intent of killing innocent civilians, women, children, babies, beheading babies. this is a barbaric, disgusting, vile terrorist regime that needs to be eliminated. and israel has every right to defend itself and its right to exist. and they should take any and all action necessary to do that. >> congressman mike lawler, we appreciate the overtime with you in having a very broad conversation. please keep us posted on whether you plan to support speaker scalise if you wind up speaking with him later today or not. thanks so much. >> thanks. >> of course. still plenty more news to come. stay with -- >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. i'm boris sanchez live in washington, d.c. alongside anderson cooper, who is in tel aviv, israel. and we are tracking major developments on capitol hill and in the middle east. republican congressman steve scalise has just locked down the republican nomination for house speaker. a full vote to determine if he will become the 56th speaker of the house is potentially coming up this afternoon. we will of course follow that live. anderson? >> and here in israel a nation readies the next phase of a war. one of the largest troop mobilizations in the country's history is now under way. we have been witnessing the build-up of forces over the last several days, amassing along the gaza border and at other sites. the bombardment of gaza continues. in less than a week of fighting both israel and gaza are reporting more than 1,000 deaths. both sides are bracing for things to get a lot worse, obviously scrammage to get civilians out of the crosshairs. a senior official telling cnn talks are happening to allow palestinian civilians in the gaza strip to perhaps exit into egypt ahead of any israeli ground invasion. that was something that the national security adviser sullivan had intimated yesterday in a press conference. he had talked about diplomatic efforts under way to try to figure out about potential border crossings. but we're still waiting for some sort of resolution on that. obviously, the egyptian border -- there's the egyptian border and the israeli border. they're not going to be able to enter into israel. egypt seems to be the only option at this point. if egyptian authorities can be convinced to allow that to happen. there's also an urgent push to try to find, locate, free hostages taken by hamas, believed to be more than 100. islamic jihad, also which operates in gaza, said they had some 30. that was several days ago. unknown number of americans among those hostages. the top u.s. hostage official is with secretary of state antony blinken about to depart from israel. and i should point out we are expecting to hear comments from antony blinken at any moment. we'll try to bring those to you live. the country of qatar is also involved, mediating talks between israel and hamas regarding any potential release of women and children. hamas had put out a statement days ago saying that this is not the time to discuss any kind of hostage negotiation while there is ongoing conflict. that remains to be seen if any progress can be made on that front with the involvement of qatar. i want to go on the ground right now to cnn's nic robertson, who i believe still is in sderot at this hour. nic, explain where you are, what you have been seeing. >> reporter: yeah, just a couple of miles from the border fence with gaza, anderson. and in the last couple of minutes, literally three or four minutes, there was a massive barrage of rocket fire coming from gaza coming into here. the iron dome was intercepting, taking them out in the sky above here. there were so many rockets coming from gaza that the iron dome was intercepting from another angle as well. so several iron domes -- you can hear the detonations there. we've been talking about those. the artillery that's being fired onto gaza as well to try to get those rocket launch sites. but at the same time as well another development that you and i were developing an hour ago. we were hearing all that small arms fire very close to here. that was something unusual. now that's been confirmed, the small arms fire is over. it really ramped up a little bit later in intensity. a real firefight going on. that was taking place a couple of miles from here, approximately perhaps a little less over the hill away from where we are. but we found out that that was a couple of hamas infiltrators that the israeli defense forces had found, got into a firefight with them, neutralized them, the euphemism they use. that again is just indicative, to answer the question we were talking about last hour, are there still hamas operatives on the loose here. and the answer is very clearly yes. and relatively close to this town of sderot as well, which itself is a couple of miles from the border with gaza. but everything that you see around us so instructive of the biggest picture -- of the big picture. but the rocket fire on sderot this evening, that was something -- you know, we really didn't see anything of that intensity during the day. i don't think we saw it of that intensity last night. but that was quite a big barrage. quite a couple of salvos they fired in here, anderson. >> nic, it's really stunning to me that -- not surprising but it is just still something to remark on, the fact that here we are now, i'm not sure how many hours it has been since the 6:30 a.m. initial terror attacks began saturday morning, that there are still hamas squads on the ground or individuals on the ground around sderot in that border area. i mean, that says something. >> reporter: it does. and i think what it says is -- and the evidence seems to come in to support this because what the idf are finding when they are