good morning. i'm phil mattingly with erica hill in new york. poppy is a off today. right now secretary of state antony blinken is back in a war zone in israel. diplomatic source telling cnn he is pushing for a pause in the fighting to allow mediation as civilian deaths and suffering mount in gaza. he spoke moments ago before his meeting with israel's president. >> we stand strongly for the proposition that israel has not only the right, but the obligation to defend itself and to do everything possible to make sure that this october 7th can never happen again. how israel does this matters, and it is very important that when it comes to the protection of civilians who are caught in a crossfire of hamas' making, that everything be done to protect them and to bring assistance to those who so desperately need it. >> the israeli president in those comments also insisted israel has followed international law and that went through the numbers even in terms of the warnings that had been sent to civilians talking about the millions of text messages, phone calls and flyers that have warned them to leave before the strikes. blinken's visit comes after one of the most intense nights we have seen to date in gaza. airstrikes raining down. flares lighting up the sky as fighting raged on the ground. the israeli military says troops and tanks have encircled gaza city. this is the latest video this morning from the idf showing the ground operations. casualties are rising on both sides. >> here is where things stand this morning. 24 israeli soldiers ahave been killed. 241 hostages still believed to be in gaza. 79 americans have been able to leave gaza at the border crossing in egypt. ed lavandera is live in tel aviv. natasha bertrand is in washington. natasha, hearing word that the secretary of state could pressure israel for a pause of some sort. the administration has been talking about support for humanitarian pauses for a few days now. what does this actually look like? >> reporter: that is the big question. what will israel actually agree to? because the administration wants to see israel pause the airstrikes for enough time to get hostages out, to get civilians out. as you know, there has been a large effort to get up to 5,000 civilians out of the gaza strip who want to leave. so the question now is, how do you make it so that they can leave safely. it's like a humanitarian corridor without the threat of israel launching airstrikes on those positions. but again it is unclear at this point what israel would agree to. they have said that a ceasefire is completely off the table right now in terms of a broader longer-term cessation of hostilities, the kind of which we have seen some senators calling for. however, israel appeared to pause their airstrikes for a few hours last week, according to president biden, to get some of those hostages out. and so the question now becomes is this going to be a pause of a few hours, a few days? what are they going to agree with to, especially that the international pressure, including from the united states, is mounting so steadily on them to do more to minimize civilian casualties. >> mounting quickly. especially out of washington, how we have seen the language change in the last 12 to 24 hours. ed, the idf saying gaza is fully encircled, what do we know about the recent military movements? >> reporter: we are waiting to hear from israeli military officials exactly what was the objective of what we saw, the dramatic images we saw last night of the air assault, we assume are ground operations inside of gaza last night. the images were incredibly striking in northeast gaza. israeli military officials say that they are trying to maximize the pressure on hamas' military operation to get the missile strikes and the missile control under control. and that involves dismantling this elaborate tunnel system which hamas military fighters operate from. that is why this ground operation and the fact that it has israeli military officials are saying encircled gaza city is very significant. but the language we are hearing from israeli military officials is that there doesn't appear to be any sense of slowing down. in fact, prime minister benjamin netanyahu said yesterday that nothing will stop us. other military officials talking about increasing that pressure on hamas fighters inside the gaza area, and then just hours before secretary of state antony blinken landed here in israel, we saw this major offensive last night with the air assault that lasted several hours. so that has very much intensified. if it is true that idf soldiers have surrounded gaza city, that is essentially kind of in the middle part of gaza. that would be a significant incursion in there, which theoretically maximizes possible civilian casualties in gaza, but also comes as a great threat to israeli soldiers operating on the ground there. >> natasha, the secretary of state understandable focus on this stop in israel, but he is also traveling next to oman. what is he hoping to achieve there? >> yeah, jordan has recalled its ambassador to israel amid the rising death toll in gaza and in profit of that. this is going to be a really important visit for the secretary of state to try to ease tensions even further, to reassure them that the united