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30 past the hour. with the death of hamas' leader, israel and prime minister benjamin netanyahu have an opportunity to turn military wins into diplomat ec deals. earlier today netanyahu called yahya sinwar's death a milestone while vowing to keep the war going. hamas reacted this morning saying they were going to keep the war going as well. joining us now is former senior cia counterterism officer who worked extensively against hamas and other iranian proxy groups. thank you, mark, for being with us. what does sinwar's death mean for hamas? >> so, that's something that, you know, both and u.s. and israeli officials are going to take a very close look at. yahya sinwar was an integral

figure. he commanded a great deal of fear, not only amongst the population in gaza. he's the butcher of khan younis. he cracked down certainly on dissent. who comes next? there's the leadership externally, primarily based in both qatar and lebanon. individuals who will perhaps -- and that's the hope of less of a hard line stance in terms of a ceasefire for hostage deal. so, this is something that's going to be clear in the next coming days who is the announced successor. and then of course is the question of the israelis. will prime minister netanyahu be more willing now after a high target number one, after he has been eliminated, will he be more willing and be more politically stable to try to make a deal? so, really interesting days ahead and of course an issue that is front and center to the world. >> indeed. so, i'm just wondering because,

mark, with so much destruction of gaza and clearly the top leadership of hamas has been taken out, yet with so much destruction, there are new generations of people coming forward. what makes you or anyone think that that new generation coming forward is going to be anything but even more recalcitrant against israel? >> jose, it's a great question. acting director of the counterterrorism center brett hol gwen last week even said that. there was real concern about radicalization amongst the palestinians because of the destruction in gaza. at the same time, you see political polling and it's hard to judge the accuracy that hamas does not enjoy a lot of support. we see all over social media, many palestinians coming out and celebrating the death of sinwar. it's hard to judge. what is clear is there's got to

be a day after plan. there has to be an entity that steps in. i think that's where the israelis have to bend a little bit here, whether it's a coalition, a renewed palestinian authority that steps in. there's got to be something because without that, you do see potential for growing insurgency. it is critical for israel to take steps now that will, in essence, solidify what has been extraordinary success which is the death of, in essence, their bin laden. >> we're we were just talking to an idf spokesman just a few minutes ago. i asked him, you guys took out the top leadership. you guys were able to do what you said you wanted to do vis-a-vis hamas. you've won. why not declare vukt ri and go on? but he said there's 101 reasons for that. i'm just wondering, is there any hope for those 101 reasons who have been there in the tunnels and horrendous circumstances now for more than a year?

>> so, jose, i think that one dynamic is inside israel. so often we take a look at israel foreign policy. but henry kissinger once said, there's no israeli policy, it's only domestic politics. what does that mean? there is a huge cry net right now in israel about the hostages. this is their number one priority. the war aim was to kill sinwar, decimate hamas. they've done that. and of course to get the hostages back. so, the israeli public, i think, is going to put an extraordinary amount of pressure on the netanyahu government to make a deal. of course we have to figure out if there's anyone to deal with on the hamas side. take a look at the israeli public and what they're thinking on this. you know, that's going to be front and center, and it makes a lot of sense, particularly with, you know, 100+ individuals still in captivity. >> and so final is the issue of the big overriding force in all of this, which is iran. now, we've seen what's happened just like hamas has been

obliterated as far as a structure and as a force. you know, hezbollah has been obliterated as well. and lebanon is seeing the results of this. what does iran do next? >> well, that's a great question because iran is losing all of its proxies. you know, hamas has been badly -- you have hezbollah, hair main proxy. that was their aircraft carrier sitting on israel's border. that was their deterrent factor to prevent an israeli strike on the nuclear program. hezbollah has been decimated, so what does iran do now. israel is going to retaliate in some form for the ballistic missile strike. it's going to be interesting to see if whatever israel does if iran calls it a day. iran is in a very tough strategic position now. they know that. and it would certainly be in their interest to stand down from this because i think one thing that the israelis

certainly understand is that they are winning now in the sense of hamas -- iran's proxies being destroyed and, you know, iran is certainly vulnerable to israeli attacks. so, again, the next step is going to be if or how israel responds. >> thank you very much for being with us. appreciate you. up next, why the wider war in the middle east is forcing some voters in a critical battleground state here at home to take a different look at who they will be voting for on the 5th of november. ovember. (vo) at verizon every phone can be the new iphone 16 pro with apple intelligence. wow phones are going to be flying to verizon. switch to verizon and get the new iphone 16 pro, and get a new ipad and apple one, all on us.

