washington at the march for israel on the national mall, as the national guard is deployed and homeland security officials update security to its highest designation. president biden delivers his strongest rebuke yet to israel's targeting of hospitals claiming hamas fighters -- israel claims hamas fighters have tunnelled under the medical facilities. >> you know i have been not been reluctant in expressing my concern that's going on. it's my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action at the hospital. >> israel and hamas could be moving closer to a deal to free women and children hostages for palestinian women held by israel. >> i've been talking with the people involved every single day. i believe it's going to happen. hang in there. we're coming. on capitol hill, speaker mike johnson today forging ahead with a short-term resolution to keep the government open by seeking democratic votes but costing him support from far right republicans. >> here we are on the eve of november 17th, we have a shutdown looming. we have to prevent that that would do more harm for the economy. ♪♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. just across from the capitol here and only a few blocks from the national mall, thousands of supporters of israel are assembling for today's massive rally staged as a counterpoint to anti-israel protests in europe and anti-semitic incidents across the u.s., since israel began retaliating for hamas' actions. speeches will start in about an hour. busloads of supporters have been arriving all day for this national jewish organization, schools and synagogues and community centers that assembled from across the country. the department of homeland security says it's the highest threat level that they use for inaugurations and super bowls. officials say there are no credible threats at this time. right now, no calls for major counterprotests. ten days ago, they gathered outside the white house for a pro-palestinian protest, demanding a cease-fire, something the u.s. and israel oppose. we start with gabe gutierrez on the national mall. gabe, you have a big crowd assembled there. what's the feeling from people you have talked to? >> reporter: not sure if you can hear me. it's getting tough to hear because of so many people arriving here on the national mall. we are having issue with cell service. i can't hear right now, but i'm going to describe what's going on. this is the march that's set to start in less than an hour. this crowd extending for some distance. several thousand people are here. unclear if it will reach the goal of some of the organizers, which in permit applications, between 40,000 and 60,000 people. we see this is the stage where people are expected to speak in just a short time. we are expecting relatives of hostages to speak here. also, there are just so many -- it's an emotional time here. law enforcement authorities here in d.c. have been on high alert. as you mentioned, department of homeland security raising the security threat level to a level 1 event. we just spoke with the family of an idf soldier fighting currently in gaza. this is so personal for them. they are here in solidarity with israel. but also demanding that hamas release the hostages. if our connection continues over here, you can see how big this crowd has gotten here. we just spoke with a group from cleveland being bussed in here from cleveland overnight. more than 1,000 people just from that area alone. deeply personal for them to be here in solidarity with israel given that this war has raged on for more than a month. >> gabe, thank you very much. thanks for powering through that. i know you can't hear very much. there's a lot going on also at the white house today. joining us now is jonathan greenblatt. thanks for being with us. you are one of the people who sparked this large gathering. it's now -- we are in our sixth week after the massacre. there's been a lot of anger because of pictures coming out of gaza of the attacks on refugee camps and the hospitals. the president went farther than he had up until now. >> yes. >> just yesterday. saying the hospitals have to be protected. the counter from israel is that hamas has tunnelled under the hospitals. we have not seen that intelligence. that's based on idf video, idf claims. want to ask you, how can israel balance this? should they better balance it? they have no better friend than the u.s., financially, morally, politically. >> these are very complicated issues. i'm not a geomilitary strategist. it's hard to say the best way to handle this operation. i do think that the tragedy here is that these murderers from hamas came into israel and butchered and raped and kidnapped and killed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. i do think the tragedy is that they are holding babies and children and girls and boys and the elderly and women underneath the tunnels. i do think we found repeatedly that the idf intelligence is very reliable. any death is a tragedy. it's a tragedy to think that civilians might get killed in the operation in the hospital. patients, it's a tragedy to see so many have died so far. i hope we can free gaza, free gaza from hamas. i trust that the idf will do everything in their power as seen to do what they can to save civilian lives, even as they try to dismantle this organization that is committed to killing and killing and killing and killing jews. >> the president was more forward leaning or optimistic about the hostages. later in the program, we will play a conversation, a very moving conversation that lester holt, our "nbc nightly news" anchor had with 14 representatives, american representatives of hostage families and what they are going through, which is unbearable and unfathomable. they don't know whether they are alive or dead. the red cross has not been permitted to have contact with them. it's required under the international rules of law. the biden administration and israel are in separate -- they are separating into terms of what should happen to gaza in the future. israel wants a buffer zone, which would take land away from palestinians and displace more palestinians. the white house and state department are against that. israel will occupy, even though they don't want to reoccupy, but they would occupy, according