Today as we come on air right now, its in washington, just after 7 00 in israel and gaza. On the israeli side, sirens are sounding, on the gaza side, the power supply is down. Cnn correspondents are on the front line of this war, miles from the gaza border, thats where Nick Robertson is right now, nick, what are you seeing there . Reporter we are hearing heavy detonations and gaza from Artillery Rounds that are being fired. Weve seen heavy artillery in placements, a few miles from here earlier on in the day. They were there yesterday but they are there today. These heavy rounds appear to be targeting the places where hamas might be trying to fire their rockets from but we are also hearing drone activity, we are seeing that behind me there. What you just heard was another one of those Artillery Rounds, impacting sorry to interrupt you. Nick, we just have to get to the president of the United States. He is speaking. This attack has brought to the surface this moment, we have to be crystal clear. There is no justification for terrorism. No excuse, and the type of terrorism that is exhibited here is beyond the pale. Beyond the pale. As i said yesterday, my commitment to israels security and the safety of the jewish people is unshakable. The United States will be working on this all through the day and beyond. I apologize for keeping you waiting. Thank you becky, for that introduction and for sharing your story. Thats familiar to so many families, this gets down to a basic problem, basic circumstance, you know folks are tight youre listening to President Biden who opened a discussion there at lighthouse by making clear that there is no excuse for terrorism and the u. S. And he in particular is committed to the safety of israel and noteworthy he used the term jewish people. I want to go back to nick, youre in a dangerous and precarious situation. Im so sorry for interrupting you. Please continue with what you are reporting with what you are seeing there. We were seeing some tank fire down behind me, sort of in the dark, you cant really see it but its sort of wideopen, rolling hills, dusty field, if you will, and sand down towards the fence, and weve heard over the past 24 hours, tanks operating and maneuvering in that area. We sought to rounds fired by a tank. We dont know why, we dont know what the purpose of the fire was. We do know from our Vantage Point here, we know there are more troops in this town, more troops around the region. Weve been driving along the border with gaza, we may have another loud explosion behind me in a second, it may happen thats thanks to john our cameraman you can see the flashes and the horizon behind me, when he sees that flash, theres another one, hes telling me, a few seconds before you hear the huge explosion, some of the explosions have been so big, they rattled the windows of the building. So the dynamic is an increased military presence, weve seen more troops deployed close to the border here. More heavy armored fighting vehicles theres another one of the explosions, just such a heavy thud an impact on the ground inside gaza, but you get the sense that the tempo is moving up. There are more troops here. More troops patrolling the streets. More troops deployed in the countryside close to the work border. Where the next piece of this puzzle is, we dont have site on that but i cant say, what we do have site on is just a building and building of a strengthening military presence. Stay as safe as you can, thanks to you and your team for being out there and telling us what is coming, the tempo is moving up. That is certainly an important sentence. One of mark many important sentences. And i want to now go to news that is just coming into cnn, the idf said they received reports of infiltrators crossing the border from lebanon. Theyre going into israeli airspace. We were just talking to nick who is on the border with gaza, you are talking about a different front, in the north of israel. Dana, this is also the front that worries people because of hezbollah and their present there. We are just receiving information from the Israeli Military that sirens have been going off across all of northern israel. I want to show you this, this is an app that shows you where there are alerts, and you might be able to see that bunch of red because that is the entire northern part of israel. Almost all of them have seen sirens of some kind. They are saying a suspected infiltration from lebanon into israeli airspace. We are not clear if these are gliders, drones, or Something Like that, Israeli Media is reporting there have been some sort of aircraft cited, i received another alert, there is a suspected Terrorist Infiltration in one of the parts of the north, the biggest fear is not only hezbollahs involvement but if these are the paragliders that we saw from hamas to the south, if they have militants on the ground that might be landing and trying to infiltrate communities in the north, most of the communities in the north are well aware of whats been happening in gaza so they are being advised to not only go into the safe room but now to lock their doors, go inside and stay inside of a safe room. Based off of the number of sirens that went off, it could be a big number but its not clear whether this is a bunch of drones being sent up to sort of cause these alerts to go off and cause panic or whether these are actually manned aircraft, with militants on them trying to seek to