right now on our special coverage of the war in israel, unrelenting israeli forces bombarding gaza with air strikes, implementing a full siege of the strip, cutting off power, water and other supplies, hunting down hamas terrorists still inside southern israeli. a ground invasion complicated by a massive hostage situation, including americans. israel's ambassador to the united states will be joining me this hour. plus, the show of support with the pentagon repositioning a carrier strike group and

military aircraft closer to israel amid concerns of a larger regional conflict breaking out. was iran involved in hamas' planning and new attacks from the north? americans among the dead. the state department says at least nine americans have been killed. more than 1200 people, soldiers, civilians and children are death on both sides. those numbers are expected to climb even higher. i'm andrea mitchell with our continuing coverage of the war in israel. a constant barrage of israeli air strikes lighting up the sky. 300,000 israeli troops have been called up after this weekend marked the most extensive invasion of israeli territory in

decades. these tanks are at the border area between israel and gaza. any ground invasion will be complicated of the desperate hostage situation. a heartbreaking dilemma of one israeli mother who was brave enough to come on and talk to me about it at this hour. >> i could hear people speaking in arabic outside their door, and they broke in. the last thing i heard was the youngest who is 12 saying, i'm too young, don't take me. i think any mother in the world should try and imagine her children in her situation and then think again. that's all i want. i want the world to ask them to release children, to release elderlies, to release the civilians they took. there is no reason to hold them there. they are not soldiers. they are not part of the war, and they have nothing to do with

it. >> we'll start with nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, david miller, and hallie, a senior policy adviser in the obama administration serving as a policy adviser to former ambassador samantha power. richard, night has now fallen. are hamas terrorists still in the area in southern israel, or have they got it under control? >> reporter: they have not gotten it under control. military officials that we've spoken with believe that there are still hamas militants on the loose. there are not any active gun battles at the moment that i'm aware of. there have been other infiltrations. i was told by a senior military official that some of those infiltrations were taking place around sderot.

the waves of attacks where the militants go through holes that they blew up in the border fence and enter israeli territory and go on a killing industry or attempted killing sprees are very much continuing. and the rocket fire from gaza into israel. it is not contained. i was told as well that there are about 30 different holes in the fence, that about 90% of them have been blocked. the other 10% are being watched from the air. if militants try to use them to escape gaza, that they're targeted, but sometimes the militants do slip through and they're still actively trying to find other ways to get out and continue this offensive. >> how did they get through the fence so easily with such sudden surprise? you know that border and you know how well defended it is.

>> i think they just had the element of surprise and they used overwhelm manpower. we're talking about hundreds of militants. a senior official told me that the number is close to a thousand hamas militants just on that first day, on that morning of the -- on saturday. it was a sustained attack as well. i didn't quite realize how long the militants were on the ground and how long they were on a killing spree before the situation had any kind of control and before real rescue operation was launched. i just spoke with a woman whose daughter was at that overnight rave, that music festival. the attack began around 6:30 in the morning, and it was continuing with the militants first firing rockets and then moving in among the festival goers who were trying to escape but got themselves tied up in

traffic as they were all trying to flee the scene. it went on, this chaos and killing and people trying to escape and not knowing where to go and talking with their relatives for about four hours. it seems as well that the israelis in the area were themselves -- couldn't respond because they were engaged in firefights in multiple locations. how were they able to do this? by overwhelming the israelis, bombing the border fence in multiple different locations, streaming out in large numbers, using paragliders to go over the israeli defenses, using boats to go around it, a highly complex assault that lasted for a long time. now these families are trying to figure out where their loved ones are. are they alive? are they dead? have they been brought to the gaza strip. i've interviewed many people in war zones, and some of the

accounts i'm hearing here are among the most difficult to report on and difficult to hear that i've heard in a very long time. >> aaron, you know richard has a lot of experience in many war zones and this sounds horrific. how could such a complex operation be pulled off without iranian involvement, specific iranian orders? >> there was obvious coordination with the iranian revolutionary guard corps and perhaps through palestinian leadership in dohar. yeah. the irgc has a lot of experience. i'm sure there was a lot of training, a lot of lessons learned. but at the same time, hamas is not a wholly owned subsidiary of

