We want to begin with our big story here. Coming up, hope for a ceasefire in gaza as the attacks keep coming, the blood keeps spilling. Heres what we know this morning. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has just wrapped up this meeting in the west bank in ramallah with Mahmoud Abbas. She will reportedly meet again today with israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before jetting to cairo for talks with the president of egypt, Mohammad Morsi. The urgency underscored by the carnage in benghazi. Rockets are lobbying back and forth. Israeli air attacks killing 27 more palestinians bringing the death toll to 137 just in the last week. Now a spokesman for hamas sounded cautiously optimistic that a ceasefire could be at hand telling cnn we are close, we are on the edge. Cnn has reporters blanketing the region to bring you the most comprehensive coverage of this crisis in gaza. Fred pleitgen is in ashkelon, ben wedemans in gaza city. Ben wedeman, good morning, set the scene for me. Reporter
United nations comes under fire again. This time, its over ra wwanda. Lets go outfront. Evening, welcome, everybody. Im soledad obrien. Breaking news. President obama puts the syrian president Bashar Al Assad on notice. The president is reacting to new notice that the regime is mixing with chemicals to make deadly gas. And today, i want to make it absolutely clear to assad and those under his command, the world is watching. The use of chemical weapons is an would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable. Assad is on the edge of president obamas socalled red line against syria. The president said the summer that syrias use or movement of chemical weapons could mean u. S. Intervention, so outfront tonight, barbara starr. How exactly clear is the evidence in fact they are now moving in a new step in the direction with chemical weapons . It was just over the weekend that the intelligence
We begin with the big story. The latest on the benghazi hearings. Joining me is pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr and intelligence correspondent suzanne kelly. Welcome to you both. Barbara, this is really fascinating me. So general petraeus who has been at the center of this huge scandal tomorrow morning will testify at a congressional hearing about benghazi, and your information from a very good source, i think is really, really significant. Its basically, i have been listening to you for the last couple of hours, petraeus basically says he knew the moment this happened that it was a group called answar al sharia and that after that there was a stream of other intelligence saying it may be linked to the video we all knew about but his belief was always that it was this group and they had to rule out the other intelligence before they could officially confirm it. Is that right . Thats pretty close to it, piers. Very good source of mine who is directly familiar with what general petr
Why youre watching this right now. President obamas solution to all this is to make a deal centered around increasing taxes on the wealthy which will go a good part of the way to raising the 1. 6 trillion in new revenue that he wants to raise over the next decade in his attempt to reduce the federal deficit. He wants to let the bush era tax cuts expire. If that happens, the top tax rate on income would jump from 36 to 39 . He likes to say thats where it was during the clinton years. The second top rate would go from 33 to 36 . Now this is what president obama campaigned on. Hes been vague about the specific numbers since his reelection which suggests that he may compromise on the actual rates in order to get a deal. There are other taxes as well that hes talking about. Taxes on investment gains would also go up. The Capital Gains tax could go from 15 to 20 and dividend taxes would go from 15 to the income tax rate. As i showed you, 39. 6 . Mitt romney argue this is would hurt individua
Improves conditions for the people of gaza and moves toward a comprehensive peace for all people of the region. Secretary clinton sits down with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and with egyptian president Mohammed Morsi tomorrow. I want to bring in cnns wolf blitzer, who is live for us in jerusalem tonight, and Anderson Cooper and ben wedeman, both in gaza city. Wolf, let me start with you if i may. A very tense day with claim and counterclaim coming almost on an hourly basis. There was going to be a ceasefire, then no ceasefire. Both sides trading sort of insults and then offering fig leaves. What do you make of it all . As we talk now in the middle of a night there, what do you make of where we really are with this . Well, throughout most of the day, i thought they were very close to reaching a ceasefire agreement. All the signs looked rather positive. Then all of a sudden, on this day, it was getting increasingly more tense in the southern part of israel and what weve