>> dana: breaking overnight israel firing hundreds of missiles targeting hamas terrorists in gaza. this in response to a barbaric series of terror attacks targeting children, women and the elderly. the death toll now eclipsing 1,000. president biden is set to break his two-day silence today. good morning, i'm dana perino. good morning to you. >> bret: i'm bret baier for bill hemmer. complicating israel's response an estimated 150 people taken hostage by hamas. americans are believed to be among them and hamas is threatening to kill them one-by-one for every time israel strikes gaza. >> dana: the families of the missing are calling on president biden to act. some of them as you can see here are about to hold a news conference in tel aviv and we'll take you there live as it happens. >> bret: peter doocy standing by at the white house. we begin with greg palkot reporting live from israel. greg. >> bret, dana, we are a mile and a half away from the gaza trip. the town of sarot, israel says this town is secure. let's bring you up to date with the latest. the story changes by the hour. we have been watching israeli fighter jets cross over countless times. we've been hearing blasts again and again and again inside of gaza. now we have it confirmed that they have hit 250 locations today inside gaza, which they say is an infrastructure for the hamas militants. we see the rockets going to other way, across us, five at one time, most of them have been knocked down by the israeli defenses including the iron dome. but there are -- there is word that central israel, including tel aviv, including the international airport has been hearing sirens and barrages of rockets coming from hamas militia. what we've heard from washington is that the first bit of u.s. military aid is on its way. it will be coming here considering the amount of material that we've been seeing used here, that would come in handy. just about ten minutes from where we are now one last area held by hamas militants has been liberated by the israeli military and they have shown the world that scene. i will step away here and let my cameraman show you what we're seeing here. basically this was the police station. this was where the last battle between hamas and the police and soldiers and security battled it out. they even had to use a bulldozer, the israelis, to knock down part of it but they have succeeded and now they are tearing it down. we asked one person why they were doing this at this time and they said we're clearing it away because we want to rebuild. that is the kind of determination that we are seeing here right now. you have mentioned and this is the big complicating factor those 150-odd hostages inside gaza right now. some of them taken from this very town. some of them taken from that music festival. there was a scene of so much death and destruction. and that is, in fact, what is worrying israel as it considers a ground incursion. that's what we've been seeing here, too. we've been seeing dozens of tanks, armored cars, other military elements, reservists coming into play just in case the decision is made to go in on the ground in gaza. that decision has not been made but it is very tense here still even though israel says it has -- it is very tense with all the death and destruction around us, back to you guys. >> bret: last night you had the israeli prime minister saying what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will revert brate for generations. we saw this morning these rockets hitting the international airport. how many times throughout the day does it happen? a steady stream of these rockets firing? >> it has been, bret. since we've been here we've seen multiple rockets being fired by hamas. some estimates are they've fired about 5,000 rockets in the past 3 1/2 days into israel. some estimates, however, say that with the help of their big brother, iran, they might have had as many as 15,000 rockets. crude as they are when they fire a lot of them they can overwhelm the defenses here and that's what they are still trying to do. they haven't given up even though israel is very much in the fight right now. >> bret: greg on the ground in israel. thank you. >> dana: president biden is set to address the war in israel after two days of silence as he confirms that at least 11 americans were killed in the hamas attacks. peter doocy is live from the white house and peter, we will hear from the president today? >> we will this afternoon. at this hour, a couple hours before the president is going to speak, they still don't know how many americans may have been kidnapped and are being held captive in gaza right now. and the furthest president biden wanted to go so far he thinks kidnappings were likely. >> we don't even know if there are americans in this population of hostages and obviously wouldn't do to be talking too publicly in a hypothetical situation. we'll do whatever we have to do to get those americans home. >> so far president biden said i have directed my team to work with the israeli counterparts with the hostage crisis and deploying experts from across the united states government to consult and advice. the president got a briefing yesterday. they released the photo. the residence answered a special counsel's questions about his classified documents case. and we do expect to hear from him at 1:00 today. back to you. >> dana: we'll be paying attention to that. let's go back to tel aviv. this is a press conference being held by families who believe there are americans being held hostage calling on biden to act. let's listen in. >> i ran down the stairs to wake my two daughters so we could get into the bombshell tear in jerusalem. when we got out ten minutes later with the all clear, i normally don't use my phone on the jewish sabbath but it was an emergency and i needed to know where my son was. i turned my phone on at 8:23 in the morning and when i turned it on there were