Announcer this is cnn Breaking News. Welcome to the lead, im jake tapper. The war in The Middle East at this hour appears to be expanding as it steps up the gaza offensive. Israel has now formed an Emergency Wartime government in response to the hamas terror attacks that have killed at least 1200 people. 22 or more americans. The Israeli Government is accusing the Iranian Regime of giving the green light to hamas which is funded to carry out the attacks over the weekend. A statement that differs from sources familiar with u. S. Intelligence. If you thought this seriousness of this all, the deadliest day for the jewish people since the holocaust, a war that will cost countless innocent israeli and palestinian lives, risks of a regional conflict. If you thought this would motivate House Republicans to get their act together to elect a speaker, so the u. S. Legislative branch could function, well, you would be wrong. Behind closed doors today, the majority of House Republicans chose congressman Steve Scalise of louisiana to be their nominee to be the next speaker of the house. But 99 House Republicans did not choose him. And instead of coming together behind the Majority Choice of the majority party, the minority is once again rebelling. And the full house vote on the next speaker, which could have been happening right this minute is not happening and it is scheduled for well, who knows when. Lets start on capitol hill with cnns melanie zanona. When will this vote for speaker take place . When is it scheduled to take place and does scalise have enough republican support to win the speakership or will he by that time . Reporter well, jake, at this moment there is no floor vote scheduled for today in the house. It seems very unlikely that is going to happen because of your second question. Which is Steve Scalise does not have enough votes to secure the speakership On The House Floor. Remember, he only won the Party Nomination by a very slim margin, the vote was 11399 and he needs 217 On The House Floor. So he does have some work to do here and he did recognize that after winning the Party Nomination. Lets take a listen. First i want to thank my House Republicans colleagues for designating me as the speaker. Obviously we still have work to do. Were going to have to go upstairs On The House Floor and resolve this and then get the house opened again. Reporter now one thing that might help scalise is that jim jordan, the rival, has offered to give the nominating speech for Steve ScaliseOn The House Floor and encouraging his supporters to get behind Steve Scalise. But according to our tally, there are at least eight members who say theyre going to vote for someone else other than scalise and an additional eight members who are undecided or noncommittal. So Steve Scalise will have to rally congress but at this point he does not have the votes and while Government Funding Hang in the balance. And what are we hearing from matt gaetz who started this fight by filing the motion to remove former speaker Kevin Mccarthy. Reporter so interestingly matt gaetz is not one the members who is vowing to withhold support for Steve Scalise. Hes cheering on the idea of a Steve Scalise speakership. Lets take a listen. Im excited for him. Cant wait to go vote for speaker scalise. Long live speaker scalise. So matt gaetz seems content to have just taken down Kevin Mccarthy. Hes not seeming like hell make any demands or have any concessions but that is not the case for others. Ken buck, who did vote to take down Kevin Mccarthy wants to see several commitms from Steve Scalise what he will do an owe the funding and what he believed for the 2020 election and neither of them would answer. And The Big Picture is that House Republican conference once again struggling to coalesce around a single candidate, unable to elect a speaker and the house is spatialized until they do, jake. Thank you so much. Lets turn now to our big Breaking News story. Right now the United States government is in talks to establish a humanitarian corridor, away for the innocent u. S. Citizens and palestinians who are in gaza to leave as Israeli Forces carry out hundreds of air strikes there. Pommeling the region. Israel is mobilizing forces along the border with gaza. A number estimated to be around 300,000 troops. Remember israel has conscription. Cnn teams have seen tanks an other Military Equipment rolling toward the border and in a few minutes President Biden is expected to speak at a event with jewish leader, they released this photo of his call this morning with Benjamin Netanyahu after which he affirmed his support for israel. This moment, we have to be crystal clear. There is no justification for terrorism. No excuse and the type of terrorism exhibited here is beyond the pail. As i said yesterday, my commitment to Israel Security and the safety of the jewish people is unshakeable. The United States has israels back. Cnns Clarissa Ward is in ashdod north of the gaza border and you walked through some of the devastation in be er i. What did you see . It was a seen that is hard to get your head around honestly, the scale of the destruction, it took the Israeli Military days of pitched battles to completely clear and gain control of what was once a sort of very tranquil oasis. A community of people that have lived together for a long time. Roughly a thousand or so. So far already they have found the bodies of more than 120 people from that community. There are many others, though, jake, that are missing and it is unclear where they taken hostage and are they in gaza