♪ hello, you're watching "cnn news central." i'm boris sanchez alongside jessica dean in washington. we're following the latest developments in the middle east. today a split-screen moment, on one side a show of strength among allies as secretary of state antony blinken was back in israel, again, forcefully backing israel's campaign to eliminate hamas, even as he bluntly addressed the need to do more to alleviate the civilian suffering that campaign has unleashed inside gaza. >> we need to do more to protect palestinian civilians. there will be no partners for peace if they are consumed by humanitarian catastrophe and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight. we've gone from zero to now over 100 trucks going into gaza through the rafah crossing every day but this is still not enough. >> while blinken was speaking the leader of the lebanon-based militant group hezbollah was also speaking. his first public comments since this war began. hassan nasrallah praising the october 7th terror attacks carried out by hamas. he warned escalation is still on the table for hezbollah, but said their primary goal is a ceasefire, but israel says no pause in the fighting until hamas releases all 241 hostages. >> let's take you now to the region with cnn's jim sciutto, he is in israel near the border with lebanon. jim, how do you interpret what we heard from hassan nasrallah? >> reporter: you know, boris, there is so much anticipation to this speech, first time he's commented in public since the october 7th attacks, as skbres can a was noting there, there were fear that he might announce a more forceful participation in this war by hezbollah, in effect, opening up another front in this war from the north, but as we listened to him speak, he didn't say that. he said that option is on the table, but he did not -- did he not put his forces to bear here and announce that they're coming in, and notably we were watching the skies very closely as he was speaking, were his words joined with action, more missiles, more rockets. we didn't see that, either t could change but today his words were limited to praise for hamas and the october 7th attacks. have a listen. >> translator: it was an action that was heroic, brave, innovative and it was very well-executed. it was great. it was a huge earthquake in the region. >> reporter: now, of course, those words are shocking enough, here he is praising brutal terrorist attacks. he did, though, as well put some distance between hezbollah and those attacks by saying that they did not have advanced warning, they were not involved. he said in effect that this was a palestinian operation and even took note to say it was a surprise to them and said he wasn't bothered by it, that it was up to them to choose when and how they were going to act to attack israel. >> and, jim, nasrallah also saying, to your point there, it was a fully palestinian operation, basically signaling this was not ork natoriginated iran. how much stock do you think the u.s. intel community is putting into that claim? >> reporter: listen, they are not going to believe what he says, not going to treat his words as credible. i do think they took note of that daylight that he seemed to be deliberately putting between hezbollah and hamas to call this in his terms, again, 100% palestinian operation to say we are not responsible for that. and, listen, you speak to israeli officials, they think that part of hezbollah's hesitation to get involved in this war involves those two u.s. carrier groups stationed now in the eastern mediterranean. there was also one in the med, another one sent there since, as a deliberate message from the u.s. not to get involved, not just to hezbollah but to iran's other proxies in the region. not to get involved in numbers this this conflict. when you speak to israeli officials they believe that that show of force has had an effect. at least to date. u.s. intelligence, israeli intelligence and others always keeping their eyes open because that may change at any time. by the way, last night we saw a heck of a lot of rockets coming across the border from hezbollah fighters in lebanon, but at least today we did not hear the hezbollah leader announce his forces jumping into this war. you might call that a moment -- a moment at least of relief. >> it is absolutely key. jim sciutto for us in northern israel, thanks so much for that reporting. i want to bring in cnn's natasha bertrand now. the secretary of state tony blinken bringing us up the prospects of a humanitarian pause. we know israel is ruling that out for now, they say they want all hostages returned in the event of any sort of pause. has blinken gotten any concrete assurances on that humanitarian front while he's been there? >> reporter: jessica, the only real commitment that he says that he has received from the israelis is that they would address the extremist violence taking place by israeli settlers against palestinians in the west bank. he said that he got a commitment from his israeli counterparts that they would do what they could to address that violence, condemn it and try to stop it but of course that doesn't answer the larger question of what is going to happen to the palestinians in the gaza strip. the ones that are being killed, the civilians, i should say, that are being killed on a very regular basis as part of this israeli military operation and a large reason why the administration has started to shift its tone less towards kind of all-out support for israel in terms of, you know, unconditional support and more towards cautioning them behind the scenes we're told that them continuing to kind of launch these indiscriminate air strikes that target hamas commanders in densely-populated areas, that result in a large amount of civilian casualties, that could lead to an erosion of international support and it could make them, you know, have more difficulty achieving their military objectives in the long run. so the reason that blinken is asking the israelis to consider this humanitarian pause at this moment is because he wants to see a situation where civilians can get out, aid can come in and of course hostages can be released. as you said, israel already putting their foot down saying that they need a commitment from hamas that they are going to release the hostages before they will entertain any kind of ceasefire. >> natasha bertrand, thanks for the update. let's dig deeper on the situation on the ground with cnn military