two texts in a row from him at 8:11. the first one said i love you. and immediately at 8:11 also it said i'm sorry. and so i knew immediately wherever he was, it was a terrible situation. i took it to mean i love you and i'm sorry because whatever is going to happen is going to cause you tremendous pain and worry. since that time, i tried calling him right back. there was no answer. i texted him a couple times are you okay? i have not heard from him since the text i received at 8:11 on saturday morning. we've since found out from putting together eyewitnesses from a picture from inside of a bomb shelter that we saw we tried to put together who was in there with him. eyewitnesses, we know he was injured in a gun battle. they were all civilians at a music festival and they were fish in a barrel sitting in this bomb shelter. terrorists came to the door and throwing grenades in, shooting machine guns, and we know that our son's arm from the elbow down was severed. was blown off, and that he tied a tourniquet around with his shirt and hamas came in after the gunfire settled down and said anyone who can walk stand up and walk out. we are told he was completely calm. i think he was probably in shock. he got up and walked out with five other people, young people from the music festival. two young women, three other young men, they were put on a pickup truck and driven away by hamas. then the police told us one thing they knew is that the last known cell signal from his phone was on the border with gaza. >> not much to add. he was at the festival with one of his best friends. by eyewitness accounts from the people we talked to who are in this bomb shelter, several people, independent of each other said your son and his friend saved our lives. anybody who is alive because as grenades were being thrown in they were tossing them back out trying to comfort people and so i just thought i would add that. >> maybe you could add this. >> i will just say rachel and i both grew up in chicago. we were living in california in 2000 when our son was born and moved to israel in the summer of 2008, our oldest child, our son, only son, was 7 1/2, almost eight when we moved to israel in the summer of 2008 and living in jerusalem ever since. we have two daughters 20 and 17, and i just want to take one minute to talk a little bit about our son. he is a smiley, fun-loving guy. people of all ages just gravitate towards him. if you mention his name to his friends, his teachers, my friends, our friends, you mention his name and people smile. he is the kind of guy fun to be around and makes people feel good and have a good time. he has a few passions, one of which is traveling the world and he is saving his money to go on his big trip at the end of december. >> thank you, everybody, for coming. our -- as this tragedy was unfolded on saturday morning, me and my other siblings were talking to my mom on the phone trying to calm her down. things were sort of calm when she heard gunfire outside of her shh shelter. we tried to calm her down and that's when i dropped off the call and both my brother and my sister were on the call with her as the terrorists bargeed into her home and we heard a little bit of screaming and that's -- that was our last contact with her. there was no shooting on the call and the neighbors downstairs also didn't hear any shooting. my mom used the little bit of arabic she picked up working as a nurse in the hospital for 20 years to calm down the terrorists and it is our hope, which is a little bit ridiculous at this stage to say, but the optimistic scenario here that she is held hostage in gaza and not dead on the street of the town. my mom is 66 years old, proud mother of me and my three other siblings who are in the room with me. she has seven grandkids. she was sitting on the porch of her home on saturday morning when this ferocious attack happened. my mom devoted her life to helping other people of all races and genders in her practice as a nurse in the hospital. her passion was her kids and grandkids. as i said, our last contact with my mom was saturday morning around 9:45 a.m. as a terrorists burst into her shelter in her home. there are a lot of images spreading around, which i don't feel the need to talk about. i want to bring forward the responsibility that the israeli government has to bring back all the hostages that are kept in hostage by the hamas terrorists. while saying this, i want also to speak about the responsibility that the u.s. administration, president biden, and the secretary of state blinken has for the lives of every u.s. citizens that is out there and they are responsible to bring the u.s. citizens back home safe and sound. we expect nothing less from the u.s. administration and president biden and secretary of state blinken. i speak in the name of myself and my family, and i wish for the quick solution for this terrible, terrible situation that all of us are in. we never imagined that this is how it will look. thank you again for coming. >> i am going to read out. my name is eye anna -- i'm the youngest of my mother's children. my mother, adrian, is missing and was probably taken by hamas terrorists to the gaza strip. my mother is an exceptional human being. she spent most of her adult life as a nurse in the community and then as a midwife in a hospital. when she walked into a delivery room, she saw a human being in front of her, not a religion, not a race, not a orthodox jew but always a human being she saw. we once calculated that my mother has brought in thousands of lives into this world. when hamas walked into my mother's room, they saw her alone but they did not see a human being. >> again, thank you for coming. my name is -- on behalf of -- before starting, i just wanting to ask all of you here and thank you for coming and all of those listening to us, please do not think of us only as a headline. we are more than that. i'm here with my