getting on the location of these small groups they find, they're finding that places where they kind of stashed food and water. so it appears that these guys are not recent to come in. they may well have come in on saturday, maybe late saturday, maybe sunday before the border was beginning to be shored up. and have gone to ground with that sole aim of getting out and attacking. so i think this speaks to the issue that, you know, when you have 1,500 members of hamas, their fighters coming in here through multiple holes along this long border fence on saturday morning, if you have 1,500 that have been accounted for then it's logical that there will be some that are unaccounted for, and the accounting is still going on. the idf will be adding another two or three tonight cloels to here to the tally of hamas. i think they would expect to find more. and it stands to reason. you have so many flood in over the weekend that there's likely a few still holding out, hiding out some places. >> nic, i don't think we know the answer to this but i'm going to ask the question anyway. is it -- are there any numbers of how many potential terrorists hamas has, how many potential people do they have willing to die to support hamas? i mean, if they had a thousand fighters, a thousand militants crossing over the border, some of those with higher levels of training than others, at some point do they run out of numbers? or do we know? >> reporter: you know, i think there's one very simple and frank answer to that, and that is that in a population of 2 million people in gaza who feel as if they are absolutely being squeezed to the maximum by israel, that's their view inside gaza, there is no shortage of recruits to hamas or to the islamic jihad or to other groups. you know, people -- young men seem to flock to them because they've got an attractive message. fight the enemy. and i think the best analysis is, and i don't have the most up-to-date figures here, but it will be in the tens of thousands that hamas can count on for support. their challenge is probably giving them more weapons and flak jackets and instructions and keeping any hint of a big operation below the radar. if you were to try to send too many people across the border, perhaps at least the disorganization. but i think the idea that they've run out of people, you know, i think probably hamas would probably say no, you know, plenty more recruits. and i think the evidence supports that. we just don't know how much they can -- how many weapons they can put in their hands, how many they can really make operational. >> yeah. also the level of training that any of those newer recruits may have would obviously be a consideration on the battlefield. nic robertson, appreciate it. let's go back to boris sanchez -- >> reporter: yeah, anderson, i'm just going to interrupt. the iron dome is going up here. so i'm expecting more intercepts. yeah. i'm expecting there are more missiles coming. that's the siren. we'll leave the camera rolling. we'll leave the camera rolling. i'll just step into a little bit of cover here and talk you through what we're seeing. >> so nic, explain the -- >> reporter: the booms -- >> the lights we just saw tracking across the sky, are those from the iron dome? are those the interceptors? >> reporter: that was from the iron dome. those were the interceptors. you saw the interceptors tracking through the sky. and that was very much like the salvo just before at the top of the hour. they track through the sky. i was able to watch them behind john, i can still see the contrails of where they came up from the iron dome launch site. and soon as i saw those little tracers come up that we were catching on the camera, john was catching on the camera, we know because we've seen it for a number of days now, that means there's rockets coming from gaza. we couldn't see the rockets coming, but those intercepts, those bangs that you heard, that was the iron dome interceptors connecting with the rockets. and again, you can't overemphasize it. in somewhere like sderot that's so close to the border with gaza, when rockets are fired from gaza there are literally seconds, seconds for the iron dome to spring into action. and that's what we saw. and it's remarkable as well because the iron dome was -- i would say their interceptor missiles were in the sky two to three seconds before the tanoy across the town here came on telling people danger close, get to the shelter, stay in the shelter. so the best indicator if you're under attack in this place at least is to be able to see the iron dome taking to the sky. and that's what we saw play out here. and i think we're just -- i think we may be seeing rockets coming up from gaza just -- just seen another one coming up. so i think we might get some more. yep, intercepts coming up overhead now. >> can you explain how it works? >> yes. stand by, though. multiple iron domes at work here. multiple iron domes coming in from different directions. [ explosions ] that's that salvo over. so anderson, you were asking me how does -- >> so a lot of that is done automatically. that's done by computer tracking -- >> yeah. they pick up instantly, they pick up the trajectory of where it's going, the angle it's flying on, the angle it's going up into the sky, they calculate across the country, they calculate where they think it's going to impact and they know the best iron dome system to intersect with it and that goes up in an instant. that was interesting because we saw the missiles coming up from gaza that time before the iron dome triggered. last go-round it was the reverse. although you know, in situations like this it's a little tricky to tell the timing. john's looking over my