i'm geoff bennett. amna: supplies dwindling in gaza. >> all they have is suffering, fear, and horror. geoff: in washington, house

members take steps to elect a new speaker. we break down the latest on the republican infighting that has brought the chamber to a standstill. voting rights again make their way to the u.s. supreme court. at issue, gerrymandering in south carolina that is said to be putting black voters at a disadvantage. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160

years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> the walton family foundation, working for solutions to protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. supported by the macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org . and with the ongoing support of these 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. geoff: welcome to the newshour. a fifth day of heavy fighting

between israel and hamas today as the death tolls soar. more than 1200 israelis and 1100 palestinians are now dead, with many still missing. there are 22 americans confirmed killed in saturday's terror attacks across israel. and hamas holds an unknown number of hostages in gaza. amna: here in israel, the fear of a wider war seemed very real earlier after reports of drones and incursions from lebanon; those turned out to be false alarms. meantime, in gaza, the last power station has run out of fuel. there will soon be no electricity, along with no water nor sanitation and food is , starting to become scarce. our colleague, leila molana-allen begins our coverage. leila: block by block, gaza is being blasted into dust as israel's punishing bombardment

continues. people rush to clear the debris after israeli airstrikes pummeled their neighborhoods. israel says it targeted a hamas commander, but civilians say they are bearing the devastating consequences. abu hassan's home was bombed without warning. >> all of the people living in the house are killed inside it, and all of our neighbors. where is the international community? leila: the strikes are part of israel's retaliation against hamas for the weekend's bloody terror strikes. today, the israel defense forces released video of warplanes striking gaza's islamic university. it says hamas used it for training and producing weapons. and israel is striking critical infrastructure, including gaza's port. the entire gaza strip is under a total blockade, with more than 250,000 people displaced. israel has cut off all supplies of food, water, and fuel to -- fuel. to survive, residents help each other however they can.

>> i send water to those who've had their houses demolished, all those who have been displaced don't have anything. all they have is suffering, fear, and horror. leila: and now, gaza will soon sink into darkness. its last operational power plant today stopped working after it ran out of fuel. newshour producer shames ouda spoke to us from near the plant. >> this power station serves all of gaza strip, and now it's turned off. gaza without fuel, without electricity, without internet, without food, gaza is dying. the people will pay the price of this war. leila: inside hospitals, it is a race to save the wounded, but supplies are dwindling. >> the quantity of injured people arriving to our hospitals is huge and will mean we will not be able to accept more patients in gaza. leila: across the border, hama'' rocket barrage continued to overwhelm israel's iron dome defense system.

one rocket slammed into a medical center for children in the city of ashkelon. all while israelis spent another day burying their dead, and promising retribution, as the army calls up hundreds of thousands of reservists to join the fight. >> and i am saying here to everyone we will wipe this thing , called hamas, isis gaza, off the face of the earth. it will cease to exist. leila: the state of emergency has prompted a major shake up in israel's government. prime minister benjamin netanyahu and opposition party leader benny gantz said today they agreed to form a wartime unity government. a move that just a week ago would've seemed impossible, now deemed a necessity. the u.s. has promised support, and a roundtable with jewish community leaders in the u.s., president biden again condemned the attacks. -- again addressed the conflict. pres. biden: my commitment to israel's security and the safety of the jewish people is unshakable. it is really important that israel, with all the anger and

frustration and just, i don't know how to explain it, that exists, that they operate by the rules of war. leila: the violence has now spread north of the gaza strip. israel's promised retribution, was on full show today in occupied east jerusalem. last night, two young palestinian men were shot dead in silwan by israeli border police after throwing fireworks. this morning, 24-year-old ali abbasi's family had gathered here at his house to mourn his death. security forces have just turned up to raid the home of one of the young men who was killed in silwan last night. they've gone in firing tear gas to disperse the crowds, and into the air to make sure everyone else in the neighbourhood stays inside their houses. residents claim security forces stopped medics reaching the men, and they bled to death. the anger is palpable, as is the fear of more killing to come. >> the israelis come, they