to netanyahu, gaza for a period of time, something the u.s. thinks is a bad idea. many members of the cabinet are against a two-state solution. how do you navigate that as a prominent leader working with all sides? >> how difficult when you have these different dimensions to it? i think i understand where president biden is coming from. how do we do the best we can to keep civilians safe? i appreciate the way he is starting with the jewish state. it's 17 years since hamas occupied gaza. israel left. hamas staged a coup. they are running a dictatorship. my hope would be that we can negotiate a path forward, which provides palestinians with equality. they will never have that unless israelis have safety and security. we need to make sure the hamas group is dismantled once and for all so these people can find ways to live together in peace. >> there's no question that hamas started this war and that hamas is a terror group. hamas is holding these hostages. let me ask about the anti-semitism and the president's proposal do something about the campus experiences as well as the rise in anti-semitism, and he is focused on islamaphobic things that are happening. >> the college campuses are on fire right now. they tracked 832 incidents across the country, almost 30 a day, over the month after the gaza -- >> is the president's program enough to counteract that? >> the president has been strong and supportive. we are appreciative of that. we need more. we need the department of education to take proactive action to get the universities to do something. we need more. i will tell you, we need the right governmental authorities. the irs and the fbi to make sure the national organizations not providing support for hamas. that needs to happen right away. >> only today -- i don't know which organizations, but today the u.s. government was sanctioning hamas leaders and hamas organizations, the uk and the u.s. jointly. >> the last thing i would say is we need our university presidents to show some spine. it's long past the time for them to find the backbone to step up and speak out. imagine that we now have more than ten times the number of anti-semitic incidents on campuses in the last month versus the same period last year. that's a 1,000% increase. university presidents should realize the jewish students don't feel safe because they are not. they need to do something about it. >> jonathan greenblatt, thank you. the latest on the fighting in gaza and the efforts to free the hostages. a conversation with an israeli on how this is being seen by the wider world. we will be back 60 seconds from now. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. tchia mitchell reports" on msnbc your financial story. ♪♪ we're not an airline, but our network connects global businesses across nearly 160 markets. ♪♪ we're not a startup, but our innovation labs use new technologies to help keep your information secure. ♪♪ we're not architects, but we help build stronger communities. ♪♪ we're not just any bank. we are citi. ♪♪ in gaza today, the death toll and devastation is growing. more than 11,000 people have been killed there according to the hamas-run gaza health ministry. casualties are being reported in the north today after a strike at a refugee camp engulfed several structures in flames. the u.n. says nearly 200,000 people have fled from the north to the south in the past week. conditions are desperate at the largest hospital in gaza city. medical personnel from doctors without borders are sheltering more than 100 people nearby after the hospital ran out of food. they are asking israel and hamas for safe passage to leave the epicenter of intense fighting as president biden says hospitals need to be protected. nbc news correspondent josh lederman joins us from tel aviv. there's new developments and israel is confirming a 19-year-old female hostage, an idf soldier has died. >> reporter: for weeks now, health officials in gaza have been warning the hospital could turn into a figurative cemetery. today, it became an actual cemetery. medical officials there digging a mass grave to bury some of what health officials are about 150 bodies that had been piling up at the hospital, cause in the crossfire with no way to safely bury them. doctors without borders, which you mentioned, says their facility near the hospital was struck with bullets today. we don't know by whom. in the meantime, there's an urgent effort to try to save dozens of newborn babies on incubators, no longer, because the power ran out. doctors have been essentially huddling all the babies together to keep them warm from each other's body heat. now israel says it's willing to provide mobile incubators to keep them warm while they are transported to a safer place. as of now, there has been no agreement worked out on how to make that happen. both sides essentially blaming each other for the failure to rescue those babies and other civilians who are at that hospital. in the meantime, that urgent effort to free the hostages getting more urgent by the day with the confirmed death now from the israeli military of that 19-year-old soldier who had been a hamas hostage. >> josh, thank you so much. joining us now is the deputy mayor of jerusalem. mayor, thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you so much. >> let's talk about the conflicting imagery, which is so painful for all sides. you had this savage massacre on october 7. i've seen the video. it's unspeakable. there was a lot of empathy for israel. then with the refugee camp being bombed and now the hospitals, europe is on fire with anti-israel protests and messaging. the u.s., now we see this counter march today which is trying to balance it out. there are problems all across the u.s. as well and anti-semitic incidents. is there a better way for israel to process this war, something that the u.s. has been urging quietly and now publically in terms of using smart bombs, not dumb bombs, more ground than air strikes? >> you know, this is a war we didn't ask for. we didn't provoke. we didn't start. it was something we never expected to have 2,500 terrorists come in and, you saw it yourself, hours of torture, innocent babies who were decapitated, women whose -- pregnant women whose stomachs were opened, babies taken out. you know how