War, and a relentless campaign. Thousands of israelis and palestinians, men, women, and children killed. Continuing attacks from hamas and gaza under nearconstant bombing. Peace now even further from reach. Tonight, we look at this latest brutal chapter of conflict, and what the future holds. A pbs news special report, war in the holy land. Geoff good evening. Im Geoff Bennett in washington. It has been a horrendous and seismic week in the middle east. A surprise terror attack, a ferocious response, and yet more dead amid intractable decades of conflict. We are going to spend the next hour looking at the past, present and potential future of israel, gaza, and the wider middle east. Amna nawaz is in tel aviv for us tonight. Amna . Amna geoff, one week after those brutal hamas attacks, there is a sense of shock, grief, and uncertainty here in israel. Just an hour south, in gaza, theres desperation amid cuts to power and fuel. And a sense of fear under a night sky lit only by relentless israeli airstrikes. So far, at least 1300 israelis and 1800 palestinians have been killed in the past week. One week alone. Weve been speaking with israelis and palestinians in tel aviv, jerusalem, the west bank and gaza in recent days, trying to understand the human impact of this latest war. It seems like he loves being around the family. Just one week ago, the entire family gathered on friday evening but their father at the center of it all. Hes a father of five children and a grandfather of 13 grandchildren. We are a big family. Amna later that night, her parents returned to their home. Just after dawn the next morning, they awoke to terror. The community wasestroyed by hamas. Dozens killed, homes burned to the ground. An entire Community Within hours gone. 350 people, more or less. Almost 80 people are misng or kidnapped. Amna 80 people out of a community of 350 . Yes. 24 of them are above the age of 75. 15 of them are kids. Some are even babies. Amna her mother survived but her father, 81 years old and dependent on medication, was taken hostage. It has been almost a week since your father was taken. How do you thing he is doing right now . I honestly try not to imagine it. Amna why not . It is hard to imagine. But, i told my kids when this started that their grandfather is a strongman. And he will survive this. This is what i hope for. Amna her family has clung to the hope since the coordinated attack by hamas last saturday. An estimated 150 hostages were taken. More than 1200 israelis were killed. In the following days, gaza has been under near constant environment. The Israeli Military has leveled entire neighborhoods. Inside gaza, israeli cuts means supplies are dwindling. No water, no fuel, and food is running low. Now, israel has told more than one million gazans to move to Southern Gaza to escape an expected Ground Invasion. In less than a week, the brutality of the hamas attacks in the ferocity of Israeli Military response has reshaped everyday life and could reshaped the region. Theyve already reshaped the 25yearolds future. Born and raised in gaza, she hastily posted this video today. With limited connectivity and electricity, we could only speak by phone as her family fled western gaza. We are still hearing israeli bombardments around us. Hospitals, civilians. There are no safe places. Amna your life changed so much in the last week. What do you think the next week will look like . Absolutely, my life has changed. Waiting to be killed. My family, we are looking at each other as if we are bidding farewell to each other. Amna in the East Jerusalem neighborhood, waiting for word from her younger sister who lives in the Southern Gaza neighborhood with her family. It has been five years since they saw each other and communication has weathered since the start of the war. Shes living in danger. What do you think . My sister is just living her life, and suddenly, airplanes are bombing homes. At night, they do not sleep and there is no food, no water, no electricity, no communication. They are being displaced, having to leave their homes. I cannot not constantly worry about her. Amna life for gazas 2 million plus residents under blockade for 16 years was already dire before this war. A u. N. Official once described it as hell on earth. Now, a punishing Israeli MilitaryBombing Campaign has displaced hundreds of thousands in a matter of ds. They are not safe in their own homes because of the bombing. Yes, there was something in a israel but you cannot compare. When they bomb gaza, it is collective punishment. The even bomb mosques, ambulances. Still, despite all of this, countries to support the Israeli Government . Amna meanwhile, support for israelis from the countrymen and women is pouring into this parking garage at the tel aviv expo that has become a distribution hub. Women and men and kids. Amna last week, this 40yearolds fulltime job was running a Digital Marketing company. Today, he is helping to run this all volunteer army, thousands strong. Every day, donations come in. Food, clothing, household and medical supplies. Every day, they are packed and shipped out to soldiers on the front lines, families who lost their homes, and israelis displaced by the fighting. Why is it important for you to do this right now . I am doing it for my country, my people. We are one big family. Israel is a small big family. We have this bond. Amna upstairs, another mission. This one fielding search requests for hundreds of israelis still missing. Then, using social media and Artificial Intelligence try to find them. This is our only option. The families and the soldiers. Amna this tel aviv resident who asked that we do not use his last name knows what it is like to fight on the front lines. He was Army Infantry in the Israel Defense forces, serving in lebanon during israels occupation there. His 20yearold son followed in his footsteps. That training saved his sons life when hamas attacked a Music Festival he attended last week. I called him right away. I told him to fly over to tel