harm israeli civilians in the north of the biggest question, who is behind this . Hamas does have a presence in Southern Lebanon but hezbollah control Southern Lebanon but what will the response be . The bigger take his fear is that the north will blow up as of hezbollah gets involved, this raises the war to an entirely different level. Hezbollah is one of the reason why you see the carrier off the coast of israel. Its because of actors like hezbollah. It was a little bit hard to see your phone, so if you can explain to people who arent familiar with the system that are there in place for people and as im asking you the question, we have a map that can better allow viewers to understand what we are talking about when we speak of the north, the northern part of israel and talking about the border with lebanon, number 1 if you can explain again what the red dots on your alert system on your phone showed and also if you can explain to her viewers what we are talking about, we dont know as you said very clearly and we should , we do not know what is in the sky, but we do know, we believe, what capability, when it comes to guided missiles that hezbollah has in Southern Lebanon . Reporter so first off, israel is blanketed in a system that can alert people ahead of time whether there are rockets incoming or other things could be coming in in the sky, and each part of israel is broken up into very specific areas. So thats why if a siren goes off because the radar recognizes that a missile is likely to land for example, south of where i am in southern jerusalem, the alarm will only go off in southern jerusalem, the alarm for me will not necessarily go off. So i may not have to go into a safe room. So thats why its incredible to see, essentially the entire north is being told that sirens are going off and they need to go into protective space because normally when you have these rockets, it can be rather specific, you might be able to hear the sirens, you can also hear the explosion, but this is why all of those red dots represent a separate specific area that can have sirens going off just for that area to advise residents to go into a protective space. And thats why it is worrying to see the northern part of the country blanketed in these red dots. Hadas, thank you so much. We will get back to you. I want to go back to Nick Robertson, who is on the border with gaza. Nick, what are you seeing there in the night sky . Reporter fighter jets are trying to put out a signal, weve seen more tank rounds in the last few minutes. When i was speaking to before, apparently some tank rounds were fired off behind me. And a barrage of smaller artillery while hadas was speaking. Its that tempo, its the continual pushing and pushing and pushing on gaza by the Israeli Defense forces as they bring more and more firepower into the place. They can hope that they can suppress some of the rocket fire thats been outgoing. I will pause for a second and may not be able to hear your questions as i just try to reconnect to you. Nick, im not sure if you can hear me, i understand as i said before, you are in a war zone, and can you hear me now . Reporter the phone lines do occasionally go down here. I mean, yeah, and the electricity goes off and then you can have a Phone Connection but not internet connection. And i think some part of that, that we see on the ground is when there is a hamas cell detected, very quickly, the Security Forces move on, move into the area. But things are done to isolate them like switch off the power, perhaps deny Internet Access through the phone. These sorts of techniques. It is a volatile situation, thats probably an understatement. When you move out of here come out of this town, when you move further around the countryside, was mentioned before about the security on the roads and the government has put a very big Security Court if you will, around many miles beyond that gaza border to have this large buffer zone now. That not only has the troops inside of it and the police force inside of it but an area that civilians will find it hard to get into as well. Nick, thank you so much to you and your team. We really appreciate it. Here to talk about what we just heard from her excellent reporters inside israel is former nato Supreme Allied Commander retired general Philip Breedlove and james clapper. Director clapper, i will start with you about what we heard from hadas about the alerts that they are getting all over the north in israel about incursions, possible incursions from lebanon . Well, this is obviously not a Good Development at all and the last thing we really need in the situation is a two front confrontation with hamas and gaza and hezbollah out of lebanon. So first reports are never quite accurate, so i think we need more information to know exactly whats going on. Im quite sure that whatever efforts can be made to prevail upon the lebanese government, which is probably not going to get much out of that, for the iranians to suppress hezbollah and stop the violence there. But again, its a little early to know just whats going on, obviously israeli is in better position to react and in fact, they already have, they were caught by surprise in gaza. So for my poor as an intel person we need more information. General, thoughts on what we heard from our reporters on the ground . I dont think its surprising, i will file onto something Director Clapper said. A two front war is a bigger