Viewers in the United States and around the world. It is 5 00 a. M. In washington and noon in tel aviv where Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken has just arrived and due to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu at this hour. Israel is pounding hamas targets with what it calls a large scale strike. Israel Defense Forces massed 300,000 troops on the border ahead of a potential invasion. The idf says at least 1200 people were killed in israel in the hamas terror attack. Palestinian Officials Say nearly the same number have been killed by israeli airstrikes in gaza. Hamas militants are holding as many as 150 hostages in gaza including an unknown number of americans. President biden says he is focused to getting them out. The press will shout what are you doing to get these folks home. If i told you, i wouldnt be able to get them home. Folks, there is a lot were doing. A lot were doing. I have not given up hope of bringing these folks home. But the idea that im going to stand here before you and tell you what im doing is bizarre. Blinken brought a Top State Department hostage envoy with him to israel. But hamas says it is not ready to talk about a Hostage Exchange while israel is still pounding gaza from the air. Rafael romo is live for us in tel aviv. Good morning, good afternoon to you. What is blinkens mission this morning . Reporter good morning, good afternoon from tel aviv. Before tdeparting for israel, h said discussions are ongoing and he said that he is talking to partners in the region, countries like egypt, but he acknowledged that it is a rather complicated mission. Israel is stepping up its offend is receive in gaza. Israeli jets have continued to pound the densely populated enclave in response to hamas brutal terror attacks. There are multiple developments to tell you about this morning on the sixth day of fighting. Israel is conducting a large scale strike on hamas targets in gaza, that is what the Israeli Military said earlier today. Death toll continues to climb on both sides. Israeli Officials Say 1200 have died as a result of the hamas attacks and while the Palestinian Ministry of health increased the figure in gaza to more than 1200 earlier today. U. N. Said a few hours ago that more than 330,000 people have been displaced there since israel began its bombardment. Another 27 people have died on the west bank. And in another sign that israel is united in its effort to Annihilate Hamas militants, the countrys leadership has formed an Emergency Government and war management cabinet. Benjamin netanyahu and National Unity party leader jointly made the announcement wednesday. But again what we see on the ground is still a lot of fighting going on, even here in tel aviv, weve heard multiple blasts over the last several occasions. And it was Just Announced a few hours ago the plo says that the Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken will meet on friday with palestinian president mahmoud abbas. And of course the Palestinian Authority runs the west bank but theyt hold power in gaza. What will that meeting be about . Reporter based on what Secretary Blinken said before departing, he is trying to approach anybody he can really to try to solve the crisis. He also mentioned that yi gipt, another country in the region that he has been holding talks with and also we know the country of qatar is involved in negotiating to try to find a solution to liberate as many as 150 hostages still being held by hamas. So different approaches that the secretary is trying to go through to try to bring a solution to this very, very complicated problem here in israel. Rafael romo, thank you for being with us. Coming up here, a Hostage Crisis in a warzone with so many unknowns making a difficult Rescue Mission all the more challenging. Plus israels bin laden. Well look at the Mysterious Hamas commander behind the attacks. To launch this attack an planned to that these people hostages, reason dictates that they planned in advance locations to hide these hostages and keep them safe from Israeli Intelligence and efforts to get them out. So woulone could guess that thee scattered in various locations. And a Daunting Mission of rescue of up to 150 hostages. The u. S. Has owned fbi and Pentagon Personnel Into help. Casting a wide net and also keeping the options wide open as we get more information. But we dont have enough began rarity to be able to fine tune the options. Lets bring inbeganrarity to tune the options. Lets bring in general steve anderson. Thank you for being with us. There are just so many Unanswered Questions here. And obviously they raises spec ter of the hostages potentially being moved or scattered about. What do you think is the most likely location for these people . Do you think some have been moved to egypt, what is the starting point . Thank to you asking me to join you. Id say i dont think that they no doubt the hostages are being moved. But the problem is the lack of Human Intelligence on the ground in gaza. That is the reason the attack occurred in the first place, there was too much focus on signal and electronic intelligence and not enough Human Intelligence. What they need to do, they need to continue the blockade, crank down on the blockade and then wait for Human Intelligence to emerge. I mean, things will start happening when these people cant get their medicines and cant get food and water. You