the distance. the israelis are trying to engage anyone that tries to ambush their forces. the battle is street by street. it's urban gorilla warfare. >> neil: one month in, israel says they have gaza city surrounded and preparing to move in. the white house trying to move in. is the president starting to back off from his israel position? still with them, but maybe not as with them. coming up, we're going to talk to the national security council's john kirby on how far the white house is willing to go. welcome. i'm neil cavuto. happy to have you with us. let's go to mike tobin in southern israel with the latest on this preparation for something big and pretty soon. mike? >> neil, while the israeli forces are not letting up as you mentioned, gaza city is surrounded. in fact, they have the israeli navy bringing pressure from the sea. overnight, there was an aerial bombardment with 450 targets being hit. the air strikes continue tonight. the palestinian health minute try said the number 10,000 was crossed in terms of palestinians that have been killed. israel said two of those were high value targets from the hamas ranks. israel ground forces says they have seized stores of rockets and rocket launchers from mosques and from a children's recreation center. that gives hamas the p.r. angle to work when the counter fire comes in. meantime, we caught up with emily roushenberger. she caught up with her inlaws just before october 7. she got trapped there. they survived on whatever was left in the cupboards. they made their escape out of the rafah crossing in to egypt. >> the night before we left, i couldn't sleep at all. i was listening to the bombings. i counted within one minute between 14 and 17 booms. it was every 4 to 10 seconds. it was just -- i mean, i couldn't get over how many i was hearing. i was trying to make sense of it all. >> our cameras caught one 0 the rocket launches that made it to tel aviv last night. this rocket launch is remarkable because the rockets took off from the center of the gaza strip with the israeli ground forces in the north, it's difficult for them to launch the rockets so they have to travel a greater distance. meantime, israel is getting it from all sides. there were 30 rocket launches from lebanon in the north aimed at the north of israel. israel responded with artillery fire. combat in the west bank with four gunman being killed. so far since october 7, some 348 israel soldiers have been killed. neil? >> thanks, mike. be safe. meantime, the secretary state has been around the region visiting friends, allies and even those that weren't close friends to get a lay of the land as the president works the phones. i had a chance to speak too benjamin netanyahu. jillian turner with more from the state department. >> secretary of state blinken just wrapped another 11th hour tour of the middle east. he hoped to secure a humanitarian pause in the war. but so far he's not managed to do so. the state department just a short while ago did manage to update us on the status of americans, hundreds of them that have remained trapped since the war. take a listen. >> november 1, we assisted more than 300 individuals to depart. we expect these numbers will continue to grow. we'll have more updates as of course that progresses and for impacted american citizens to remain in close touch as opportunities to leave continue. >> blinken came face to face with a regime that is on the other side in this israel-gaza war. he says his main goal now is getting aid in to gaza and getting americans out. >> israel has raised important questions about how humanitarian pauses would work. we've got to answer those questions. we're working on exactly that. >> in the palestinian territory saturday where blinken met with plo leader abbas, the resistance came up against a wall. >> it's clear since the war started, it's a war against our people. >> how can we justified to anybody that killing 9,000 people, killing 3,700 children, destroying 150,000 houses, destroying hospitals, how can we justify that this is self-defense? >> so after visiting four countries, neil, in the middle east, secretary blinken has not secured the release of any more american hostages as he hoped to do or secured a pause in the war for humanitarian aid to get in. he's now on his way to east asia and india. that's where his focus will be the remainder of the week. >> neil: with us now, john ki ki kirby. admiral, good to see you. >> thank you, neil. >> neil: we were told there was a good deal of discussion about a potential for tactical pauses in the fighting. again, for humanitarian relief and all of that. did that come up? was it nixed by benjamin netanyahu? what can you tell us? >> it did come up. it's one of the top things that the president wanted to take to prime minuter netanyahu about. we believe it needs to be considered. we're not talking about one pause. we believe there's value in multiple pauses discrete time for discrete purposes. we still want to pursue that. we believe that this is a conversation that we have had in recent dates with the israelis and we know we're going to continue to have those conversations going forward. we're at the beginning, not the end. >> neil: so if there were no pauses on the part of benjamin netanyahu, would the president be disappointed? >> we certainly believe, neil, that these are good ideas. in order to help get aid in and get people out. including hostages. the vast majority of the hostages are israelis. so we hope that our israeli counter parts cede in that vein. would not not talking ant a general crease fire or easing up the security assistance that we continue to provide continues every day. we want to get those guys for what happened on october 7th. we share with them a desire to get the hostages home with their families. a tactical pause is one way, one vehicle to see if you can't facilitate that. >> neil: i know the administration has tried to draw a distinction between the deaths of civilians going on right now in gaza versus the deaths of civilianses going on in ukraine with vladimir putin. many don't see that distinction. >> i understand. i want to say right at the outset, there should be no