or alive or somewhere else possibly. And it was the first time that journalists have been allowed in and there was a huge group of us that were brought in at the very end of the day. It is difficult in these situations always, jake, you realize youre just starting to get a sense of the scale of the atrocities and it is difficult as well, of course, to put together a coherent picture of exactly what happened. What is clear is that there was an enormous amount of blood shed. You could see blood all over the place. You could see the extent of the fire power that was required to try to take it back. You could see where fires were started by the militants as they basically went through doortodoor executing people, abducting them. We spoke to one resident who has lived there for 30 years, his 8yearold daughter, the first thought he had was his daughter that had gone to her friends house for a sleepover and never came back. He was lucky to be rescued but his 8yearold daughter is among those more than 120 dead. And so youre talking about kind of the kind of loss and the kind of destruction and the kind of hatred that honestly is is difficult to process and understand. There will obviously be a lot of questions to be asked about how this happened and what exactly happened and putting together a timeline and trying to really thoroughly understand the whole anatomy of this massacre. But make no mistake about it, jake, it was a massacre and a horrific one. Clarissa, you visited war zones around the world and blood shed and war is always horrible wherever it is. How does this scene of this particular massacre, these attacks on civilians, not accidental killing of civilians, not collateral damage, but targeted slaughter of children and grandparents and women, how does this compare to other scenes that you have experienced . Reporter i think it is always very difficult to compare. But i will say that there is something so shocking and horrifying about the intimacy of these killings. Right. It is not that one is morally better or worse. But these killings were done eye to eye. These fighters could see who they were killing. They could see that they were civilians. This wasnt a drone strike. Again, im not saying that a drone strike is morally superior in any way, shape or form, im just saying that the psychological impact of seeing that up close, killing or the aftermath of it, it is very shocking. And it is not unusual, sadly weve seen it in ukraine and we saw it bucha for example. But it is something that even after doing this job for nearly 20 years, jake, you never, ever get used to it. And obviously the terrorists of hamas are the ones responsible and they and they alone shoulder the blame. But i have seen video from israel of citizens either speaking to camera on israeli tv or confronting members of the israeli cabinet, yelling at them, holding them responsible for the inadequate military readiness, the delayed response. There is a palpable sense of anger and im wondering what youre feeling there in israel. Reporter there absolutely is, jake. And we put this to the Major General showing the journalists around. How did it take so long . How did this get to this stage . How did this happen . And he acknowledged that there needs to be a very in depth investigation into the series of catastrophic failures that ultimately resulted in the horrors that we are discovering more and more now every day. He also said that he feels, and i think a lot of israelis share this opinion, too, that right now the most pressing issue, he said, is how do i get these hostages outside of gaza. Yeah. Reporter right now the mest pressing issue is how do we go from being on the defense to being on the offense. And so i think that is the mindset certainly of the Israeli Military. Not wanting to necessarily shirk the responsibility, but saying that today is not yet the day for that discussion. Clarissa ward, thank you so much, appreciate it as always. Were learning some of the names an some of the stories of the at least 22 americans who were killed by hamas in this Terrorist Attack. Were standing by to hear from President Biden this hour. Hes convening a round table at the white house e with Jewish Community leaders. Well have much more ahead. Were going to squeeze in this quick break. Stay with us. Youre seeing images of some of the americans that we know that were murdered in that brutal hamas Terrorist Attack in israel over the weekend. Today we learned that that list is growing. At least 22 u. S. Citizens were killed by hamas. According to a State Department official. And an estimated 17 americans remain missing. Whereabouts unknown. Erica hill details now what were learning about those americans who were killed. Deborah was a child of light and life. She went the equivalent to the Berkeley School of music in boston. She went to the ramon school in tel aviv where she met her husband. She is a singer and a child of life and the kibbutz in which she choose to live. Israeli american deborah and her husband died protecting their 16yearold son. He were on the phone with deborah as she was killed. We were on the phone the entire day with our son, our grandson rotten as he lay first under her body and then found a place to escape under a blanket in a laundry. A musician and dj and Community Volunteer is being remembered as a brilliant academic byize siblings. They noted the emerging scholar who learned his ph. D at the University Of Washington was deeply committed to Community Service and engagement. He was killed while hiding in a closet with his