Terror in israel. A scramble to respond to a brutal attack by Hamas Terrorists against innocent civilians. We will win this war. But the price is unbearable. Could it tip the middle east into chaos. Isr isr israeli minister ron dermer is next. And the american president pledged support for israel. We will not ever fail to have their back. But how will it change this plans for a path forward in the middle east . And impasse . Chaos over the speakers gavel paralyzed a u. S. Congress ready and willing to aid israeli. Mike lawler is coming up. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Hello, im dana bash In Washington where state of our yunon is praying for a quick end to a new car. We begin with breaking news. Israels ambassador to United States said dozens of americans are among the hamas hostages taken since the explosion of war in israel. The State Department is closely tracking those reports. Here is what the Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken told me. We have reports that several americans were killed, were working overtime to verify that. At the same time, there are reports of Missing Americans and there again were working to verify those reports. Coming up, were going to ask a top israeli official about those reports and of course the broader reality on the ground there with hundreds of israelis killed and many, many israelis taken hostages. Were talking about more than 500 innocent men, women, children, grandmothers, sisters and husbands and brothers. It is left desperate families seeking information on their missing relatives. Stolen from their homes. And from their streets. By Hamas Terrorists. Today israels cabinet formally declared a state of war. Were going to start here with General Spider Marks who is at the magic call to give us a sense of where things are geographically and where the fighting not only is, but may end up, general . I think it is important as this has resooflevolved, the fi taking place in the areas identified. Realize that there have been a number of evacuations, israelis have demanded that there be an evacuation of homes, clearly theyre other taking that taking place based on their own decisions or based on the level of fighting and where the israelis plan on conducting operations and they want to minimize casualties on thei israeli side. But what were seeing is this c conflict has completely grown and what were going to see over the course of time will be an incursion into gaza and different locations. Bear in mind, gaza is about 2 plus million people, about 130 square miles, Densely Populated and what hamas does is they colocate, and they connect their command and control structure with the civilian population. Sow buy a Cup Of Coffee here in the booth next year you have a command and control location. So targeting becomes very important. Israel knows how to target very precisely. I simply dont know how this escalated and i dont know the extent of the Restraint Israelis will have after going after these hamas targets. General, thank you very much for that. It is important to see the picture there of this very volatile and very small geographical region that were talking about. Lets go to that region. Cnns Nic Robertson is in sderot, israel and talking to israeli officials searching for civilian hostages. Reporter and theyre also searching around here for infiltrators as well. There was one man from gaza picked up in this town this morning. Others, a group of four hamas militants picked up in another town not far from here and in a couple of minutes here, as the show was coming on the air, there were incoming missiles from gaza. The iron dome system, Defense System kicked off. There were intercepts in the sky above us there and the thing about sderot, and this is something that everyone who lives here knows, when the siren goes off and the missiles are coming at sderot, it is a couple of seconds to take cover because the distance is so short. If that happens, well move. Lets hope were okay here for right now. But to the point of the hostages, one of the ideas Defense Spokesperson was here in sderot talking with me earlier today. He told me about the carnage in the town and told me about how just yesterday afternoon people were being pulled out of their town and taken across border there by hamas. And i said to him, how are you going to get these people back . He said, well do anything, this is how he explained it. What i could tell you is that were not going to stop until we exhaust every means possible of doing so. We will not leave any person behind. And we will do anything to make that happen. That is what has changed, nic, over the last 24 hours. Reporter so, right now i could hear a jet in the sky, ive seen a helicopter over here in the last 30 seconds or so. And were looking at a drone, that could still see up in the sky above me there. All of that military efforts is focused on making sure that that border fence is secure, that no one else from hamas is being in. Any across the border fence in israel proper are found and neutralized. Captured or killed. That is the operation here at the moment. And th and the dusk is falling and this is the time when wee see more Military Activity picking up and im hearing explosions in the background as well right now, dana. We could hear that jet flying overhead. I want to underscore one of the key poins that youre making here, which is, nic, that there is a belief that there are still Hamas TerroristsInside