arrest our young men, demolish our houses, attack our women. why? we fear for the future of this generation. i wanted my nephew to get married. instead, he became a martyr. leila: it is sometimes called -- nearby issawiyah is sometimes called little gaza for its palestinian-only population, and for its resident's reputation for resisting israeli laws that they believe discriminate against arabs. israel's security forces have taken the name literally. after saturday's horrific terror attacks by hamas around the gaza border, issawiyah was raided in full force on saturday night. >> they were furious, you didn't know what was going on in their minds. because they were looking for someone to get revenge from. leila: osama issawi has lived in issawiyah all his life. his is the first house after the village's entrance, and his family bears the full brunt of every raid. since saturday, he says israeli special forces have invaded the village almost daily, shooting

tear gas and live fire and wounding and detaining nearly a -- an as yet unconfirmed number of young men. he says palestinian communities are being punished for someone else's crimes. >> we feel this kind of anger about this. we do feel that there is no justice in what is going on. amna: and leila is here with me now in tel aviv. incredible reporting over these last few days. i know you spent today speaking with a number of other palestinian families in jerusalem and in the west bank. what else are they telling you about what life is like at this moment? leila: these tensions from down in gaza are really boiling over. this has been the most violent year in a nearly two decades in the west bank. before any of this was happening, i was here in july reporting on that and the violence has shifted down to gaza but we are seeing it spread that. you saw the retaliation by security forces against young

men in jerusalem but we are also seeing battles between civilians. there was a bus driver in jerusalem who was driving his normal bus route for the main israeli bus company and some settlers saw him and attacked the bus, throwing rocks, and managed to enter his eye. he lost vision in one eye. he was too scared to go back to work and said this has happened to a few of his other colleagues, people seeing an arab driver and attacking them. we contacted the company for a comment and the company said to us this is a time of war and we have no further comment. about their own employees. that is how difficult this is getting. once you get outside of east jerusalem and then in the west bank, which is even more contested because of course our settlements being built there and there are more and more of these settlements built, the reason this is such an issue, they are deemed internationally illegal. but that is where a two state solution would be so the more israeli settlements built in the west bank, the less chance there ever is of that two state

solution. we drove out. we heard settlers were brought -- blocking the roads which is something they do quite often when they have an extra grind. there have been several policies in -- palestinian villages that were burned this week. we started seeing smoke from a hearing gunfire, and this wasn't settlers paid i spoke to the idf who was standing outside and they said, look, take care of yourself. we are expecting serious trouble and there is nothing we can do for you if something kicks off because we have been told to be here and alert. have been threatening to do this for several days. they blocked off the entrances to every palestinian town and village in the west bank. you are not allowed to move as a palestinian unless you have a very special permit. inside those towns, they are now protesting, having violent protests. we were there for a while. we eventually moved on and we could see it escalating behind us and as we drove back down the road, we got a call that four

palestinians had been murdered by settlers attacking the town. amna: spreading the escalation of the tension in the conflict. takebaut what is the latest? you have been tracking the situation there as well. what do we need to know? leila: i was in one of the towns yesterday where the police station was attached. lots and lots of hamas fighters. they were still fighting when we were there yesterday. the idf said they completely secured the gaza border but that is not the case. we heard gunfire and there were reports that there had been a foregone battle so there's still hamas fighters managing to make it across the border. they have evacuated that entire area, all those kibbutzes, small communities, where we saw such horrific massacres take place this weekend. they put in a security cordon and moved back where many of them are because they are injured, in hospital. there are rockets coming in every 10 to 15 minutes. in the hospitals, they are at

risk, too. i was talking to the doctor yesterday about what they are going to do with the most injured who they cannot move. they were starting to move them and today, the children's wing of that hospital, hit by a rocket and destroyed. amna: that was in the south. in the north, panic set off when there were reports of possible incursion across the lebanese border. they did turn out to be false alarms. what do we know about happened and why that set off such a panic? leila: we don't know much more about what happened. the lebanese border is a big concern. i lived in lebanon for many years and we were constantly covering clashes. the israeli northern border goes across the area. in the same way, you have people who live up in the north of israel who believe that is where they should live but they are constantly under threat of missiles and rockets coming across. we saw that horrific war in 2006 that killed so many people, devastated a lot of lebanon as well so tensions are really high. after the attack on saturday,

