wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. ♪ john: tonight on "pbs news weekend"... israel declares war on hamas as it pummels gaza in retaliation, and the death toll mounts on both sides. sec. blinken: everything that hamas does makes their situation, their plight even worse. they bring nothing but death and destruction, not only to israelis, but to palestinians. john: and we get two perspectives on this weekend's violence and what it means for the middle east. then... the global fentanyl trade and

the recent u.s. crackdown on chinese companies producing and trafficking the illicit drug. ♪ >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular. this is sam, how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. well, somebody's pocket. i thought i would tell you you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions -- and friendof the "newshour." ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. john: good evening. i'm john yang. tonight, israel is a nation at war. prime minister benjamin netanyahu has vowed to destroy the ability of hamas and islamic jihad to govern and carry out militant attacks, an effort he warns will be long and difficult. the death toll continues to climb. at this hour, there are more than 700 israelis dead. on the palestinian side, more than 400 are reported dead. and each side reports more than 2000 wounded. late today, defense secretary lloyd austin ordered the aircraft carrier uss gerald ford to the eastern mediterranean as a show of force in support of israel.

[explosion] the skyline of gaza shrouded in smoke as israeli strikes pummel residential regions. they targeted tunnels long suspected to be smuggling weapons. >> if you look behind me, this is the islamic investment bank. the israeli claim this bank belongs to hamas. the israeli air force attacked this bank 10 minutes ago. this is a famous street in gaza, full of banks, journalists. you can see it is empty, everything is closed. john: just across the border in

southern israel, nettles continue between israeli forces and hamas gunmen. reservist called back to duty, some volunteering to join the fight. the military says it is amassing tens of thousands of troops in southern israel. >> what happened yesterday hasn't happened for a long time. we need to know how to deal with it and how to act correctly. we are on their way to the south, we will see what will happen. i don't know yet what we will do there. >> we are doing what is needed. we will win, slowly, slowly. it will be ok. john: on israel's northern border, and exchange of rockets and artillery between the irani and back haslem militia and iranian forces stoped fears of a larger regional conflict. there was word today that american citizens may have been killed or captured in the attack. sec. blinken: we have reports

that several americans are among the dead. we are working actively to verify the reports. there also reports of americans being taken hostage and we are working to get the facts and find out if those reports are accurate. john: around the world, gestures of support for both sides. in tehran, in istanbul, and elsewhere, shows of support for palestinians. far greater were gestures of some of the insularity for israel. in berlin, supporters gathered at the brandenburg gate. in new york city, the empire state building bathed in israeli blue and white. tragedy, as well, in afghanistan. the death toll from yesterday's earthquakes in the country's west climbed to nearly 2,500 people. at least five strong tremors and aftershocks leveled about six villages, burying hundreds of people under rubble. some villagers used their bare hands to look for survivors and dig out the dead.

one man spoke of his loss. >> this earthquake has affected us a lot. i personally lost two of my family members in this incident, one was my sister and other was my son. john: this is the deadliest seismic event in afghanistan in two decades, surpassing last year's quake that claed more than 1000 lives. and, some brighter news -- gymnast simone biles has once again made gymnastics history. on the final day of competition at the world gymnastics championships today, biles won two gold medals, for floor exercise and balance beam. she now holds a record 37 medals in world championship and olympic competition. two days ago, she won a record sixth all-around title. still to come on "pbs news weekend"... two perspectives on the war in israel... and the u.s. crackdown on the global fentanyl trade and china's role in it. >> this is "pbs news weekend" from weta studios in washington, home of "the pbs newshour," weeknights on pbs.

