hi everyone. thanks for joining me. i'm jessica dean in for fredricka whitfield. dramatic scene in the middle east today. defense official saying an american warship shot down two drones in the red sea and also responded after a ballistic missile attack on a commercial vessel. zach cohen and ivan watson are following the latest on this situation. let's start first with zach and talk about what more we know about this attack. >> reporter: u.s. official saying both of the drones belonged to iranian backed houthi rebels in yemen. first was shot down as it flew towards an american warship. at that very moment, u.s. officials saying that the warship's crew saw a ballistic missile launched and land in the vicinity of a commercial ship that was sailing nearby. as the american warship responded to the distress call of that commercial ship, u.s. officials say another drone flew toward both ships and subsequently shot down by an american destroyer. this is just the latest in a series of incidents like this in the red sea and across the middle east since the october 7 attack in israel by the terror group hamas. and u.s. officials and u.s. military deployed these ships, this carrier strike group, to the region in an effort to deter iran and other of its proxies including the houthi rebels from expanding the war that is happening in israel and on the gaza strip at this moment. u.s. officials say these attacks and these incidents are not evidence that the war is expanding, but it has raised questions if the biden administration is being aggressive enough in protecting u.s. forces it has deployed to the region in response to the october 7 attack in israel. >> zach, thank you for that. ivan, let's go to you in southern lebanon where we've seen more fighting today between israel and hezbollah militants. this is just another kind of satellite issue and place where this is kind of playing out, that the iranian backed, you know, groups that are clashing with israeli kind of in that whole area. tell us more. >> reporter: yeah, they sure are. another day of what i would probably characterize as kind of cross border artillery duals, though the israeli military says it also used warplanes to carry out airstrikes hitting what they describe as hezbollah targets here in southern lebanon. if you were here this afternoon, we heard the rumble of incoming israeli artillery striking in the surrounding hills, one strike that took place very close to hear that frightened some people around here. the battles have been deadly. yesterday for example two hezbollah fighters were killed and one civilian woman as well in israeli fire. today israeli military says that hezbollah fired an anti tank missile that hit an israeli military vehicle and likely wounded a number of israeli troops and damaged that vehicle. but it is not of the intensity of the battle that we're seeing play out in gaza. in part because these are less densely populated areas. also a lot of the civilian population has been moved out of northern israel and out of southern lebanon. there are places that they can run to unlike in gaza where the civilian population is really caged in by a security barrier. but also because israel and hezbollah have not yet used their most powerful with thats, the weapons that we saw in a war in 2006 between these two adversaries which caused much more damage on this frontline and hurt a lot more people, saw a lot more civilian casualties. the fear is that it could escalate the longer this conflict and crisis goes on. however, i would point out that lebanon itself is still reeling from a huge economic crisis over the last three years that saw more than 30% unemployment last year and saw that per capita, gdp, world bank calling it the worst crisis since the 19th century. so not a lot of stomach for a full-fledged war with israel right now even though i think a lot of lab a lebanese that you would talk to have sympathy for the palestinians dying in such large numbers in gaza. >> ivan watson and zach cohen for us, thanks for that reporting. and the fighting has also continued in gaza. today israeli defense forces ordered people in southern gaza to move even farther south as it expands its ground operations against hamas. the idf saying it destroyed at least 500 tunnel shafts so far and claims many were in civil january areas and structures. prime minister benjamin netanyahu saying israellely forces will not stop fighting until hamas is eradicated. hamas says though that there will be no negotiations for the remaining hostages they are holding which do include women and children still until israel agrees to a ceasefire. larry madowo and matthew chance are tracking these developments. matthew, we'll start with you. what more is the idf saying as it moves deeper into southern gaza? >> reporter: the fact that it is now concentrating more of its military efforts in the south of the gaza strip is i think really significant. first of all, it is that part of the very densely populated gaza strip where hundreds of thousands of palestinians have moved over the course of the past several weeks to escape the intensity of the fighting in the north. there are still attacks taking place in the north of the gaza strip, some dramatic video has been put out within the past few hours of an israeli attack for the second day in a row on the jabalya refugee camp controlled of course by hamas, and dozens killed there yesterday. and there have been -- there has been another strike today. so israel not sort of slacking off on the pressure in the northern gaza, but it is focusing to some extent in the south as well. it has issued a man dividing the gaza strip into what it calls evacuation sectors, blocks that it can order the palestinians inside to leave ahead of any military action. that is an attempt to try to limit the very high number of casualties that have been caused in this campaign so far. somewhere in the region of 15,000 people again according to the hamas-controlled health ministry. but israel is also under a lot of pressure to make sure that that sort of high casualty figure from the north predominantly is not repeated in the south. it is also allowing in trucks carrying humanitarian aid like food and water and medical supplies to alleviate the humanitarian problems in the gaza strip as well as that military action continues. but at the same time, the idf, israeli military, saying that they will still pursue hamas just as vigorously in the south as they did in the weeks before in the north. and so the whole region is bracing i think for what comes next in this conflict. >> and larry, i want to go to you. we're