hezbollah has been very measured recently. they are in a difficult position because they have been trying to prove themselves legitimately as a political partner so they cannot be seen to be starting a war that could jeopardize lebanese people unless they can prove that it is to defend lebanon so that has to be their narrative. they cannot be the insiders because lebanese people would die. on saturday, we saw them send missiles into contested area and that is the minimum they could do to show they did support hamas but they were not going to get any more involved. we have seen fire with the idf and this morning, antitank missiles were sent to a few hezbollah members being killed yesterday so tensions are already very high. the idf deployed tens of thousands of soldiers up to the northern border. they called up all these reservists, having to protect multiple borders and rockets coming in from syria so it is all very intense and the other issue is the reason that we think what happened tonight what -- what happened tonight might

have happened. there were drones and gliders. the war had started. it is because they are on such a hairtrigger. they get missiles across and it seems like something -- we have not got any evidence that happened but people thought the full war had started. amna: it speaks to just how high those tensions are. thank you for your reporting. leila: thank you. geoff: in the day's other headlines a strong new , earthquake rocked the same parts of western afghanistan that are reeling from saturday's deadly tremor. this latest quake was centered on the outskirts of herat, and shook more villages into rubble. at least one person died and >> we don't have any houses or food left. we're scared that people here will die from hunger and the cold. nothing was left, nothing.

we are alone and have nothing. geoff: the taliban said more than 2000 people died in the previous earthquake. hurricane lidia has largely dissipated after striking mexico's pacific coast overnight, killing two people. the storm made landfall in the sparsely populated area near the resort of porto by arta. locals took shelter as winds up to 140 miles per hour and rain drenched in the region. it did light damage but quickly broke apart as it moved over land. nasa unveiled the first samples from the asteroid "bennu" today two weeks after the "osiris-rex" , spacecraft returned them to earth. the samples were harvested nearly 60 million miles away. examining the ancient rocks, pebbles and dust in a climate-controlled glove box. they say the material is rich in carbon and show evidence of water. >> carbon and water molecules

are exactly the kinds of material that we wanted to find. they are crucial elements in the formation of our own planet, and theyre gonna help us determine the origins of the elements that couldve led to life. geoff: more specimens are inside the main chamber of the capsule that "osiris-rex" dropped off in a flyby. it has not been unsealed yet. there's yet more data that students in the nation's high schools are falling behind. the act college admissions test reports scores for the class of 2023 fell to the lowest level in more than 30 years. overall, scores have dropped for six straight years, and the trend accelerated during the pandemic. the biden administation proposed a ban on junk fees today, on everything from concert tickets to hotel rooms. officials say companies advertise low prices, then, take customers by surprise at checkout, with the added fees. the u.s. chamber of commerce says eliminating such fees will actually reduce competition.

and on wall street, stocks advanced despite a report showing wholesale inflation in september was worse than expected. the dow jones industrial average gained 65 points to close at 33,804. the nasdaq rose nearly 97 points. the s&p 500 was up 18. still to come on the "newshour", how misinformation about the war in israel is spreading rampantly on social media and the supreme court considers a racial gerrymandering case in south carolina. >> this is the pbs newshour, from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ge house republicans are one step closer to selecting a new speaker. they've nominated house majority leader steve scalise for the role. but not all members are on board and it is not yet clear if he has the votes to win on the floor of the house.

capitol hill correspondent lisa desjardins reports on the busy day in the capitol. lisa: for the gop, one decision made. >> first, i want to thank my house republican colleagues. lisa: house majority leader steve scalise is the republican conference's nominee for speaker. his win was narrow just 14 votes , more than his challenger, house judiciary chairman jim jordan. scalise immediately took on the posture of speaker, telling reporters he would act quickly on aid to israel. >> we need to make sure we are sending a message to people throughout the world that the house is open and doing the people's business. lisa: but he is not speaker yet and this could get complicated. ,>> well, leader scalise won and it's not over. i'm still throwing my support speaker. i'm not going to change -- i'm still throwing my support behind jim jordan for speaker. i'm not going to change my vote now or anytime soon on the house floor. lisa: ohio's max miller was among those leaving the vote and refusing to back or unsure about scalise. that opens the door to a repeat