aviv. Dont stay there. He said, father, you have nothing to worry about. Everything is ok. Amna but where they fled was also one attack. His son had found a rifle and joined the defense effort. He fought and survived, but not unscathed. Saw stuff that no one on earth should even think happens. Families getting dragged out of their homes. From the grandfather and grandmother to the parents, the children, the babies, slaughtered. Amna the day after the attack, he was called up by his military unit. And gil, who has protested the government and marched against Israeli Occupation of palestinian territories, hugged his son goodbye and sent him off to war. You have served in the military, you have been in combat. You lost family in the yom kippur war. Your son is now out there in another war. How do you look at this moment for your country, for your family . The reason i went to a combat unit was to defend my country and my fellow citizens. Even though i believed we were doing something wrong in occupying the territories. I would be at the barricades protesting against bombing cities to protect innocent people if it wasnt for what happened on saturday. Im sorry, we dont have the privilege to let this thing ever happen again. These are my parents. Amna she is on freeing her father and says her own lens has shifted in the last week. I used to be one of those people that see complexity and see the rights of gaza people, and i care about it deeply. But what we saw on this saturday, i definitely think this situation is different from anything we saw before. I know this country wont be the same. I know my family wont be the same. Amna the same is true for this family. Running for their lives with no signs of safety ahead. What do you want the rest of the world to know about what you want right now, about what you see as your future . All we need is peace. We need to be free. Not losing people from our family and friends. Amna her family too has been forever changed. She sent this message to her sister in gaza. We are with you always and our hearts are with you. And the war will hopefully end soon and you can go back to your home safely. And the conditions will be better than what they are now. And we will see each other in better conditions. Amna those better conditions seem farther away as a new war now one week in rages on with no end in sight. Just today, an official from the Israel Defense force stresses the war will move into new and different phases. Joining me is my colleague leila molanaallen who has been reporting here all week. Lets start with the news today that israel ordered an evacuation of over one million gazans to move to the south. It is an enormous amount of people. How is this even possible . Leila its not possible. An ids spokesperson acknowledged that two other journalists saying they understand. They are just trying to cover their backs. They want to say we are encouraging civilians to get out of the strike zones we will hit. Again, as you say later in the day, they also say it will be a phased operation which suggests that. They are trying to evacuate half of the gaza strip, we are talking over one Million People. They are under blockade. They dont have petrol for the cars. The roads have been bombed, their houses have been bombed. Where are they going to go . So many people are wounded. The people are desperate. I have been talking to doctors in the evacuation area. They say we dont know how we will take these people out. And people in the main hospital to the south are completely overwhelmed already. That dont have beds, fuel for the generators. There is no way they can take all these wounded. It is an impossible situation and a humanitarian disaster. Amna you have been reporting from here all week but you also lived in lebanon and spent a lot of time reporting around the region. How are you viewing this moment, big picture . Leila firstly, insight israel, we see more political discord than we have seen in years between secular israelis in central towns who feel like they are working hard, sending their children to work at the idf, and other israelis who dont have to do that who are not can tripping and that way. Now, their children are dying protecting areas they dont necessarily believe in because the government is very supportive of settlers in the west bank. Right now, this is a moment of unity. That does not mean they support the government. And just means they are coming together as israelis for this conflict. We will see how that plays out. The second issue is the palestinians. We are seeing them divided into two separate areas. Gaza and the west bank. Israelis are encouraging them to see themselves as different because gaza is now under attack. Thirdly, in the regional context, we are seeing the coming together of several wars over the last several decades. Different alliances. Wars in syria, lebanon, hezbollah, iran. All these areas now allying with hamas. We are potentially heading towards an extraordinary conflict. Amna fantastic reporting all week. We will be following your reporting in the days and weeks ahead. Thank you. To understand this conflict, you first need to understand the geography. Israel is a nation of nearly 10 Million People, living in an area about the size of the state of new jersey surrounded by mostly hostile neighbors. The gaza strip is sandwiched between israel and the mediterranean sea, with more than two Million People packed into an area about the same size as the city of philadelphia. The west bank, home to some three million palestinians, stretches along the dead sea and jordanian border to israels east. There have been so many people over the years who have sat at negotiating tables and tried to work toward peaceful solutions, only to find them repeatedly dashed. For them, this weeks events have put a grim punctuation mark on these efforts. I spoke to two such people today. Ehud barak, former Prime Minister of israel, and hanan ashrawi, a longtime Palestinian Leader and advisor in the west bank. The command from the Israel Defense forces was unlike anything from previous wars with hamas. 