will see Human Intelligence allow us to find out where these hostages are and give us the best chance to locate them, find them and bring them home. So for our viewers, general, you may not be able to see this, but were watching a massive gray cloud of smoke rising over gaza city right now. These are live pictures that you are looking at. I guess my question is, weve talked about the State Department. Antony blinken is on the ground in israel. And they say they brought a Hostage Official with him and there are fbi personnel involved. You can talk about what that means, like who is the Hostage Official with the State Department and the fbi, and what will they be doing on the ground . They will be talking to the people and trying to negotiate as best they can to get the release of these hostages. Maybe they can relieve some of the pressure being applied by the blockade and use this as a bargaining chip. But it is very difficult to negotiate in this kind of situation. I think that they should negotiate from a position of power and the way to do that is to crank down on the blockade, put the pressure on internally within hamas, have the people complaining that hey, what is going on here, i cant get my food and water, my children cant get their medicines. That will increase pressure internally and it will make Negotiation Opportunities much more fruitful. What can you tell us about what kind of assume the u. S. Military could provide for any eventual enkurgs operation . Obviously american boots on the ground is a sensitive idea. But the u. S. Military and idf work very closely together. How do you see that playing out . Fraiirst of all, we have the carriers headed that way. And that is sending the message that were here to support them and rest of the world stay out of the support. So we can provide intelligence and logistical assumption. And as the president said, well help replenish their iron dome missiles. And i think that we can also help them out with air defense. They have the iron dome, but we have systems in afghanistan that are called Counter Rocket Artillery and mortar that are incredibly effective. They are no longer used in afghanistan. I submit that we need to put those on the ground in israel immediately. Because it is very important that the United States step up and support israel every single way we can. General, thank you very much for being with us this morning. Thank you. And coming up here, who is the guest . A shadowy figure credited with masterminding the attacks in israel. The power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. And thats a good thing . Great in my book who are you . No power . No problem. Introducing stormready wifi. Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. Home of the xfinity 10g network. If the hamas Surprise Attack is israels 9 11, then a mysterious man known as the guest is their bin laden. Sam kiley has more on israels most wanted terrorist. Reporter a brazen political move. Hamas demands that the u. S. Negotiate the release of american hostages on russian tv. Translator there are also prisoners in the u. S. We want them of course. There are hamas members sentenced to life. We demand mthe u. S. Free our sons. They conduct prisoner swaps, recently with iran. Why wouldnt they with us . Reporter confirmation of part of the intent behind the hamas assaults. They were enabled by failure of Israeli Intelligence. Plotted by a shadowy officer they call al deif, the guest. Only two photographs exist of Mohammed DiabIbrahim Al Masri who is nearly 60. He is known as al deif because he is a guest in a different location every night. He is the mastermind or monster behind the murder of more than 1,000 in israel. And the kidnapping of about 150 hostages. From the beginning of his life, he was very much insisted in the fighting. Reporter he was believed to be behind a Wave Atrocities in israel in 1990s. And in 2014, he is believed to have lost an arm and leg in an israeli airstrike aimed at him that killed his wife and daughter. For the last two years, hamas has pretended to focus on welfare, not warfare. All the while under the table has mass was preparing this big attack. Reporter and israel invested in High Technology iron wall around gaza and focused forces on the west bank. And deif encouraged israeli complacency. And last weekend it hit hard attacking Communication Towers and Automated Machine guns with drones, overrunning command and control centers. Killing Senior Officers among them three colonels. And unleashing terror on thousands of civilians. Israel Defense Forces found hamas antitank mines and other heavy weapons, a sign they may have planned for a longer stay. The Shock Infantry Attack is either deliberately brutal from the start or degenerated into a massacre as Israeli Defenses collapsed. It shifted attention and power to hamas. He has become like a god to some of the palestinians because of what he has done. Reporter many palestinians are dismayed by the massacre and the bloodshed that has followed. But with the lives of hostages in his hands, the guest now has an unwelcome place in americas mind. Sam kiley, cnn. Wow. Max foster is live in london with more. Max, just absolutely fascinating from our colleague samg kylie. And there is also this, we have a hamas official who is saying that the group prepared for this attack for two years. He says that weve been preparing for this for two years. We