analyst colonel cedric leighton. good to see you. i want to start with news that the idf has encircled gaza city. what does that mean for the broader effort to eradicate hamas? >> boris, the key thing is notice where the israelis have come in, they've come in from the north, the northeast and the east. so just to give you a quick idea of what it looks like, they come in this way using bulldozers, tanks, armored personnel carriers and troops on the ground who are moving forward in each of these directions. every single one of them has a particular mission. in this particular case they captured this town hall and raised the israeli flag there. these are the things that they are doing and the idea is to take over this area as much of it as they need to and then go in and encircle gaza city right in through here and that is basically what they've been doing. they're moving this way in order to basically force hamas fighters into this area so that they can't escape. >> described by the idf as the heart of hamas's operation in gaza. i want to ask you about hezbollah. obviously we heard from the leader of hezbollah, hassan nasrallah, today. a lot of threats against israel, not many specifics. it didn't sound like war was imminent, but if hezbollah decides to get involved, what does that look like? >> so basically what we're doing is nasrallah has left open his options. a quick note of comparison, the hamas the group in gaza, a sunni political group, up to 25,000 fighters, 7,000 rockets. hezbollah, sheia, aligned with iran directly, and they have 50,000 estimated active personnel and as many as 150,000 rockets. so when you look at all the different areas that they could possibly be involved in, the key thing is right here, the israel-lebanon border. on the side of the border you've got hezbollah and this would then -- if hezbollah got involved it would mean a second front in the war and that then means that israel would have to divide its forces even more between the south and the north. >> the u.s. as an ally to israel has tried to bolster its presence in the region, notably cnn has new reporting about drones in southern lebanon that are listening in, trying to detect any sign that an escalation by hezbollah might be imminent and also u.s. carrier groups in the mediterranean. >> yes, absolutely. you have both the gerald r. ford and eisenhower, both are conducting maneuvers right here in the eastern mediterranean so they are right off the coast of israel, lebanon and gaza. so they're doing that from the carrier perspective. now, the other thing to look at here, the drones that you mentioned earlier, this is flight 24 surveillance tracking of the drones, they are about -- these are the mq-9 reapers, there are six that we believe have flown over the gaza area. this is the principal drone that the u.s. military uses, air force drone, has a ceiling of about 50,000 feet, that's the altitude that it flies at. it's an intelligence collection machine. it's able to really look at what's going on on the ground using imagery and in some cases signals intelligence to figure out exactly what is happening on the ground and then relays that to the operational commanders for further decisions. >> and no question awareness in such a delicate situation like this when there's so much at stake and at any moment anything can go awry is key. thank you. we appreciate the perspective as always. still to come on "news central," employers slowing their hiring, the unemployment rate edging higher last month. why the fed and markets are actually happy to see these new numbers, and more importantly of course what it all means for your walallet. we w will be rigight back. still pretty hot, but clearly cooling the october jobs report coming in a bit softer than expected. the labor department reports the economy added 150,000 jobs last month. now, that's below the expectations of 180,000 and sharply lower than the roughly 300,000 jobs added in september, but this is important, october is also the first jobs report to include the fallout from the massive auto strike. that dispute between the uaw and the big three auto makers now largely resolved. but the labor department reports strike activity was the main culprit for the loss of about 35,000 manufacturing jobs last month and on wall street the markets welcoming the softer numbers because experts believe the fed will be under less pressure to raise interest rates. let's dig in deep wr cnn economics and political commentator catherine rampell. always great to see you. is this slowdown a sweet spot or how should we interpret all of this because it is lower than expected but i just was talking about wall street liking this because they're hoping now the fed won't raise interest rates. >> there is certainly a lot of people who view this as somewhat of a goldilocks report as in the economy is not so hot that it will force the fed to continue raising rates. it's not so cold that it suggests we are facing an imminent recession. that would be the ideal scenario. that said, i do think there are some signs of weakness in the report, even beyond the ones that you just flagged, things like, for example, the length of the average workweek has been going down, so people aren't losing their jobs but they are working fewer hours in any given job, as well as the fact that almost every month so far this year the initial numbers that have come out have subsequently been revised downward. and that was the case, for example, for september as well. so those kinds of things suggest that there are some vulnerabilities in the economy, even if they are not obviously outright signs of recession. >> and i want to with all of that in mind going back to that question of interest rates because i know a lot of americans and people watching that's what they're concerned about, can i buy a house, will those rates keep going up? what do you think any sort of pause could mean for the average american if they do decide to continue to pause those interest rates? >> markets definitely think that the fed is going to continue pausing. if you look at where markets are pricing various kinds of treasury instruments, they don't think that the fed is going to raise rates, in fact, there are a number of market participants out there who think that the next move from the fed would involve cutting rates, potentially sometime early next year. if that were to happen and, again, it's anybody's guess, that could potentially translate to lower