john: it's impossible to understate the devastating effect yesterday's attack had on israel, israeli citizens and their leaders. michael herzog is the israeli ambassador to the united states. mr. ambassador, thanks for joining us and first let me begin by offering our condolences on the loss of life in israel yesterday. and i wonder also, if you could put it into perspective a little bit because i've found that when things happen in israel, it's such a relatively small country. everyone knows someone or knows someone who knows someone who's affected by this. amb. herzog: thank you very much for your condolences. and yes, this is serious blow to the state of israel. hamas waged war in israel yesterday, an unprovoked attack on civilians. they fired thousands of rockets at israeli populated centers and

then they breached the border fence and sent in hundreds of armed terrorists, infiltrated almost all the border towns and basically murdered hundreds of people. right now, the official count is at least 700, but the number , we are still counting, and numbers will probably go up. there was a beach party not far away from the border in gaza. we just counted 260 bodies. this is unimaginable. this is, as soone said, our 9/11. this is war, and we have to consider it as a war. john: the question and much like the question that was asked in america after 9/11 is how could this happen? how could israeli intelligence have missed the planning for this, underestimate the capabilities of hamas to do this, and also how were so many militants able to breach that barrier? amb. herzog: well, obviously there was a serious element of

surprise. but i believe the time will come where we will deeply investigate that. right now we are at war and we have to fight this war and win that war. the way they entered authority -- entered our territory was breaching the border fence with explosive charges, using powerglades and also through the sea. we encountered and killed the huge number of terrorists inside our territory. and yes, the time will come to look into what exactly happened. but right now we are at war. john: the time will come. but how can israelis trust the government after such a failure? a failure in intelligence and preparation. amb. herzog: it's not a matter about trusting or not trusting the government. it's a professional question of how come people were surprised by this assault. probably some misconceptions.

but again, the time will come to discuss this. right now we have to fight the war. john: and as i understand there is still some fighting in some cities in southern israel right now. hamas says that they're able to send in fresh fighters and bring out tired ones. this raises the question -- does israel really have control of southern israel right now? amb. herzog: we are nearly in complete control. we eliminated most of their cells inside our territory. there are still one or two flash points. but i expect that sooner, perhaps by the end of the day, we will control all of our territory, and nobody will be able to penetrate. the idf is right now sealing the border once again. john: and the prime minister and other military leaders in the idf have promised vengeance on gaza for this. the last time there was a major

ground operation in gaza, the united nations estimated that more than 1,400 palestinian civilians were killed. including more than 500 children. how can you protect or minimize the loss of palestinian civilian life? amb. herzog: first of all, i would be very careful about these numbers. these numbers are usually conflated and usually the palestinians, they base themselves on palestinian sources in gaza. they include hundreds of terrorists who were killed while trying to kill our citizens. so let's be very careful about these numbers. i think we should give it time to understand what's happening. the fact of the matter is hamas hides its military capabilities behind civilian population. they are using civilian population as human shields. what we are doing, we do not target civilians. when we target militants,

terrorists, and when we do that when they nest in civilian , populated areas, we send warning to the populations to evacuate the area because this is a war zone. and that's with all the way we've always operated. we are very different than they are. john: the former u.s. ambassador to israel martin indyk pointed out that he in his opinion, the netanyahu government was more interested in protecting settlers on the west bank than they were in protecting the kibbutz near gaza. what do you say to that? amb. herzog: i don't buy it at all. i think the issue in the border of gaza was not the number of troops, but it was the element of surprise. i think my advice to everybody , this is not the time to politicize the discussion of war. john: mr. ambassador, thank you very much. amb. herzog: thank you very much. ♪ john: for more analysis on the war in israel, we're joined by

shibley telhami, a senior fellow at the brookings institution's center for middle east policy and the anwar sadat professor for peace and development at the university of maryland. shibley, thanks so much for joining us. we begin with the wish and hope that your loved ones and family in the middle east are safe and well after yesterday. shibley: thank you. john: you and i have talked a lot in the past few years about how the palestinian-israeli conflict was a tinderbox, but this seemed to come out of nowhere. why now? why did hamas act now? shibley: that's a really good question. the surprise, honestly, is not why they acted now. the surprise is that they had such a capability to do what they did. frankly, that is the big surprise. and that is the shocker. and the israeli military inability to stop them, that is the shocker. now, the timing, when you look at it, there are a number of things that are going on at the same time. the first is that there is a lot of despair in the west bank particularly, but also in gaza,