of what happened in january . vote after vote on the house floor where a candidate fell a few votes short of a majority. it is on members' minds. >> we cannot afford this dysfunction in the nation. lisa: and some jordan backers agreed immediately. like texas's keith self. part of the rebellion against speaker mccarthy, but not this time. >> we need to get back to work. we took the vote. steve scalise is our nominee and i will vote or steve scalise on the floor. lisa: and this from mccarthy's loudest opponent matt gaetz of florida. ,>> long live speaker scalise. lisa: within hours, jordan told scalise he would support him but there are still some who refuse. it is the latest test for him. he has been in leadership for nearly a decade but is known as a survivor. recovering from nearly fatal wounds after a gunman attacked republicans at a baseball practice in 2017. in august, he announced he was diagnosed with blood cancer and

he's currently undergoing treatment. he campaigned as a unifier and his allies and many republicans want this resolved as soon as possible. >> i'm so hopeful that we will unite quickly. the world is depending on us. our country is depending on us to be able to get back to work, to go do our jobs that my constituents sent me to do and the rest of the country is eager as well. i'm excited to get back to work. lisa: it is not clear when the house will get back to work. just a short time ago, patrick mchenry left the capital he was -- the capitol. he said cryptically, not necessarily. just not clear what is going to happen. geoff: where do they stand at the moment? lisa: right now, we are waiting to see if steve scalise can clinch that majority that he needs in the full house. let's talk a little bit and look at the numbers specifically. to get the majority in the house

of representatives right now with two vacancies, you need somewhere between 215 and 217 euros and that is including absences which usually do have a few wells. he got 113 votes in conference today but here is something important about that number. that included the votes from three delegates from u.s. territories. they can vote in the republican conference. they cannot vote on the floor of the house. when you added it all out, where we are for mr. scalise is that he actually did not get a majority of the members of his conference who can vote and he is a far way away from being sure that he has the majority of the house itself. i think the more important number probably is the number that we are getting a people who say they will not vote for him on the first ballot. it's beginning to be a larger group. i think the producer and i counted five or six. other people say it is as high as 20.

as we know, mr. scully's can only lose four votes from republicans and actually become speaker. right now, he certainly has more than that who say they will not vote for him. geoff: let's talk more about the majority leader, steve scalise. where does he stand on the issues? what would it mean if he were to be elected and serve as house speaker? lisa: he would be the first house speaker from louisiana. he is a conservative, someone known as affable. his style is friendly and even with reporters, he's generally not confrontational. we want to talk a little bit about what he believes on major issues so let's start with ukraine. that was a big difference between him and jim jordan. he has supported a ukraine including a vote very recently. how about abortion? he is someone who gets high marks from antiabortion groups. he wants more limits. in recent years since the dawn's indecision, he has not been clear on whether he wants congress to pass a national ban or not. he says it depends on the votes that are present. on immigration, he is someone who talks a lot about building a

border wall, someone who has said he would like to end birthright citizenship and then finally on the 2020 election, he is someone who was in republican leadership at the time. he voted to object to certifying the election. he did that twice. both of those votes after the january 6 riots hit the capital and affected him personally and that is how he voted on those. geoff: the group that objected to kevin mccarthy being house speaker, are they the same group that is now objecting to steve scalise? what is the overlap? lisa: i have been texting with many members who are amazed that these are some different members. some overlap. have different reasons for their problems with steve scalise. thomas massie said he thinks mr. scully's does not have a plan for dealing with the upcoming bending problems. there are others who have issues with different parts of his past. nancy of south carolina

concerned about his -- a speech that scalise gave to white nationalist group. he has since disavowed the speech and said he regretted it but there is a range of problems these folks have. some of them say the party is in disarray. this leads to the problem of whoever becomes the next speaker. it seems we have a pandora's box open here where for any kind of test of leadership, there will be a handful of republicans who have an issue, specific or not. geoff: it seems like we lurched from one government funding deadline to another. what does all of this mean for this next cliff? lisa: whether they want to admit it or not, it seems clear we need a temporary funding bill. it's just a question of if he could get one through. with 10 year treasury bond rates going up, interest rates going up, the national debt is going up, that concern is really prominent among house republicans and there is some concern over whether he can guide them through this coming up. geoff: lisa desjardins, thank

you. lisa: you are welcome. ♪ geoff: ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy made an unannounced trip to brussels today, his first time visiting nato headquarters. lloyd austin hosted him and 50 other leaders for a meeting on continuing to arm ukraine. as austin and the entire u.s. government also work on how best to arm israel. nick schifrin is in brussels and joins me tonight. nick, first on ukraine: what was ukraine's message to the world, ? nick: the message ukraine wants to hear is that the world continues to support ukraine despite the war in israel. it's a vinci here asking for weapons, weapons for the counteroffensive, longer-range rockets, and critical air defense ahead of what is expected to be another russian