states is doing everything they can to try to work with israel to take concrete steps as blinken said yesterday to minimize these civilian casualties. another really important part of this is going to be emphasizing to jordan that the u.s. is not going to support any effort by israel if that is what they decide to do to try to expel palestinians en masse from the gaza strip. they don't want to see the jordanians, egyptians, regional partners, a mass displacement of the palestinians. they don't want to see that refugee crisis emerge in their countries. and so something that biden -- or that blinken is going to be reiterating to the jordanians is that is not something that the u.s. supports and they are going to be working against that so palestinians can receive aid inside gaza rather than seeing them expelled to other countries. >> all right. ed lavandera, natasha bertrand, thank you. joining us now political and foreign policy reporter at axios, brock, good to see you. with we look at things this morning, we were noting when we heard from president hertzog and secretary blinken, hertzog spoke first and was a little bit defiant in many ways in responding to some of the criticism that israel faced. he was cleari saying everything is according to the rules of international law, asking people to please move out before israeli forces went in. talking about the notices that had been sent. what does that tell you about the conversations that are actually happening? >> good morning. i think one of the things is blinken discussed with netanyahu, with hertzog, with the israeli war cabinet is this issue of humanitarian pauses. we heard president biden talk about it. we heard other u.s. officials talk about it. and i think that blinken wanted to tell the israeli officials, listen, let's try to find a way to get to such humanitarian pause and i think that blinken also told the israelis, he explained him to, not only him, but secretary of defense austin and explained to the israelis the amount of pressure that the u.s. is under from its allies in the region frrks its allies in europe, other countries around the world, because the u.s. right now is being perceived as israel's main supporter, which is a fact. so a lot of countries come to the u.s. and says you need to rein in the israelis. the u.s. is trying to explain to israel that right now it's -- it can fend off the pressures, but not much longer. >> i mean, does that have any -- i know israeli officials listen. clearly they listen. but does that change their planning or strategy? they are consistently talking about, a, their right to respond, and b, what happened on october 7th merits the operation that's underway. >> i think that if you look at the last three weeks, we can see that gradually time and time again the u.s. asked israel to do something. it took a day or two, three days, and it happened. i think it's that -- i have to say that israel, the israeli government is much more responsive to u.s. requests than i thought it would be, considering what happened on october 7th, and i think the reason for it, and that's what i hear from israeli officials, that they know that they need the u.s. support. so if the u.s. asks for something, they will do it, even if they will do it slowly, but eventually they will do it. >> what does transpire over the next day or two, there is a lot of focus on what we may hear later today from the leader of hezbollah and concerns about perhaps this expanding to the northern border there with lebanon. when you look at what we could hear, what could open up there, how much of that is a concern for israel that this expands and what that means? >> i think there is a very big concern. on the other hand, at least from what i hear from u.s. and israeli officials, they think that for now things are sort of contained to the northern border, meaning moguls of the clashes that we saw until now were on the border, on the line of contact. hezbollah did not send forces to try to penetrate into israel, at least for now. it did not fire its long-range missiles yet. it did not use its precision munitions. and even yesterday when some rockets were fired further into israel, into the galilee, to arrange that they were not fired until now, hezbollah asked hamas to take responsibility, meaning it did not want it to be perceived as if it is broadening the fighting. but still i think all eyes are on the speech and i think a lot of people hope that if he climbs a tree, he doesn't climb too high. >> bar k, the military operations, are officials surprised by the speed the idf enters, you are rounds, ground progress when it comes to gaza city? >> yeah, that's what i hear, that they did not think that they would get so far so soon. they are already in gaza city, in several neighborhoods, where a lot of the hamas security forces headquarters are. they are in the refugee camp, in other places in gaza city, and at least for now they are pretty satisfied with the results, with the number of hamas operatives that they managed to hit so far with the amount of hamas military infrastructure. they managed to dismantle with the amount of hamas tunnels that they managed to destroy. so that's what i hear from the israeli cia side. >> always good to have you. thank you. >> thank you very