>> our goal isn't to fight the palestinian civilians, it's to fight the hamas terrorists and we make a distinction between the two, they don't. >> far too many palestinians has been killed, much more needs to be done. >> john: right now israeli forces reportedly closing in on gaza's largest hospital where they say hamas is hiding in its massive terror complex below ground. suggesting the group uses tunnels below al-shifa hospitals to store weapons and posing a major challenge for the military strategy. i'm john roberts in washington. good friday afternoon to be with you. >> gillian: i'm gillian turner in for sandra, she has the day off. as the fighting rages on, u.s. bases are taking fire in the middle east. launched 47 total attacks against u.s. troops and assets. >> john: two days ago, president biden ordered airstrikes against targets in syria to stop attacks, but iran and proxies are simply thumbing their nose at biden. so, why won't the white house do more to shut down iran? >> gillian: fox team coverage from the breaking news over the next two hours. >> john: alex hogan is live on the ground in northern israel where things have been heating up. alex. >> cross border attacks between the idf and hezbollah have continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening. as many as five israeli soldiers have been wounded today and one civilian. idf says it was able to detect three foreign drones heading this way earlier today. meanwhile in the south, idf hammers hamas targets by land and air and sea. the idf says since october 7th, it has struck 15,000 times on hamas targets. new tactics are being used to try to destroy those tunnels that given likely hostages who remain in there. there's no word just yet on the two hostages that could be released. on thursday, islamic jihad announced it would send back an elderly woman and young boy that they could not care for medically. prime minister benjamin netanyahu says the goal to remilitarize gaza and then rebuild. >> to restore security to make sure that there is no hamas and hamas does not return. but also to make sure that there will be a better life for them in the future. >> and as israel approves these temporary pauses to allow palestinian civilians to flee south, tens of thousands of civilians are doing just that, evacuating every day. this is not a ceasefire, this is what they are calling tactical localized pauses, it's taking place in just certain closed off areas and residents there are given as many as three hours to prepare to leave and to head south. we are also learning more about new attacks on u.s. bases overseas, as many as five of those attacks taking place just in the last several days. 47 attacks on u.s. bases since october 17th. john. >> john: the deterrence does not seem to be doing a whole lot. alex, thanks. >> gillian: as john says, the deterrence efforts may not be resonating with the iran militia groups. proxy groups have carried out at least five known attacks after they struck a syrian target two days ago. michael allen has more on this, but first jennifer griffin joins us from the pentagon. >> as you mentioned, there's been another attack by iranian proxy forces against u.s. troops in syria, the fifth since the u.s. carried out airstrikes on an iranian revolutionary guard storage facility wednesday, a strike supposed to deter iran and proxies. that brings the attacks on u.s. forces to 47 since mid october. this time u.s. troops shot down a one-way attack drone in eastern syria this morning. no injuries or damage. defense secretary lloyd austin issued a warning from new delhi, india, meeting with leaders to bolster ties with india in the pacific ahead of next week's meeting between president biden and xi of china. >> rest assured that we will trike at a time and place of our choosing and these attacks against our people must stop. you know, in -- you know, if they don't stop, again, we are going to do what's necessary to protect our people. >> that was a message for the leaders of iran and their proxies. u.s. central command released this video of the u.s. airstrike in syria wednesday. it shows the two u.s. f-15 fighter jets bombing a weapons storage facility used by the irgc. after that, three u.s. troops received minor injuries at green village in syria from a multi-rocket attack, and thursday, u.s. troops hit a roadside bomb near mosul, again no u.s. injuries. and they say now 56 u.s. service members have reported injuries since october 17th. half of them traumatic brain injuries. >> what we assess is 25 of our forces, of our troop members have been diagnosed with tbi. the other additional injuries are very minor. i mean, talking like headache, rolled ankle, cuts, but that is it. all have returned to duty. >> the u.s. has not yet responded to the downing of a u.s. mq9 reaper drone wednesday off the coast of yemen, $32 million drone, gillian. >> gillian: jennifer griffin at the pentagon. thank you. >> john: michael allen, former national security councilmember and managing director of beacon strategies. issue of attacks against american forces, deterrence strikes against the proxies, i took this up with senator chris coons of delaware who just returned from israel and met with president biden about this on wednesday night. >> in the days after 9/11, george bush famously said i'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel in the bus. but in essence, in response to the attacks against american forces in the middle east appears to be what biden is