borrowing costs for regular consumers, for things like auto loans, credit card loans, et cetera. the one wrinkle in all of this is that longer-term treasury yields, so these are things like the 10-year treasury yield, which the fed is not directly targeting with those rate hikes, those have still been very, very high, that's part of the reason why you're seeing, for example, very high mortgage rates lately. even if the fed doesn't choose to raise rates or even cuts rates in the near term some of these other factors may keep mortgage rates for people trying to buy a home very elevated. >> and let's talk about the strike's impact. i noted at the beginning of this 35,000 manufacturing jobs they said were lost as a result of those ongoing strikes which have largely been resolved. do you expect that that levels out as we move forward now? have we seen the extent of that damage or will we continue to see that play out? >> as you noted, most of the decline in manufacturing is directly traced to the strike activity and so most of it i think will revert backward as the strikes obviously get resolved, but not all of it. and some other indicators within the u.s. economy do suggest other signs of stress and trouble within the manufacturing industry writ large. there is another survey, another metric called the ism manufacturing index that has shown that the manufacturing sector has been in recession for every month of the past year. so the strikes alone are not the only culprit here that are straining the manufacturing sector and so i don't know that it's a safe bet necessarily to think that now that the strikes are getting resolved that suddenly things will be hupgy dory. i think that industry is very much under strain in part because as we've been discussing of those high interest rates. >> i want to ask you one more thing before you go. you've noted that prime working age women's employment hit a record high a few months ago. it has since plateaued. and you say that's a really crucial metric to watch, especially because there's a major federal subsidy for child care that is set to expire. >> yes, it has been this remarkable story in the past few years n fact. what had been so-called shecession, women disproportionately hurt by the pandemic recession has reverted into a shecovery that working age system have achieved record highs in their ability to participate in the labor force and hold jobs. it's been a puzzle about why that's been happening but i think one key has to do with the fact that child care has been subsidized, there has been this major federal program keeping the struggling care system afloat. that program just la money has end of september and there is a real question about what happens to child care providers going forward and what the knock on effects are for families that rely on child care providers if they decide to pull back or close entirely. when workers can't have care arrangements for their kids they will struggle to continue showing up to work and that hurts working women, ie mothers in particular. so the fallout from that i think we haven't yet seen. we've seen biden request additional funding to keep the child care sector afloat, but so far house republicans have basically rebuffed that. i think i will be watching that going forward to see what happens to women's labor force participation and employment rates. >> it will be interesting to watch all of that. you look at capitol hill right now and the idea of passing any bipartisan legislation that could get through both chambers is a tall order. catherine rampell, thank you as always for your analysis. hezbollah's leaders say all scenarios are possible on the lebanon-israel border and is warning israel against further eggs clags. we will have much more on the fears of a wider conflict in the middle east. that's ahead on "cnn news central." c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with verizon or t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says there will be no temporary ceasefire unless all hostages held by hamas are freed. that's despite secretary of state antony blinken calling for a pause today as he met with israeli leaders in tel aviv. meantime, in his first public remarks since the conflict began, hezbollah's leader praised hamas's attacks on israel, while adding that hezbollah's primary goal is a ceasefire. hassan nasrallah said the possibility of a larger regional conflict with israel is an option. joining us now is josh rogin. great to be with you. the leader of hezbollah making a lot of threats but not really specific into right. there were basically three parts to his speech, there were the denials, we didn't do t we didn't know about t talking about the october 7th hamas attacks, said this was palestinian run, they didn't tell anybody. then the let's, which are, you know, if israel didn't do a, b and c we could widen the war. that stopped short of an actual promise for hezbollah to join in the fighting which is what i'm sure a lot of hamas terrorists were hoping for. so in that sense it could come as a disappointment to hamas. but he promised to keep up the minimal attacks on israel, to keep them busy, keep them occupied and make sure they can't fully devote their resources to gaza. then there was conventional analysis in the speech. he said basically israel has bitten off more than they can chew, they set joefrl ambitious and lofty goals and should have learned the lesson from the past including the 2006 war with hezbollah in lebanon. that's pretty standard analysis. in a sense he's mixing lies with the truth. >> not a surprise for him to ask for a ceasefire. he joins a chorus of people that have suggest that had there should be a pause in the action, whether you want to call it a pause or ceasefire. israel has been reluctant to stop its retaliatory attacks on gaza. the u.s. has tried to pressure israel to do so, but it doesn't seem to be actually carrying weight with the israelis into well, that's right. that's what secretary of state antony blinken is in the region to do. he's not there to stop the war, he's there to help manage the war. he's there to set some sort of processes where they can keep fighting for what could be weeks, months or even longer. this idea of having humanitarian pauses is not new. the idea of getting fighters out, even getting civilians out, getting some people who are trapped out, getting some aid in. they do this in ukraine, they do it in -- they've been doing it in syri