much. well, as we have been discussing here, in the next hour the leader of hezbollah is set to speak for the first time since hamas' attack on israel. this as you just heard the group was exchanging fire with israel on the northern border. >> at home, there significant increase in antisemitic threats made against students. the department of education is reminding schools if they don't protect t students f from hate,y could d lose fundiding. thatat's coming g up. is preparing new communications for schools at all levels laying out the responsibility to protect students from hate. yesterday the education secretary met with students in the baltimore area who spoke about their struggles with antisemitism following israel's attack on hamas on october 7th. >> i have -- on my backpack that i am -- i debated many times moving because aim afi'm afraid someone attacking me from behind because i have hebrew on my backpack. >> i want to tell you directly, we've got your back. >> attorney general merrick garland says there has been a significant increase in threats against jewish, muslim and arabs in recent weeks. i want to start what we heard from that towson student. towson in the state of maryland, saying that basically she felt like she had to hide her jewish identity. what are you hearing right now in the wake of october 7th from your residents? >> it's unacceptable that anyone has to hide who they are or hide something that they have no reason to be ashamed of. you know, we are watching a rise of both antisemitism and anti-muslim threats, language, and attacks. and it is not going to be tolerated. hate has no place in our state, and hate will not find oxygen in the state of maryland. and so it's the reason we have done things like putting $15 million towards marredning our homes of worship, official $5 million that's going into education programs to combat hate crimes. it's also making sure that people know that you will be -- that to the full extent of the law you will be held accountable and responsible for people that are continuing to foment this, and particularly how it's impacting the students. our students already have a lot to deal with coming out of covid, coming out of a challenge that we are seeing. we have to make sure we are protecting the students and we will do just that. >> you are an army veteran, governor. you served in afghanistan. made me think of senator chris murphy who said what we found in afghanistan for every terrorist we killed, we created two more because of the number of civilian cash tease. when you look on the ground now in gaza, are you concerned about something similar happening here? >> what's happening right now, it's beyond heartbreaking. and we do know that, you know, while israel has a right to defend itself and while hamas has already discredited itself from being a legitimate partner inside of the peace process and in a larger goals for the region and a two-state solution, i also know this. we cannot -- we cannot and must be very careful about any conditions that are going to, you know, foment or create additional challenges that we are going to see towards a long-term solution where you have two states that live in independence and peace and security and sovereignty. so it is watching what's happening right now and what's happened since hamas terrorist attacks has been heartbreaking. it does mean that we have to be able to approach this carefully to ensure that we are not creating greater levels of long-term concern. >> back at home, i know this has been a significant focus for you and your state in terms of equity opportunity, giving people chances and maybe communities that have been forgotten. i don't know if you saw it, but our colleague john king had a piece from milwaukee where he was talking to black voters. i want to play some sound for you. take a listen. >> eric jones is no trump fan but he thinks it's foolish to bet on trump motivating black turnout. >> people saying they are not going to vote. that's my fear. they are going to say screw is, we are damned anyways. manufacturing left, jobs left. when jobs leave and opportunities leave, then you have certain things that are domino effects, right. >> jones says the president should stop by and learn a lesson. >> bring opportunities, you bring jobs, you get votes. plain and simple. force. >> we are a yoear out. the president is quite fond of you and your council. how big of a problem is this for the white house right now? >> i am quite fond of the president and the president is doing good work and i tell you so much of the momentum that we are seeing in maryland is because of the partnership we have with the white house. you know, and i think it's important for people to remember that the dissolutionment that people oftentimes feel is long term. i mean, some of my earliest memories in life when i watched systems fail. i watched my father die in front of me when i was 3 years old because he didn't get the health care he needed. i felt handcuffs on my wrists when i was 11 because i came up in communities that were over-policed and we knew it. our ability to show that government will see everybody and not just some people and when i talk about how in maryland we are not going to give in to the binary choices of saying, well, are