family, my two sisters. we grew up in new york city. we like to say we are the proud outcome of the new york public education system, still have family out in new jersey, long island, and i would like to talk about family before talking about -- out of some twist of fate, we became family. in addition to us we've identified about ten other families like us that have a u.s. citizen missing. this family and my family is now missing. we have a missing person in our family. what's in my family, i have an addition, two sons, one of them, the youngest, is actually celebrating his barmitzva this weekend. for those of you who do not know, that's the ceremony where a young jewish man becomes a man. and my son, in order to be home this weekend, elected to be at his base the previous weekend in order for us to celebrate the bar mitzvah as a whole, the whole family. we still hope that that celebration with my sisters and my family will happen in the near future. and i am sure my friends here as well, all my new family, have additional events happening that they also wish to have that wholeness of these events. so please, you know, think of us not just as that headline but we are people with families and we want to be families again. my son joined the army about a year ago. he is in the armed corp. he was serving on the border of gaza. the last time that we heard from him was saturday morning when he said that they were under attack. we know that he was active, that he was in communication for a while but since then, silence. the formal indication that we received from the idf is he is defined as missing in action. what does that mean? it means that nobody since saturday morning has been able to physically locate him, identify him and say that they saw him. it also means he is not in the hospital. it also means he is not on the deceased list that has been identified. you would think it would be a good assumption to say that after 70 hours, if he is not in the state of israel, he might be some other place. and if that is the case, then he is by definition pow, u.s. citizen, israeli citizens, and what we are asking for his captives and for the u.s. government as well, to ask the captors hamas to be treated as a pow international law. having someone visit him. have a doctor see him, have the u.n. red cross representative see him as well, and as said before, we want to be back and go back to become family. we want this to happen as soon as possible. hopefully with your help, the people here will help us amplify this message to the u.s. government, secretary of state, that until now have been saying all of the right things but we do ask on behalf of my family am asking the u.s. not to take a back seat. the u.s. has a lot of resources at its attention and able to do many things that can be different than what the israeli government could do and we are asking on behalf of my family for president biden, we are sure his heart is in the right place with is ran and the secretary of state to make it end for us as soon as possible to become family. whole again. >> thank you all for coming this afternoon. my name is jonathan. i am a lifetime member of the border since 1990. -- it was attacked in the early morning of this saturday and i have children and grandchildren who live there with me. the city is no more. it was destroyed in a barbaric, inhuman attack in which dozens of my friends, my neighbors, were killed, many dozens more are either known to be hostages or missing. i am here speaking today reaching out to my son, who grew up there, and he is an arm length away in gaza, evidently but couldn't be farther from me and our family right now. i grew up in connecticut, as you can probably hear from the accent. but i have never felt farther away from there, either. my son is the father, 35 years old, the father of two beautiful daughters and his wife is now pregnant with their third daughter. my son is exactly the kind of son that every father would want to have, a leader, a friend, a loving man. he and many other such young men on the border are missing after having tried to repulse the attack by evidently hundreds of hamas terrorists and looters. many died in the process, our son was not found and we have heard or seen no trace of him since then. the survivors of the border, we were a community of 400. we know of 160 survivors. the rest have either died or are, as we said, prisoners or missing. the survivors call this -- it's not a war, it's not a fair fight. it is a pagrome. hundreds of heavily armed, well-organized terrorists walked, rode, ran over the border with one object in mind and that is to kill, maim and destroy life on the board. it seems to me that the united states, my original home and still a very beloved place for me, and always wants to be and must be on the side of good. hamas is evil. it is difficult for me to say. i am what is called a peace knick in israel as many of the cab utes members are in our area. but this kind of savagery and inhumanity must be stopped. and as a result, like the other five people on this stage who would prefer to be anywhere but here right now, do appeal to the united states government, to the congress, to do what they can on the side of good here. we are waiting for our son to come home. we do not know what fate he met along, as i said, with dozens of other people from our area and these aren't all 35-year-old men. these are children, aged people, and everything in between. so if there ever was a moment of good against evil in the harshest terms, this is it and i thank you for listening to us and i'm sure all of us will welcome questions. we will answer as we can both for our children and relatives and for those well over 100 hostages that were taken. among the hostages i will add that outside of the town there are three other hostages taken from my area who are american citizens, israeli americans and two who were murdered on saturday