shoulder. so he sees the missiles coming up. and i'm looking over his shoulder. so i'm seeing the iron dome come up. but yes, it's a computerized intelligent system that calculates the angle of hamas's rocket, the direction of hamas's rocket, and it says okay, this iron dome unit is the best one to fire off. and it says fire off five, six, seven, eight, depending on how many incoming missiles they're picking up on their radar systems. it's complex. but -- and it's probably relatively expensive. but it saves lives. every one of those rockets there, we didn't hear a single impact here just now. so it shows you here on this occasion right now, not all across the day, but on this occasion right now it appears to have itantercepted everything coming in this direction. clear message from hamas. perhaps they already know that two of their operatives were picked up, neutralized is the term, over the hill from here this evening. they're firing back in here. this town now is a militarized town. it is awash with troops. and part of the reason it's awash with troops is because there's concerns that there might be more hamas militants out there. anderson? >> we should also point out, nic, that those interceptors from the iron dome system, that is one of the things the u.s. has said that they want to provide more of to israel, both giving them the funding for those and also directly providing more interceptors to bolster the system because it has -- just for value for dollar in terms of each of those interceptors going up, it is protecting property on the ground. it's protecting human lives most importantly on the ground and allowing people to live their lives to the extent that spending a lot of time in bomb shelters is living, in sderot, in ashkelon, and in all these communities around there. so this iron dome system has proved critically important. and nic, you talked about rockets still coming from gaza. it's important to point out, the last time i was reporting from gaza city during bombardments, during a back and forth between israel and hamas, you could see when you were in gaza city, you could see hamas rockets being fired from civilian areas, from regular streets, from residential areas, from buildings all around. so the launchpads for hamas rockets move around and are also amidst residential buildings. >> reporter: yes. and hamas will have dug themselves tunnels and bunkers to store those weapons in so the missiles, the rockets, they're right there close to that launch location. you know, just a few meters away. so what they do is they minimize their time on the ground. they'll keep those rocket systems in bunkers under houses. they'll come out into the orchard behind the houses and then set them off and then go back underground in tunnels and into those deep bunkers where they know they can get some safety from the shells that are likely to follow in. and we've just heard a round of explosions coming from gaza. so it would seem that there was return fire. it sounded like to me, sounded like artillery being fired back in. but yes, hamas hide among the population. and again, to your point, it is very difficult for the israeli defense forces to target those launch sites without the risk and actual collateral damage, without civilians getting killed and injured. and that's what we've been witnessing over the past few days. the death toll among palestinians -- i think it was u.n. workers today among casualties. yeah. >> and worth pointing out those underground tunnels are for hamas militants, not for civilians to hide in. those are for the movement of weapons, perhaps the keeping of hostages, but allow for movement under the ground in tunnels of hamas, not the civilian population to shelter in. >> reporter: very much so. yeah. >> nic robertson, thank you very much. >> a reminder of how quickly things can change in the middle east. anderson, thank you so much. we should note we are anticipating remarks by secretary of state antony blinken at any moment. he landed in israel a short time ago. we're also following breaking news on capitol hill where house republicans have nominated congressman steve scalise of louisiana to become the 56th speaker of the house. let's take you now live to capitol hill with cnn's lauren fox and manu raju. lauren, first let's go to you. we're just learning that there was a meeting between congressman scalise and jim jordan, who he defeated to get the republican nomination. >> reporter: right. and there's a huge question looming right now, boris and that is whether or not jim jordan is going to get behind steve scalise or not as there are many of his allies who have already said that right now they want to stand by jim jordan on the floor of the house if it were to come up for a vote. and i want to read you a tweet from thomas massey. he just tweeted, "sprietzs are for little kids at birthday parties, not congress. so i let scalise know in person that he doesn't have my vote on the floor because he has not articulated a viable plan for avoiding an omnibus." i just want to remind a little bit. back in the room behind me the house republican conference voted to nominate steve scalise by a simple majority. that vote was 111 to 99. but that is a far cry from the 217 votes that steve scalise will actually need on the floor. so that is what we're watching very closely right now. how does steve scalise begin to try to lock up that support? and obviously, jim jordan is a big factor here into whether or not he can do that quickly. >> lauren fox live from capitol hill. let's go to manu raju who is also there for us. manu, you've been trying to catch lawmakers as they've been walking through the halls. what's the latest you're hearing? >> reporter: yeah, we do -- we are still uncertain about when the exact timing of that floor vote is going to be to elect the next speaker of the house. and we're also uncertain about whether or not steve scalise can actually get the votes. as you heard lauren just say, thomas massey being one of those members who is still not certain about whether to get behind scalise. one member also told me that -- >> manu, we're actually going to interrupt you because secretary of state antony blinken is now giving remarks in israel. let's listen. >> on behalf of the american people. and that is that the united states has israel's back. we have the back of the israeli people. we have their back today. we'll have it tomorrow. we will have it every day. we stand resolutely against terrorism. we've seen the almost undescribable acts committed by hamas against israeli men, women and children. every day we're learning more. and it is simply heartbreaking. not since isis have we seen this kind of depravity. and we will continue to stand very resolutely against it. when i'm in israel, i'll have the opportunity to meet with prime minister netanyahu, president herzog, other senior officials. i look forward to seeing our embassy teams as well that's been doing terrific work during these difficult days. we're determined to make sure that israel gets everything it needs to defend itself, to provide for the security of its people. already significant military assistance requested by israel is on the way. that's on top of everything that we've been doing for years including with the memorandum of understanding that was negotiated by president obama to make sure that israel has what it needs to defend itself. at the same time we anticipate there will be further needs, further requests. we've already been working closely with congress on this, and we look forward to continuing to do that to make sure that israel has what it needs. second, we will be reiterating, reaffirming the very strong message that president biden has delivered to any country or any party that might try to take advantage of this situation, and that message is don't. the president has deployed, as you know, the world's largest aircraft carrier group to the region to make very clear our intent to deter anyone contemplating any further aggression against israel. finally, we're of course very focused on our own people, our own citizens. we lost 22 americans. that number could still go up, and it probably will. at the same time we have a number of americans who remain unaccounted. we are working very closely with the government of israel to determine their whereabouts and if they have been taken hostage by hamas to work to secure their release. so all of these things are on the agenda over the next day or so with israel, but the main point is this. we stand with israel. we'll continue to do so. thank you. >> mr. secretary, yesterday jake sullivan said that u.s. officials were talking to the israelis about giving civilians safe passage through gaza into egypt. today john kirby said they're still talking to the officials about this. what is the holdup? what's the obstacle to getting civilians safe passage out of gaza? >> john, we are talking about that and we're talking to israel about that. we're talking to egypt about that. it's an ongoing conversation. i can't get into the details. some of this is needless to say and understandably complicated. but we want to make sure to the best of our ability -- and i know israel wants to make sure to the best of its ability that civilians are not harmed. but israel has to take steps to defend itself. it has to make sure that any ongoing threat is dealt with. and i believe it has to make sure that going forward what happened doesn't happen again. >> is the issue more on the israeli side or the egypt side -- >> i'm not going to get into the details but it's an ongoing conversation. >> following up on that, the conversations between the u.s. and israel, has the u.s. advocated any degree of restraint in terms of possible ground operations in gaza, either for the sake of the civilians there or for the sake of hostages? >> well, again, i'm not getting into any of the operational details of what israel may or may not do. i think you heard the president speak to this yesterday in his very, very strong and forceful comments. and of course what separates israel, the united states and other democracies when it comes to incredibly difficult situations like this is our respect for international law and as appropriate the laws of war. we do everything we can to make sure that in these situations we avoid civilian casualties. that is in direct contrast with hamas, which uses people as human shields. it actually seeks to put palestinian civilians in situations where they could be harmed. this is very much part of their -- part of their game plan. so we know that israel will take all of the precautions that it can just as we would, and again, that's what separates us from hamas and terrorist groups engaged in the most heinous kind of activities. thank you. we'll have a chance to talk later. thank you. >> that was secretary of state antony blinken at joint base andrews as he departs for israel. a number of notable comments from the secretary of state reiterating the united states' continued support of israel. he talked about the almost undescribable acts that were committed by hamas and notably the secretary of state reiterating something the president said yesterday, noting that any party or state that would seek to exploit the situation in israel should stay away. he talked about carrier groups by the united states being put into the region. clearly a tacit message to not only hezbollah in