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40 past the hour with just 18 days until election day, and the conflict in the middle east growing, the crisis in the region could determine how many arab americans will cast their ballot in the race for the white house. yasmin -- it's great to see you. what did you learn from these voters? >> this is my third time in deerborn throughout this election season, and these group of voters feel forgotten. they feel their vote only matter when is there is an election, but in the interim period they are not heard. and they feel as if the war both in gaza and now spilling out to lebanon is representative of the fact that their vote doesn't

necessarily -- or their vote doesn't necessarily matter. let's take a listen to more of what they had to say, jose, and then we'll talk on the other side. >> how are you feeling two and a half weeks out from this election? >> betrayed, second class citizens. we've been dehumanized. we're -- i don't even know if i feel second class. we're almost third or fourth class citizens now. >> this is what we're trying to grapple with as a community of color, as a community that is civically engaged, and a community that's done everything right here in america, right? but we've been told that you don't matter to the extent that we will continue to shed the blood of your people. >> as arab americans in this community, as lebanese americans now in this community, and you say politicians, which politicians do you blame? >> they're the ones that are approving the weapons, the resources, to bomb our people back home.

although here, i'm an american, i work here, i've had my kids here, my roots are still in lebanon. i feel like they're turning their back on us. that's my home, my homeland, and they're the ones that are m bombing it. >> 200,000 arab american voters in the state of michigan are at stake. as we know, it is integral to the election to win that state for both these candidates. so, they are vying for these votes. the three individuals we heard for are likely voting for jill stein, a third party candidate. and i pressed them saying, there are many people that will argue and say a vote for jill stein in the state of michigan is, in fact, a vote for donald trump. donald trump has said repeatedly he will reinstate the muslim ban. he has said he wants netanyahu to quote, unquote finish the job. they say a vote for jill stein for the third party is in fact a protest vote. and they say that because essentially they want to change the system, that they over and

over have been forced to choose the lesser of two evils, and they're done doing that, especially because they feel as if their vote has been taken for granted. they feel as if they do this protest, vote third party, vote for jill stein, instead of for instance, kamala harris, in fact maybe that will force the system to further bolster a third party candidate. and that is what they, jose, are voting for in light of being one-issue voters. they're voting because of the ongoing war in the middle east. >> yasmin voir dire soouf yan, appreciate it. up next, a migrant deaths at the southern border is more than ten times what they were just five years ago. a new nbc documentary looks at why so many people are dying, sometimes within reach of rescue missions. >> the officers, they saw drag marks into the desert. unfortunately, she doesn't found in time to get help. to get help.

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. 47 past the hour and we're back with really alarming news out of new mexico, where we are learning this week that migrant deaths in that state have increased more than 13-fold just in the last five years. a small patch of desert has become one of the dangerous stretches of the men, women, and children making the treacherous journey to what they hope will be a better life in the u.s. in a deadly detour, correspondent david noriega spent time with medical investigators to learn why so many are dying so close to safety. >> heat speeds up the decomposition process. often they're so sun burned they're blackened. heat is a destroyant. so, this is my office.

body bags. these are all extra. >> reporter: after 31 years recovering dead bodies for new mexico's office of the medical investigator, it's only the last two summers laura mae williams has had to visit the border lands nearly every day. >> it's not uncommon for me to come down for one body that's been found and border patrol finds another one or maybe even two additional ones in different locations. >> so, several bodies a day. >> yeah, correct. >> reporter: in the new mexico desert just west of el paso, the number of people who die after crossing the u.s./mexico border has gone from a handful a year to 116 last year to more than 120 this year so far. the vast majority die from the heat. many are in their 20s and 30s. one night, in what turned out to

be the world's hottest june on record, a passer by found the body of a young woman of guatemala. [ speaking in a global language ] >> okay. is this person breathing? [ speaking in a global language ] >> are you willing to try cpr? >> the officers, they saw drag marks into the desert. unfortunately she wasn't found in time to get help, but she was found. >> reporter: she had crossed the border once before, four months prior. she turned herself in to border patrol to request asylum but was denied and deported. we spoke with her mother in guatemala. >> reporter: so she tried again,

this time hiring a smuggler to get into the u.s. undetected. on june 13th, the smuggler guided her and a group into the desert. temperatures that day reached 109 degrees. the smuggler told her family that while they were walking, she asked to stop and rest. he said he left her behind with the intention of going back for her, but when he returned, she was gone. he sent her family this picture in the place where he left her and a screen shot of his messages to her unreturned. she was found that night near a roadway. according to the report, she had been dragged 700 feet. she did not have her phone. the only belongings she had were cash, a piece of paper with u.s. phone numbers and a hair tie.