problem, and something we had hoped to avoid, i believe but i think we have to recognize that iran is pulling the strings here and iran understands that a two front war is going to cause israel much more problems, so i think we expected this from the beginning, as many others have. Director clapper, staying on the topic of iran. Sources continue to tell cnn that the u. S. Has selected specific intelligence that iran did not play a direct role in the hamas terror attack. First of all, how can the Intelligence Agencies be so sure about a negative, meaning how can they be so sure that iran didnt, and i should say, we should make sure our viewers understand that iran has been very active for years in Financing Hamas and hezbollah, but in this question is taking a role in actually planning the attack. Right, i dont have any insight on what has led to the reporting apparently that the u. S. Intelligence community has positive information that the iranians werent aware necessarily of the attack or more probably its timing. That said, iran as the general indicated is clearly influential here. They have provided weapons and training to the likes of hamas and hezbollah. As to what led to that, it could have been any number of things that has led the community to come to that conclusion to include perhaps signal intelligence or some other indirect intelligence, Human Intelligence that has led them to that conclusion. I will say finally, though, historically, hamas and iran have not had a real intimate relationship. Its much different between iran and hezbollah. Thats really interesting as a historic point of reference. General breedlove, going back to what we heard from Nick Robertson close to the border with gaza, hes been there since this started on saturday. He talked about the tempo increasing, the feeling that he has near the border of the idf moving closer to the border, what does that tell you . Well, we are all anticipating the eventual push into gaza. I would expect that as they get closer to that push, they are going to start trying to affect those closed in targets that would be the first threat that their forces would face, as they go over the berms and over the knockdown portions of the wall, et cetera, that they will have to do to get into gaza. So, as weve talked about many times in the last 2 to 3 days, this business of attacking into a densely packed, urban area, dents in buildings and structures and people, this is a hard job. The very best of our military worry about this job. Its not something that is taken lightly by anyone, and when it happens, both sides are going to take casualties. So israel will be doing the preparatory fires, we call it, setting the scene or setting the conditions for that initial entry, which will be one of the most dangerous portions of the mission. No question about that and what you are alluding to is the fact that you have more than 2 Million People in a very densely populated, small area, i should say. A lot of civilians there. Thank you both, incredible to have both of you, former nato Supreme Allied Commander breedlove and former director of National Intelligence james clapper. Thank you. Up next a member of the House Intelligence Committee will be here to tell us what hes hearing about the possibility of irans involvement in the hamas terrorist attacks. Stay with us. You are looking at images from moments ago. This is a town that is in the north of israel but not that far north, and this helps to describe what hadas gold was explaining what she saw on her phone as part of the alert system that israel has, sirens go off and it is a signal for people to take cover to go into safe rooms and spaces, and this is the scene moments ago in that town. We do not know the specifics of what prompted these Emergency Alerts to go off according to hadas gold all across the north of israel, and looking at a map which we will show you shortly, this goes down to haifa. The Biden Administration is trying to figure out whats happening with american families, with missing loved ones in israel, whether the relatives are dead or alive. Mj lee joins me live from the white house. What are you learning . What im being told by a u. S. Official is that the Biden Administration still does not know anything about the condition of american hostages that have been taken by hamas. As you remember yesterday, the National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said they estimate there are some 20 americans that are currently missing and unaccounted for, and they dont know how many have been taken hostage. That number im told, would be revised down if anyone in that group is determined to have been killed and this is a very grim possibility. Im told the administration is very much bracing for that. I should tell you also theres this cross government effort thats currently underway to try to get a better handle on the american Hostage Situation. I am told there are phone calls that are coming into the u. S. Embassy in israel, the fbi, the white house as well, from Family Members and friends, who believe they have information about somebody they know who has been taken hostage or is missing, but a part of the publication is that we are talking about, eyewitness accounts and some of them are secondhand accounts so really theres a real challenge in trying to verify the information that these various agencies are getting. As for the u. S. Ops that have been im told this