lebanon but iran as well. he did talk about determining the number of americans who were still missing and perhaps being held hostage by hamas. and he talked about working closely with congress to provide aid for israel. we'll of course keep monitoring the secretary of state's trip. but on that last note about providing aid to israel from congress, a lot of breaking news on capitol hill. we want to get straight to manu raju. manu, there were some questions about whether we would see a vote on the house floor today, potentially to confirm steve scalise as the 56th speaker of the house. but that vote, we've learned, is not happening today. and also we've learned that he will likely get support from his rival in the nomination process, the congressman from ohio, jim jordan. >> reporter: yeah, that's right. we are not expecting the house to vote this afternoon. this coming from a source who told our colleague melanie zanona that the house will actually come in at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon and recess for the day. and we do expect that congressman jim jordan, who has been coy about whether or not he would support steve scalise after they battled it out behind closed doors and he lost the nominating contest to scalise, well, he plans to nominate scalise on the floor of the house to be the next speaker. this is welcome news for scalise undoubtedly because he will need jordan's support, the backing of jordan allies in order to get over the finish line. but that doesn't mean that he will have the votes to be elected. in fact, there are a number of members who are simply not there. some of them are saying that they will potentially vote for another candidate altogether on the floor or they want to hear more from scalise, want to have meetings from him asking for potential deals, potential concessions, things that we saw kevin mccarthy have to do to win the ballot after -- win the speakership after 15 ballots back in january. and in a warning sign to scalise one republican member told me that scalise will, quote, never be elected speaker. that was the words of this one republican member. we'll see if that actually comes out to be true. but a sign of the challenges that speaker nominee scalise faces here because of the same issues that kevin mccarthy faced, a narrowly divided republican majority where any five members can scuttle your plans and can push you out of the speakership. now scalise will have to figure out behind the scenes how to appease those critics, what deals to make with them in order to get the votes to be elected speaker. because until that point nothing will get done in this house. it will remain paralyzed as it has been since the ouster of kevin mccarthy last week. until they elect another speaker no aid to israel, which the president has called for as soon as next week. no aid to ukraine, which has been stalled for some time. and no action toward avoiding a government shutdown by mid november. all key issues. republicans say they want to start to tackle. but without a speaker nothing can be done. scalise will have to get the votes. can he get there? huge questions ahead, boris. >> and they will not be answered today. again, the news, no vote coming on the confirmation of the house speaker later today and the potential for jim jordan to endorse scalise as speaker as well. manu raju, please stand by hp keep us posted with what you learn. let's expand the conversation now with cnn's dana bash, jamie gangel and jeff zeleny. dana, what does it say to you that there is not going to be a vote today? >> he doesn't have the votes. i mean, he doesn't have them. when you get the votes, you go and you take them. we were asking, and manu was asking our entire hill team, we're trying to figure out whether or not even in the face of not actually having 217 locked up he would try to push the vote and make it happen on the floor. and very clearly the way that the leadership inside the republican conference right now is seeing this is as a situation where they don't want to have the spectacle. manu just said this. they don't want to have the spectacle that we had in january where mccarthy just did it on the house floor and we had 15 rounds. partic particularly not just because it would be an illustration of dysfunction within the house republican conference. most importantly, you have what you just saw from antony blinken standing at joint base andrews, talking about standing with israel, getting on a plane to go to israel. that image with the split screen of the house actually in total disarray and not able to get a house speak er, even for those who don't care that much about the image of a functioning government, sees that that is a problem in today's times. >> jeff, do you sense a loss of momentum here for scalise, that he's not putting this for a vote today? >> it certainly isn't ideal. i think anytime that you could use something quickly on the hill it avoids the lack of uncertainty and the unknown. i do think one thing that also has happened really in the last few moments is jim jordan, who's the chairman of the house judiciary committee who will go on to keep doing his job in the impeachment inquiry under things, he says that he will support steve scalise. that's a very important development. the question is will all of the 99 people who voted for him will. my guess is most of them will. this is probably a moment where cooler heads will prevail. except they have seen that one or two members can spoil things. so what is happening now is looking for specific deals. looking for specific extractions potentially from steve scalise. but i think we should just take back -- step back for a moment. former president donald trump, he