you going to support one group or another. in our state, just in the first ten months, we have had the most aggressive all-out assault on child poverty our state has ever seen, at the same time created a better business environment in the business community that we are not choosing and that's because of the partnership that we have with the white house. so i think as we continue to see there is one thing to continue to point fingers. there is another to use your hands to actually build together. that's what i think the white house is continuing to show. >> i think it's a good segue to the next question. you are in the chicago with the obama administration is holding the forum today. what your message? >> it's impossible not to be inspired. when you see people who are on the ground doing the work, and working to build a better democracy. but the other message that i really want to share is that our democracy is fragile. and it needs protecting. and it's important to that doesn't mean having a blind optimism, that you should has have a measure skepticism, but september simple inside this work can be our companion. we have to use this moment to actually build together, to mold together, to get past these political divides and political lines to understand that everything that we are building is worth fighting for. and so part of the reason that we have seen such great momentum in our state, maryland has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire country, greatest measures of economic momentum and attacking things like the racial wealth gap. we are doing both. that's because we are working together and it's because we are cherishing and embracing the idea of what democracy could mean if everybody feels a vested interest in it. >> appreciate your time sir. thank you. the idf says it is on a very high level of alertness at the northern border with lebanon. as the world awaits the first remarks from hezbollah's chief since hamas attacked israel. why there is so much focus on his comments and what they could mean for the region. that's ahead. and secretary of state antony blinken will speak in israel after meeting with officials there. this is a diplomatic force stels cnn he is pushing to pause fighting next. bold. daring. expressive. contra costa college allows me to be whoever and whatever i want to be, providing the stage, the canvas, the tools to use my voice and write my story. find your passion and create your future at contra costa college. start today at contracosta.edu this morning for the first time since start of israel's war on hamas the leader of lebanon-based hezbollah hassan nasrallah is expected to make statements on the war. israel is intensifying the assault on gaza and concerns are growing. it's an important question, what and who is hezbollah exactly? well, let's go through some of the basic points here. hezbollah actually translates to party of god. was formed in the wake of the 1982 israeli invasion of southern lebanon. its stated goal to push israel out of lebanon and ultimately to expel israel and western powers like the united states from the region entirely. it used a wide variety of tack tings, including suicide bombings and attacks on military and civilian targets to that end. hezbollah's also a political organization. holding 13 seats in the lebanese parliament and is very, very supported by iran, which provides hezbollah with the vast majority of funding, training and weapons as well as diplomatic and organizational aid. what are the key pillars of hezbollah's belief system? they are a shiite israel group. they view israel as a illegitimate state. but unlike hamas, which is a sunni baufd organization, hezbollah is a shia group. hamas joining the sunni rebels. hezbollah is much more formidable than hamas. it's not just a statement. it's a fact when you look at their weapons capability. it's considered the most powerful paramilitary group in the middle east, some estimates put the number of fighters at 50,000 compared to 25,000 for hamas. hezbollah has far nor sophisticated weaponry, precision guided missiles. analysts estimate they could have 100,000 rockets compared to 7,000 for hamas. >> joining us now to talk deeper, cnn senior international correspondent ben wedeman and analyst jim sciutto in northern israel for us today. when we look at where we stand here and as phil laid out, there is also u.s. intel that suggests that iran and allies as of now, right, are hoping to avoid a wider war with israel. ben, based on what you have seen and your reporting over the years, specifically with hezbollah, what could shift that and how close are those two aligning today? >> reporter: well, we don't believe that this is going -- this speech is going to mark the beginning of a new phase in terms of broadening the war. the expectation here in beirut is that nasrallah is going expand the rawls of engagement. what are the rules of engagement? until now, basically an understanding unwritten between the israelis and hezbollah that as long as hostilities are restricted to the border zone, business and large hezbollah on the border only focused on the israeli military, most of the strikes on israeli civilians have not -- in the border area have not been done by hezbollah. that's by other groups like