1. 1 million gazans told to go south in one day. This is clearly ethnic cleansing. This is a continuation. What they are trying to do is get rid of the palesnians in gaza. Amna it is a 1948 displacement of palestinians from their homes after the founding of israel. She was four years old then and for decades has championed the palestinian cause as a politician and scholar. She spoke to me from a residence in the west bank. How do you see this unfolding . This is not just a benign evacuation. Most of them do not have cars. Their homes have been demolished. These are people who are thirsty and hungry and terrified. They have lost families, whole families have been eradicated from the population. It is a massacre. Amna i sat down with former israeli Prime Minister ehud bar ak this morning. If you are speaking directly to the vast majority of innocent gazans who have nothing to do with hamas, many are asking where do we go . We asked them to leave for a certain time. In any case, there is no way to argue with us about this. It is not the result of our initiative or objective or purpose. It is direct result of a murderous, barbarian attack on israeli innocent citizens. Amna the latest and most violent escalation follows seven decades of intermittent conflict and Israeli Occupation of palestinian territory. At the crux of it are israels security concerns, clashing with palestinian aspirations for statehood and competing claims to the land. Today, the prospects for peace seem as bleak as theyve ever been. A veteran of the peace process, barak perhaps came closest to reaching the lasting peace a generation ago. All that is a memory now. When you stood sidebyside with Yasser Arafat at a summit hosted by bill clinton at camp david, it feels like a world ay. I wonder if you think theres any road towards any kind of negotiated settlement out of this conflict. At the present, it seems totally practical. Believes that necessacites necessities will pose one side as opposed to having one state or two states. We should stick to twostate solution. I believe the other side as well. The other alternative is not viable. Basically, it is so impractical now, that it would be a waste of time to discuss it. I think that we israelis should never lose eye contact with the longterm objective of disengaging our self from the palestinians. Having an israeli state with 80 of the settlers and several percent of the area, with a viable demilitarized palestinian state. Amna you have not given up on the idea of a two state solution . I dont think theres any other viable option. I think any other option, one state solution is a recipe for disaster. Amna do you believe that a two state solution is dead . I believe israel has systematically and deliberately destroyed it because they want to superimpose greater israel on all historical palestine. I think it is very difficult now to talk about a two state solution, when the whole world was watching israel destroy the two state solution with a massive land grab. Amna as israel prepares for a Ground Invasion into gaza, dozens of families wait for any news of their loved one still held hostage by hamas. Wounds will be difficult to bind, much less heal for a country that has been shaken to its core, the illusion of security pierced. Do you believe the attacks were result of failure of intelligence by this government . Sure, there was a failure on the intelligence side, even on the political end. Amna theres a number of Israeli Citizens we spoke to who say the attacks pierce what they saw was an illusion of security and they are not sure they trust this government can continue to keep them safe if they couldnt last week. What would you say to them . You heard it from whom . Israelis . Amna yes. For sure, it shakes confidence. I believe it could be resumed, if you analyze honestly the failures. If you can make the people responsible accountable. If you teach the lessons to those who make the corrections. Amna we have heard eyewitness accounts of people who testified to the raping of women and seeing images of some of the burned bodies. If there were atrocities in this confrontation, we are heartbroken. We dont want to see any atrocities committed against anybody. We dont want to see them committed against israeli civilians, palestinian civilians. You know what makes people, palestinians really angry . Is that these atrocities are committed against us all the time and nobody cares. But when it happens to israelis, the whole world, the whole western world sits up and takes notice. Amna naz this new world darkens the region already traumatized by decades of bloodletting, it can be hard to see a promising future. Israel can conquer gaza, but then what . The question to whom will be part of it . Ideally, there is some Multinational Force led by egypt or saudi arabia, that will take it for a temporary period. And pass it to the palestinian sovereignty which is the former representative of the palestinian people. Hamas took over gaza by violent attack on the palestinians. So, that is another constraint because i am not sure that anyone would agree to it. There can be no peace, no security, no stability for anyone in the region and even beyond unless the palestinians get their rights and their freedom and their dignity and their sovereignty on their own land. This is the key. You may kill, you may punish, you may expel, you may do whatever you want, but the palestinians deserve, we deserve our rights and our equality and our dignity and our freedom. Geoff of all the regions in the world, none may have as complicated a history as the middle east. The center of three religious faiths, the area has been conquered, contested and ruled by various empires across millennia. John yang takes a look at the most recent history of conflict and conquest, and of suffering and strife that has led the region to where it is today. John from its very founding, the state of israel has been shaped by