hello, everyone. thank you so much for joining us. i m fredericka witfield in atlanta along with woflf blitze in tel aviv. dramatic new developments where israeli troops are closing in on gaza city. secretary of state antony blinken joined ministers for a high stakes meeting. it s our view that a ceasefire now would leave hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on october 7th. you don t have to take my word for it. just a few days ago a senior hamas official said it was their intent to do october 7th again and again and again. meantime, more heavy shelling pounding the gaza strip again today, massive explosions sending shock waves throughout the enclave. significant developments at the rafah border crossing between egypt and gaza. a u.s. official says hamas is now blocking foreign nationals from exiting gaza until israel guarantees that ambulances from gaza can reach the crossing. a source tells cnn more than 700 people are waiting to cross into egypt, incl
of 1979 and 1980 and you have a sort of ted copple day 74, day 75, that could be debilitating to this administration. they need to figure this out somehow and nip this in the bud in the next few weeks. one of the questions when you re trying to negotiation with former enemies, the taliban, now in charge in afghanistan. the question is what are you willing to give in one of the things they would like is diplomatic recognition from the president. the president of the united states yesterday said not yet anyway. reporter: will you recognize the taliban? no. that s a long way off. that s a long way off. thank you. so the president says that s a long way off. the secretary of state, this came up. he s in qatar. we re trying to do a lot of business through the qatar ris who have relations with the the world is determined to see that they make good on that commitment. they ve told the world that they intend to uphold the basic rights of the afghan people,
to bring this war to a halt. i think that s a really interesting and important point that you just made, that we don t want assad to fall write now. perhaps that answers some of the questions that i want to get into, that we have we re seeing unenthusiastic support or lack of support from the arab world for a strike no matter how despite how much effort we give to egypt. they re not with us. tunisia s not with us. algeria s not with us. why is it that the arab world is not supporting this strike when the arab league expelled syria several years ago? well, toure, like anything else in the arab league, it s not really an arab league. there s a group of arab countries that come together and then spend most of their time arguing among themselves. the qatar ris and em rat at thises and saudis who are part of the sunni religious block of the arab league want to see the strike and probably have already said that they re going to pay the check for it if, indeed, it ever occurs. the egy