tehran. no one knows that border area better than the israelis and hamas. remember hamas demonstrations in the preceding two weeks on reflection now appear to be more or less reconnaissance, to test the vulnerabilities of that fence and determine at what points infiltration could occur. yeah, it was a coordinated operation, but i don't think we should lose sight of the fact that despite the coordination and the effectiveness, it was in the end a massive terrorist strike. i was in jerusalem in 1973 during the attack on the border. those wars were on the border. sadat had a limited objective, leading the a peace treaty six years later. hamas' objective, other than to

demonstrate the centrality was to strike fear and terror and to kill and ultimately to undermine the israeli government's capacity to protect its own citizens. that is the critical point here, a government's responsibility to protect and secure a normal life for its citizens, and that objective, that vulnerability -- the fact that you still have palestinian infiltrators. they've secured rural villages, but you still have reports of palestinian individuals operating in that area. so a tragic day with transformative consequences. i think at some point we need to focus on that. >> hallie, you've warned about the dangers of disinformation. donald trump immediately saying falsely this was the result of the $6 billion of iranian money

that was unfrozen in terms of the money that was unfrozen because of the return of the prisoners, the american prisoners. what are the accurate facts here as far as you know it? they say not a penny of that money, of the $6 billion has been spent, it's still in the central bank in qatar. >> yes, andrea. this has been an horrific surge of terror with an enormous human toll with hundreds killed, thousands injured, and hundreds potentially being held hostage. what we've seen from donald trump and other republicans is disinformation. they're either misinformed or miss informing. in the case of donald trump, it's both. they know that not a dollar of

that money that has been unfrozen has been spent nor will it be spent by the iranian regime. it will only go to third parties for humanitarian purposes, for medicine and other humanitarian needs. it is not in any way connected to what has occurred in israel. >> after israeli forces left in 2005 is something they're prepared for, but not with hostages. how can they accomplish the ground invasion in all these tunnels and not knowing where the hostages are? >> reporter: well, it would be a nightmare scenario. this is already a nightmare scenario. just so you know, it started to rain here. if i lose connection or i become very wet looking, that's why. there's a bit of a storm descending on us right now. it is a situation where the israelis seem to have no good

options. doing nothing right now leaves the hostages there, leaves hamas with a victory, leaves this country feeling incredibly vulnerable and doing something, doing a ground invasion is potentially very costly. hamas already claims that israeli air strikes killed four of what they're dubbing as prisoners, what everyone else is calling hostages and they're blaming the israelis for it. how do they do this? they're truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. that's why negotiations, and i've been told that there are negotiations already under way to free the hostages have begun. but they're extremely difficult. i've spoken to people directly involved in the talks. they say they're not encouraged at this stage anyway. the families here, going back to what you were just talking about. this isn't just a military operation like the 6th of october war when sadat wanted to

take over the sinai and this country was caught by surprise. these were kids at a music festival, families in their homes and elderly were taken, children were taken. people who needed medicine, taken without their medicine, disabled children were taken, whoever they could get back into gaza and now hidden in different locations was taken. the human cost that the people here are feeling is tremendous as family members were literally ripped from their hands. i mentioned that festival and the reason it's on my mind, i just finished an interview with a mother of a young woman named romi. she was at this concert, she was there with a friend, having a nice time and suddenly she calls her mom and says something going on. there's rocket fire. i'm afraid. i don't know what to do. i don't know where to go.

her mother very calmly, this is israel and there is rocket fire with frequency said, okay, be safe, be as safe as you can, find some shelter. this will likely pass, don't get too upset. she calls back, there's gunfire. mommy, they're coming for us. she's on the phone the whole time. i'm hiding in the bushes. they are able to -- the family is able to coordinate a rescue operation. they're calling friends, calling everyone they can in the area. they get cars to the location -- that's what i'm saying, this went on for a very long time before any help was coming. this mother got cars to the daughter in order to get them out. they got into the cars, but then because everyone was panicked, they were stuck in a massive traffic jam. the mother is on the phone for a long time and now the gunshots are closely. she's telling her mother, i'm

scared, we're all shot, we're bleeding. she's giving her daughter first aid information on how to stop the blood. her voice is fainter and fainter. then she hears arabic voices very close, and she's lost contact after this. there are stories like this all across the country as people are coming to terms, not with a military action, but with pure rage, pure hate, pure terror. >> richard engel, unbelievable. thank you for your reporting. aaron david miller, hallie server, thank you as well. coming up, we'll talk about the hostage crisis. i'll speak with an american in israel whose family was kidnapped and taken to gaza. in just 60 seconds we'll be right back. kwleer clear allergic reactions to ubrelvy can happen.