still seeing that aid trickling into gaza as matthew was just explaining. and i know you've reported on a lot of the really ill children that have come through the rafah crossing to egypt there to get treatment. what is the status of the aid and people, civilians, children, being able to get out and aid able to get in at this time? >> reporter: both are happening in small doses, on a small scale. so let's go through the civilians evacuating from gaza. over this weekend, saturday and sunday, 871 civilians have been able to leave gaza, those are dual nationals, 17 americans and around 30 turkish and also nationalities from canada, south africa and a couple other countries that are able to getting across the rafah crossing from the gaza strip into egypt. but this is a wait and see game where you go to the border and hope your name is on the list there. sometimes your name is not on the list, your daughter or son is, and you come back another time and hope that you can do so. and even those who getting across still say we have family left on the other side who should be here with me, but they are not. so 871 over the weekend is a small number. aid is also trickling in, but it is a drip, drip of aid. palestinian red crescent confirming that 100 aid trucks came in across the rafah crossing where israelis verify the trucks and then eventually to the gaza strip. and so over saturday and sunday, 100 trucks. saturday 100 trucks sunday. a small amount considering during the truce that lasted seven days, at least 200 aid trucks were allowed to come in, and us estimated about 240 came in. so in the grand scheme of things, barely a drop in the ocean. and for so many desperate people across the gaza strip, it means nothing to them like this 80-year-old man. >> translator: there is nothing left to fear for. our houses are gone. our property is gone. our money is gone. sons have been martyred. some died. some than ghathandihandicapped. what is left to cry for. where is the aid? >> reporter: and james elder told me in the last hour nowhere is safe in the gaza strip. so even people told to move south, they are hoping that the aid will come in, but this bombardment will take them out. so a very dicey situation where you are not sure you are safe where you are long enough to get the food and medicine and cooking gas and fuel that is so badly need across the strip where almost 80% of the population is displaced and afraid that the next strike could take you out. >> matthew chance and larry madowo, thanks to you both. appreciate that reporting. and later this hour, i'll speak with an idf spokesman about the ongoing ground operations in gaza. in the meantime, want to bring in dr. hodge hassan from doctors without borders and co-founder of doctors medic voices. thanks for coming on with us. i first want to ask you what you are hearing from your colleagues who are serving people there in gaza, civilians and children, about the conditions in the hospitals there. >> yeah, there is a lot of terror, a lot of confusion. you may have heard that in the last 24 to 48 hours, israeli forces dropped these leaflets all over the southern area of gaza with block numbers. so the entire gaza strip divided into blocks to evacuate further south. so beyond the previously so-called safe areas. and nowhere is safe. the areas that they have been told to evacuate to, these so-called shelters, aren't shelters at all, they are basically deserts. there is no access to clean water, no access to food. and one of my colleagues sent a photo en route to the area she was told to evacuate to with shelling and aerial bombardment on to the area that she was told to evacuate to from the area that she was told that they were about to bombard. and she is like i don't know where go, do i go back, do i keep going, we don't know where to go. there is just death everywhere. and it is a russian roulette of how do you want to die. do you want to die from aerial bombardments, do you want to die from thirst, do you want to die from hunger, do you want to die from access to medical care, from hypothermia? d it is a humanitarian catastrophe that describes the descriptive ability of words. one of her last messages was we're no longer in rafah, we're in block and she listed the numberi number of the block and she said the reality is uglier than anyone can imagine. and it is really difficult to describe. they are continuing to go to the hospitals. the majority of hospitals in the gaza strip are in the center and north. so all of these health care providers who survived have been forcibly displaced south. and so now they are trying to find ways to help any which way they can. and they describe the hospitals seeing thousands of victims coming in, thousands of casualties. one of our colleagues described today seeing seven bilateral allege pew tagss, that is amputations of both legs. seven coming in too were children, one age two, one age 11. received horrific photos of these children as they were trying to provide care for them. and they describe severe third degree burns, children just covered in these burns. shrapnel injuries to all parts of the bodies, to the eyes, head injuries. you know, these are injuries that are potentially some of them survivable but not under the current conditions. these patients will die of these injuries. there is no medical capacity. the health care system in the gaza strip has been utterly annihilated in the past 58 days. you know, i don't know how to describe some of the injuries that they are saying. they start wishing -- one of the surgeons sent us a message, they start wishing for death because they feel like it is for them and for their patients because feel like it is more merciful than seeing them in the pain that they are in and not being able to treat it. >> i want to ask you about the aid that was coming in during the seven day truce. we've heard from our correspondents obviously that has slowed since the fighting has resumed. is any of that aid able to reach your doctors and the medical facilities wherever they are trying to work from? >> sorry, i missed patrt of you question before were you asking about aid? >> yes, were any of the doctors able to get their hands on some of the aid dhog coming in durin truce? >> the aid coming this is really a drop in the ocean. if i could describe the amount of aid that is needed versus what is coming in, there is some aid coming in, there was some water? fuel, some food. but not nearly enough to sustain the population. so we keep being asked about aid. this is not a question of humanitarian aid anymore. this is not something that humanitarian