doing. >> john, i don't understand your metaphor. this was not a camel in a tent shot in his butt. it was an irgc munitions depot struck by two fighters and i think the president is perfectly clear we need to respond, we need to show the willingness and the determination to strike every time that there is a strike that causes injury, damage, loss of life, to american troops, contractors, facilities. >> john: as gillian was pointing out since that strike, five more attacks against u.s. interests in the region. so, it would appear whether it's hitting a camel in the butt with a cruise missile or taking out a storage facility, the deterrence effect is about the same. >> i was so glad you raised that example because what that came out in was the 9/11 commission report in a section about missed opportunities to kill osama bin laden and go after al-qaeda when bill clinton just hit a few tents in the middle of afghanistan. that's a direct on par analogy and i think it works here. president biden is too obsessed with escalation control at the expense of effective deterrence. he is going to have a world of hurt on his hands very soon when one of these explosive-laden drones gets through the missile defense in iraq and kills a number of u.s. servicemen and women. then he will be on the hook to respond in a much greater way and that's the escalation control he's trying to avoid but if he would just go ahead and step this up a bit, maybe he could head it off at the pass. >> gillian: a foreign war, like the war against al-qaeda, taking place in a foreign country on the ground. but the reality as we all know, americans have been involved in this directly since the beginning. americans were taken hostage on october 7th, americans forced to flee, hundreds of americans and family members are trapped inside gaza at the rafah gate for weeks now. what is the appropriate deterrence here? >> in this case, when hezbollah is hitting us repeatedly, to hit empty storage sheds is obviously not enough. i'm not saying they need to go high order like trump did and kill soleimani or the new head of the irgc. >> john: that sure knocked them back. >> knocked them back and may be appropriate later, but they need to have a more fullsome bay, iraq is a sovereign country but we need to work with the iraqi government to figure out a way to push back on hezbollah inside of iraq instead of hitting storage sheds in another country. >> john: nobody killed so far in the attacks, which is different from the attacks that prompted trump to take out soleimani. but so many more attacks. general jack keane is on the same page as you are in terms of stepping this up now so you don't have to do it later. >> what we need to do is recognize the iranians are pulling the strings here. they do not want direct conflict with the united states. that is why they use their proxies. they know they would lose their regime in a war with the united states, and you just got to understand that and have the spine to stand up to them. >> john: he seems to indicate, michael, that there is no down side to escalating now because iran won't do anything. but unless you punch them in the nose hard right now, they are going to continue to do this, until, as you point out, americans die. >> that's right. they have set up 4 or 5 proxy forces around the region to harass us and harass israel and they are going to play fast and loose until they feel the steel of the united states of america. not just doing it because we want to be full of bravado, but to protect our own people. we have interests and lives all over the region and they need to know that we are serious. i think it's a theme from biden, the pull out of afghanistan, now overcautiousness on the chinese front, and not transferring enough weapons soon enough in ukraine that led us into a near stalemate, so we have seen this over and over and it's not serving us well. >> gillian: this war is a big ticket item on the agenda when president biden meets president xi face-to-face next week, big news, they are going to see each other one-on-one at apec. biden administration official told reporters last night they are going to talk about the israel-gaza war, chinese interference in u.s. elections, talk about taiwan, what else needs to figure high up on the short list? >> fentanyl needs at the very top of the list, precursors from china. put them on notice to quit harassing our allies in the south china sea. it's not just taiwan, it's now the philippines, and we need to get them to ratchet back their behavior. we have to deter china from going after taiwan soon and not going to be able to do that if we are pussy footing along trying to get along with the chinese in san francisco. >> john: and also if we can't deter iranian proxies, how will we deter china? >> exactly. thank you. >> gillian: also this we are tracking a new complaint filed by the trump camp alleges the 2020 biden campaign pushed the narrative that the hunter biden laptop story was russian disinformation. miranda devine has a lot to say about that. she'll be joining us next. >> john: west virginia senator joe manchin announcing he will not seek re-election, a major blow to democrats putting the senate majority in peril. will it up end the white house, too. charlie hurt ahead. >> basically presenting himself as the old fashioned moderate democrat that used to be more of them, kind of the guy that joe 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(car engine revs) (engine accelerating) (texting clicks) (tires