Good evening. Thanks for watching cnns special coverage of israel at war. Im Anderson Cooper live in tel aviv at this hour. My colleague, john berman is in new york. We will have the perspective from the ground in israel and israel announces a war is coming. The Ground Operation as troops gather near the border with gaza. Israel power pounded the gaza strip from the air. A hamas commander who played a part in last saturdays attack was killed and the u. S. Officials are warning more than a Million People leaving would lead to disaster. Tonight, were learning more u. S. Military power is heading to the middle east. The second Carrier Strike group led by the uss Aircraft Carrier in sending a message to iran and its proxies. The state Department Said the number of u. S. Citizens killed is gone up and 59 americans are still unaccounted for. Anderson. We go to the strike group. We have the latest. These are two of the navys most powerful warships. Whats the plan . Anderson, this is broadly speaking a message of deterrence as the Biden Administration watches what the fighting at gaza could spread beyond those borders. Sending the strike group into the region, the uss ford deployed last week and the Uss Eisenhower send in the last two weeks is how seriously the Biden Administration is sending a message not only to iran but more importantly iranian proxies, specifically Lebanese Hezbollah on israels northern border. There have been skirmishes between israel on that northern border but hasnt escalated beyond that point at least but so far looks to be contained. Everyone knows how delicate and volatile that situation can become, and part of the reason of having not only the carriers themselves but what comes with them as a message to iran, hey, stay out of this one. Whats the latest on efforts to get americans out of gaza . This is an ongoing effort but a very very difficult one. The State Department put out a message in gaza essentially telling them move as close as you can to rafah, between gaza and egypt. Even the State Department didnt say the border will be open these hours. Only saying if the border opens it will not be open that long and will help to be as close as possible. You see the images of some waitingality the rafah border. You need hamas or israel to explicitly or passively agree to this in some way. Egypt so far hasnt opened the border because they want israel to send in humanitarian aid first and concerns about how many flow into sinai. Its unclear what circumstances that would happen and israel needs a passive understanding it wont carry out any strikes in that area as people are trying to get out of the gaza strip. Anderson. Thank you. Retired spider marks joins me now. What do you make, first of all, general marks, on the second strike group of the gerald ford . He stated it quite frankly. Its a show of force intended for iran, stay clear. We have significant firepower and capabilities when you dig inside what one of those Carrier Battle Groups have. Its subsurface, lots of Air Capability and linkage into air defense and strike capabilities coordinated with the israelis. In terms of this new phase as israel is calling it, beyond a Ground Incursion weve been talking about for days now, what else could that entail . Well, clearly what i think is going to happen is when the israelis make the decision lets assume theyre going into gaza, when that decision is made, you will see a simultaneous penetration from the north down to probably the wadi gaza, which kind of bisects gaza. And then from the east to the west a penetration as well to the mediterranean, so you will have Israeli Forces coming and joining each other as quickly as possible. When you penetrate you want to penetrate deeply, you want to penetrate quickly, you have to secure your flights, you know you will be shot at. When you link up with Friendly Forces you can secure that area and then you begin the removal of hamas targets from the south to the north. Thats kind of what i would say the primary objective. Clearly that leaves the southern part of gaza out of the fight at least initially is what i would assume. You want to hold in one area and conduct your Military Operations going north. If hamas allowed it, which they are not encouraging their citizens to move to the south for their safety, they want their civilians in gaza city to make it difficult obviously for Israeli Forces to fight. From a Military Standpoint let alone a humanitarian temperature, how much better would it be for Israeli Forces if the civilians were down in the south by the egyptian border . The fewer number of civilians interwoven with hamas fighters the better certainly for what the israelis are trying to achieve. Lets be frank. The israelis are going to do the Collateral Damage assessments and try to use precise targeting. They want to separate and do not want to target palestinians. They want to go after military targets. What hamas is doing is against International Law using Human Shields which theyre trying to do. Israel has lawyers to set the conditions for Engagement Criteria in every level of their units, not dissimilar from the u. S. Military. When i withent to war i had lawyers side by side who said heres go, no go criteria. You have to be careful before you pull the trigger. The israelis do the same thing. Ive been getting a lot of messages from people asking why wouldnt egypt open up the border to allow Palestinian Civilians to seek safety in the sinai, just from a security standpoint, egypt is already has already had Security Issues in the sinai. They would be concerned, i