in the middle east. john: it comes as we are getting brand-new information about the u.s.s. mason shooting down another drone in the red sea today, the drone fired from the same houthi-controlled area as the ones over the weekend. we will take you to the briefing as soon as it happens. sandra: israel moving into the third phase of ground operations, 138 hostages are still in captivity and hamas has vowed to not release anymore until there is a ceasefire. hello, john, welcome back. john: good to be with you. john roberts in washington, america reports . israel continuing its campaign against hamas hitting the terror group s strongholds in southern gaza overnight. idf engaging in house to house gun battles after entering the second largest city in the strip. sandra: israel s military says it has killed about half of hamas mid level batallion commanders by now and prime minister benjamin netanyahu said moments ago idf forces are encircling the house of a senior hamas le
lear. no circumstances you are promising america tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. except for day one. i want to close the border and i want to drill, drill, drill. dana: former president donald trump looking ahead to a second term blasting president joe biden and mostly ignoring his republican rivals last night in iowa. i m dana perino and this is america s newsroom. bill: i m bill hemmer. kid dynamite. former president trump taking aim at president biden on the economy, energy, foreign policy, border all came up last night. night before the final republican primary debate where he will not be and will not attend. once again, that stage will have four people but without trump as his distant rivals battle it out for second place. alexis mcadams is in alabama for the fallout today. good morning from alabama. where it is a race for second place, right, on that debate stage which we ll get to more on that in the second. the frontrunn
of the city of khan younis. israel has warned more palestinians living around the city to leave immediately. the hamas run health ministry in gaza says more than 15,500 people have now been killed there since the start of the conflict between israel and hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation by several governments including us and uk. these pictures were shot on sunday. children are among those being driven to the hospital, carried inside by family and friends. israel insists it is doing all it can to minimise the number of civilian deaths in gaza, after the us defence secretary, lloyd austin, said israel had a moral responsiblity to minimise casualties not linked to hamas. our international editor jeremy bowen reports on the situation in the west bank and gaza. and i should warn you, the report contains footage from the very beginning that is distressing. lost boys, brothers, looking for their father my dad s been killed. i swear my dad s been killed. they
kidnapped by hamas was just released. the lead starts right now. after more than 50 days held captive by hamas, 11 more hostages are freed tonight after israel and hamas agree to pause fighting for a few more days, leading to more hostage releases to come. and the only israeli man released by hamas so far has a dual russian/israeli citizenship. why him, and how did he spend four days on the run? was his release a hamas favor to vladimir putin. plus, the palestinian prisoners who israel is letting go, and the two-tiered justice system for many of them that led to so many of them being held without trial in the first place. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. also this hour we re going to get to the major arrest of the man police say shot three college students in vermont. the suspect was in court today. the college students were speaking english and arabic at the time of saturday s shooting wearing the traditional palestinian keffiyeh scarves. a spokesman for the
hello again, everyone. thank you so much for joining us, i m fred dreek with a whitfield alongside wolf blitzer in tel aviv. now to our breaking news. 13 israeli hostages are now back in israel. they were released by hamas after being abducted and held prisoner in gaza for 50 days. among those released today, dual israeli-american citizen abigail edan who is only 4 years old. she is the first american released since the four-day truce began between israel and hamas and that got started on friday. we re told 12 of the hostages were taken through the border fence directly from gaza to israel, while one was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital. an additional four foreign nationals separate from today s deal arrived in egypt earlier today. that group includes three thai nationals and a russian-israeli dual citizen. there are also celebrations in the west bank where 39 palestinian teenagers have now been released from israeli prisons as part of today s agreement. as the truce n