most common side effects were nausea and sleepiness. ask about ubrelvy. the new subway mvp rewards earns you points when you order. -superbowl mvps really do get all the perks? i'm talking about subway mvp. it's a way bigger deal. do you get a trophy for that? i wish. get rewarded like an mvp. . with israel now dealing with a hostage crisis in gaza, a new

video shows a 12-year-old taken by militants over the weekend. his sister confirmed to nbc news he was kidnappedlo with other members of his family. the family members range from 12-80 years old. the family says they were taken to gaza. joining me is their relative abby, living in israel for the last eight years. abby, first of all, how are you holding up, and are you in a safe place? >> we're safe right now. thank you so much for having me on. i appreciate the support and coverage. >> tell me what you know about how your relatives were taken? >> we all woke up like all israelis to sirens at 6:30 in the morning. we went to the bomb shelter. he came back and started getting videos of hamas infiltrating the country from land, air, sea and

sky, and then began getting family whatsapps that our family who lives in a kibbutz on the gaza border that hamas was there and shooting. >> what was your last contact with them? >> we heard from them around 11:00 or 12:00 in the morning on the first day of the war on saturday with these text messages. we understand the army recommended they stop using whatsapp because they could identify where they were. at that point we know they probably threw some smoke grenade or tried to burn the bbutz and slat tered almost everyone. those that weren't slaughtered, many were taken hostage and kidnapped into gaza which is what we believeappened to five members of our family. >> have you gotten any information from the government about your family? >> nothing from the government.

have a video which gives us hope that erez is alive. at this point we want people to be aware that this is happening and this is a humanitarian issue, that this is every parent and every sibling and every person's worst nightmare. >> did you ever anticipate that something like this could happen? you've lived with air raid sirens, the threat of rockets coming from gaza. but never a full-scale invasion, by land, by sea, by air. >> this is unprecedented and horrific. you get used to air ride side wrens that you feel protected by the iron dome and you feel some modicum of safety. this feels like a complete violation of everything. this is absolute terror. >> abbey, we wish you get some

good news soon. our thoughts are with you. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> best of luck and stay safe. >> thank you. right now we have immanuels of israeli tanks amassing near gaza. scores of flights in and out of the region have been canceled. the u.s. government is urging caution for anyone travelling to israel or the west bank. with me now is raf sanchez from ashkelon, israel. raf, what's the latest there? >> reporter: andrea, literally in the last few minutes we've been watching the iron dome intercepter missiles lighting up the sky as more rockets continue to fly out of gaza. i want to update you on news breaking in the last ten minutes. we have a new audio statement for a spokesman for the so-called military wing of hamas. in this statement, abu abaida is

his name. hamas will begin executing a captive in return for bombing inside gaza without pre warning. andrea, this is the first time that hamas has explicitly threatened to execute hostages incited gaza. it's obviously been implied and what the world expected given the absolute carnage they wreaked inside gaza. this is in israel bombs any civilian housing inside gaza without pre warning. now, that is a chilling message for the families all across israel tonight who are desperately seeking news of their loved ones being held captive inside gaza. i spoke earlier to a man named

yoni asher. his wife and two young daughters age 3 and 5, were visiting their grandmother's house in a kibbutz near the gaza border on saturday morningment i want you to take a listen to his description of the last phone call he had with his wife. >> she said that they're hearing gunshots. not much longer passed, and about 10:00 a.m. we had a phone call. hamas people was inside the house. she told me that my mother-in-law's spouse went out to speak with them. from what i'm guessing, i guess that retrospect, he wanted to negotiate with them, tell them to take some money and leave. i couldn't stand. i couldn't believe what i'm hearing. it happened so fast. we discovered that the mobile was inside gaza.