morning. >> thank you very much. all the families participating. we'll go to questions from the journalists and start with becky anderson from cnn and go one-by-one. when you get the microphone, say your name and the outlet that you are from. thank you. >> thank you. and thank you for doing this today. israel has said it will do its best to get any hostages home but there is also talk of an imminent ground incursion at this point. just how concerned are you? this isn't to any single person. i don't know who wants the take that. >> i can address the question as we saw some of the kinds of these questions coming up, right? i don't have acquaint answer with anybody at the table but i would assume that none of us are military personnel or foreign affairs strategic thinkers. we are the family members of u.s. citizens that were kidnapped into the gaza strip. hence, i do not think that it is our place to comment on the necessary actions that the israeli government has to take or the u.s. biden administration for that sake. all we ask from the biden administration and the secretary of state blinken is to act to the immediate release of all hostages and remember that the u.s. government has direct responsibility to the lives of the u.s. citizens that are held hostage by these terrorists. so whatever any government needs to do in order to make that happen, please make that happen. >> nbc news in the united states. have i of you been contacted directly by the u.s. administration or the israeli administration in terms of what a pathway toward negotiations might look like? thank you. >> so what i can say is that the side of the u.s. embassy, we have been in contact with the state department and the u.s. embassy and have taken note of the details, but there has been no formal or concentrated attempt to talk to us as a group and updating us about what they are doing in this matter. i think it is a request from a representative of the state department to sit with us, update us what they have been doing and what they are planning to do and being able to support us. from the israeli government, as i said before, we got an indication about the status of our son as defined as missing in action and waiting to get additional updates. >> by the way, is there someone here from the u.s. embassy? no one here. >> excuse me, what have you been hearing so far from israeli officials -- >> can you identify yourself? >> i'm from a station in israel. what have you heard so far from officials from israeli officials, how much information are you getting? and what is your expectation of israel regarding the situation? >> i can speak, i think, both specifically and more broadly. most of the good things that have happened so far in response at the civil level, including work around efforts around hostages and the missing have been ground up -- from the ground up. groups of citizens coming together to both aid people that live in communities like mine, and also to try to make some sense in this fog of war as to what's happened. i know what you are talking about. so far there has been little to no contact. >> excuse me for interrupting. i am an american citizen and living in the u.s. for the last five years. as i said before my mom was born and raised in california but i was born and raised in the kabutz. i do not have american education so i am natural israel blood and i want to be blunt when answering this question and say 0 communication from this israeli government, 0 communication on our side. i do have friends that are currently engaging in the combat around my home, around the town and i can appreciate the total mayhem and mess that the combat environment is creating. but i have think that after three days, more than three days now, it is more than a reasonable request to have somebody from the israeli government or the u.s. administration approach us with any type of information that they may have on our family members. >> at least a plan of what they intend to do. >> okay. thank you very much to all the families who are here today and thank you to everybody for coming. we have two gentlemen in the back to coordinate interviews with the families and we should all hope and wish for better days. thank you. >> dana: you were watching there a press conference led by israeli americans who are american citizens and have american citizens loved ones who -- bret, they said they are just right across the border in gaza, they believe that's where they are being held but they have never been more farther away and they are very frustrated with the israeli government saying there has been 0 communication and made a point to say no one from the u.s. embassy at the press conference there and that they are calling on the biden administration to do something decisive. >> bret: it is heartbreaking listening to these families. the first woman rachel goldberg saying her son was camping with a friend and received a text at 8:11 on saturday saying i love you and i'm sorry. meaning that he knows that whatever is going to happen, that's a picture of him there, is not good and is going to cause her pain. just the way they talked about it with the pain in their voice, you can feel the anxiousness and obviously the despair of this moment. >> dana: you absolutely could. listening along with us was republican congressman mike gallagher of wisconsin. he joins us now. let's get your overall we action to that and what you have heard, if anything, about what president biden might be saying today or even doing behind the scenes. >> first of all, the testimony from the family members is heartbreaking. it is horrific. the videos we see hamas put out in realtime. the barakism on display. we're seeing the face of evil. there should be no moral equivalents here. hamas is a terrorist organization that launched a war against israel and those who seek to blame israel don't understand good versus evil and right versus wrong. our