endorsed jim jordan. he did not win. so what is the former president going to do with this? my guess is he has an okay relationship with steve scalise. steve scalise certainly is plenty trumpy enough if you want to use that expression. so my guess is this moves forward, it will just take a day. but uncertainty on capitol hill, the measure of time usually is not helpful for things. >> you have to wonder whether the votes would have been different if there would have been more votes for jordan if it wasn't a secret ballot after all. he was endorsed by the former president. jamie, your reaction to jordan now moving forward with an endorsement of scalise. >> look, that is good news for steve scalise except the word "but." it wasn't enough to hold a vote today. there is something i think we should mention, and that is about matt gaetz, who actually is supporting steve scalise. he said, quote, i'm excited for him, can't wait to go vote for steve scalise, long live speaker scalise. so he has matt gaetz's vote. but on the other hand our hill team has been going through jeremy herb has a note here of member after member who says not my vote, or not yet, or no. and so we're back to the horse trading, we're back to the deal making, and -- but there could be maybe not the matt gaetz eight but a different group of holdouts here. >> and some who voted to get rid of mccarthy are not yet ready to support scalise. and i'm putting my hand over here because it's my right side of the republican conference. and then you have what mike lawler just told you recently, like in the last hour on air, boris. he is about as moderate as it gets. he's from the swingiest of swing districts -- >> a biden district. >> a biden district. one of the 18 republicans who won in a biden district. who's's also not ready to support steve scalise. doesn't mean they won't ultimately. but as they say on capitol hill they're not going to do it for free. >> what will scalise give up to ultimately get to 217? dana, jamie, jeff, a pleasure as always. thanks very much for the conversation. back to our other breaking news, israel at war and the conflicting intelligence on what and when iran knew about the surprise attack from hamas. stay with cnn. we're back in moments. there are certainly a lot of questions and concerns about what role if any iran may have played in all of this. did iran know something in advance and when did they know it. that's a question high-level officials in the u.s. and israel and elsewhere have been scrambling to try to answer. whether or not iran played a role in planning or approving the sophisticated terror attacks that took place here starting saturday morning launched by hamas against israel. we are now hearing some conflicting assessments at this stage. and it is pretty early in this whole process. i want to bring in cnn's alex marquardt and matthew chance to try to walk us through what we have learned and what they are hearing from various sources. alex marquardt, let's start off with you. what are you hearing from sources about the u.s. intelligence community's assessment? >> here in washington, anderson, from intelligence officials, from people who've been briefed on the intelligence, from administration officials, what we're told is there is no smoking gun that says that iran was kept in the loop in terms of the planning, the execution, the approval of these attacks. they're certainly not ruling it out, but they're saying for now there is no proof of that. no one is denying, anderson, that iran bears massive responsibility for whatever hamas does. the only reason that hamas has the power that it does is because of the years and years and millions and millions of dollars of backing that iran has given to hamas, funding, training, weapons, components. so they were certainly able to carry out this attack because of that support from iran. and that's why the administration is saying that iran is broadly complicit in the attack, they just don't have the proof that they were directly involved in this attack. i did speak with a senior israeli official who said that he would find it hard to believe that iran didn't know but as far as u.s. intelligence is concerned they don't have that hard evidence. we know the israeli and american intelligence communities are going back through previous evidence to see if they've overlooked anything, to see if they can find a closer tie between iran and the specific attack. anderson. >> and matthew, i know you've been talking to israeli officials as well. >> yeah, that's right. there's a lot of overlap between what the u.s. says and what israeli officials say. they both agree, as alex was saying, that iran is complicit, it has provided long-standing support, weapons, political backing to the hamas militant group in gaza. but it's a question of how much direct influence they had, how much direct commitment they had to this appalling operation that killed so many israelis. and what this israeli official that i spoke to told me, and he's somebody who's familiar with the latest israeli intelligence, is that he felt, he said that israeli intelligence had thought that iran essentially greenlighted this operation, they didn't know about the timing, they didn't know it was going to cause perhaps such tragic consequences with so many israelis killed, but they were aware that the operation was in the planning stage and they greenlighted it in that sense. they green lolighted the concepf it. and that's slightly different to having no direct involvement at all but not as much as saying look, iran orchestrated this as the puppetmaster for hamas. they were involved. perhaps they didn't know the appalling consequences of this operation and the