They should not occupy gaza. I think it would be a big mistake. We will destroy hamas. They opened this war. We will win it. The work to rescue hostages including americans is becoming more complicated. The president had no higher priority than getting americans back safe. Those are innocent civilians. They have rights. This is the closest thing to the holocaust weve seen. I dont have another land. Were on the edge of the abyss here. The slogan never again, it wasnt a suggestion. It is something we intend to act on. Good morning, everyone. Right now Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken is also in israel meeting again with Benjamin Netanyahu. It is a dire humanitarian crisis escalating in gaza and Israeli Ground offensive appears to be imminent. Blinken said this morning the u. S. Is actively working to ensure humanitarian assistance like water, food and medicine can get into gaza. He also said yesterday a Safe Passage Way Into Egypt via The Rafah Crossing would be open as half a Million People have fled Northern Gaza to southern gaza. But overnight the negotiations appear to have stalled. The Israeli Prime Ministers Office just saying at the moment there is note a ceasefire nor humanitarian assistance in the gaza strip in the return for exit of foreigners. And this morning israel says now 199 people are being held hostage, up from about 155 just yesterday. Were covering in from across the world. Lets begin with erin burnett live in tel aviv. Last hour you heard explosions, this has been such a dynamic situation every single day, what is happening on the ground right now . Reporter we did hear explosions about an hour ago. Weve heard them through the night and as i said, israeli helicopters and air force, so youve heard all of that. This is the tempo that weve been experiencing. I will say sort of that the heavy landing of explosions in gaza that have become that rumbling back ground that you sort of feel in your body, we have not heard so much of that this morning. But we do know the Israeli Air Force struck about 200 targets yesterday. And that crucial rafah crossing between gaza and egypt that remains closed, the egyptian Foreign Minister saying there is no progress in efforts to open up that border which is so crucial for anybody getting out. But most importantly for humanitarian aid getting in, which would be at the very least what is so desperately needed there. But that is the very late thaes were hearing on the ground here as of course you are in this moment of pause and waiting. Again and incredibly quiet and anxious country waiting for the go as right now you mentioned the Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken and Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu here have officially begun their meetings where i am in tel aviv. And we heard over the weekend israel warning about, talking about the next phase of the war. You were with us all last week really on the border there with gaza. And you saw troops massing and that has increased since. What is your sense on the ground of how imminent this next phase on the ground likely will be . Well, of course weve observed that and our teams along that border continue to see the readiness. And it is ready. And as weve said, more than 300,000, 350,000, 360,000 troops amassed there. There is really only so long that you can wait. Nobody knew Secretary Blinken would be coming back here today. So the question is why was he returning. Was that perhaps to influence Prime Minister netanyahu on what he would do in gaza or when he would try to slow it down. Chuck schumer was here yesterday with a bipartisan delegation. And he said no, he didnt think that was the reason, that the reason was to keep negotiations on track which at least if you look at in terms of the Border Crossing itself, this very specific thing that there have been negotiations on, there has been no progress as of yet. No progress as of yet. And that of course is separate from what we now know to be 199 confirmed hostages being held in gaza. We dont know the state of their injuries, alive, dead, where they are held, anything. But that obviously is the other crucial piece of this. And all of this coming in the context of what is a Mass Evacuation of people from israel itself. Gaza obviously with 2 Million People and 1 million supposedly moving to the south of gaza. Nowhere to go from there, but hear in Israel Americans given egress to get out of a country that doesnt have many borders and an airport where International Airlines are very rarely serving it. Sara sidner is in haifa speaking to American Families boarding a ship. Essentially a military cruise ship, something that lot of americans dont see when you hear about the power of the u. S. Military, we dont often see what you are looking at. But that is an incredible ship and that is being used for evacuation. Reporter yeah, this is called ras sh rap rap saddy of seas. And it can carry about 2,000 plus passengers. What is interesting today, we know there are 20,000 americans that contacted the State Department, contacted their embassy who were here in israel. Not all wanted to leave, but they were trying to get information is for whether they could leave or any information from the State Department to make sure that they can stay safe whether in this country in order to get out. Very hard to get out. Very few flights are going. So this is one