campaign targeting ukrainian critical infrastructure this winter. he also admitted that he asked western leaders whether they could continue to support ukraine despite the war in israel and he did not seem reassured by the answer. >> my question was that will your support be less than now, even now during the election period, you see the challenges. the partner says no. but who knows how it will be. i think nobody knows. geoff: lloyd austin and the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff did say the u.s. would continue to support both israel and ukraine. nato allies promised $2 billion worth of assistance including $200 million from the u.s., but even before israel, administration officials were struggling to get their latest aid package for ukraine through

the congress. they have got about $1.6 billion left in replenishment stocks, replenishing u.s. stocks sent to ukraine. that could last as few as a few weeks. that is why the administration really want to see the house of representatives for congress to pass another aid package. geoff: what is israel asking the u.s. for and does that complicate weapons deliveries for ukraine? nick: israel's asks have not been finalized according to senior officials i'm speaking to but there are three things obvious on the list. number one of course, iron dome interceptors that have been discussed widely. the u.s. is also accelerating existing contracts for precision guided munitions, specifically a small diameter bombs that israel already purchased from boeing and those already landed in israel and the third, the administration is looking at additional munitions that the u.s. already has in its inventory. as for whether there is some

overlap between ukraine and israeli asks for now, the answer is no because of the different systems israel and ukraine use but senior officials tell me they are worried that as the war in israel becomes protracted, that could mean the possibility that is rarely asks and ukrainian asks could overlap. geoff: how concerned is the biden administration about the potential for this war to widen? nick: in the words of a senior defense administration official, the administration is "deeply concerned that lebanese hezbollah could enter the war." we have seen some skirmishes on israel's northern border including a false alarm about drones and gliders crossing the border. u.s. officials insist this is why they have sent the most visible form of military deterrence that they have, aircraft carrier strike group which is off the coast of israel but they also admit that keeping the work contained between

israel and gaza will be increasingly difficult as there are -- as there is a protracted campaign in gaza and there are more civilian casualties. that drawnout campaign has some administration officials worried about their ongoing efforts to normalize relations between israel and saudi arabia and even their moral authority across the world. geoff: i understand you have a tragic update to a story we aired earlier this week. nick: this is the story of -- that we brought to you on monday night. how they held off hamas militants from their home with their one month old baby. the two of them had been together for 10 years. she called him her best friend. they waited a long time to have that baby and we learned that unfortunately, they died in the original attacks, leaving behind his wife and baby. geoff: our hearts go out to her

and her daughter. nick schifrin reporting tonight from brussels. thank you. nick: thank you. geoff: the world is watching much of the violence and horrors of this war through traditional media and news broadcasts but millions are getting their information through social media. many posts are from unverified accounts including some that are spreading misinformation and outright lies. laura focuses on that part of the story. laura: some of the harshest criticism is being directed at the platform x, formerly known as twitter, and it's owner, elon musk. the european union wrote to both x and meta, which owns facebook, urging the companies to take down misleading posts and videos and comply with european law. some posts can look real. this one, for example, included video supposedly showing footage

of a hamas militant taking down an israeli helicopter. but that video is actually from a video game. similarly, this video of an israeli strike in gaza is real, but it happened in may, not this week as it was portrayed. for a closer look, i'm joined by emerson brooking, a senior resident fellow at the atlantic council's digital forensic research lab and co-author of "likewar: the weaponization of social media." this video states that hamas captured israeli generals and it was posted by an account with abu check mark. it has been viewed by -- a blue check mark. it has been viewed by millions of people but it is an older video of authorities in our survives on -- authorities in another country capturing a separatist leader. why is information like this so

dangerous and what examples of it are you seeing across x? >> this information is indent -- disinformation is endemic in warfare. there are things like horns can do to make it better or worse. elon musk has made decisions que elaborately which exacerbate this problem, which make it harder to tell the truth. and distinguish propaganda from reality on the ground. the first big thing he has done is essentially remove the ability to find and verify credible accounts. journalists or other people who have been vetted and trusted, and then second, he has introduced a for profit motive which did not previously exist in the platform which incentivizes accounts, often under specious identities, to share false content as quickly as possible in order to maximize their own revenue, and all of