>> reporter: no, yoni tracking his wife's cell phone, using the find my iphone app, seeing the phone was inside gaza and hoping and praying that perhaps these hamas militants has stolen the phone and taken it with them. andrea, it wasn't until he saw a video published by hamas where he watched his wife being blindfolded by a gunman, one arm protectively around the shoulders of one of their young daughters that he realized his family is now hostages of hamas. he said to me, if there was any arrangements where he could go to gaza and surrender himself to hamas to secure the freedom of his family, that is a deal he would take in an instant. it's something we're hearing again and again from families all across israel tonight. >> it's just horrific. is there any indication from the government, we are expecting to hear something from prime minister benjamin netanyahu

shortly. any indication that they would stop the aerial attacks or at least give warnings on the aerial attacks to protect the hostages? do they believe this threat? >> reporter: we haven't heard any official reaction. this latest statement from hamas just came out a few minutes ago. israel says that it goes to enormous lengths to avoid any civilian casualties inside gaza, that it only targets military infrastructure. i the tell you, andrea, having spent a lot of time in gaza, i have met palestinians who have told me they have received phone calls on their cell phones from israeli military officers telling them that the building they live in also contains hamas infrastructure. the building is going to be bombed. i met a man who said an israeli soldier said stayed on the phone with him for 45 minutes making sure the building was evacuated

before it was bombed. it is true that israel does its best to try to avoid civilian casualties inside gaza. it is also true that if you drop high-powered explosives in a densely populated city like gaza city or in a refugee camp, it is inevitable that civilians are going to be killed. there are 2 million civilians living in gaza under the control of hamas. they are not hamas themselves, but they are paying the consequences right now. israel's defense minister says he has imposed a state of siege on gaza. he will not allow food in, will not allow fuel in, and he will not allow electricity. that's seen by human rights groups around the world as a collective punishment, making the civilians pay. it seems like all the old rules have been torn up now. we're really, really in a new paradigm here and no one knows

what's coming next. i will tell you everything we're seeing on the ground, andrea, indicates that israel is preparing for a ground offensive, perhaps very soovenlt we have seen columns of israeli tanks, israeli armor being moved down to the gaza border. they've called up 300,000 reservists which is a military mobilization unlike anything we've seen since 1973. so an already dire situation on both sides of the border perhaps about to get a whole lot worse. >> stand by with us, raf. i want to bring in gill grossman, an israeli combat paramedic in paratrooper reserves unit. you just traveled to israel amid the travel warnings. why did you decide to go? >> thank you for having me on the air, andrea. we're here in israel, very lucky to be among my brothers and sisters in arms. i joined the brigade of medics.

we're going to support all of our teams, if it's in gaza or the north i cannot tell you. i decided to come here and support my fellow strails because my family was kicked out of poland and out of -- from one side, from the other side from iraq. we say no more. we are here to stay. this is our land and we want to live here in peace with everyone. whoever will not respect it, we'll take it. we are here to stay, and that's the message the israeli military want to show to everyone. we want peace. this is what we're looking for. that's why i came here today. >> are you part of an activated reserve unit or are you operating on your own --

>> i'm not part of an active unit. i was part of the paratroopers in my three years in the army, i was part of the paratroopers and i was a medic. when i came to israel, i did not know who i'm going to join. i open my cell phone, i gave some calls, and here i am with a weapon, with a team that i'm learning to know now, but i'm telling you, tough people. i'm very lucky to be with these people. >> how is the israeli military going to handle what's happening in gaza given the fact that there are so many hostages there? >> it's very hard to say. >> is it going to be ground invasion, from the air? what do you think is going to happen? >> it's very hard to say.

all i want is to have peace, and this is what we're looking for. we're trying to get the most out of it and we'll try to create least amount of pain from both sides. >> thank you very much, gil grossman. >> thank you for having me. >> raf sanchez, you've been there from the very beginning, as we were talking very early on saturday morning here in the states. what are you seeing now that indicates that israel is mobilizing to try to get into gaza? >> reporter: so, andrea, last night we were on one of the main north-south highways in israel. i'm not exaggerating when i say every few minutes we saw heavy trailer trucks rumbling past, and on the back of those trucks

were israeli battle tanks. we just got stuck in -- sounds comical to say it. we got stuck in a traffic jam a little while ago. an enormous convoy of israeli trucks. the air raid sirens started to go off. the soldiers all ran and ran and ran away from the trucks. when the sirens stopped, we started to go back towards the road, and the soldiers said don't go, those trucks are full of explosives. if a rocket falls near here, there will be a massive explosion. hour after hour after hour on the roads we're seeing the signs of this israeli military buildup. i spoke to a spokesperson for the israeli defense forces yesterday, i asked him, is a ground invasion of gaza with the goal of toppling hamas actually feasible, that kind of urban warfare street by street in densely packed cities and

