hugh dugan is here and how we can get our fellow americans back safely. arthel.rthel: yes meanwhile defense secretary lloyd austin reaffirming the u.s. commitment to stand with israel pretty just wrapped a trip to tel aviv as the pentagon moves military assets and the eastern mediterranean and a show of support. gilgillian turner live at the pentagon and out with more on this. >> general austin undertook this travel to israel to deliver a message which she did it yesterday morning in a joint press conference when israel's defense minister. he impressed upon them the united states is fully supportive of israel moving forward through the coming days and weeks. he made this a position crystal clear multiple times take a listen. >> assist no time for neutrality. or f for false equivalence. or for excuses for the inexcusable. there is and never any justification for terrorism. >> israel defense minister impressed on austin he views the recent hamas attacks as an existential threat, listen. >> murder, rape, kidnapping, this is what we face in this war. this is a war on

let's bring in hugh dugan a former special envoy for hostage affairs and major john spencer the chairwarfare studies at the modern war institute. john, what is it going to look like when this ground operation is underway? >> it's going to be like hell on earth. you can't do the operation the idf need to do to pry those hamas terrorists out of of the cities of gaza without being extremely destructive. we're already seeing that. but it's going to be a really tough challenge for idf to face them deep buried in the tunnels and in the bunkers and the rubble. it's going to be really -- it's going to look like scorched earth but the idea follow the laws of war is just what happens in urban warfare. >> jesse: how restrained is the israeli army being? they're catching all this heat from the international press. >> yeah, that's the tactic of hamas. hamas is -- if i teach urban warfare, i use hamas as an example of using human shields, literally putting your people out to die in military targets that way you can broadcast to the international media and cry for help. edf has been extremely restra

hhugh dugan is former acting affairs of hostages and united delegate to the united nations. thank you r being here, hugh that's 26 years by by math, and that's a long time. >> dana: saw a lot during those years. >> bill: saw and lot and survived too by the way. >> thank you. i >> bill: what are we up against and what should the administration do with iran and how do you link the $6 billion with what's happening today? >> in our massive military complex, the one weapon of war that we least study and understand is the taking of american hostages. whenever it happens, we're awoken in the middle of the night and can't find our slippers, our lights, or glasses and we're stumbling arnold. we need to study and understand the phenomena and be prepared when these things happen to us. currently there are americans endangered in gaza and could be as many as 600 living in the region that could be at risk. our principle task now is to make sure their captors understand they're goes to be worth more to them alive than dead. >> dana: how do we do that? >> establish consequences and don't wait for them to tell us what