assume, of Hundreds Of Thousands of young palestinians moving into the sinai and for who knows how long, and the potential that that could create. Clearly, egypt has always, in the course of the last 30 years, egypt has really brokered the peace thats been necessary when israel and hamas and hezbollah have flared up. Since 1982, thats happened about a dozen times. You have some fighting an egypt steps in and establishes the conditions and everybody goes back to the situation ante. Im not certain why israel im sorry im not certain why egypt doesnt step up and say, look, we can record this migration of folks across from rafah. We can make sure we get a handle on them. We have identification. If nay truly want to be a peace maker and try to help our priority, not having a bunch of things break. Then that would be the motivation. I cannot figure out why they wouldnt want to try to do that. Of course it would be painful for them and, of course, they would accept some challenge and risk and also nay would provide tremendous peacemaking efforts in advance opposed to separation of warring parties. How long if the goal for Israeli Forces is the elimination of hamas as a fighting force, maybe the elimination of hamas total, how long an operation is this . Obviously, theres a lot of factors involved, International Pressure and the like which in the past we have seen builds very quickly for some sort of ceasefire. How long an operation would you see . I couldnt put a time frame on it, anderson, this is the question. Israel has indicated they want to change the dynamic, they want to altar the dynamic in the middle east which means we want to eliminate the existence of hamas. Thats an incredibly high bar. I dont know how you measure the success Going Forward and when youve met that objective. When do you say, were finished and done. I think hamas would get bloodied tremendously. Israel knows, the idf knows they will be bloodied as well Going Forward. But when they think they can stop because theyve met that objective, i dont know how you determine that. I think hamas would be tremendously bloodied but i dont think they would be eliminated entirely. General spider marks, thank you. We heard from President Biden speaking at the Human Rights Campaign in washington and addressed antisemitism. We are at the white house. What did the president say . Reporter the message was ending hate in all moments. He talked about the attacks and the humanitarian crisis in gaza. Take a listen. A week ago we saw hate manifested in another way in the worst massacre of jewish people since the holocaust. More than 1,000 innocents live lost and children and parents alike kidnapped and held hostage by hamas. Reporter he went on there to talk about the humanitarian crisis in gaza and innocent palestinians put in danger by hamas. He also in those remarks went on and in his calls today went on to send that message to other leaders. He had a call today with Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu. That was the fifth call since last saturday and also with the palestinian president abbas. In both of those calls, anderson, the humanitarian situation came up, but also not allowing this conflict to spread inform and to widen. That was really the message that the president sent. You were earlier talking about that second carrier going to the region, the United States there again showing that deterrence and show of force. All of these calls have the same line, which is the United States does not want to see this conflict widen any more or escalate. On the top of everyones minds in israel is unaccounted for people and missing people and people known to have been kidnapped or potentially held hostage. The president spoke with the family of american hostages yesterday. Do you know much about those conversations . Reporter a source described those calls as emotional. He did take the time to talk to families of 14 Americans Unaccounted For. That number has since gone up. We learned today, to 15, as well as a lawful permanent resident. The u. S. Has been working feverishly behind the scenes to try to wrap their arms around this situation and get more information about those Americans Unaccounted For. When they characterize how Many Americans are held hostage by hamas they say its a very small number. Officials have been pressing officials here for more details on those hostages. The reality they say theyre facing this is an active war zone, that hamas operates in subgroups and consist in subgroups and sometimes move the hostages to different locations and maybe not in the same locations. And not much is known about the condition. They are working around the clock on this issue and there is some information they cannot provide publicly. That is certainly a priority here, trying to understand more about those Americans Unaccounted For and those being held hostage by hamas. Priscilla alvarez, thank you so much. So many people here are waiting for answers about their loved ones. Coming up i will speak to an israeli woman who has not seen or heard from her sister since they launched the Terror Attack at the music nova festival on saturday, what shes hearing and efforts to rescue her ahead. There are many families in israel who are in agony, some pleading for the safe return of loved ones taken hostage by hamas and others desperate for information of loved ones missing unaccounted for. I want you to meet this woman. The last time she heard from her sister was at the Music Festival last saturday. How have you gotten through this week . It was very hard. At the beginning we started looking for her. Because im a doctor i was talking to every hospital in israel and to all my friends. When i saw thats not enough i went to the hospital. I went to ciarrocca, the main hospital, where the wounded came in. I just went from patient to patient and asked if they saw her. And if they know where she is. Thats one of the things, theres so Little Information its up to families in the last week to really go around and talk to as many people and look at awful videos looking for people. Yeah. I couldnt do that. My husband did it for me because i saw one video and people are literally looking at jihadist videos. It was so hard to watch, i couldnt, yeah. You talked to her when she was at the festival about an hour on the phone. The attacks started at 6 30 and i think you said you talked to her until 7 30 . 