refugee camps. he said it's possible. he said if prime minister benjamin netanyahu and the security cabinets gives the order for an all-out ground invasion, then israel's military will carry out that order and he's confident they will succeed. the question is what cost to israeli forces but what cost to the civilians inside gaza, those 2 million people who have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. one of the perennial dynamics in these situations is israel's political leaders try to seek the diplomatic space for the military to achieve their goals on the battlefield. there is obviously shock around the world and sympathy for israel at the scale of the loss of israeli life, but that could change quickly if the images we're seeing from southern

israel are replaced with images of massive, massive loss of life inside kazoo as an israeli ground invasion rolls in. it is not clear whether israel has the stomach for that, whether the world has the stomach for that, whether president biden could continue, would continue to give diplomatic cover to israel if there was massive loss of palestinian life inside gaza. these are the decisions. these are the options being weighed by leaders as they decide what to do next. andrea. >> raf, stand by. collin clark is the director of research and senior research fellow and former cia officer. mark, you were the first saturday to say the hamas attack is israel's 9/11 because of the

surprise factor, because of how well coordinated it was and that it was a failure of imagination. they had never thought apparently that hamas could come in and do a ground invasion as well as from the air and the sea. >> that's right. this is an enormous surprise to a lot of us who run counterterrorism operations in the region. all services are very good and the israelis are particularly good. they have an extensive human intelligence network, signals intelligence, that's intercepts, technical means, drones and sensors. it seems to have all somehow failed. the way i thought about this over the last 48 hours or so, it's actually a regional intelligence failure as well as i noted. what about the egyptians, the jordanians and even the other allies of israel, the saudis and qataris. how did everyone miss a thousand

militants in this attack? i still can't explain it. >> collin, why didn't u.s. intelligence agencies even see this coming? >> that's a good question. although i would say all expectations would be that the israelis which have a world-class intelligence service would know what hamas is doing better. it's in their back yard. certainly -- i think the domestic political situation, israel has something to do with that, but, again, the u.s. is quite consumed with what's going on in ukraine, all these other hot spots in the world and probably thought the israelis were better able to see what was happening in gaza. >> in terms of israel's response, collin, what do you think they will do? will they go into gaza on the ground? it's tunnels. it's dense. it's a nightmare militarily.

>> they're gearing up potentially for a major ground invasion. as you managed, andrea, this is hugely complex. we've got hostages involved. there's a very complex subterranean network of tunnels that hamas has prepared for this exact moment. this is unlike some of the other conflicts that hamas and israel have sfaut in the past. i think the sheer numbers alone with the number of israelis dead, there's going to be demands for vengeance and the idf has its hands full. >> marc, they were able to slip across the border despite surveillance cameras, ground sensors. what does it say about their level of sophistication? u.s. officials are telling us that don't see signs of a -- >> that's a great question. i think you'll see obviously an after action, some accountability, not just israel but i think the regional

services as well. maybe there were things collected that went on the cutting room floor. maybe things came in and were discounted. again, i find it so surprising that there's not more -- the operational footprint of this was pretty extraordinary. andrea, the one thing to note, israel's intelligence services, like many, are considered the nation's first line of defense. that aura, that mystique has been shattered now. israelis are going to have to come to terms that perhaps the adversary as well is very good. hamas is a different organization right now than what we thought of them perhaps a week, a month or years ago. maybe the iranian involvement is such that the counterintelligence practices were sufficient to kind of elude this giant israeli net, but it's an adversary -- it's a terrorist group of course but an adversary we have to take seriously. it reminds me of september 12th,

2001 when we saw al qaeda in a bit of a different light. >> we have also -- collin and marc, please stand by. we have ambassador michael herzog joining us now. israel's defense forces have ordered a full siege of gaza, this as the death toll continues to climb. we are hearing more than 700 israelis killed, more than 570 in gaza and the west bank. ambassador herzog, first of all, condolences for all israel has suffered having been attacked. at this point hamas is saying they will kill a hostage for every air strike -- unwarned air strike against civilians. how do you deal with that? >> so i just heard it. hamas' methods are just like isis.

we all remember the scenes a few years back when isis killed some people. they're animals and my message is that we will hold them accountable to each and every hostage they harm. >> will israel take steps to warn civilians to try to prevent the execution of hostages? >> we call on the free world to send an unequivocal message to hamas that they must release unconditionally all the hostages that they have taken and they will be held accountable for any harm done to any of them. >> there have been signs certainly of a mobilization of tanks moving in for what could be a ground assault. would you undertake a ground assault without knowing where the hostages are, knowing how to get them released, any progress on that? >> we are at war.

