difficult crisis as israel and hamas war enters its day. in gaza rockets continue to fly. roughly 250 israelis have been evacuated from the border near gaza. more than a million residents of gaza have been displaced or told to leave their homes. the israeli war on hamas has led to destruction across gaza not just in the north. right now the palestinian ministry of health estimates more than 8,500 people have been killed in gaza including 3,500 children. the palestinian ministry of health is controlled by hamas, but in the past its statistic about death in these sorts of conflicts heeen called accurate. save the children is now warning the number of children killed in gaza in the last few weeks is greater than the total number of children killed in all global conflicts each year since 2019. it is by all accounts by anyone looking at it an enormous humanitarian crisis. it s also become an enormous domestic political challenge. in the aftermath of the terror attack, the worst
sounds. so the agenda is so big that i think it would be very appropriate. i wouldn t expect this to change russian behavior immediately. but, you know, we have to keep up that strong military deterrent and then see what possibly what outcome we could look for. eric: what would you see in terms of syria? assad isn t going anywhere. right, exactly, but the fact is we can t withdraw coalition forces from syria really until we see some diminishing of russian and iranian activity in that sphere. you know, we have to talk with russia on a frequent basis about deconflicting our forces. don t forget that our air forces face the russians almost every day. we he see russian jets trying to maneuver around our air forces and our air force usually lock them up. okay? that s something we have to look at. there has to be some discussion there. there are plenty of issues with syria to discuss. ultimately we need to see russia contained.
russian foreign minister tomorrow it seems he doesn t really want to project such a hard line. he said things like he hopes assad isn t part of the political process for a long time. he hopes that russia will change course because what it s doing right now is not in russia s best interest. jake? all right. michelle kosinski in moscow fours, thanks so much. to another escalating crisis on the president s resolute desk in the oval office right now. north korea is stepping up its threat against the united states vowing, quote, could the traffic consequences. in response president trump tweets north korea is looking for trouble this. comes days after north korea s biggest holiday which could be celebrated possibly with another nuclear test or another missile launch. let s bring in sen correspondent will ripley live for us in pyongyang, north korea. north korea s harsh rhetoric, hardly anything new, but the latest one streams carry a bit more urgency, no? reporter: it does, and what s
battlefield, combat verse non-combat you can make the comparison a little bit differently and it would have been accurate but the way it was presented it was important to clear up that hitler did use chemical weapons and did murder millions of innocent people. secretary of defense mattis today said isis is the primary focus of the campaign in syria, not necessarily the removal of assad. do you think that clouds at all the message about regime change and the desire the u.s. government has for him to leave, although not to be forced by the u.s., and if it does deter or undermine the case that they are making about assad needing to leave, do you think that might embolden assad in any way? well, as it relates to assad. there should be regime change. have you to make shower that assad isn t replaced with another assad. that isn t something where, you know, you can just hope that assad doesn t wake up tomorrow and everything is going to work
assad isn t going anywhere, it seems. i know everybody is talking about what are we going to do with syria and assad. that s not if the question. neither is the question what should we do about iraq. the real question is what are we going to do about iran. its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and its continuing successful effort to get an arc of control in iraq through the assad regime in syria and the hezbollah terrorists. barked by the russians. it may be much more than that. that s what this trip to moscow suggests. that s the force that s developing. once we destroy isis which i think president trump is committed to. that s the issue. how do we deal with the iran-russia axis in the middle east.