response, we need to back israel to the hilt. we traditionally supply 50% of the iron dome system. we need to make sure that that's replenished and other munitions such as small diameter bombs. we need to back our closest ally to the hilt. there is going to be a very difficult military operation in the days to come. the bottom line is, israel can't stand by as it suffers this unprovoked terrorist attack. we in congress have an important role to play. it's critical we choose a new speaker and move forward on critical things such as passing a basic defense bill to rebuild our own armaments. if this teaches us anything, it is that we don't have the luxury of withdrawing from the world stage. we don't stère the luxury of disarming. the world needs america to be strong and the best chance for peace is through strength. >> bret: it's going to be ugly and there is -- there are going to be moments in the next few days and maybe even weeks that the world reacts to what is happening on the ground as israel pushes through gaza. just in the past few minutes israel warned egypt if they brought supplies into gaza they'll bomb the trucks. do you think that the resolve is there not only in congress but in the administration to stand by what could be very ugly and public? >> i know that it's here in the house republican caucus. i have had conversations with many my colleagues on capitol hill and there is a desire to do things ranging from the stockpiling and keeping the war reserve ally stockpile program fully funded to a resolution which would hopefully be bipartisan expressing support of israel. what worries me is the biden administration seems unwilling to abandon its broader middle east policy which, of course, is built on a detent with iran. that should be dead. biden has been trying to resurrect the nuclear deal with iran. that's the source of all chaos in the region. it misunderstands the alliance structure and makes it difficult to build up the abraham accords. what we need to do is reimpose maximum pressure on iran. they are hamas's patron and we can start by freezing the $6 billion that the biden administration was going to give to iran in return for american hostages. five american hostages. now we have at least 12 americans taken hostage in gaza. on net we've lost seven americans and how foolish how trying to bribe the iranian regime is. >> dana: and this is what they can do without an atomic weapon. imagine what they could do with one. there are some republicans suggesting that any aid that the united states would be sending to ukraine at this point should be redirected to israel. is it not possible for the united states to be able to support both in these conflicts? >> of course it's possible to do both. let's not forget that perhaps even more important thing lurking in the background insuring the deterrents in the indo-pacific doesn't break down and need to make sure we're arming taiwan to the teeth even as we are dealing with the conflict in europe and growing regional conflict in the middle east. the core point is, both parties have been flirting with neo isolationism. it is trendy, it gets clicks on social media. all it does is produce chaos on the world stage. we need to be forward engaged and strong and yes, we need to be smart but above all we need a lethal military and robust industrial base so we don't have to make the either/or choices ukraine and resupplying iron dome to israel. >> bret: you talk about reaction around the world. are you the chairman of the china committee in congress looking at the ways to counter china's influence. you mentioned taiwan. senator schumer was over in china said he was disappointed that president xi didn't say more about the situation in israel. now we're getting vladimir putin with very muted response about what's happening in israel. what do you think the big picture globally looks like? a lot of republicans point back to afghanistan as being the hinge point for this projection of weakness. is that what you say? >> afghanistan certainly destroyed a good deal of our credibility on the world stage. we brought a lot of naive assumptions into the crisis over ukraine. we thought it was unthinkable putin would do this. we tried to deter with soft power. we risk repeating the same mistake when it comes to the indo- indo-pacific. the broader picture is that increasingly we have an axis of authoritarian powers that are arrayed against us, china is the dominant player in this partnership but vladimir putin is a junior partner and increasingly the iranian regime is part of this alliance that's arrayed against western interests and the goal is really simple. it is to destroy global american leadership and server our alliances and partnersships. if you don't see that i would submit you aren't paying attention to what's happening on the world stage. >> bret: congressman, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> dana: lisa cowen is a mother, her son is an israeli soldier fighting in the war and she joins us now. lisa, great to have you with us because these personal testimonies help us understand. i understand that you are in jerusalem now and do you feel that is -- that you maybe feel relatively safe now but tell us about your sons and what happens next with them and this fight. >> well, our lives changed a lot since saturday morning. i'm very optimistic person usually. little by little we realized that this situation is definitely different than other situations. and my worst fear was for friends of mine who live in the south. we did have missiles in this area as well and we were spending time in shelters but my friends were under very, very serious attack from terrorists. and it took 36 hours for them to get out. around the time that they were finally able to get out, my son was called up and he is now on the border trying to defend our country. it has been terrible, terrible few days. >> dana: lisa, one of the things