we just attacked. we have a high number of fatalities, most of them women, children, elderly, whole family butchered by them in border villages. the official number right now is around 800, but we believe that the numbers are higher with thousands of wounded. we have numerous hostages held in iranian hands. we have to fight that war and win it. we're mindful of the issue of the hostages, but that doesn't mean we don't have a right to defend ourselves. we will do whatever is necessary to defeat hamas. >> at this stage, exactly how many hostages do you think are there? is there any way that you can figure that out, how many israelis, how many americans? >> we're not sure about the exact numbers. we're talking about many dozens.

we know that there are americans there, but i want to be very careful about the numbers. we're just now trying to form a picture and better understand how many people are there, who exactly are they. i don't want to comment before we have a fuller picture. >> there was a report that the prime minister notified the president when they talked that there would be a ground attack. that was later denied by some in the u.s. has there been any notification to the president of such plans? >> israel did not notify the united states about a decision made to launch a ground attack. this is definitely an option, and i don't rule it out. they invaded our territory. so we are, of course, within our rights to go into their

territory. but we have not conveyed an official message about the decision taken yet. >> there was also one report in the "wall street journal," as you know, that iran planned and ordered this attack aside from just the fact that they have supplied and trained hamas for decades. that said, that has been denied by u.s. officials who say, from the secretary of state on down, that there's been no evidence that iran -- the iranian government ordered this. can you clarify from your best information what was the role of the iranian government? >> i want to be precise in my words. i want to say that we're examining the exact iranian role in this. we are not 100% sure about whar operation and role in this, whether they're involved in the planning and execution of this

attack on israel. as you said, we know there are close relations between iran and hamas. iran has provided hamas with significant material support, funding, significant funding, weapons, training, and they define themselves as belonging to the iranian-led so-called axis of existence. they're part of the same coalition. it wouldn't surprise me to discover there was an iranian role behind the scenes. >> the military experts including admiral stavridis are telling us that urban warfare, especially in the hamas tunnels, is the most difficult and dangerous challenge for any army. is israel prepared to take that on? >> the short answer is yes.

we are not deterred by them. having waged war on israel with such a heavy price, i think the gloves are off. we will wage war until we destroy the war machine, and they should be clear about it. >> ambassador, talk to me about how israel could have been caught by surprise. i know it was the sabbath, i know it was a jewish holiday. you have all of those hundreds and hundreds of people at the music festival right near the gaza border. people were not on duty. it took a while to mobilize. how did intelligence fail? >> well, yes, we were taken by surprise. i believe that after the war there will be ample time to investigate this and understand what exactly happened. it's not the first and probably

not the last intelligence failure either in israel or elsewhere around the globe. i think the u.s. itself experienced some intelligence failure, but now is not the time to discuss it. we'll investigate it after the war. >> ambassador michael herzog at a very difficult time, thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you very much, andrea. msnbc anchor ali velshi joins us now from tel aviv. we understand the streets in tel aviv are silent around you, not the usual crowded evening traffic. >> reporter: not at all. andrea, this is a city that is known for its nightlife. it's a young city. it's got people in the streets. here we are in the middle of tel aviv. you can see a few cars around. very few people are walking around. a person i was talking to from here had said that very rarely in israel's recent history have these sort of skirmishes or

battles or increases in tension actually resulted in people not coming to the cafes or not going to the restaurants. in fact, there's a marked difference around tel aviv and places like this on a night like this. it was about this time last night that a lot of rockets started flying. none to tel aviv last night, although there were attempts and there was one at the ben gurion airport. this is a city reachable both by hezbollah in the north on the lebanese border and by hamas in the south. this is a city that's on edge. we're waiting for prime minister netanyahu to speak. we've also heard from the palestinian authority president, mahmoud abbas who said it's unislamic to take women, children and the elderly as prisoners, and these discussions about whether or not there's some kind of a hostage swap being planned. there's perhaps marginal development towards some kind of a negotiation with hamas which,

as you know better than anyone, andrea, israel doesn't enjoy that relationship with hamas, nor does the united states. the united states does still enjoy a relationship with other countries that might have influence with hamas. the situation on the street in israel is very tense. as we came in from jordan last night, we were talking to people -- they were angry, they are hurt. this is definitely that moment like in america after 9/11 where people want to tell you how hurt they are, how connected they are, to people who were at that party where so many people were killed, the attacks that they were in. this is definitely a city on high alert and on edge, andrea. >> ali velshi, thank you so much. here is a live look at gaza where the israeli hostage crisis is growing. hamas threatening to start executing hostages. joining me is a political analyst and former spokesperson