neighbor. He absorbed all of the bullets into his body. And when i went out, i saw him. He was a wonderful person with a talented he was a funny person and he was someone that wanted to leave. His name is heim and life is the meaning of his name and he gave life to this planet, as he saved me an i was able to save two kids. One sergeant said her son always had a smile on his face. She tells him that he diverted their attention and died as he lived by putting others first, because of his bravery, 12 other soldiers are alive today. New jersey born also in the idf was covering a friends shift when the attack came. His aunt said he was always offering to help. And wanted to serve in the army like his father. The family is devastated. Ita was just 20 years old. Danielle was working at the nova Music Festival. She worked as a medic and served in the idf. She last spoke with her father friday night. Shes everything for me. Without her, there is nobody for life. On wednesday jacobs worse fears were confirmed when he was told his 34yearold daughter had been murdered. Every day we get new information. I do expect that the list of americans who are confirmed dead will rise today. Erica hill, cnn, new york. And our thanks to erica hill for that report. Our next guest attended the nova Music Festival on saturday where hamas kills 260 people. Lee sossy hit for several hours after the attack began. She was able to survive by hiding under dead bodies. And lee sossy joins us now. I cant imagine what you went through. I cant imagine any of it. But it is important that the world bear witness to what you went through. You could describe what happened . I will try to describe. Even to describe what ive been through is not even equivalent to the walking dead movie series. We went to the party, our cousin was a dj, it was performing there as a dj and so we decided to go as a family and to go support. And we went to the party and arrived there around 2 00, 3 00 a. M. And we danced until sunrise. And right when 6 30 a. M. Hit, hell broke loose. We had to run for our lives. We saw rockets shooting in the air and so we ran to the car and we went to the nearest bomb shelter that was down the street outside of the festival. As he got into the im sorry, as we got into the bomb shelter, there was about 35 to 40 people who entered. When we got rescued, seven hours later, only nine to ten survived. Everyone that came into that bomb shelter, i saw get murdered in front of my eyes. My eyes were murdered. My soul was shattered. Just to even talk about it, i cant even cry because it is like my tears are frozen from what i saw. I had to witness firsthand my uncle getting shot, not shot, excuse me, getting blown and exploded by a grenade that was throw on to his stomach. I had to witness a girl getting a grenade hit on her back and her back blew out and i saw her sitting there crying. Her face blowing up. And shes suffering for two hours. I saw so many things that i cant even explain. I saw guts. I had flesh all over my body. We had to bury ourselves under these dead corpse to protect ourselves from these grenades that were hitting and from the rifles and the rpg. You could hear the terrorists laughing from excitement, laughing from happiness that were dying. These people that were with us, we i just found out today that there was two girls that were pregnant in my bomb shelter. Two girls that were pregnant. One survived. Im so grateful. But what happened was like the holocaust 2. 0. I cant even describe to you. I never thought in my life that Something Like this would ever happen to me. After sitting there hiding under bodies for seven hours. We just prayed. All i had to do was pray. I was in shock. I couldnt even cry. I was in survival mode. That is when i knew that it is either now or never. Im not i thought my life was going to end. I thought i was going to die. So that is why i started taking videos. I started filming myself. And i started making videos to my mom, so that way if i die she could see what is going on on my iphone. I sent my icloud information to everybody. I want to apologize. Let me interrupt you for one sect and i want to give a graphic warning to any of our viewers who dont want to see the videos, but lets show these videos. Please show them. This is a video from outside the bomb shelter. Tell us what were seeing here . I dont see anything on my screen. Okay. Sos think a video this is the video that i sent. Yeah. The bomb shelter, that was right when we were rescued. That video was shot at 2 03 p. M. Exactly. 2 03 p. M. That girl over there, she was sitting with me. And here is the video from inside. And i told her not to go outside. Here is video from inside of the bomb shelter. Tell us what this is. We were dying. Half of the people on the right side of the the girl where the gunshots, all of those people died. Everyone that was on the opposite direction died. That girl with the curly hair, i dont know how she survived. She was right there where the where the grenades exploded. I was right there in front of her. We cried to death. From our hearts, not crying like actual crying, but we really we thought we were going to die. Lee, How Old Are You . Youre 25 . Im 25 years old. And im a u. S. Citizen. Im from los angeles, california. What do you what do you do . You know, i was im not working right now. Right now i decided that i cant work. I think you could take some time off. And im going to not do anything. I cant focus. I used to work with my uncle running a company but i cant do that. I cant do that right now. So about 3