horrific that was. i don't know of any country that wouldn't want to go and defend its citizens. not just that, the leaders of hamas are saying we will do it again and again and again. israel has been put in an impossible situation. israel has the strength to flatten gaza. but we're not doing it. we are putting our young men in harm's way going door to door, because we're a moral army, because we don't want to kill innocent. we have opened a safe passage from the first day. hamas was shooting people outside and not providing the safe passage. we are talking about electric and fuel and incubators. under the hospital there's a terrorist base bigger than the new york subway. what is fuelling that? they have, according to our intelligence, months of fuel and water and food. essentially, we're protecting the citizens more than they are protecting their own citizens. that's what the world should be outraged about. we can have these image olympics. one image is worse than the next. i'm not justifying anything. but we are in a war. there's a difference between war which is ugly, and war crimes which is purposefully going for innocent citizens. >> if there are hamas terrorists under the hospital, that's a war crime in and of itself. the counter argument is that everything has to be proportional and that these hospitals are desperate. the red cross assures me that they deliver their own fuel. they don't contract it out. they have never had incidents of their fuel being co-opted it. they deliver it to people they know in the hospitals. the amount of fuel they delivered was enough for a half hour to an hour of what is needed to generate their equipment. you have babies dying taken off of incubators. >> there was a tweet that fuel had been stolen by hamas. they had to take it down because they are intimidated. hamas operatives are embedded this these organizations. whatever they are saying, you have to take with a pinch of salt. they are there. but remember, gaza before october 7 had four hours of electricity a day. why? because hamas was sucking all the energy out in order to keep going this terror infrastructure that they had underneath. the priority of hamas has never been its people. we are doing everything we can. we are sending incubators. we have sent fuel. we will continue to send fuel. we cannot guarantee fuel would not be stolen. >> we were told by the government that no fuel is going in. >> we have images of fuel going in, of soldiers taking in fuel. our soldiers are constantly in touch with the staff of the hospital. we have even -- >> the hospital said it's not enough. let's talk about -- >> they are under intimidation. under them is a terror infrastructure. >> let's talk about the hostages. is it possible that there is a deal to exchange palestinian prisoners in israel, women, for women and children hostages? >> we heard this morning a woman has given birth. we are concerned about what's going on there with the hostages. i think we have to do everything to bring our hostages home. if people keep trying to push us into a cease-fire, i would say the cease-fire has to come from exchange for our hostages. we shouldn't be talking about anything else unless our hostages are home. these innocent babies, grandmothers and everything in between. any deal that gets our hostages home i think is something the israeli public would be behind. the main thing is, saving these innocent lives that were brutally taken on october 7th and bringing them home. >> madam mayor, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. rolling the dice. speaker mike johnson gambling on business support from house democrats to help him deliver a two-step short-term government funding bill. that's next. you are watching "andrea mitchell reports." this is msnbc. students... students of any age, from anywhere. using our technology to power different ways of learning. so when minds grow, opportunities follow. ♪ my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. i won't let me moderate to severe plaque psoriasis symptoms define me... emerge as you. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearer skin at 4 months... ...and the majority stayed clearer, at 5 years. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. emerge as you. emerge tremfyant®. ask you doctor about tremfya®. 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[dog barks] no it's just a bunny! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ in a crisis caused by a terrorist massacre. warning civilians to clear out, while hamas forces them back. allowing in food and water, which hamas steals. the power goes out and we still have wifi alloto do our homework.ter, and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. house speaker mike johnson facing his first big test in a floor vote later this afternoon on a short-term resolution, a continuing resolution to extend the budget, extent government spending at current levels until next year. it lost votes from hard right republicans who want spending cuts. it will require democratic votes to pass. it does not include money for israel or ukraine. earlier, the speaker was asked about his message to republicans who oppose his approach. >> we're not surrendering. we're fighting. but you have to be wise about choosing the fight. you have to fight fights you can win. we're going to. you will see the house majority stand together. we will do that. the shutdown would occur on november 17th. it took decades to get into this mess. i've been at the job less than three weeks. i can't change -- i can't turn an aircraft carrier overnight. >> joining me now is garrett haake. garrett, it's an interesting signal. speaker johnson is very conservative, yet he is starting out on a bipartisan note. he seemed to have enough good will to get this through. >> reporter: picking winnable fights has not been a hallmark of this republican conference. johnson acknowledged in that press conference that he is one of the hard right republicans that wouldn't like this. but it's what they need. he thinks this is a moment to try to draw things out a little longer and get back to the business that they have been trying to be in over the last few weeks, which is passing the longer-term single subject spending bill. he will probably lose a couple dozen republi