i don't know if you heard the press conference that we had. were you able to hear that with the families? >> yes. >> dana: so one of the things that the testimony from those families was that they are frustrated with the israeli government. they feel like there has been no communication. is that something that you have heard as well across the country? >> i try not to watch too much on tv but i have heard it, yes. i don't know of anybody who has been held hostage. i know of people who have been killed and mainly i know of a lot of uncertainty. people don't know where their loved ones are. it was a very big surprise for us and it was a wake-up call. so it's hard to say what's going on behind the scenes. i am an optimistic person and always thinking that the government and the army for sure are going to protect us. i still believe that. i think it was a big surprise and i think it is taking a long time to get organized. >> dana: last question for you here at this moment and hope we can stay in touch because this is a long effort. but for now, the last question i would have for you is because are you so familiar with the united states, is there anything that you are looking to either hear from the united states government, president biden will speak at 1:00 today or that you are asking the people here for the support that you will need in the days and months ahead? >> i think it's important for americans to understand that israel is a very small country and we are really, really -- any support that we get is so important to us, especially from the u.s. so, you know, yes, every single thing that comes out of the use u.s. that is supportive of us is very, very important to us. >> dana: tell it is appreciated as well. lisa cowen, let's stay in touch and we'll be thinking of you and your family. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> bret: you are looking live at the smoke plumes over gaza as this operation continues. we are getting word alarms are going off in tel aviv. new rocket fire there. also getting some horrific images coming from israeli television. a reporter in one area said the israeli commander who liberated that area from hamas says they found the bodies of 40 babies and some of them with their heads cut off. that's horrible to even say but this reporter is on the ground talking to the commander of this area and there is video of this interview. the atrocities, the specific nature of what we're seeing out of this is actually hard to even calculate. we are joined now by a tel aviv resident whose father, a 16-year-old sister and 10-year-old brother were abducted by hamas. thank you for being with us. i know this is very tough. what can you tell us about your family? >> okay. so i can tell you my whole family is living in -- we don't really know where everyone is right now, but my father, my sister, my brother, my grandma and my cousin. so i can tell you the story. my father was together in my father's house and my grandma and cousin was in their house. >> dana: you have had no communication with them? you have not heard of them, of course, i believe? >> no. i am sorry i am -- >> dana: tell us what is happening there. if you need to leave to be safe we understand. >> no, it is okay. right now i am in safe place. i just ran here, but it is okay. the story is this. my sister writing me messages about the terrorists. she is writing they are here inside our area, they are hitting the house. she is writing me i am so scared i don't know what to do. and i'm in my house and i can't help her. she is with my younger brother and my father. i have nothing to do. after these messages, no response and nothing. in the meantime, my grandma writing me they are here taking everything and then again no response. the day after, i found a video and it is my brother, my little brother, 12 years old. the terrorists are taking him, grabbing him from here, who knows where. and this is the only information i have right now. this is all i know that he is alive but that's it. >> bret: that is so hard and we appreciate you talking to us to get the stories out of your family as israelis are trying to move forward and rescue as many as they can who have been held hostage. are there other families near you that have experienced similar to you? >> the other family what? >> that have other family members missing as well just like you? >> oh, so i have my mom and my other brother, they were in the safe place, too, but when the terrorists came to their home, they were holding the door so they couldn't open it from the other side and that's how they saved themselves. >> dana: please be safe and take care and stay in touch with us and we will have you in our prayers, thank you so much. >> bret: let's bring in intelligence expert dan hoffman. dan, we can look 30,000 feet at this operation, we can talk about intelligence. when you hear these stories firsthand it is really unlike anything we've seen in decades. >> it is. it's heartbreaking and it is deliberate. look, hamas is a terrorist organization. their aim is to wipe israel off the face of the earth and they are committing bloody murderous atrocities on purpose. they want this ground assault to take place. they don't care much about their own people and they certainly don't care about palestinian civilians but they want israel to spill blood and treasure and they want to destroy israel's reputation as a result of a ground offensive in gaza and they want to do everything that they can do to insure that the reconciliation that was starting to take hold between israel and saudi arabia never materializes. that's a goal that hamas has, lebanese, hezbollah's goal as well as iran's. >> dana: dan, the president of the united states will -- he has not spoken to the public in two days. he will speak today in a little more than three hours. and you just saw the families who have american hostages in gaza saying we are calling on the