geopolitical impact it was going to have. but they knew it was in a planning stage. >> and alex, just to be clear, from what you're hearing it sounds like the u.s. is not ruling out the possibility that they will learn more information, just at this stage they have information that some senior iranian officials were surprised about the operation doesn't necessarily mean that there's not more information to learn. is that correct? >> that's right. and those are the iranian officials that they're aware of that clearly they've been monitoring in some fashion. we are told by intelligence officials there was a certain level of surprise among senior iranian officials about this attack. but to matthew's point, that could be surprise about the timing. that could be surprise about the barbarity. when you talk to former officials iran's m.o. when it comes to hamas and hezbollah in the north is essentially to create these proxies, to give them the funding, the resources they need, the power they need, the equipment they need to operate in the geography and a shared understanding of what they're supposed to do. and in both those cases, hamas and hezbollah's, to attack israel. so there isn't necessarily a need for iran to be aware of everything and on top of everything because it's understood that iran is giving hamas that support so they can go after israel. anderson. >> matthew, what do you -- when you're talking to israeli officials what are you hearing about a potential -- what they think a potential next step in gaza is? >> look, i think israeli officials have set out pretty clearly that they intend to go in on the land to root out hamas zpe as a military organization. >> which would be an operation on a scale we have not seen in many years. >> i've been reporting from this region for a couple of decades. and i've been in gaza many times and seen israeli incursions. some of them absolutely brutal. but i think what we're looking at now is an operation on a different scale of magnitude. not only have you got that massively densely populated area, the network of tunnels running underneath it which are exclusively used by militants like hamas, but you've also got those 150 or so hostages which adds an extra dimension of complication to any military operation. >> matthew chance, thank you very much. alex marquardt as well. join meg now is ryan crocker, the former u.s. ambassador to syria and lebanon. ambassador crocker, i appreciate you being with us. let's talk about iran. what do you make of -- there's agreement between certainly u.s. officials and israeli officials about broad responsibilities by iran, but about the level of involvement in this hamas terror attacks. >> well, thanks for having me, anderson. i listened to your conversation just now with matthew and alex. i come down in pretty much the same place. there may not be any specific intelligence directly tying iran to this operation in all its phases, but the question of iran supporting hamas in every way they can is not a question. it has not been for a number of years. in essence, i don't think the specificity matters that much. the iranians provided them with the capabilities, the overall direction. there is really no substantive issue out there as far as i can see. and we have to bear in mind that both the israeli intelligence network and our own missed some pretty big stuff here like the entire offensive operation. so the fact that they can't find a smoking gun in iranian hands specifically just i think is not all that relevant. iran is the largest supplier and supporter of both hamas and hezbollah. that's what really counts. >> i want to talk to you about what is going on now behind the scenes diplomatically. it seems as if -- and jake sullivan spoke to this yesterday, president biden's national security adviser, that there are discussions about what to do with american citizens who are living in gaza and want to get out and what to do about civilians in gaza. obviously, more than 200 million -- excuse me, more than 2 million people live in gaza. egypt, the border on the south, has always been very resistant to allowing gazans to leave and go into egypt. is that the only option? and do you think they can come to some sort of agreement to allow, you know, whether it's small numbers of gazan citizens every day to leave along with american citizens in gaza? how do you think that's going to work out? >> yeah, it's really a problem from hell and a reminder that in the middle east there are almost never any completely good options. there are bad options and there are worse options. and the reality that israel and its supporters led by us are looking at is the fact that if they launch a major operation into gaza what about the hostages? hamas has already said they'd start killing them and may have already done so in a most horrific way. so we've got to try to factor that in. what can be done to ensure that the hostages, americans among them, are not summarily executed. the egypt option for the broader population i think is the only option that is possible. it is just politically unthinkable frankly right now to imagine that israel could take gazan civilians in on their territory. so i hope very much -- i'm sure we're working overtime on this. we will get the egyptians to agree to that. we're going to need to get the united nations involved in setting up very swiftly some large camp areas. but i think that is very, very important and i think that also is the -- really the only way forward to deal as well with the hostage situation, to find a way to signal to hamas that if they start killing hostages, israeli or american, that it is ready to go for them from bad to worse. as you mentioned earlier, i think