aid workers or doctors can fix. every day the amount of carnage so far outstrips the amount of aid coming in. if you have families that are being displaced to areas that are effectively deserts, what use is it if water gets to the border. that water is not even going to get to them. so i feel like every day we take ten steps further into this abyss of something that we haven't seen in modern day history. a systematic violation of international law and exceptionalism that we wouldn't tolerate under any other circumstance. is this is a systematic elimination of a population and describe violation of international law. we keep being asked about aid. when you receive hundreds of casualties at the same time into a hospital that has now been reduced to caring for the majority of a population all under extreme duress, hunger, injury, chronic illnesses that have not been treated, and you expect 100, 200, even 500 humanitarian aid trucks to fix which on a day to day basis prior to october 7 needed 500 trucks with a fully functioning health care system, it is absurd. there is no other way to describe it. there is a cognitive dissonance between what is happening on the ground in gaza and what we're talking about in the media and what conversations are happening at a political level. and something needs to change. this is setting a precedent for all interactions, conflicts, humanitarian interactions in the future. humanitarian workers are being targeted. doctors are being targeted. journalists are being targeted. civilians, thousands of -- more children have died in the last 58 days than any conflict. you are talking about the entire -- we talk about afghanistan and yemen and syria and iraq and august these horm all these horrific conflicts. more children have died in the last two months, all global conflicts since 2019. and that record, that is a record that was broken a month ago. that is the worst kind of record to break. >> right. and it is made harder by the fact that we do know that hamas uses human shields as well there in gaza. >> no, we don't. sorry, i'm going to stop you there. i'm going to stop you there. because gaza is the most densely populated place on earth. >> it is, but there is also intelligence that -- >> the most densely populated area. >> there is intelligence that shows that hamas does use human shields. >> everybody is shielding everybody. >> doctor, we have to leave it there, but thank you very much. we appreciate your time. still to come, new details we're learning about the suspect in a brutal stabbing that left four family members dead. plus israel's intensifying its strikes in gaza as the idf orders people to evacuate more areas in southern gaza. a spokesperson from the idf will join us. police in queens have identified a suspect in a brutal stabbing rampage that left four family members dead. officers received a 911 call from a young female saying her cousin was killing her family. when two officers responded, they were attacked and also injured. the house was also set on fire with authorities later finding multiple dead family members inside. polo sandoval is following this for us. a horrific story. we know the suspect is dead. what else are you learning? >> reporter: the nypd is summarizing this morning's horrific scene as one in which they found multiple victims, a house fire, and who police are describing as a madman on a rampage and on a mission. now, what that mission was is still unclear, but i will tell you this, investigators said this morning that all of those affected are family, so certainly an early indication in all of this that it may have been a family dispute that took a bloody turn here. and you mentioned the call was shortly after nypd arrived there, that they were able to make contact with a suspect now identified as 38-year-old courtney gordon who investigators say had a knife, attacked the officers. and you will hear how that all played out. but police then opened fire, shooting and killing the suspect. it wasn't until after that that they were able to identify an 11-year-old little girl outside of that home who had been killed and the house was on fire. so when the fire department was able to extinguish the flames, investigators went in and made a discovery of a 12-year-old little boy, 44-year-old woman and man in his 30s all found dead inside that home. one more victim actually survived the attack, currently in critical condition. a woman in her 60s. but again this is how the nypd described the confrontation between the suspect and the two officers who sustained n nonlife-threatening injuries. >> the officers pull up to the driveway. as they get to the driveway, they see a male walking out carrying luggage. our officers asked the male a question, an encounter that lasted about ten seconds where the male draws a knife on the officers, he stabbed one office in the neck, chest area. and he strikes the second officer in the head. >> reporter: that suspect from the bronx, they believe he had been visiting family members when the attack happened. so again, just to summarize these numbers, four people killed in this morning's stabbing, and a fifth survived. a woman in her 60s. currently in critical condition. a lot of questions left, but a disturbing picture of the event. >> polo, thanks so much. coming up, the idf urging more people in southern gaza to evacuate as their combat operations against hamas continue. with the truce talks and hostage negotiations collapsing, where does the war go from here? an idf spokesperson joins us next.. the israel defense forces is now expanding its ground operations to the whole of the gaza strip, that was announced at a press conference earlier today. israeli prime minister tbenjami netanyahu vowing that till continue until hamas is erad eradicated. hamas saying there will be no further negotiations for the hostages that they hold which still includes women and children until israel agrees to another truce. let's bring in the israeli defense forces international spokesman. thanks to making time to come on with us this afternoon. i want to ask you first about the expansion of the ground operations. we've heard from the u.s. government and secretary of state antony blinken that they have relayed to your government that they don't want to see the level of civilian deaths in the south that they saw in the north. so my question to you is, as you all expand these ground operations further south, how will yyou proceed with that operation and how will that information from the u.s. and their thoughts play into what you are doing? 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