later. thank you for joining us. i m kasie hunt. don t go anywhere. cnn this morning starts right now. good morning, everyone. glad you re with us. i m poppy harlow with phil mattingly in new york. the number of hostages believed to be in gaza has risen, 240. according to the israeli military. this comes as israeli soldiers and tanks push deeper into the gaza strip with prime minister benjamin netanyahu refusing to halt the ground and air assault on hamas. just as the united states would not agree to a cease fire after the bombing of pearl harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, israel will not agree cessation with hamas after the horrific attacks on october 7th. calls for a cease fire are calls for israel to surrender to hamas. hamas has released a hostage video of these three israeli women being held captive. one of them begs netanyahu to secure their release. netanyahu called the video cruel propaganda. troops have been battling terrorist cells armed with
is continuing to go down a serious road, warning washington not to continue these official level exchanges. the senate foreign relations committee is here. senator menendez said china is very unhappy but says there is a reason why u.s. lawmakers continue to come here. taiwan security has a global impact given this island produces 90% of the high-end semi conductors. from our computers, smartphones, cars. for u.s. to abandon tie juan would be to reward the worst in humanity. nancy pelosi was actually supposed to be on a trip to asia. it was widely reported she would also be coming to taiwan. her trip has been postponed due to covid. it drew angry response from china last week. if she does make the trip later this year, we have to monitor very closely what china s
translator: nobody forced taiwan to take the path china laid out for us. this is because the path are neither a free and democratic way of life for taiwan nor sovereignty of 23 million people. reporter: and the kind of war of words going back and forth across the taiwan straits, we ve had a reaction today from beijing saying calling the taiwanese president kind of a provocateur, calling her a secessionist even though they have had no control over taiwan ever since nationalist fled to taiwan in 1949, but the chinese military flew three war planes into tie juan s air defense identification zone on sunday as taiwan was celebrating the national day and that came after record number of military flights into that adiz earlier