because nothing has changed, 56 years of occupation. they exploit that to their benefit politically. palestinians feel there's no one paying attention to them. the international community is ignoring them. there might be peace between israel and saudi arabia that ignores them further. so they exploit that. they get attention and credit as well as marginalize their opponent, the palestinian authority. so they have the timing really is not particularly surprising. there also has been talk of possibly israel and many of the far right ministers in israel have been calling for a large attack on gaza. in fact, hamas itself claimed that they had information the israelis were going to do it anyway after the holidays. whether they're using that as an excuse or not is hard to know. but nonetheless, there was some expectation of that. john: you say the capability was surprising. do you think they got help from their backers in iran? shibley: well, obviously, iran

supports them. iran is clearly a menace to america's interests and have supported hamas. but i sincerely doubt that this is being done for iran. in fact, i you know, the u.s. has already said there's no intelligence that says that. and you know, it is improbable. the relatiship between hamas and iran is very close and cooperative. but it is not like hezbollah in iran where where hezbollah can get instructions. i'm not even sure this is a perfect time for iran, honestly, because they want to perhaps use their allies in case they go to war with israel and the u.s. down the road. hezbollah isn't eager, for example, to enter into this fight right now, although they might be drawn into it. john: you mentioned the talks about normalizing relatis between israel and saudi arabia. what does this do to that? shibley: well, it reshuffles the deck. there's no question that the arab governments have had their own strategic interest and that have not been necessarily in harmony with the interests of the palestinians. that has been taken place.

and the saudis obviously have their own strategic interests that they were intent on moving forward. but what they didn't expect is that this issue would rise to the top of the agenda in the middle east, reshuffling of the deck in ways that were unanticipated. and their public, even if the governments don't care about palestinian issue, our public cares and the saudi public particularly cares a lot about the palestinian issue. and this obviously puts it right center stage so it limits the possibilities and freedom that governments have with regard to making a deal with israel, especially knowing now that as israel has declared war, we're likely to be at this for unfortunately many, many, many weeks. john: why do you think israel missed this? the intelligence didn't pick up the planning. they seemed unprepared. hamas seemed to get their men into into israel very easily. why do you think that is? shibley: well, you know, i think

this is something that everybody's going to be asking. and frankly, i think part of the finger pointing, you know, iran or something like that in this particular case, is intended to, you know, divert attention from the failure. i mean, there's been an incredible failure that had taking place. and it is hard to understand. i mean, i've been watching israeli television very closely the last two days. and i think this is not a question they want to get into now because they have a business to do. it's fully understandable. there's a lot of innocent civilians that have been hurt. they have a major, you know, challenge that the likes of which we haven't seen in years. so they need to deal with this now. and they're putting off the question of trying to investigate what went wrong. but i think there is -- i've investigated the 73 wards. as you know, this happened the day after the 50th anniversary of the 73 arab-israeli war were in fact, israel was shocked by the egyptian and the syrian

attacks to try to liberate their territories. that attack happened in part because israel felt secure. these countries had been thoroughly defeated by israel just six yearsefore. and israel was seen to be strong and in command. and yet, obviously it happened. and this particular case is a conference that the israelis have perhaps not taken seriously. the capabilities of their opponents may have played a role in this. john: shibley telhami, thank you very much. shibley: my pleasure. ♪ john: this past week, the biden administration moved against china-based firms and executives blamed for importing chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid, fentanyl, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin. it's part of the government's

effort to disrupt the global illegal drug trade and stem the opioid epidemic. ali rogin spoke with vonda felbab-brown of the brookings institution. ali: vanda felbab-brown, thank you so much for joining us. tell us about how chinese entities are working with mexican drug cartels to produce and distribute fentanyl. vonda: well, thank you for having me. china is the principal source of precursor chemicals from which mexican cartels synthesize fentanyl. so various chinese brokers, individuals, sometimes larger family based networks and companies produce and sell these precursors to mexico, often very knowingly enabling the cartels in synthesizing fentanyl. they even provide recipes to the cartels, how to make fentanyl out of them. ali: the biden administration has made very clear that the actions that they've been taking over the past few months are part of a very deliberate effort to stop the global fentanyl