this matters because so many policymakers, so many journalists, so many people still use this form to understand what is happening. now, it has become much harder. amna: you mentioned two changes elon musk has made to the platform. he also laid off a number of employees that handled content moderation and make sure accounts follow the rules of the platform, so how much do you think elon musk himself is to blame for the spread of misinformation on >> elon musk bears significant personal responsibility for the state of the platform in this time of crisis and he came from a place of arrogance. he said repeatedly that he doesn't believe in what he says the so-called mainstream media. he wants to tear down all gatekeepers even when gatekeepers are performing an invaluable public function. amna: telegram is a secure

messaging app that is also being used to spread misinformation. it has some 700 million users and it has become an outlet for hamas militants to share their videos. can you explain the significance of telegram and how it also contributes to this fog of war? >> of course. so whenever you see propaganda footage from the conflict today, chances are that it originated on telegram. there are hundreds, even thousands, of different telegram groups which are linked to hamas or associated organizations. essentially, almost all primary video, primary evidence of the war, is coming from these telegram groups which are essentially unmoderated because telegram is not a u.s. company. it is not easily subject to international law. it is extremely unlikely content moderation will ever be taken

against telegram it's also this content is always going to be there, but what effects it has when it spreads to other social media like x, those are still decisions where we have some control. amna: and the european union has warned x and let's about this -- and meta about this content, saying some of it appears to be illegal content, so what do you make of that and what can we expect if there will be any penalties for these companies? >> so the e.u. has recently put into force their digital services act which is a sweeping piece of legislation that really changes the rules of the road for social media companies. and also, it increases their obligations. it increases the source of material they have to share with european governments, and it institutes quite severe

penalties for companies that fail to meet those standards. it appears that they have essentially ignored the law. amna: what advice do you give to everyday news consumers, to everyday people who are using these apps on a regular basis and are trying to sift through credible sources and not credible sources and misinformation? >> i spent more than a decade now studying the relationship between social media and war. i helped lead a team focused on war crimes verification, unchecking conflict in real-time, and my most important piece of advice is to not believe anything you see online, especially now. if you see something in this fast-moving and confusing stage of the conflict, if you see something circulating online, do not believe it until you have seen significant cooperation -- corroboration.

chances are that it's a fake intended to mislead you. amna: -- of the atlantic council, thank you for your time. >> thank you. ♪ geoff: with thousands already dead, we are only days into what could be a cauldron of ever increasing violence between israel and hamas. john yang gets perspectives now from observers in israel and the west bank. john: units 75 years of existence, israel had never seen anything like the brutal attack by hamas on southern in real let's -- southern israel, israel's 9/11. benjamin netanyahu said it will exact a price that israel's enemies will remember for decades to come. we get two views on these historic events. first, the president of the

israel democracy institute, and a former member of the knesset, the israeli legislature. first of all, thank you very much for being here. why did hamas act? what did they try to accomplish and why did they do it now? >> those are two questions. it reminds me of the question, after 9/11, so many americans asked, but why did they do it? why did they do it? the answer is very similar. hamas is a terrorist jihadist organization with isis like tactics and state like capabilities and an ideology, a strong ideology that calls for the annihilation of the state of israel. it is both an ideology and an operational plan. annihilating the jewish state and killing all jews. in this respect, nothing changed for 30 years. it was building up capacity,

building up capability, looking for the right moment, and in fact, in 2014, there was an attempt by hamas to launch the exact thing. just this time, the hamas terrorists tried to infiltrate through tunnels rather than in the way they did it this time and they just failed. the idf intercepted their attempt. this time as a result of an intelligence failure and operational failure, the idf was not able to intercept this operation and we ended up with this catastrophe and as a matter of fact, from their vantage point, it is just the outcome. they had much more ammunition, hand grenades, side bombs, ready to kill way more babies to conduct way more atrocities, to rape way more women and it is

the bravery of those soldiers and civilians that blocked them that saved us from even a greater catastrophe. geoff: you mentioned an intelligence and operational failure. do you think israel was distracted by the domestic politics? do you think they felt that hamas was bottled up in gaza? what do you think happened? >> the fact that israel was deeply immersed in an internal debate around the nature of democracy might have -- again, i don't have intel but i do have impressions and did have some evidence that might have given them the idea that israel is now in a weak spot and it is an opportunity for them to attack, but they don't need an excuse or motivation and this leads us to what should be the outcome of this entire event. hamas, as long as it controls state like capabilities, will