hamas, like islamic jihad, like other lebanese factions operating in the south. hezbollah is basically focusing on the military. so perhaps we may see an intensification on the exchanges of fire on the border. perhaps we will see some of the hezbollah strikes going further inside israel, but probably not beyond the so-called rules of engagement at the moment. now, it's important to keep in mind people are really watching what he is going say. in fact, people in beirut are saying, don't ask me what i'm doing this afternoon or this evening. ask me what i'm going be doing after hassan nasrallah makes this speech. and beyond lbebanon itself, nasrallah's sort of prestige in the arab world has gone up because among all of the arab leaders, and we can consider him an arab leader even though he is not a head of state, he is the only one who is confronting israel as it pursues its ground invasion in gaza. other arab leaders are beseeching the americans, for instance, to convince the israelis to introduce a humanitarian pause, but he is the only one militarily confronting israel at this time. so as i said, we can expect perhaps an intensification of the action on the border, but probably nothing beyond that because, keep in mind, hezbollah has a lot to lose if it engages in a full-scale war with israel, and not an awful lot to gain. so it may up the temperature a few degrees, but perhaps not take lebanon at least into another full-scale war along the lines of what we saw in july 2006. >> jim, i think that's an important point ben made there at the end because i think that there is a lot of nuance here and assumption that everybody will be getting in, of course, red lines will be crossed, iran is probably pressing everybody. that's not the case. there are issues and equities here that everybody is individually facing. and i think one of those includes the deterrence efforts that the u.s. has made. there are two carrier strike groups. obviously, we have significantly more resources in the middle east right now. what is not being said is what the u.s. would do if hezbollah significantly engages here. >> they are intentionally not saying it. what would happen? >> listen, it gets to a degree of involvement. hezbollah is already involved, right. they have been firing across the border. we have been here a couple of weeks. launching missiles, rockets, artillery strikes, indians across the border. a slow burn, but they are involved. and to ben's point, other groups op-righting in southern lebanon. we are standing in northern israel and just to give you a sense of the geography here. beyond that ridge line is lebanon. this part of northern israel sticks up into lebanon's sort of like a thumb is particularly vulnerable to those sorts of attacks and it's why many of these northern communities is under mandatory evacuation. this town has been emptied due to the threat of those attacks. yesterday there was a pickup in those strikes. one of the rockets landing on a main street here and setting cars and shop fronts alight. so there is involvement from southern lebanon, but to date it has been in a limited fashion. so going forward it speaks to the calculation that you were talking about, ben, and that -- that ben was talking about, that you were talking about, phil, what does it have to gain and what does it have to lose here. he is an arab leader. he has a political base to some degree, a large portion of that political base is pushing for some sort of show of force against israel here. we had a letter from hezbollah fighters earlier this week asking for some sort of involvement. of course, he is the boss. on the other hand, lebanon has suffered in recent years. ben knows this better than anyone. and they do not want to suffer again with a full-scale war with israel. in 2006, the israeli strikes were hugely damaging to southern lebanon and recent years the lebanese economy in tatters. he has to be aware of that as well. those ever the calculations he has to face. in addition to that, to your point, phil, you have got two u.s. carrier strike groups in the eastern mediterranean right now. when you hear president biden, when you hear secretary blinken explicitly say if you're thinking about getting involved in this war, don't, that is a message to groups like hezbollah that you have the u.s. military here, which could respond. it doesn't want to get involved in a regional war either, but, again, pressure points, red lines, how far do they go. we will be listening to the words like the residents of beirut od beirut today to see what signals nasrallah sends. >> thank you. this just in. we have the october jobs report. we are going to break down those numbers for you just ahead. waiting to hear from secretary of state antony blinken in israel after meeting with officials there. this as a diplomatic source tells cnn he is pushing israel to pause fighting and allow mediation. more next. data. the labor department released the october jobs report and the economy added 150,000 new jobs last month. let's get right that it. cnn business correspondent rahel solomon. you looked at the numbers, ten minutes after the release. >> i am filled with paup here. 150,000 jobs added. that was a caller than what we expected, cooler than we tended to see. we were expecting