is not an extraction, theres not some physical effort underway, currently no us troops on the ground to physically get out the american hostages that are believed to be in gaza. So this is a bit of an effort to show you what the efforts are underway by the administration, to try to get a better handle on the Hostage Situation which obviously is a top priority for the president. I should note that he did just speak again, for the fourth time with Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu. Thank you for that reporting and as mj was reporting on the unaccounted for americans, we got new information from the State Department that at least 22 u. S. Citizens have died in israel. At least 22 u. S. Citizens have died in israel. With that, i want to bring in, Guzman Jason Crow of colorado, a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Lets start with what we just heard from mj about the unaccounted for americans. Is there anything that you can tell us, as somebody who has been briefed with the information, as much information as the u. S. Government knows . This is horrific, barbaric, as we learn more about these attacks, the more sickening it becomes and theres no doubt that hamas must be destroyed. Theres no way both the israeli people and the palestinian people, who also are victims of hamas, that they can be allowed to continue to operate and have any military capacity. The challenge with identifying you as citizens is theres a lot of dual u. S. And Israeli Citizens that are a part of that number by the United States government, never requires americans to tell the government where they are going. Americans can travel and its hard for the State Department and any administration to keep tabs on folks, so it takes time to actually get those numbers but the administration is being transparent about it. Lets turn to iran and questions that everybody is asking about irans involvement, we should say its an open secret that iran funds hamas and as Director Clapper said there may be more historically but have you heard anything Behind Closed Doors that tells you anything new about any suggestions that that happened . I cant talk to specific intelligence and what we learned in briefings, i will talk generally, there is a distinction between direct and indirect involvement, and as your prior guests indicated, very well established that iran is indirectly been supporting hamas for many years. They train, they equip, they provide intelligence, operational support, hamas largely exists because of irans involvement, thats different than saying that iran knew about, coordinated or approved of a specific attack. And public reporting has indicated, public reporting and even indications in the administration that iran may not have known about this specific attack or been involved or approved of it. This could get worse, though, and this is a very important point. As horrific as these attacks were, there is a scenario in which the situation gets worse for israel and a couple of different ways. One, with respect to the operation in gaza, they are amassing combat power, the likes of which israelis have never done and if they do a full sweep and exercise total control over gaza, a place thats extremely tough to fight in, maybe the toughest in the world. I have experienced fighting in urban terrain like this, it takes a lot of blood, a lot of treasure, a lot of time and its very hard. That has to be done right, number 2 is preventing Lebanese Hezbollah from joining the fight and taking advantage of this in the north. Three, is perhaps preventing iran from directly joining the fight and taking advantage of it and the fourth is the political situation with israel and some of the other arab nations, namely the kingdom of saudi arabia. There have been a lot of discussions that normalize relations between saudi arabia and israel. That needs to move forward. We have to make sure the situation does not derail that effort. The first point you made is something i really wanted to get your thoughts on, and that is about urban warfare, and because you do have experience, you were an army ranger, you understand what it is like to engage in such a tricky and challenging situation. Can you shed more light on that . Particularly since as you describe it, going into gaza for these soldiers is going to be more difficult than what you encountered in the middle east. Itll be horrible. Urban terrain absorbs combat power at absorbs troops. I was a platoon leader, i had 50 paratroopers under my leadership and 50 paratroopers, that was sometimes hard to control a city block let alone a portion of a city. It takes tremendous numbers of troops we have a situation my gaza that is built and designed to be a death trap for these types of invasions, traps with thousands of hamas fighters, its bad for the soldiers, and its also horrible for the civilians caught up in that. We are looking at the prospect potential he of Tens Of Thousands of palestinians being killed or wounded or caught in the crossfire. Its bad for everybody involved. The israelis have to make sure they are dealing with this in the right way. They are good at it but its certainly going to be difficult. Is there any scenario where there can be a path created for those innocent civilians who will get caught in the crossfire if they cant leave . I do believe we need to find a way to set up a humanitarian corridor for those civilians to leave. The challenge is making sure that the court orders are abused by terrorists, to send more fighters in, to send arms and equipment in. Theres a mechanism to do that but theres no other way to think about you know, 2 million palestinians caught in this area. Theres going to be some mechanism in my opinion to find a safe pathway for those folks out of the fighting otherwise, we are looking at tremendous civilian casualties be to hear from someone like you whos been on the battlefield to know that that is an option. Live pictures right now out of gaza, we will continue to follow the latest developments out of the region. It is my fault and things are heating up. Stay with us. Youre probably not easily persuaded to switch mobile providers for your business. 