civilians casualties. we mourn and grieve them all. there's be many thousands in gaza. we're working very hard with the israelis to urge them to be cautious and careful and deliberate in their targeting so as to minimize any more civilian casualties. in ukraine, they're making it a war aim to kill innocent civilians and torture and murder them. that's a war aim of his armed forces as opposed to what is happening in gaza, an effort to go after hamas. it's hamas that made it a war aim to torture, murder and slaughter until israeli civilians on october 7. it's hamas holding these hostages. it's hamas who is putting the innocent people of gaza in greater harm's way by not allowing them to move and tunnelling under their homes. >> neil: do you feel there's a threat of some nefarious elements to do the same thing here? that maybe they snuck through the border and are here? >> i'll tell you, we don't take anything more seriously than the safety and security of americans. no matter where they are. we work in close contact with the department of homeland security and our border patrol agencies to make sure that we can control and vet and to minimize any threat of terrorism coming through our borders, wherever the borders are, maritime or land. we do that very, very stringently. the process is constantly under review to make sure that we can minimize that threat 100%. >> neil: maybe the threat is already here. fbi director christopher wray mentioned the case of this jordanian national living in texas studying how to build bombs, wanting to target just. he's here illegally and his tourism visa has been yanked so that they can pros cues him or get a trial going. can you share anything you know about it? >> i can't share anything about that case. i'd refer it to the fbi. that's really a law enforcement matter. the fact that we have visibility on some of these folks i think speaks to the degree to which our agencies are talking to one another and sharing intelligence and increasing their situational awareness about potential threats here in the homeland. we take that seriously. we're going to continue to hone those procedures. >> neil: when you look at threats like that hand we don't know and maybe christopher wray will reveal more than what he announced last week, a lot of people slip through and the feeling is that given the wider number of countries that are doing so, used to be three or four, up to a dozen, right now better than 140 countries represented going through there, are you worried that this is a huge issue now? >> again, we're always concerned. certainly since 9-11. we're always concerned about homeland security and making sure that our borders are secure as possible. that's one reason the president continues to urge for more money at the border to help us with asylum courts and to help us add more border patrol agents on the ground to improve our technological capabilities there. we believe border security is important, which is why we want congress to act on that supplemental request. >> neil: so let me get a sense of where you see this going right now. we're making it up to israel to decide what is proper and when. do you think they have gone too far? >> we're not going to get into evaluating each and every tactical event on the battlefield. we don't have boots on the ground. we don't have great visibility to everything going on there. i'm not going to parse every event. i can tell you, we continue to have conversations with our israeli counter parts continuing and have since the early hours about the need to respect civilian life, the need to act in accordance with the law of conflict to reduce collateral damage to civilian infrastructure. we continue to urge that in all their operations. >> martha: this trip on the part of secretary blinken to meet with arab leaders or his counter parts from all over the arab world. they have indicated right now that this is on the u.s. and israel to solve. particularly when it comes to israel, it's gone too far. they're still condemning that. that's their focus. nothing changes until israel stops. >> i think the arab leaders will admit they know how hard we're working to help eliminate hamas as a threat. we're working at this very hard. that was one of the messages that secretary blinken brought to leaders throughout the region. how seriously we're taking this issue and how much we continue to press it with our israeli counter parts. i think everybody also would admit that hamas brought this on. this attack on october 7 and the slaughter of some 1,400 innocent israelis. hamas is to blame here. they started this. you can't blame israel. no nation, whether it's jewish, democratic state like israel or an arab nation, nobody would take that attack and not retaliate. >> neil: there's some democratic leaders that do blame israel. rasheeda talib has accused the biden administration of genocide and turning the other way. she's been criticized by people like bernie sanders and others. are you concerned this is leading the a schism in the democratic party and those normally that support the president going against him in a foreign affairs matter? >> members of congress have to speak for themselves and for their beliefs about this. we're not focused here at the national security council about the political domestic situation here -- >> neil: what she said is that the administration was supporting genocide. >> of course we're not doing that. what is happening in gaza, again, as terrible as all of these civilian casualties are, there's thousands of them, we don't want there to be any. you can't look at what is happening in gaza and say that it fits the definition of genocide. we don't agree with that description. we think that is an irresponsible way of describing this. we don't associate ourselves with that. in our view, that is not what is happening here. that said as i said at the on the and i want this clear, we don't want to see any civilians hurt. we don't want to see any civilians killed and we will continue to work with our israeli counter parts to minimize that. >> neil: thanks, john. i appreciate it. >> yes, sir. >> neil: john kirby on all of that. meantime, former president donald trump has his day in court and did he let it be known how he feels about it after this. knock, knock. number one broker here for the number one hit maker. -thanks for swinging by, carl. -no problem. so what are all those for? 