Israel looking to harm or capture additional civilians as we speak. Reporter that is what the Israeli Defense force believes it is up against at the moment. Are they those who came across and laid low after yesterday morning, or are there others still trying to get through the fence in other places where israel isnt expecting it. I think this is why were seeing so much Drone Activity to get that intense overview. Weve seen several drones operating in the same area. But the concern is that hamas is still trying to get across the border to either capture or kill Israeli Citizens and try to create havoc, create more havoc and create that sense of vulnerability because that is what hamas did yesterday. They created a sense of vulnerability, in communities here today, who were hiding, barricaded inside with hamas outside trying to get in yesterday. That is a sense of vulnerability. A type of vulnerability people here havent felt before. Theyve known about the missiles and the rockets and the bombshell just literally, i could see the next one down the street here. Theyre all around. People here know to run to their for shelter. What theyve not been had any experience or real training for is what to do when hamas is banging on your front door with a weapon. That is the new that is the new fear and hamas is trying to build on that by trying to penetrate more even today. Terrifying. Which is why they are called terrorists. Thank you so much for that reporting, i appreciate it. I want to talk to an Emergency Worker in israel, rafael posh, who volunteers with united hissala. And we know the job that you have because of the reality of Terror AttacksInside Israel is more common than certainly than it should be. So you deal with horrors that happen to civilians a lot. But nothing on this scale, im guessing, that youve seen in the last 24, 48 hours . Thank you for having me. Yeah, the scale is really the equation here. Weve faced Rocket Attacks and conflicts with gaza before. But Something Like this, the scale of what were seeing right now is not something that weve seen in about 50 years since the Yom Kippur War where there is a physical threat of enemy forces entering israeli territory and that is something that is new to us. For the past few generations, and weve all of our responders go through a lot of training. Especially with Mass Casualty Incident training which weve conducted over many years. But smsing this that is definitely new. Weve had a number of our First Responders come under attack. Earlier today one of our ambulances sustained fire while it was treating various injured people. Yesterday, one of our First Responders a rabbi in his Every Day Life in the city of sderot, was trying to reach a Police Officer to try and save his life after the Police Officer had been injured and he was shot. So there is really no deterrence against Hamas Terrorists from taking hame at First Responders as well. As a matter of fact, they seem to be doing it purposely. And we have a number of First Responders injured. Unfortunately, it is something that is really horrific to see on any time. But specifically in this instance. Even more so added to the Human Tragedy taking place across the country. And you talked about that this is not the kind of thing tha that israel has seen in almost 50 years to day since the attack on yom kippur in 1973. The difference between then and now, one of the many differences, is that was a big army, against an army largely and now civilians are being sought out and targeted and killed and kidnapped. When it comes to the civilians you are treating, you could talk about the kinds of injuries that you are seeing . Anything to everything. From Gunshot Wounds to stabbing wounds. People getting injured running for shelter. People being attacked physically in either by hand, or by blunt objects. A lot of times gunshots to various different parts of the bodych it is to prevalent. Weve treated, yesterday alone we treated about a thousand people. Today weve treated several hundred more. And it was so intense in such a small area, we ran out of supplies and we had to resupply because we used most of our reserve medical equipment was sent to south, both for our teams weve also been supplying the idf to an extent. From their medical units. Who with working hand in hand together with. And Staging Areas as most civilians and Military Personnel are being brought out of the conflict regions, were treating them and then med evacing them to hospitals for further care, either getting them out by ambulance or by helicopters. And the volunteers are working nonstop. People are doing, 18, 20hour shifts in order to provide as much medical coverage as possible. We set up a Medical Clinic a number of Medical Clinics down in the gaza periphery. Which are treating both civilians and Military Personnel who were injured and weve we are getting to the point where we are quickly running out of supplies well have to restock and that is taxing on the whole organization as a whole. Obviously, were pulling equipment and Bandagesond Gauze and tourniquets from other places in the country as needed but we need to resupply these as well. Because there is a whole home front that still needs our services. We respond to over 2,000 medical emergencies on a regular day throughout israel. So this is just on top of all of that. Well, on behalf of the world, thank you so much for what you do and for what everybody would works with you does. And we wish you you luck and good health and safety, of course. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for taking the time. And the israeli minister ron dermer will join us ahead. Plus, a lawmaker who is furious at his own party. Congressman mike lawler on how his colleagues he said are hurting americas response to israels crisis and what he thinks they need to do to fix it coming up. Welcome back to state of the union. As isreal formally declared war, i wan to bring in israeli minnist her of Strategic Affairs ron dermer. Thank you so much for joining me. Condolences probably dont even go as far as they could or should. But i wan to start with what is currently happening on the ground and the ongoing vfightin in the south of israel. Were heard fire being ex kchand in the north with hezbollah there and there are terrorists in your country. Who could you tell us about the Current Situation . Well we still have to make sure that all of the terrorists as you say within our borders are taken care of. There were a number of fronts and that is ongoing. Since this morning we also have an attack from the north as you mentioned from hezbollah. And were in a very, very tense moment right now. We had a horrific attack, which i know that cnn and others stations have been reporting on for the last 24 hours yesterday. We have many, many hundreds and the numbers dana will keep going up. Just want to understand that the American People to understand what happened yesterday. Were well north of 600 people. Who have been killed, it will probably be more hundreds, several hundreds more. Put that in american terms. Israel has a population of about 9 million people. America has a population of about 350 million people. It is about 40 times bigger than the israeli population. So when you lose a thousand people in israel in one day, it is like 40,000 americans being killed in one day. That is about 10 9 11s. That is what happened in israel yesterday. And the remember the feeling that i had, as somebody born and raised in america on 9 11, that is the exact feeling i had yesterday as a minister in the israeli government. The sense of shock and outrage, of utter disgust. I think that is what you see across israel. There is a difference, dana. Then your enemy was thousands of miles away. Had you to send your Troops Thousands of miles away to deal with that. And you didnt know exactly where they were. You were looking for them in caves and mountains in tora bora and other places, and now we know exactly where our enemy is and we have to take action to exact such a massive price for them that they, every Terror Organization in gaza and frankly every Terror Organization in the middle east and Around The World knows that this action is totally unacceptable and that every civil society, every civil sized society, not just free societies should stand with israel, i very appreciate that the Prime Minister is very appreciative of president bidens clear statement yesterday. I just came from a conversation that they had just a few minutes ago. His unequivocal support and weve heard unequivocal support from many leaders Around The World, and United States and we hope that support will stay just as strong in the day as head whether we have to do what we have to do in order to restore security and also to exact such a price from this Terror Organization that this rue the day. And the darkest period in its history. Im going to follow up on that and try to get what you mean and what this will look like. You talked, sir, but what you say are 600, more than 600 dead. What about the hostages . Lets start with israeli hostages. Do you know how many there are at this point on the other side of the border in gaza . We dont have the exact number. Because we dont know exactly how many dead people who we are not in touch with. I think that will take several more hours to figure out the exact numbers. But i think it scores of hostages. I could tell you there is also american hostages as par of the number as well. I dont want to get into a specific number. But these are women and children, they are elderly, they are holocaust survivors. This is sick. It is a savage attack and i would hope, i know that i didnt hear that coming from the United States, but i heard it from other countries around the worl is calls for deescalation. Imagine that other countries would tell the American People after 9 11, after ten 9 11s that they want deescalation. Israel will have to do whatever it has to do to restore security and make sure that no one will even think about doing Something Like this, a savage brutal attack, against civilization, every single country should stand with israel in these critical days. Because i have told you, ive been through rounds of this before, and im not accusing cnn of anything, and certainly not you of anything. But there have been times where the terrorists have used the media, when you see pictures of even the most effective terror action that we could take, we could target the terrorists but there will be civilian casualties and the terrorists are celebrating. Dont let this happen this time. We have to all of us, all of the civilized nation have to send a message to hamas that what they did yesterday is not going to pay. Theyre going to lose from what they did yesterday. And most important thing and i would ask for a call, i would ask for a call for every leader in the United States and elsewhere a clear and unequ unequivocal call to free