7 30. I actually, we woke up to an alarm, Missile Alarm and went to the safe room in our house. Then the first thing i thought about is to send her a message on the whats up, whats going on with you. Are you going home. She said she cannot go home because there are Terror Attacks on the road and they told her, they told everybody at the festival to stay in place. They told her, okay, but you have to check where youre going. You have to open a map on your phone and see where you are, where you can go if the terror comes towards the festival. We now know hamas attacked from the west and the north and the south, and your sister, you believe, was able to get into a vehicle and drive a little bit. Thats where the last you heard. Yeah. Thats the last we heard of her, and her phone was found near the road, so we believe that she probably went out of the car and the phone fell down. Since then, we dont know what happened. She actually wrote a message that we didnt get. She wasnt able to send. She was what did it say . She said shes heading home. There were some 3,000 people at that Music Festival. I assume you were still hoping somebody there knows something about what may have happened. We did at first, saturday morning, there was a list of people that came to other kubbitz, and didnt make the list and we assumed she may be hiding, maybe kidnapped because we already knew they kidnapped people or maybe worse. What do you want people to know whats tamara like . She was studying to be a lawyer . She started, her second year in law school. She actually was a very caring person, the family the Family Caregiver . Yeah, caregiver. She always thought about others. The day before the festival happened it was a holiday in israel, and my mother was my mother and two sisters was bored and she was angry about them because she said you left father alone and she went to my father and cooked him a meal. Then i was at home studying for my board exams. She came to my place and gave me a meal. Wow. She feeds everybody. She likes to cook and she likes to bake. Then she went to the festival. She was such a caring person. She had a dog that she loves so much and now she s looking for her all the time. Is there anything else you want people to know . I want people to know that the people that were murdered there and was civilians, was good civilians, were peaceful people, and it was a massacre, and they did such horrible things people cannot put in words. I want the world to know i think its one of the most horrible a tough word for that terrible Terror Attack i think that i saw. Did you ever imagine Something Like this could happen . No. No. I dont think a normal person can imagine the things they did to the people. They didnt just shoot, they beheaded people and they rape women, and they burned children and i dont think that the normal person can imagine Something Like that can happen. I hope you get word soon and please let us know, we will continue to stay in touch with you. I know there are many families waiting for word. I cant imagine the pain and agony of it. Thank you for talking. Thank you velshi. I wish you the best. An entire family of six is among the missing, the mom and dad, baby, a toddler, grandparents, we heard pleas today from their relatives as well. My cousin was abducted from her home with her two babies, 9 months old and 4 years old. Along with her husband and my aunt and uncle, both in their late 60s. Youve all seen her Photos Holding her two redhead babies. A 9 months old baby being held captive underground somewhere. I dont know if he got his food, his formula. He doesnt eat food yet. He needs his bottle. My cousin and i gave birth two months apart. I have a 7monthold at home. I put him to bed every Night Thinking about him. My aunt suffers from parkinsons disease. Shes 63. Everyday without her medication is torture. Shes being tortured. We dont know how long its going to take. We understand this can take a long time. Those are innocent civilians. Those are innocent civilians. They have rights. This is hamas, its a terror organization. You need to put the pressure on the right people, on all their organizations, on turkey, on egypt, please, they need to help, and the red cross enter. Peoples lives are so important to us. We need to bring them back home alive. They were kidnapped alive and they will be back alive. Ill do everything i can. We need your help. Talking about the half of her family, which is now missing. Hamas is holding an estimated 150 people hostage. We will take you back live to Northern Israel next as thousand of palestinians are trying to find a way to safety with few places to go. Their stories in gaza just ahead. S were coming to you live in tel aviv, israel with a new phase with ha