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announcer: this is cnn breaking news. hello and welcome, everyone. i m michael holmes, and we continue our breaking news coverage of israel at war. and there are growing signs this hour that an israeli military ground operation into gaza could get under way at any moment. after a week of air strikes and artillery aimed at hamas inside gaza and a hastily ordered evacuation of up to a million civilians from gaza city, israel declared on saturday that it is ready to open a new phase- in te war with a focus on, quote, significant ground operations. earlier israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu met soldiers on the front lines. you see him there offering words of support, telling them to be prepared. also on saturday iran warned far-reaching consequences if the israeli attacks don t stop. the iranian foreign minister met with a senior hamas official for the first time since the fighting began, and there is deep concern that iran and its proxies might try to escalate t ....
provide essential supplies to the palestinians. meanwhile, president biden spoke with benjamin netanyahu. their fifth phone call since last saturday. today netanyahu posted a video online of his visit with israeli troops at the front line. now to matthew chance who is in northern israel for us. matthew, our colleague erin burnett is also standing by in tel aviv. we ll get back to her when we can. what can you tell us about what is happening? obviously the concerns continue. that thing could escalate to where there is a northern front and there might be some continued escalation between the israelis and hezbollah. what s the latest on your end? well, it s very tense up here in northern israel. as the country prepares for that widely anticipated ground offensive in gaza, the real focus of concern, i suppose in the region is what will happen in northern israel. just across the border in lebanon, which is just a short distance from here, hezbollah, the iranian-backed mili ....
number of americans murdered risen to at least 25. many airlines canceling flights to israel and several countries including the uk mounting emergency flights to evacuate the own citizens and the u.s. is not one yet one of them. now we re hearing from syrian state media air strikes earlier and aleppo and damaged runways and service and using airports to smuggle weapons to hezbollah and eventually make their way into lebanon. dana: bob gates quarterback joining us in a moment. bill: first on the ground, trey yingst. if you want and feel comfortable, where are you and where are you going? reporter: i ll tell you more about that location later today. it is certainly sensitive as it lies in the area where there is activity going on. this entire part of southern israel is bracing for days and days of fighting to come. just to give you a sense of what it s like here this morning, we saw earlier as a rocket came off the gaza strip. one rocket was intercepted by israel s mi ....
breaking news situations unfolding. on capitol hill the house republican conference is meeting right now and we are told this meeting could last all day with the intense pressure on them to elect a speaker of the house after kevin mccarthy lost the speakership in a recent vote. and without that top member of the u.s. house of representatives in place, congress remains at a stand still and is unable to act on a brutal war that we ve been covering thousands of miles away. we re watching the latest developments from israel as they hit the embodiment of evil. hamas terrorists. that s where we ll start. i m harris faulkner and you are in the faulkner focus. five days of horror. israel families missing, tortured, killed. the closer they were to the border with palestinianian territory on gaza, the closer that they were to hamas serial killers killing them. loved ones taken hostage are now begging for help. secretary of state antony blinken is set to be in israel today. this ....
our coverage of the israel/hamas war continues now. it is 1:00 a.m. local time there. you can see in its fourth day what it looks like in this war. we also lead our coverage by telling you back here in america, president biden made his most thorough remarks on this war to date, releasing the news that the u.s. has confirmed hamas has taken americans hostage in those surprise terrorist attacks. the president did not say how many. he did confirm hamas killed 14 americans there in those attacks, and he went on to condemn what he calls pure, unadulterated evil. you know, there are moments in this life i mean this literally when the pure unadulterated evil is unleashed in this world. it s abhorrent. the brutality of hamas, the bloodthirstiness brings to mind the worst rampage of isis. this is terrorism. the president s comparison there to isis is deliberate. the president is telling americans that hamas is acting like one of the worst modern enemies the u.s. or moder ....