her cause of death was hyperthermia due to heat exposure. she was 20 years old. her sister questioned the smuggler about his story. >> reporter: the place where she was found is, according to the co-ordinates, just east of this little dirt road here. we should be coming up on it. oh, my god. it's literally within sight of

this subdivision of these houses. it's a couple dozen suburban houses. it would probably take me maybe three minutes to walk from here to there. she didn't. she couldn't. she couldn't make it. the question is why? why all of a sudden from one year to the next did the number of people dying right outside of a major city on the border skyrocket? there's only one consistent explanation. first responders, elected official, various officials here in el paso believe the thing that contributed to the sudden rise in the number of deaths is operation lone star. starting in 2021, texas placed wire and deployed national guard troops and state police to the urban areas where most migrants attempt illegal crossing. in el paso, this pushed people just west of the city, over the

state line into new mexico. it's a small patch of land close to highways. but in summer, it's hot and dry enough to claim lives by the hundreds. in a statement, the texas governor's office blamed the deaths on the federal government and said operation lone star helps redirect migrants to legal crossing points. >> there are times that my feet are burning even with my thick-soles. i don't know if you can see, it's 134.8. in the summer, it's incredibly hot out here. you can imagine in those extreme conditions, even if you are well hydrated and well fed, it's going to wear on the body. >> reporter: bodies recovered in the desert are moved to albuquerque, to the office of the chief medical investigators. >> we have 16 autopsy tables total. some days we have more than we

have tables. >> reporter: are many preventable? >> the answer in my opinion is yes. they could have called for help for this person. they could have provided nourishment. instead they, they took their one method of communication where they could have called for help and left them to die. why is this not a homicide? >> i don't know the politics. i don't care. that's not my business. this is their journey to make their life better is what i have to believe. i hope they didn't suffer. even though this is not an easy death. so i know they did. >> that's the reality. thanks to david noriega. now back to breaking news. the unsealing of exhibits and evidence in the 2020 election interference case against trump. back with us lisa rubin.

what have you seen? >> a lot of what we have seen is stuff that's already been public. that's not entirely surprising, because the special counsel's office warned that they would be sealing and asking the court to redact much of what has not been public information and specifically the contents of witness interviews and grand jury testimony. a lot of what we have seen so far are the former president's tweets, including data that seems to have come from twitter itself, authenticating these were, in fact, his tweets and retweets. the other thing we are seeing is information about how funding for the january 6 rally itself developed. that information, again, is not entirely new, but it's information that we are not accustomed to seeing. that will strike some people as new in part because there has been so many months since the conclusion of those january 6 hearings. to see which organizations were

involved in the planning of the rally, what they were being given for, how much that rally cost in totality. it was estimated it would cost about $3 million at the start. that lowered over time to about 2.5. to see the planning for that rally in stark monetary terms, that's information that will strike some of the american public as new and somewhat surprising. >> lisa, why now? why is this being released now? >> in part, it's being released now because the former president fought so hard against this case. necessitating briefing that came after the supreme court's immunity decision over the summer, judge chutkan had to make sense of that. her determination about the best way forward was to ask the special counsel's office to submit a brief with exhibits. that's why we are seeing this at this late date. >> lisa rubin, thank you so very much. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. see you back here at 2:00 p.m.

eastern. you can watch tomorrow night "nbc nightly news" on saturday. i hope you will. you can always reach me on social media @jdbalart. catch clips from this show on youtube. thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news after a quick break. thanks to a unique combination of herbs, iberogast helps relieve six digestive symptoms to help you feel better. six digestive symptoms. the power of nature. iberogast. what does a robot know about love?

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports," peace or war? the u.s. pressing israel to turn the death of hamas leader yahya sinwar into an opening for