manufactured a lot. We have local factories for everything. None of our factions and even our allies did not know about the skzero hour of the attack i order to to preserve the secrecy of the battle. It is starting to look like the israelis were just looking in the wrong direction here. I mean, we talked about it before, this is the picture that were gradually seeing being built, that hamas were preparing and they have spoken to it themselves as well that israel was distracted by events in the west bank and also within their own legal system and the domestic battle. And so this big operation was being built over two year, extraordinary to think that the israelis didnt pick up on this intelligence or indeed the americans. But also i thought what was interesting about that quote, that none of our allies knew about the zero hour. So it does shed light on this idea that iran didnt know this was happening. Although in the same interview this member of hamas, and this is in leb bananon by the way, be seems to know what he is talking about, saying that they had the permission of the russians. But in terms of the zero hour, that they werent told when that would be, the iranians effectively, but we were also told that they were supplying a lot of these weapons along with hezbollah and also with the permission of russia. And so clearly iran knew something might be up, they just didnt know when. So that plains a bit of the language weve had recently. And usually the phrase zero hour. Plains a bit of the language weve had recently. And usually the phrase zero hour. So i guess it gives them a little plausible deniability around the exact moment. But if it is a two year attack, they cant do that on their own. I was reading about i was a little astonished to learn that they are basically saying we have all these factories in gaza, were making the bullets, et cetera, that is really more capability than i realized that they had in gaza. But lets talk about the russians for a second because if this does kind of if this thread plays out, Vladimir Putin currently taking his First International trip since the warrant was put out for his arrest for war crimes, if he is found to be, you know, having tacitly approved this, what does that do to relationships between russia and israel and russia and the west . Putin has been pretty careful to try to presearch Security Relationships with israel. And we talked about it a bit on cnn but not a big way. But there was this call with the saudi crown prince. Saudi arabia is becoming a conduit. The u. S. Has strong relations with saudi arabia. So does iran. What would be very interesting is finding out what happened in that conversation because russia folds into all of that basically. Russia has this relationship with iran. So it is what saudi arabia can do in terms of stabilizing the situation in the middle east. Continuing that relation with iran, but also continuing the relationship with the u. S. So i think [ Inaudible Question ] is central i think that central is in this conversation. And max, fascinating as always. Thank you very much. And President Biden has dispatched Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken to tel aviv. Who he is meeting and what he is doing there, up next. Good morning. Thank you for being up early with us. Im kasie hunt. It is 5 30 a. M. Here in the nagss capital, 12 30 p. M. In gaza stipulate where huge plumes of smoke were spotted. Israel has been pounding hamas targets with what its military calls a large scale strike. Secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in tel aviv a short time ago for a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. We expect to hear from blinken in the next hour. Joining us now is avi mayer of the jerusalem post. I want to set the scene for our viewers because behind you, honestly, i didnt quite realize we were going to see so much of what is unfolding. But you are at a funeral for one of the soldiers who was killed in this hamas attack. Tell us about where you are, why and who is the man that they are burying today. Sure. Im here at the Military Cemetery in jerusalem to pay respect to a 23yearold soldier originally from france who was in the line of fire, he was actually at the frontlines at one of the kibbutz most affected by the massacre. As i understand if, he manage todd maintain fire for about eight hours saving untold number of lives before he was killed in battle. And so he is actually the cousin of a friend of mine. I came to pay my respects. I dont know if you can see, but behind me there are three other fresh graves of other young People Killed on saturday. This is a country in shock and mourning. 1 103,000 people skonconfirmed. Funerals are taking place every day. And they had electronic signs to direct people because there were so many funerals happening just in this one cemetery. And that is just a stunning reality. And it might be hard for some people to realize, you know, israel is a small geographically very compact. It is about the size of new jersey in population. And the reality is so many families you said that you are here because it is a friend of your cousin. Do you know anyone who hasnt been touched by this tragedy, who doesnt know someone killed or taken . There is no one in israel who hasnt been affected by this in some way. Not a single home who doesnt have a friend, a Family Member, a colleague, neighbor who has either bee