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Breaking news out of israel this hour, the state Department Says 22 americans have been killed in the early days of the war. Also, the idf said theyve got reports of incursions from the lebanon side of the northern israeli border, setting off alarms in israel north and we are getting word that people in the coastal town of haifa have been told to take shelter, lock their doors and turn off the lights. That is happening right now. Cnns hadas gold is in jerusalem. He brought up this news when you first saw those alerts going off on your phone. What can you tell us now . We are hearing from the Israeli Military saying after the report theyve had no impacts reported in israeli territory but are continuing to search the area and are asking residents to continue following the instructions, anyone from haifa and the line across going north have been instructed to enter their homes, not necessarily the Bomb Shelters but enter their homes, lock the doors and lower the lights, this is out of fear of infiltration of some kind because they got these reports that the airspace had been infiltrated and the entire north was blanketed in these alerts going off about a possible infiltration, the fear of being that there are terrorists on these aircraft similar to what we saw coming out of gaza into israel and they are armed and they are going to start Infiltrating Communities in the north. This would be a major escalation because the northern border of course is so volatile with hezbollahs presence there. And if hezbollah is involved in any way which they kind of have to be because hezbollah control Southern Lebanon, nothing happens without their okay. Hezbollah is the one who will ultimately say whether it is okay or not, so the questions become, how will israel respond to this. Even if it ends up being a bunch of unarmed drones that were sent off into the sky to cause a panic for the residents of northern israel. I believe we will see some sort of israeli response but right now the Israeli Military is trying to figure out what in the world is going on up north with the drones, with the people on paragliders, the armed drones, thats why the residents are being told to shelter in place. Its completely understandable given the trauma of what happened on saturday. And i should just tell you in our viewers that as you were talking about whats going on in the north, there continues to be selling into gaza and we are seeing that in the night sky. Speaking of gaza, because this is such a fastmoving story, we intended to ask you about something that we cannot underscore enough witches, the information that we are now learning about the brutal, savage murders in a kibbutz having to do with toddlers, having to do with babies. What have you learned . We now have confirmation from the israeli Prime Ministers office that in that Small Community near the northern part of the gaza strip that they found decapitated babies and toddlers. They did not give a number of the number of children or babies who they found in the state but even just one is absolutely horrific to think about. This is absolute brutality. This isnt just you know, well we knew they had gone in and shot and killed and up ducted women and the children and the elderly from their homes, literally from their beds but we did not know the extent of this brutality. We had heard reports about decapitations happening to soldiers, and now we have confirmation from the israeli Prime Ministers office about the brutality of what is there. We have been hearing from some of the First Responders who were on the scene to begin with and you can hear it in their voices, that what they saw with their eyes has completely scarred them and forever change them. And i think what happened in the south, i think it has changed every single israeli and i think the rhetoric that we are hearing from the government is completely different in regards to gaza and regards to how they plan to respond specifically to hamas to obliterate them. They have been saying that hamas is isis, saying that hamas is the same as the brutality we saw from isis and in a way, its hard to imagine anything worse than not only going into a civilian community and targeting and killing babies and children but then doing something so brutal. Its so hard to understand and comprehend that any human being, alive on this earth would be capable of doing such a thing. It sure is. And we see on the screen, you are referring to the some of the language that weve been hearing from the government including the minister, the attack of this kind of savagery that hasnt been seen since the holocaust. As a parent and a member of the