This is cnn breaking news. I want to welcome you to cnns breaking News Coverage. Im abby phillip here in washington. Today scenes of terror, heartbreak and utter desperation as israel officially declares war on the terror group hamas. Just moments ago cnn has learned that three americans have been killed in fighting according to the u. S. Government in a memo. The Biden Administration is also looking into american deaths and those among the missing, some possibly killed by hamas fighters. We are getting in some gruesome, horrible news. What im about to show you is graphic. A rescue group said 260 bodies were found at a Western Festival site near gaza. The survivors describing hamas fighters storming that festival yesterday morning attacking civilians with rifles, rpgs, kidnapping and killing those that they came across. This is one of the atrocities committed by hamas over the last two days against israel. In response, israel has ramped up attacks on gaza. The area controlled by hamas,
areas. so i m not sure who they are liberating. . maria, i m so sorry for the loss of your family. i m so incredibly sorry. maria semykoz, thank you for sharing about your dad for us. thank you. thank you for letting me. yeah. there s some renewed concern this morning on the ellengths vladimir putin will go following a deadly missile strike just miles from the poland border. plus, clarissa war will join us live from kyiv where explosions are being heard in the capitol. stand by. lavender baths calmed him. so we e made a plan to turn bath time into a business. find a northwestern mutual advisosor at nm.com
lead into something far more catastrophic. wolf. sam kiley at the scene for us, thank you for that report, stay safe over there. please. let s go to the ukrainian capitol of kyiv where air raid sirens sounded a short while ago. our correspondent clarissa war is there for us. you have been reporting on the devastating toll faciing ukrainians. is there any doubt that putin is targeting civilians? reporter: well, wolf, i think it is difficult to differentiate between actively targeting civilians and having a complete disregard for the lives of civilians. certainly when you look at some of the places that had been hit in the bombardment over the last week particularly, evacuation routes where civilians trying to flee to safety, apartment buildings and residential buildings where people were living with their families and what s interesting and very
thought there were no patients and no staff inside that complex being treated. ultimately, as the mayor of mariupol says, these are crimes that have to go to the international criminal court to decide. as sam pointed out in his reporting that we have seen this before in syria particularly where we know concretely that russian forces were actively targeting hospitals, wolf. clarissa, mariupol the city where this attack took place were supposed to be under a cease-fire so that civilians could actually escape. are any of these so-called humanitarian corridors actually really safe? reporter: really safe is a difficult term to categorize exactly, wolf. i would say here in kyiv in the suburbs which have been so hard hit, roughly 3,000 people
according to ukrainian authorities and local officials here in kyiv were able to get out of some of those hardest hit areas and the world reports that the bombardment in those areas was a little less than it had been before. we heard that quite a few people were able to escape the northern city of sumy, that s the site of just some truly horrific bombardment. if you look at the sort of broader picture and you look at mariupol in particular where for three straight days now, they have tried desperately to get these people out and get humanitarian aid in, the shelling continues and the p bombing continues and i don t think anyone can call it a truce cease-fire. there is no end insight. clarissa ward, be careful over there as well. clarissa is in kyiv, the ukrainian capitol. this awful, horrendous hospital bombing, the united states fears russia may be