for the palestinian liberation organization. diana, thank you very much. i know there are many grievances over many decades by the palestinians and a lot of tension and conflicts in the west bank, very recently, over the last year intensifying. can you react to this threat from hamas now to threaten to execute hostages, women, children, the elderly who were taken from their homes if there are any more air attacks? >> andrea, this is the problem is that i don't think this is put in its proper political context. this isn't just a war, this is actually an occupation that has gone on now for 56 years. this is what palestinians have been living through over the course of the past 56 years. what we're seeing now is sadly the result of years of lack of

action on the part of the international community to actually end this occupation. i've been listening to your broadcast and i haven't heard anyone use the term occupation. they make it seem as if it came from nowhere. when we understand where the roots are, the fact that this is the result of the denial of freedom that we'll be able to come together and put into place measures to actually end this and to look forward and make sure that all people get to live in peace and dignity and security and in freedom. >> i just want to point out that the united states considers hamas as a terror organization. that doesn't speak to the innocent palestinians in gaza who are victims of hamas and of the bombings and retaliation as anyone else is. i'm just saying that hamas is considered a terror organization

by israel and by the united states and by countries all around the world. i'm not talking about the palestinian authority in the west bank. let me just ask you, you have grievances against israel and there has been violence by both sides over the years. does that justify taking people out of their homes of all ages, not talking about military people. we're talking about civilians, children and elderly people, men and women, and taking them into gaza and threatening to execute them? >> again, andrea, i'm not the one who is doing this, so it shouldn't be me asked to comment on it. i live in a totally different place. what i do want people to understand what life in the gaza strip is like. the gaza strip, more than 50% of the population is under the age of 18. we're talking about children now. there are 2 million palestinians

living in the gaza strip who have been living under this brutal siege. if we really want to move forward, it's not a question of asking me whether there are condemnations or not, but asking ourselves what is it that can be done. and simply ignoring it, pretending there is no occupation doesn't get us anywhere closer to actually making sure that people are able to live freely and in dignity and in peace and in security. the sad reality is for all of these years everybody has focused only on israel's security, leaving aside anything when it comes to palestinians. palestinians have lived in such insecurity over the past 56 yea. i really think that the time is now for us to start requestioning this idea that somehow israel can pommel gaza, that it can flatten gaza, that it can dehumanize palestinians in gaza as we have heard. we heard them call palestinians animals, and instead really ask itself why this is happening.

it's not happening in a political vacuum. it's happening because palestinians have lived under this dehumanizing military occupation for 56 years, and it's time to end it, andrea. >> no, i don't want to -- i'm not quarreling with the way palestinians have been living. i have been there myself. i'm just saying that this hamas leadership does not represent the aspirations of the innocent palestinians. those people taking work visas, and 2,000 that are being permitted out to take jobs and bring money back to those impoverished people in that dense city. thank you, diana. thank you for making those points. >> thank you. joining me now, admiral james stavridis. the former commander. talk to me about what we just heard, and, you know, there's no moral equivalency. violence is violence. but we're dealing with this war

and the way it was started and the hamas leadership which has been designated a terror group, not the innocent palestinian residents of gaza, those who are, and who are not connected to the government. >> yes, your points were spot on, andrea, and let's be clear here, these are terrorists who are committing the same kind of rapes, burning people alive, attacking children, this is unconscionable behavior, and we need to stand with the israelis who are acting at this point without question in self-defense. and i understand the long history quite well. i've studied it. i've been to israel, i've been to the west bank. i've been in gaza. i've seen it as you have, and there are big issues that need to be addressed between palestinians and israelis. break, break. that does not give license to conduct the kind of behaviors that we have seen over the last