a number closer to 180,000. this is cooler than last month although that seemed to be a bit of an anomaly. the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. we have been in this range for unemployment under 4% or at 4% for, like, the last two years or so. we are sort of in this tight range. we want to show you sort of the sectors where we saw job gains. we can pull it up for you. health care added 58,000 jobs. government added 51,000 jobs. where we did not see gains was manufacturing. this is actually in the first paragraph you can see and this is due to strike activity, due to the uaw manufacturing, auto manufacturing, auto workers. you saw that impacted here. i should say that also sort of explains why the headline number is a little bit softer. you have seen that as well. now, if we look at sort of what this means in terms of for the fed, i mean, we heard from jay powell earlier this week and he talked about the greater supply of workers that we've seen more workers essentially coming off of the sidelines and assisting and that has helped in terms of wages. that's another thing, wages continue to moderate on a monthly basis and on an annual basis. so that is good news for the fed. and in terms of what this means broadly speaking, it's a cooling of the labor market, but it is still a pretty strong labor market. it's sort of a normalizing. so it would be like, phil, i don't know, looks like you work out. you look fit. it would sort of be like if you were -- you were working out, you are sprinting, going hard, and at some point you might want to start jogging, catch your breath, to a more normal pace for you. that's what we are seeing in the economy now. still in shape. still looking relatively strong. jay powell used that word earlier this week, a strong economy, but appears according to this report to be normalizing and catching its breath. >> this is the nicest thing any colleague ever said to me. i am going to clip this and post it and i deeply appreciate you. >> fit phil. >> with your economic knowledge and also that. rahel, thank you. erica? >> you can go back to that again and again and again, my friend. good stuff. the marathon, not a sprint. on a more serious note, in new york city the mayor chief fundraiser's home raided bit the fbi. now, this stems from an investigation into an alleged scheme into whether adams' 2020 mayoral campaign funneled foreign money into the campaign coffers. sources telling cnn investigators are searching for evidence that foreign nationals bundled donations by going into new york's turkish american communities, getting u.s. citizens of turkish origin to then act as straw contributors. gloria is joining us here with the very latest. this feels like a little bit of a twisted web. what more do we know? >> first things first. the mayor has not been implicated in this investigation so far. and he has made it clear that he has not been contacted by the fbi or any investigators. what we do know that happened yesterday was that his chief fundraiser, the woman who has been raising money for him for his 2025 re-election campaign and the woman who raised millions of dollars for his first mayoral campaign, her home was raided by fbi along with several other homes in the area. and what we are being told by our law enforcement sources is that they are looking into the possibility, searching for evidence that the campaign might have conspired with turkish foreign nationals to get campaign contributions and funnel them to the campaign. it sounds complicated. foreign nationals can't make donations to political campaigns here in the united states, so you need to find people in the community who are american citizens in order to make those campaigns. that's what they are looking at so far. now, we heard from the mayor on this late last night. he was asked about the investigation, especially after he rushed back from washington, d.c. he had a really important meeting with the white house yesterday, and shortly after the raids started, the mayor turned back around to new york to say he needed to deal with this matter. this is what he said. >> all my campaign to the highest ethical standards, any inquiry that is done, we will fully participate and make sure that is done correctly. i have not been contacted by anyone from any law enforcement agency. >> so i think this is just the beginning. we will see how much more comes out and whether or not this is going to get to the mayor. but right now it's certainly very, very close. >> yeah. are there concerns about -- >> yeah, the political -- because you mentioned 202 re-election campaign. >> yeah. i think it's early, but it is new york city. so it's certainly -- yesterday people were circling the political wagons wondering what this means for the re-election. now, eric adams is run unopposed. he the incumbent. usually what be see in new york in democratic races is the incumbent can easily win. there will be a lot that has to happen between now and the re-election to suggest that maybe eric adams might be politically in trouble here. we are certainly not there yet. but i think people are certainly watching and so far there is no one who has said they are going to challenge him either on the right or on the left. but i think people are certainly watching