we've now got our top diplomat on his way to israel. we also have a carrier strike group heading to the eastern med. and back in the day i would refer to an aircraft carrier as 100,000 tons of diplomacy. that is the muscle that goes along with the politics on this for anyone who might be thinking of escalating this, particularly i would say iran. but it really is the problem from hell. how israel cannot cede the moral high ground that hamas has really given them by inflicting what the world would see as huge suffering on the gaza population. so we've got to figure out how to make this safe haven thing work. >> i do think it's worth mentioning that these tunnels that hamas has built under gaza city and elsewhere, i mean, these are tunnels not for the civilian population to hide in. there's not secured bomb shelters that hamas has built for civilian populations. they have built these tunnels for themselves to move weapons, to move militants. >> that is exactly right. and i cannot imagine that hamas is going to have a change of heart here and start moving its palestinian citizens into those tunnels. that's simply not going to happen. which is again i think why the egyptian option into the sinai on a temporary basis is the only thing that could possibly work. >> yeah. ambassador ryan crocker, thank you for your time. >> thank you, anderson. >> up next, the human toll. i'll speak to a woman who has lost a number of her family in the terror attacks that began here on saturday. we'll be right back. the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. the full horror of what has occurred here, the atrocities that have occurred here are just coming to light. we knew about the slaughter that took place at that music festival, more than 260 people, we saw what happened yesterday, infants killed. yesterday a grandmother was shot while hiding in a safe room. in these kubbitzes, the husband and wife and three children. the children were all under 5 years old. this is the family we're showing you right now. joining us is rene butler, her mother was killed in the safe room and her brother. rene, i am so sorry for what has occurred. you're born in the u.s., you moved to israel with your parents. talk about your brother, his wife, the kid, your mother. house of representatives are you holding up? >> well, my brother was a farmer, he was working in the fields, taking care of the fields, he was head of the fields. his wife was such an amazing woman, as her beautiful children, too. you know, that day and that morning we had reached out in tel aviv, are you okay? and stay safe. later checking in on them. they said no, what can i do? i said call the army. i'm forwarding the messages to whoever i could. my brother at some point because he was in the safe room with his baby twin daughters and his son, 2-year-old son, he put on a viking helmet. he held a screwdriver, he was in his box because everybody ran to safe rooms under their beds early in the morning. he made a face to make fun, make everyone okay. they were writing, trying to do things and the messages saying they're here, they're burning us, we're suffocating. him and his wife were shot through the window. they managed to keep the window closed. they decided no one is taking them. they decided they'll suffocate, smoke inhalation together and they held out while wounded. great bravery, i'm so proud of them. my mom, too. she was in the safe room with her dog and she fought and there she was shot and not taken. such a big, beautiful tribe we had. half of our family is gone. the children are torn. it was our light, this is our love. my brother really reminds me of life is beautiful, making his jokes trying to keep things light in the face of horrific doomsday scenario. >> rene, can you tell us your brother's name and his wife and the children's names? >> of course. and johnny, everyone called him johnny. tamala is my sister-in-law. she was running for the council in the area for a bunch of villages she was such an uplifting, so many values, such a quality human being. the family was all in this together. they're so amazing. what else did you ask about them? >> the children's names and your mother's name. it's important that everybody hear their names. >> my mom carol. we're all american, by the way. my mother is carol. my brother was johnny. we have 70 dead, 70 kidnapped from a kibbutz. i the twins are and their son. and their dog, charlie. >> how do you go on? how do you get through the day? >> how have i been through the day? what? >> yeah. how are you getting through each day? >> first of all, we have survivors. we had kids. i had 14 nieces and nephews. i have 11 now. another brother of mine was head of security, was one of the guys who were fighting. they barely put on their boots and pants and ran and fought in bravery. he was shot but he is alive, he's with us. he was wounded. i don't -- i'm not even there because this is not over. we're crying and hugging and, you know, they are being terrorized. this is very obvious, they detailed on house of representatives it's okay to kill jews, the insanity that people think is in the name of god but it's so satanic. so, i don't know, people are screwed. >> there are many families killed. these were families that always knew each and asupported each other. do you have any idea how many people from the air that have been kidnapped? there's video of her kids being taken and her husband and as well as her aunt and uncle. it seems like horror came to all these families. >> yes, about a fourth of the community. is gone or missing or dead or missing. others are wounded. everyone is for everyone. the survivors decide

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