squeal) (glass shattering) (loose gravel clanking) >> gillian: welcome back. pro trump organization has filed a complaint with the fec, federal election commission alleging dozens of ex-intelligence officials worked to discredit the hunter biden laptop story as russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election. alleges that campaign officials failed to file required paperwork that would have revealed ties between officials and campaign staff. miranda devine, columnnist for "the new york post" and fox news contributor. this is a story that sort of becomes more complicated every time we talk about it. but what's going on here is this is a political battle that has been fought largely in the media, it seems like the america first legal organization run by steven miller has now taken moves to bring this political argument into the sort of legal or regulatory sphere. what do you make of it? >> yeah, that's right, gillian, and i think the next step will be to go to court to sue these people. in the meantime, the fec has this complaint and there's new information that has been added to the complaint from a former acting cia director who testified to congress that he wrote that letter and circulated it on the behest of the biden campaign who also helped with the media strategy for releasing it. so mike gets a call from antony blinken, then a senior adviser with the biden campaign, now of course the secretary of state, and he prompted morell to write the letter saying it was russian disinformation, 51 former intelligence officials have never been held to account, let's hope it's the beginning of it. >> gillian: miranda, two things to look at and your response to. number one, take a listen to the secretary, the now secretary of state. he spoke to fox news a few months ago, and on the record denied having any involvement in any of this. take a listen. >> one of the great benefits of this job is that i don't do politics and don't engage in it. but with regard to that letter, i didn't -- wasn't my idea, didn't ask for it, didn't solicit it, and i think the testimony that the former deputy director of the cia put forward confirms that. >> gillian: take a look at this, from the complaint itself reads the evidence suggests the respondents failed to disclose coordinated expenditures constituting in kind donations with respect to the infamous letter of 51 former intelligence officials claiming the hunter biden laptop story had "all the classic ear marks of russian disinformation." how do you square these two sides of the story? >> well, antony blinken is being completely disingenuous. you know from mike's emails and testimony between him and the other various signatories, the biden campaign was intimately involved. not only did morell say it did not occur to him to write the letter until he got a call from antony blinken shortly after the story was published and it caused great consternation inside the biden campaign and mike said that he only thought of the idea after that phone call, and after antony blinken sent him a story from u.s.a. today claiming without any evidence on anonymous sources that our story was russian disinformation. so therefore, mike morell sets about writing this dishonest letter, and then, of course, when it came time to ceding that letter to the media so joe biden had a talking point when he came up against donald trump at the final debate, that was also coordinated by the biden campaign and afterwards there are emails to mike from the biden campaign, including from steve raketti, then the biden campaign boss, congratulating him for writing the letter. and mike morell specifically says he wrote the letter to help joe biden win the election. >> gillian: we have to leave it there. thanks for taking time with us. >> thanks, gillian. >> john: you know who knows a lot about this, dan hoffman, a frequent guest on this program and others here in the network. he was sent that letter and asked to sign on to it and he's told us several times never did they ask for an opinion as to whether or not he thought that this was russian disinformation or something else. it was already cooked and all they were doing is shopping signatures for it. >> gillian: and they are a campaign is more than welcome to do that. the problem, as i understand it, john, because campaigns do this kind of stuff all the time in terms of getting former officials to sign on to whatever they want. you can have them say the sky is orange, if that's what they want to push. the problem is, if you have sitting officials coordinating this in any aspect, that's where the violation of campaign regulations comes into play. >> john: and did not have the added benefit of being true. >> gillian: well, who follows that. >> john: george w. bush is honoring the brave men and women who serve the country. annual warrior ride is giving veterans a chance to heal. our dr. marc siegel on two wheels looks at the former commander in chief's veteran's day tradition. >> gillian: idf is continuing the ground operation in gaza. u.s. air force general rob spalding is up next and what is complicating israel's efforts now to put a stop to hamas. >> this network, this huge network of tunnels that is located underneath the gaza city, kind of a city of its own. it's a different complex. it can allow people to survive there for weeks, if not for months. veteran homeowners. have you tried getting a home improvement loan at a bank lately? 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