human race, it is hard to digest. Thank you so much, we will be right back. Missing loved ones who were taken by Hamas Terrorists are still hoping for their safe return. One young boy abducted was Arraz Calderone, an 11yearold who was taken from aear the gaza border. What you are about to see is very difficult to watch. This is video of Arraz Calderone being taken by a hamas terrorist. Cnn has geolocated this video and confirmed its authenticity. His cousin joins me now. Thank you so much. You were on with us earlier this week. First, i know that you are aware that we were showing this and its video that you wanted the world to see. Yeah. Yeah. It took it took his mom a while to agree, but eventually she did. Because . Because, first of all, she hasnt seen it. We just described to her whats in there, and we convinced she thought it would harm him and we convinced her that actually its really important and maybe even will help bringing him back home safafe, t thats our hope, because in light of what happened on saturday, we cannot be sure anymore. In fact, were very worried about what happened on saturday was totally different than anything that weve seen in this conflict and, in fact, i think at this moment we already know that its nothing even closer to anything that happened since world war ii and the holocaust. This brutality, you know, butchering of kids, we just heard that in a kibbutz babies heads were decapitated. This is just i cant even repeat the thoughts. I mean, this is not human being behavior. Something terrible is going on in the heads of those people. I mean, ive never im not young and ive been to the military and ive seen stuff. Such stomach sickening, ive never felt such a nausea, you know, browsing through videos from the hamas and actually you didnt have the guts to play them because theyre so horrible. Just you know but, you know, my family told me, some of my Family Members, that actually you need to look the evil in the eyes. You need to see that to understand, much like in the holocaust. You know, hamas some people think that hamas is the military of the palestinians. We need to rethink that. This is not the situation. Hamas is an extreme terror organization, much like isis and al qaeda, and actually i think that the palestinians, most of the palestinians in gaza, are hostages as well and theyre brainwashed and theyre being kept by extremely dangerous group of people that we just got a glimpse of what they can do. Its unbelievable. They went house by house and they broke everything, they shot everything. They shot, you know in all directions and they just threw grenades, they looted all the houses. There was so much rage. My cousin says that she heard a weird music, very loud music that she couldnt really tell what language it was, that almost felt like i dont know, like Psychedelic Music and maybe to give them some kind of motivation or energy or collective i have no idea, but they were trying to get her out of the shelter, the safe room in israel every house, you know, its mandatory to have a shelter, which is a safe room thats supposed to basically protect the citizens from bomb shelling, you know, from missiles. I dont think it was ever designed to protect, you know, the citizens from terrorists who come from within the apartment. Door to door. Within the house. Absolutely. Ido, i just want to mention that we saw the video and we saw pictures of arraz your cousins child. He is one of many of your Family Members who are missing. Have you heard anything at all from the Israeli Government, any guidance on any aspect of their disappearance . I feel a bit shamed to admit that the answer is no. We havent got any official announcements, nobody approached us. In fact, we did have a conversation with a lady from the State Department because carmella, my aunt, is 80 years old, american citizen, and with her three of her grandchildren were abducted and the father of two of them. So actually we just you know, we had so you have heard from the u. S. State department . Only with the State Department. Can you believe that . But do you know what, i dont blame israel because its really unprecedented whats going on here and if this before things would be organized. I think eventually they will contact us and get things right. Yeah, your understanding is notable because the Israeli Government is a little bit busy right now and that is obviously something that you are alluding to and i should just underscore you talked about your aunt carmella, she is a u. S. Citizen, she was born in massachusetts, so she as were looking at a photo of her beautiful face now, she is one of the american citizens that the u. S. Government is talking about that is missing and theyre not sure where they are, but everybody is praying and hoping that everybody who is missing and unaccounted for comes back safely, including and especially your nephew arraz. Thank you so much for coming back and telling your story, ido. I really appreciate it and we will definitely stay in touch. Thank you. I just hope that they will get back alive. Yes. We all do. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining inside politics. Cnn news central starts after a quick break. You know i got two home runs. You got two jacks. And then my grand slam. I signed a ball for you. Okay. And it says papa i love you. Why did you do that . Because youve taught me everything about baseball. Oh hunny bunny, thats so sweet.