons in violation of international law. but it also said it could not definitively connect american weapons to specific cases. andrew miller said the

investigation relied heavily on israel for answers. >> it is difficult to acquire that information in an active combat zone. but i would also say we didn't exactly work very hard to try to acquire the information. >> does israel get the benefit of the doubt from the united states when other allies might not? >> yes. i think so it's fair to say israel does get the benefit of the doubt. there is a deference to israeli accounts of what's taking place. >> reporter: u.s. law prohibits military assistance from being sent to countries that restrict american aid like food and medicine. experts who track aid, including from multiple international organizations and the state department itself, have found that israel has continually blocked aid to the people of gaza. we asked brett mcgurk, white house coordinator for the middle east and one of president biden's closest advisers, for an

interview. he declined our request. a senior white house official told us government lawyers -- weapons have continued to flow. the official said hamas could end the war by returning the hostages. the belief here in the white house is that cutting off weapons would lead to an even longer, deadlier conflict, and that it is america's military support and diplomacy that has prevented a wider war in the middle east. >> this could not have come -- >> reporter: but the director of the fbi told congress the war in gaza has raised the threat of a terror attack at home. >> we've seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole nother level after october 7th. >> reporter: the acting director of the national counterterrorism center, brett holmgren, told "60 minutes" that anti-american sentiment driven by the war in gaza is at a level not seen since the iraq war, and that groups like al quaeda and i.s.i.s. are recruiting on that

sentiment, issuing the most specific calls for attacks on america in years. >> the level of anger throughout the arab world -- and i will say beyond the arab world -- is palpable. protests began erupting in the arab world, which i was also documenting, with people burning american flags. this is very significant because we worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the arab world. >> you believe that this has put a target on america's back, you've said. >> 100%. >> those are strong words. >> yes. i don't say them lightly. and i say it as someone that myself has survived two terrorist attacks. my first assignment was in the u.s. embassy in yemen. i survived a mortar attack. i say it as someone who has worked intensely on these issues and who has intensely monitored the region for two decades. >> reporter: multiple diplomats we spoke with say the u.s. policy on gaza has led to

wide widespread dissent at the state depart department. a rarely used method of cables, has received a record number of submissions over gaza. 13 officials, including from the state department, white house, and army, have public resigned in protest. >> what was the final straw that led you to resign? >> i'll point out one moment that broke me. i used to put a lot of images of the children after they were killed. but this one -- sorry. >> it still haunts you. >> yeah. one channel one day did a report on a little girl that had been killed in an air strike. but they put a picture of the little girl when she was alive. she had a princess dress and she was in the picture waving her wand with a huge, beautiful

smile. i mean, i saw my child in that child. >> her name was suna alfara. she is one of thousands children killed so far in gaza. >> how does this end? >> when israel says it's over. absent intervention from the united states or somewhere else to force a decision, it ends when netanyahu says it's over. [ stopwatch ticking ] ♪ cbs sports hq is presented by progressive insurance. i'm james brown with the scores of the afc. a hungry houston heads to that is rightland to hunt the chiefs t. ravens run rough shot to ruthlessly rip their rivals with no remorse. and the bills beat the brakes off the broncos to bring about a blockbuster battle with baltimore. go to cbssportshq.com. the thompsons' new front door looks sharp, right?

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minutes." >> in the shadow of hollywood, a disaster is unfolding that would rival anything you've seen on the big screen. deadly wildfires destroying thousands of homes in los angeles county. if you've ever imagined the end of the world, it probably looked like this. and for many, it is the end of the world, as they've known it. everything they worked for, everything they owned reduced to ashes. but in this tragedy, we have also seen images that give us hope and pride and gratitude, neighbors helping neighbors, heroes willing to walk through fire for strangers. the worst of nature bringing out the best of humankind. i'm scott pelley for "60 minutes." good night.

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