continue to try, strive to destroy and kill all jews, and it is just less than a mile away from our communities, so there is no option. they introduced a choice of a zero-sum game, us or them, and obviously, it will be asked. this, the hamas capabilities, hamas leadership, hamas operatives, all of them need to be of -- obliterated, crushed, dismantled, and of course, it's very hard, very difficult, because they perpetrate double war crimes. they target civilians but they situate their capabilities within the civilian population. they use their population as human shields. he will not be surprised if i will tell you that they situate their capabilities in mosques, in hospitals, in schools, in residential buildings, and therefore, to dismantle hamas capability, which is not only an

israeli interest, as a matter of fact, imperative, but it is in the interest of the entire free world because hamas is an iranian ally, hezbollah ally, they want to dominate the entire region with their murderous ideology, and obviously, to gain control over the region's resources, and that would be a disaster for the entire world, and of course for the free world, so we only -- only one outcome can come out of it, dismantling hamas. it will be long. it will be painful. unfortunately, it will be a price in lives, israeli lies, and palestinian lives, not only of hamas operatives, which obviously, i'm not very sad about it, but palestinian civilians as well. unless they manage and work towards that, there will be tragic civilian casualties as well and we have to understand it, but ultimately, this is the only way to save lives and

promote freedom. geoff: the israel democracy institute. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> we are joined by a leader of the palestinian national initiative which advocates nonviolence and offers an alternative to both hamas and the major force in the palestinian authority out of the west bank. he is the head of the palestinian organization that advocates, your response to what happened in southern israel? >> you are absolutely right when you say i am an advocate of nonviolence. we were shocked about what happened. i come as a person, always said that i am against any killing of civilian, whether palestinian or israeli. we are sorry for all the people, but unfortunately, everybody keeps avoiding the root cause of the problem, and unfortunately, what we see today is a very

intensive campaign to dehumanize not hamas, but to dehumanize palestinians completely. and the war that israel is conducting today is not at hamas, it is at the palestinian people in gaza. the reality is that we are in this situation mainly because there has been an occupation, israeli occupation of palestinians, palestinian land, for more than 56 years. the longest occupation in modern history. an occupation that has transformed into a system -- as amnesty international described it and human rights watch as well and even the israeli human rights organization -- a system of apartheid. a much worse apartheid than what prevailed in south africa. this is the root cause why there are palestinian's who are to violence because all hopes have been lost, and mr. netanyahu, the prime minister of israel, who came to power in 1996,

killed every potential and every possibility for peace talks. i am so surprised and really amazed that a person who is in charge of the democratic institute in israel speaks about a zero-sum game. what does zero-sum game mean? it means either us or them. that is not a way to make peace. mr. netanyahu said all palestinians in gaza must -- his military spokesperson said all palestinians in gaza, the 2.2 million people, should evict to egypt. that is the meaning of zero-sum game. it is about ethnic cleansing of all the population of gaza. this is something everybody should know. mr. netanyahu annexed all the west bank, all of gaza strip, all of the occupied territories. that is what he is saying, and he said he will change the situation for 50 years to come.

so what he meant is ethnic cleansing of gaza and then annexing it. that is not the way to peace. that is what zero-sum game means. geoff: you talk about the root cause, and there is a generation of palestinians who reject your call for nonviolence, who feel that this is how they have to respond. what do you say to them? >> i say to them and i try to prove to them that nonviolence is a much more effective way of achieving our freedom. that is the best way of doing that. but one should ask the question, why these young people go in that direction? it is simply because they see no hope. 80% of young educated people in gaza are under siege and are unemployed. the property is unbelievable. the gdp per capita in israel is $56,000. per year. while it is less than $1000 per

year, per capita per year in gaza. gazans are obliged to buy products at israeli market price. these people don't see hope, don't see a future. that is why i am calling for a peaceful resolution, why i say now instead of talking about zero-sum game, we should move in the direction of immediate cease-fire, de-escalation, immediate release of all israeli prisoners in gaza in exchange of releasing palestinian prisoners in israeli jails who are 5003 hundred including some people who have been in jail for no less then 44 years -- than 44 years. and many of those prisoners don't even know why they are arrested. they are not charged, not taken to court, their lawyers do not why they are -- do not know why they are arrested. release prisoners, exchange prisoners, have cease-fire, stop