this to see how much more comes out, if anything at all, and to see if there is an opening to indeed challenge him. >> not an ideal head lionel. >> not too much. >> appreciate it. thank you. in a few hours, president biden and the travel to maine to honor the people who lost their lives in the mass shooting last week. the white house announcing that the office of gun prevention with and the fbi and department of health are working closely with maine's governor to support the community in any way they need it in the wake. tragedy. >> we are waiting for secretary of state antony blinken who is expected to speak very soon. he is of course in israel this morning where he has been meeting with israeli president herzog. a closer look at what has been discussed, what the messssage w going in.. stay witith us. secretary of state antony blinken is expected to speak any moment from israel after meeting with israeli officials. diplomatic sources telling cnn blinken had planned to push israel for a pause in fighting to allow for mediation. joining us now cnn global affairs analyst kim dozier. always good to see you and to get your perspective on this. we know this was what he was intending to say. we got a little sense when we heard briefly from him and president herzog earlier this morning. i guess the question is what's the sense of how well that will be received? >> look, the u.s. is seen as the only one that can deliver this message that israel needs to ratchet back -- it needs to reconsider some of the strikes that it's taking when it conceded there are going to be a large number of civilian casualties, but israel at this point has its foot on the gas in this campaign. it also knows that the clock is running out with world opinion turning against israel and, therefore, against the u.s. so there's this feeling that it's trying to accomplish as much militarily on the ground inside gaza before it has to pull back some, but this will probably mean instead of taking air strikes, which is safer for israeli troops, more on the ground actions, which are more dangerous and israel has already taken something like 20 casualties and dozens of wounded. >> kim, we spoke to senator chris murphy earlier, he is one of 13 democratic senators to come out and call for a cessation of hostilities, he called for a more targeted military approach. i want to play what he said about ceasefires. >> a ceasefire which sounds to me an open-ended cessation of hostilities would simply allow hamas to regroup to attack israel again. and you heard yesterday directly from the leader of hamas that hamas is not done. that they are intent on murdering more israeli civilians. and so i just don't believe there is a choice to be made. >> he is -- it was a very notable move for him to put out a statement and call for a recalibration of strategy, more persistent strikes. murphy is a key voice inside the democratic party but saying a ceasefire is essentially not a possibility at this point. how do you thread the needle here? >> what the u.s. could pressure israel to do is declare a certain route for civilians to leave gaza city from heading south and say they are not going to bomb that. of course, the risk is that then hamas will evacuate some of its fighters, perhaps some of its wounded fighters that it's been demanding treatment for as part of the negotiations down that route. i can see israel possibly agreeing to something like that in the sort of mental state they are in. look, the head of the air force it was reported in israeli media just carried out personally one of the strikes on gaza. that's how much it means to the israeli defense forces to prosecute this war against hamas. the other problem with, yes, you could have a humanitarian pause, but a lot of the roads leading south have been damaged or are currently blocked by israeli forces so the question is how would they pull back and would they want to pull back to allow anyone out. and then the last point and that is hamas hasn't let a lot of people leave. >> this stood out to us in the "wall street journal," highlighting the axis writing it's strategic folly to think the u.s. can treat them like isolated problems. it will give vladimir putin an opening to further help iran against israel. this has to be playing into some of these decisions as well, kim. >> absolutely. we're looking at what the head of hezbollah will say today and the overall conclusion of a lot of watchers in the region including me is that, you know, hezbollah and its iranian ally, they're very good at calibrating going just to the edge and that that's what they're going to do because right now this is making israel look bad and the u.s. by example and when the u.s. tries to take the moral high ground in terms of ukraine, later, it won't be able to because it supported israel and what it's doing now. >> kim dozier, we appreciate it. thank you very much. as kim noted we are waiting for that speech from the leader of hezbollah, a significant moment but all people, national security advisers, national security analysts, intelligence officials, normal people as you see there waiting from those reports. we will bring them to you or starts of them as they come in the next hour. "cnn news central" starts after this break. have a good weekend. ♪