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>> neil, testy is certainly a good way to put it in the morning and afternoon sessions. more recently in the afternoon session at the end of his temperature, former president donald trump explained how upset he is he doesn't have a jury, this is a bench trial. the judge has full discretion in deciding his punishment. they were discussing loan agreements that the president used. he said his net worth is higher than was listed. so because of that, the state doesn't have a case. in the morning session, there were concerned about the length of trump's answers coming from the judge. the just said "i'm not here to hear what he has to say." that's what former president trump posted about on truth social. >> you can see what a scam this is. this is a case that should have never been brought and should be dismissed immediately. the fraud is on behalf of the court. the court is the fraudster in this case. they made references to assets that were very valuable. >> so during his directed examination, trump again said his net worth isser higher than what was listed. he said he paid the banks back in full and on time. he criticized letitia james who said she remains focused on her case. >> we'll no be bullied or harassed. this case will go on. >> during lunch break today, trump attorney alina habba shot back at james pointing to her history of campaigning going after trump. here she is. >> miss james, you taunted him before you came in to office, before you saw one record. one statement of financial condition. you taunted him. you said his administration was too male and too pale. those are her words. >> former president trump called this a sad day for america when his testimony concluded. you mentioned the trial will resume coming up on wednesday when former president trump's daughter, ivanka, will take the stand. she will be the state's financial witness before president trump's lawyers will call their own witnesses to the stand. now back to you, neil. >> neil: thanks, nate foy in the middle of that. tom dupree is with us. always interesting. when i hear the judge say the principle sort of target, not interested in what he has to say, the former president, man, i don't know if that is a stacked deck right there. >> this judge has made no secrets where he's coming down. he issued a pretrial ruling that granted judgment against the former president on the claims here. so former president trump understands that he may not be able to persuade this judge. but he's playing the a different audience. he's playing to the court of public opinion and probably playing to the appellate courts that will entertain any appeals arising out of an adverse judgment from this trial judge. >> neil: i'm not a lawyer. you're the lawyer. the whole case amazes me because it does seem like a stacked deck whether you like donald trump or not in that the judge already ruled that he committed fraud. so now he's collecting proof or whatever to stack the deck of the proof. there's very little that i think a defense or maybe you can educate me here that can provide what might make him take a 180 on this. >> yeah. that's a fair point. as realistic matter, it's unlikely. i'd say 0% that the former president's team will persuade this judge to come out differently. you're right. in that since, the deck is stacked. that said, trump's legal team can do a few things. for one thing, they can do their best to put evidence in the case supporting their side so that when a court of appeals looks at this, they may say, hey, this trial judge was a little hasty in rushing to jump. look at the evidence showing these were fair evaluations and that sort of thing. >> neil: the fact is the judge ruled that the former president committed fraud. he will rule on that. meet out his punishment. almost guaranteed to follow-through with that $200 million fraud case that could destroy the former president and his business empire. so this is a case now that is advanced to how its preparing for appeal, it would seem to me. >> i think that's exactly right. look, i think another thing the trump legal defense team can do here is to argue that even if you think there was fraud here, judge, the sanctions, these remedies that were discussing are draconian an unwarranted. there's no need to break up the companies, no need to impose a crushing financial penalty. so there are things the trump team can do with the margins. as far as getting this judge to reverse course and do a 180, that is too uphill a battle, this judge has made clear where he stands. >> neil: where is the president comporting himself and how is he with his first lengthy appearance, five hours of testimony today? he got angry. hot under the collar. is it's helping, hurting him from what you heard and seen? >> you know, look, it's not going to help him with this judge. i don't think anything will help him with this judge. the president is sending a clear signal that he thinks this entire case is unfair. he thinks the deck is stacked. he doesn't think he did anything wrong and being very vocal and forthright about it. for me, it's been interesting watching how the things he's been saying on the stand are actually very similar to the things that he's been saying when he leaves the courtroom and gives a press conference. he doesn't have an on and off switch. he's communicating what he thinks about this lawsuit. >> neil: i wonder about those that want to go after him that it might be regrettable that this is sort of the first kickoff case. it does show some blatant stacked deck features here. i'm wondering if some of those are prosecuting those cases including role he had in the georgia recount, the actual january 6th attack on the capitol, that this is a bad way to get the ball rolling. in the eyes of a lot of people, many not fans of the former president, this doesn't smell right. >> yeah, it is curious, neil, that this is the first case out of the