this madness that is going to happen, and let's open a road for peace and for a peaceful resolution by ending occupation and allowing us and israelis to coexist and live in peace. geoff: thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. geoff: we will have continuing coverage of the israel-hamas wore this entire week including a one hour primetime special on friday. war in the holy land, a pbs newshour special report, starts at 8:30 p.m. eastern. check your pbs station for local listings. the u.s. supreme court today heard arguments in a key racial gerrymandering case out of south carolina. the state redrew their congressional map moving thousands of black voters out of a competitive congressional

district, shoring it up as reliably republican and diluting the black vote. the outcome here could determine the balance of power in congress . for more on today's court proceedings, we're joined by newshour supreme court analyst marcia coyle. it's good to see you. so we know that two lower courts agreed that there was a clear racial gerrymandering in this case, but at least a handful of the conservative justices on the supreme court today appeared to cast doubt on that. tell us more. marcia: let me say that a racial gerrymandering is when a district has been drawn with race as the predominant motive or factor. that is unconstitutional under the 14th amendment equal protection guarantee. during the arguments today, the chief justice and justice alito both seemed to be somewhat skeptical that the challengers here, the south carolina conference of the naacp, had carried its burden of what they call disentangling race from

politics. politics was what the state legislature claimed was it's motive when it drew district one in south carolina. the chief justice said, for example, that there was no direct evidence that race was used. there were no bizarrely shaped lines aroundhe district which is often a tip-off. he said that all it is, all they had, was circumstantial evidence, and if the court were to accept that, he said that that could be a huge change or expansion of the court's voting rights jurisprudence. that was really the strongest, and i think that was made about the challengers evidence and their arguments today but there was pushback. justices kagan and justice sotomayor were felt that the circumstantial evidence was very strong and that was all that was needed under the court's voting rights jurisprudence. they said that the lower court had found that, you know, what other reason could there be

other than race when you see the legislature move 30,000 black voters out of the district into another district in an attempt basically to keep a 17% black voting age population in district one. there was pushback there. and yet, i think what all the justices seemed to agree today on is this is a very difficult case, trying to separate out whether race was the predominant motive or partisanship. as you know, partisan gerrymandering are not unconstitutional. geoff: and the impact here is of course huge. our team spoke with south carolina public radio reporter talisha who asked land what this means for local voters in south carolina. >> some voices will not be heard so for the black residents who

are now living in this deluded or cracked first congressional district, issues that matter to them will be hard to hear, hard to get representation for those issues moving forward, and then for those voters who have been packed, issues that matter to them or their larger community, these coastal issues, those voices or issues may have a hard time being heard because they are now lumped in with residents who live almost 100 miles away. geoff: that is the potential impact on folks in south carolina. what are the national implications? marcia: there are a number of redistricting battles going on throughout the country. they are not all racial gerrymandering claims. some of them are under the voting rights act and yet you know that courts and litigators will be watching what the supreme court says today, and what it does say today could very well have an impact on, for example, the u.s. house elections and control of the

u.s. house in 2024. so that is a very significant impact. also, the challenger's claim that if they do not succeed here, that state legislatures will be able to use politics or partisanship as a proxy for race and shield their plans from challengers. on the other side, religion -- the legislature claims that if the court rules against them, it's going to draw courts into very difficult battles, trying to find the difference here, whether it is race or politics. geoff: marcia coyle, thanks so much for your time. marcia: thank you. geoff: and that is the newshour for tonight. remember, there is more coverage online. amna: join us again tomorrow night when we will have the latest from on the ground here in israel. i am not divorce.

geoff: i am geoff bennett. thanks for joining us and have a good evening. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour including jim and nancy and kathy and paul anderson. >> consumer cellular. this is sam. how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. thought i would let you know that with consumer cellular, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. >> these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me. i'm thriving by helping others every day. people who know know bdo. >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide.

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hello, everyone. welcome to amanpour & co. . as hamas launches more rockets into israel and israel pounds gaza with airstrikes, i have the latest maneuvers from a national security spokesperson, john kirby. >> then i speak to an american who says five members of her family have been kidnapped by ha