government to help. what can president biden say today or do today that would alleviate this situation of the hostages that are being held? >> well, i think the president needs to stand behind the bully pulpit and tell the american people where the united states stands in this brutal war. and how we will do what we can to deter a second and third front, lebanese hezbollah and syria and how we're assisting israel for intelligence so israel can find the hostages and discriminate between combatants and innocent civilians. this is going to be very difficult. but it has been going on since saturday and one of my old mentors used to like to say when we dealt with a situation like this. it is not like fine wine getting better with age. you have to get on top of it quickly or else you lose control. i fear that from a policy perspective that we're on that course. will we refreeze the $6 billion that iran was going to receive through qatar? that would seem to be a prudent measure to take but so many other things the president needs to outline. things will get ahead of him if he doesn't do that effectively today. >> bret: the chief military spokesman for israel finding out about the intelligence failures. first we fight, then we investigate. just to be clear, you have to look at this intelligence failure as being significant. >> it's a massive intelligence failure. i'm quite sure they are investigating it right now because they need to have good intelligence to conduct a ground offensive. i can tell you having served in war zones in the middle east and south agent good intelligence is how we take the fight to the enemy. i'm sure israel doesn't want to talk about it publicly. they don't want to reveal where the gaps were in their intelligence collection and analysis and poor policy decisions they made. make no mistake, they are doing that on the fly right now so they can be more effective when they go into gaza. >> dana: dan hoffman, thank you. >> bret: a man had to flee after witnessing the hamas attacks firsthand from his home in israel and joins us now. thank you for being here. tell us what is happening from your point of view? >> what's happening now -- we live 15 kilometers from gaza and it was one too many and we took our kids and we went to our sister-in-law in the central of the country and here you have a lot more time to hide in the shelter when you hear the missiles and also you have a lot less missiles. >> dana: i know that you have two young children. how are you helping them get through this right now? >> first of all, i have three children, three daughters. the big one is 20 so she is grown up. but -- >> bret: we lost him. >> dana: we hear him now. go ahead. >> the little one is -- she has a company she can be with, same house with our niece and together they are the same age so they have a lot more things to do together. >> bret: we are here in the u.s., obviously all of these images are coming onto the television screen. if you are telling somebody here what it is like being there, how would you describe it? >> well, it's a lot of pressure in many ways. first of all, how do you -- like you asked before, how do you make the situation less traumatic for your kids? the other one is pressure, economic, you are not work. i'm a self-employed. i don't work now. and the third, of course, is -- [inaudible] you are afraid for your life. >> bret: do you have family and friends who are seeing either direct death among them or hostage situations? we have talked to some people who are missing family members just in the past few minutes. >> not our close family, but uncles and fathers of the children's classes. a lot of my friends from my high school and from my kids' friends, children that i teach. i work with children. i am a self-trainer, so i work with kids and i am a personal trainer and work with a lot of kids in high schools. a few of them were killed and teachers' kids that i worked with lost their lives. there is no home in israel that doesn't know -- not one, like a few people that lost their lives or kidnapped. >> bret: we appreciate your time. stay safe and we'll be thinking and praying for you. >> thank you very much. >> dana: we continue to see the live action as israel continues its assault against the hamas terrorists in gaza city or maybe even beyond in gaza. there are also rockets that are being blasted into tel aviv and jerusalem. you've been hearing from people on the ground who are in an unsafe situation. the most compelling issue that we heard today are these people who have loved ones being held hostage. they say they are getting no communication from the israeli government. they feel like they don't have any support yet from the united states but they are calling for that and president biden is due to speak in three hours. what dan hoffman said is the longer this goes on, the harder it is to solve. >> i talked to general keane about the fighting and what happens over the next days and weeks and it is block by block, building by building and it gets really ugly really fast. we saw some of it in the iraq war in fall ouja and other places. you are talking about not just danger to the soldiers involved but obviously hamas uses these families, these hostages, as a shield against some of this. you wonder whether there are negotiations ongoing and how that is behind the scenes. we're just getting word there was another phone call between president biden and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu about the situation this morning. the white house continues to put out that he has had dozens of phone calls and put out that picture but again we haven't heard from him in person and we will later on today. >> dana: we also brought to you some disturbing observations that the idf has found especially involving the horrific barbarism against innocent babies. we'll get you to our second hour.

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