48 hours, and i think the israelis are quite justified in going in high and hard. they're going to use their air power initially. then they're going to come in on the ground with special forces. they'll try and preserve the lives of those individual hostages. and by the way, the israelis, a force that i know very well and have operated with, are not going to indiscriminately just start killing civilians like we saw in the last 48 hours by hamas. they will do everything they can to avoid that kind of collateral damage, and then they will root out hamas, and i think they will ensure and we're probably going to hear this from the prime minister shortly, ensure that hamas, a terrorist organization is no longer in control of the gaza strip. >> how do they deal with this initial threat, this immediate threat to execute hostages, admiral? if there is any more air

strikes, they say any unalerted air strikes. >> well, israel typically does give warning of its air strikes so that civilians can clear out. and i suspect israel will continue to follow that policy where it militarily makes sense. i think secondly, israel, i know, being helped by the united states and other nations are doing absolutely everything we can to find and fix the location of these hostages, and you need only look at the history of israel in terms of hostage treatment. in 1972 after the munich games when israeli athletes were executed, israel spent decades tracking down those who perpetrated it. they will do everything they can in the moment to preserve the lives of these hostages. on the other hand, they will not

paralyzed from taking appropriate action to protect the rest of the population of israel. it's going to be a very difficult set of decisions. i had quite obviously for prime minister netanyahu and his cabinet. we'll be hearing from them shortly, and i know they will be asked and attempt to answer those questions. >> admiral, stay with us for a moment. i'm going to bring in former deputy commander of u.s. european command, lieutenant general jeff twitty, you were battalion commander, you know what urban warfare is and how brutal it can be. how violent is a ground invasion of gaza? >> yeah, andrea, great to be with you. this pales in comparison than what i had to deal with. we're talking about 2 million people packed in 140 square miles. it is the third largest dense area in the world. and whenever you're doing urban warfare, what you want to do is

isolate the area that you do not want to go in, and prevent reinforcements from coming. it's hard to do that when you're talking about 2 million people and there is a city. then you want to seize a foothold, after you isolate it in the area where you know that you want to strike. in this case, we have hostages that are probably decentralized and all over gaza, probably in bunkers, probably underground. so it's hard to even figure out where you want to isolate, and then you want, after you isolate that location, you want to flow forces in. in this case, you can't rush the failure when it comes to the israelis. they don't know where to rush the forces into because they don't know where the hostages are located, and so it would be imperative to get special

operation forces in, like admiral stavridis just talked about, to try and pinpoint where the hostages are, and do pinpoint it, special operation forces, instead of trying to eat this at one time with conventional forces because you have massive, massive build-ins. you have roads that can penalize these maneuver forces. you have probably ieds on the roads, they know where you're going to come from. this is an extreme mess that would take place here, and it's a very complex mission. >> admiral, how could there have been such an intelligence failure? >> two things come to mind, andrea, one is complacency, there's been a lot of frankly happy talk over the last six months, about bringing israel and saudi arabia together. and that's a good thing.

i think the international community is very focused on that. adding this crown jewel of the abraham accords, saudi arabia to the package. two weeks ago, we saw the biden administration quite correctly talking about, hey, this is a real possibility. we're going to make this happen. so i think there was a tendency to kind of be a little bit less focused on the downside, on the risk, on the bad side of the equation here, and too much focus on the possibility for something better coming. that's the complacency piece. i think the second reason, andrea, is the internal fraught divisions in israeli society right now. israel is looking internally, trying to resolve all of the disputes between right and left, between the supreme court and the executive branch of the government. they don't have a constitution, but they're in a constitutional crisis. i think all of that can just take energy and attention away

from the highest levels of government, and when you combine that with a sense that, well, we can solve this big problem of saudi israeli relations, kind of a tantalizing, and then you have those internal divisions. i think it's a combination of those two things. let me hasten to say, there's never a single reason. we'll find there have been breakdowns in a number of different areas, and to compare it to 9/11, what came out of that. we created a department of homeland security. we brought the intelligence community together. we created a new military combat and command, u.s. northern command to focus on the homeland. i think the israelis will spend a year and more understanding what happened and applying those lessons learned. >> very briefly, we have a few seconds left, admiral, do you think iran ordered this or it was just the supplier for decades. >> i think somewhere in the

middle. i don't think they ordered it. they certainly helped facilitate it. i would guess we're going to discover they were active in the planning process, and the advising process, in the encouragement process, probably provided a green light, but that's speculation on my part. i think we're all going to be very focused on where that goes because that is the key to whether or not this conflict goes much broader in the region, andrea. >> admiral stavridis, general steph twitty, thank you both so much, and thank you for being with us for this special coverage of "andrea mitchell reports," katy tur is up next with more special coverage of the war in israel, and we'll speak with nse coordinator for vic communications, john kirby. thanks for watching. john kirby thanks for watching. good to be with you, i'm katy tur. israeli prime minister benjamin