trade. why is the u.s. stepping up these actions now? vonda: for well over a year, we had no meaningful cooperation from the government of china. and frankly, we have had minimal and inadequate cooperation from the government of mexico as well. in 2018, 2019, we had the height of china's cooperation in trying to stop the flows of precursors and fentanyl out of china. at the time, china scheduled the tire class of fentanyl type drugs as a scheduled substance, requiring that permits are obtained for the production of fentanyl class drugs and their exports. and that changed the pattern of the illegal trade. instead of fentanyl being shipped directly to the united states, these precursor chemicals would now be shipped to mexican cartels that synthesize fentanyl from it. but after that, china significantly scaled back

cooperation. why? because it had expected that the trump administration would lessen the economic tariffs on chinese goods. and then it expected that the biden administration would take a softer geostrategic approach to china. neither happened. in fact, we have seen significant increase in tensions between the two countries. china in general subordinates its law enforcement cooperation with other countries to its other objectives. and with countries where the economic or geostrategic relationship is not what it wants, it weakens or altogether suspends cooperation. the biden administration has attempted to redress this lack of cooperation in several ways. one is the set of prosecutions that we are seeing. they found an important way to get around the fact that many of the precursors being sold are legal, non scheduled chemicals, and it has also engaged the chinese government. when secretary blinken was in china in the spring, the issue

of fentanyl and counternarcotics came up. and that seemed to be a hopeful moment when china, chinese officials, chinese interlocutors started looking back and reviving the possibility of a joint fentanyl working group. certainly seeing that moving ahead would be important. and in july, organizing the first summit of a global coalition against the threat of synthetic drugs. and hopefully this joint international effort to put pressure on china will pay off. ali: this is also affecting the u.s. relationship with mexico. attorney general garland and other senior u.s. officials were in mexico this week talking about this issue. what has the role of the mexican governnt been? vonda: unfortunately, just as with china, we also have had really inadequate cooperation from the government of mexico ever since president andres manuel lopez obrador came to office in mexico. so much so that even earlier this year in the spring, we have had president lopez obrador making claims that there is no

fentanyl produced in mexico. even though we know that mexico is the predominant place fentanyl is synthesized. in recent weeks that has been more effort on the part of the mexican government to restart at least some cooperation. and the meeting that you mentioned between mexican officials and high level u.s. officials is part of that spirit to see whether we could get toward some more meaningful corporations. there have been some progress. most importantly, the mexican government extradited ovidio guzman, one of the leaders of the sinaloa cartel to the united states just in recent days. but we really need to get to a space where u.s. law enforcement agents can in the field, operate with mexican counterparts. we don't have that right now. we need to also get to a state where the mexican government is far more willing to confront the cartels themselves. ali: what impact do these

announcements actually have the global fentanyl trade? vonda: i do hope that at minimum, they will help shrink the pool of actors in china who are willing to violate laws, at least u.s. laws and international laws, if instead of having thousands of potential suppliers, we shrink through these indictments, through deterrence, those who are willing to supply to hundreds or tens. that's an important accomplishment. your question touches on the core of what counter-narcotics efforts have had to grapple with over the past decades, the so-called balloon effect that as long as demand persists, someone will step in, even if production is suppressed in one place or precursor chemicals are suppressed in one place, they will move to another place. that will be the reality with us. but the answer is not to simply give up and allow unmitigated supply to come. the lesser the supply, the more

the supply is in places where we have good cooperation, where network and networks can be dismantled, the better off we are. ali: thank you so much for your time. vonda: thank you for having me. ♪ john: online right now... head to our instagram account to see the results of a "pbs newshour" / npr / marist poll on the house impeachment inquiry into president biden. and for more, visit our website, pbs.org/newshour. and that is "pbs news weekend" for this sunday. on monday, with israel at war after suffering one of it's bloodiest days ever, the latest from the region. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. >> major funding for "pbs news

weekend" has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular. this is sam, how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. well, somebody's pocket. i thought i would tell you you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions -- ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

♪ -tonight on "pbs arts talk"... hello. -finally. -god, i know. -finally. -...one of the most beloved stars of american theater, brian stokes mitchell. -how are you? -i'm excellent. how are you? -yeah. i'm good. -he sits down with grammy- and pulitzer prize-winning musician rhiannon giddens. -the spaces, that's where artists play. artists play in the spaces. -always in the spaces. -yeah. -on this edition of "pbs arts talk." ♪