of the ways that the State Department decided to try and get americans out of israel who wanted to leave. What we found interesting today is the numbers look very small compared to the number of people that can get on this ship. And by the way, this is not free for americans. Americans will have to pay the government back. They will get a bill of some sort we are told by the passengers that that is what they were told. But for now they are able to get on this boat. What were mostly seeing is families with children and often families with several children who gist feel that this is the best thing for their families and especially for the kids who have been quite frightened by this war. Listen to one familys journey as thehe way, that will take te hours to get t out with the war effort in every way that i can for the last week. Ive been driving soldiers to the front, ive been, you know, volunteering bringing medical equipment to the front in my small car. And im not leaving so much as getting out of the way. I dont want to have another family to need rescued should something go wrong. But well be back as soon as the School Year Starts and well be here to help out and rebuild. So a lot of families as you heard are a bit conflicted about whether they stay or whether they go. That is happening between family members. We talked to another family whose 14yearold daughter said i dont agree with my parent, we sha st should stay here and help out. So an conundrum whether to stay or to go. A lot are u. S. Citizens but they live here in israel and those families seem to have been the most conflict about what for. But for safety and especially for the children, they are really looking at that as the reason that they need to leave israel for now. And when you think about 100,000 dual israeliamerican citizens, many truly live here. I was talking to a family, they were going to be getting on one of the flights to the United States where they have family but extremely conflicted. But as you point out, Young Children and americans who are able to get to athens and from there u. S. Commercial carriers are picking up a lot of capacity to get those americans home. Where you are, what is the feeling i mean, it is such a small country. The distances between where you are, any borders, it is all incredibly small relative to the american sense of consciousness. But when you Start Talking about where you are standing, you have lebanon to the south, gaza in the south, what is the anxiety and sense of how imminent action is where you are . Youve got syria and lebanon to the north in the Golan Heights and of course gaza to the south. And look, this is a place in a gets sirens. And sirens are not because of what is coming over from gaza, they will start going off because the rockets that may be coming over from lebanon. Hezbollah is in lebanon as an enemy of israel in every sense of the word. And also funded by iran and they have a lot of munitions. We have seen some fighting according to the Israeli Military there. We are a little beyond the border, but certainly haifa is a target. And look, israel is a target. They can shoot missiles from lebanon and hit tel aviv. When that happened actually about 14 or 15 years ago when at the discovered that they had that kind of range coming from lebanon, there are hospitals that built bunkers to deal with that because they realize that tel aviv, which was generally a place that didnt see much rocket fire, they realized just how dangerous it might be, how vulnerable they may be even in tel aviv from all the way to the north of the country. This is really a remarkable moment in the history of israel. You know, there is a long, long battle, conflict, going on between the palestinianss and israelis. And this is probably the biggest one that we have seen so far in our lifetimes, to watch this play out brings a lot of fear, it brings a lot of anxiety. Obviously in israel but very much so in gaza where people are really trapped. And i think the juxtaposition between what is happening in gaza where people cant get out or almost impossible to get out, very difficult to get out, and what is happening here, i mean, look, were in the haifa port. People can come here as long as they signed up, get on a boat and get out of here, it is just a very different feeling. Erin. Yeah, it absolutely is. And interesting phil and poppy, palpable sense of fear. When we have all reported from ukraine, you get a siren, those missiles are coming from very far away so you have time, there is less anxiety. When a siren goes off there is also the possibility that that missile or plane could be dropping that in a very wide swathe of space. But that is not the case here. Here it is because they know it is a very tiny space where that rocket could land. So the other night, sirens went off and former israeli Prime Minister was with me and his Security Detail had found a place where he would go and sort of run gown two flights of stairs because when you get the siren, it means that the risk is real. People here take it seriously. They do run for cover. There is not the sense of it happens so often and it is not a real risk so beal just continue with our daily lives. That does not happen here and that is a very different feeling than we experienced in ukraine. And it is because of the proximity of the missiles and also because of the specificity of the iron domes ability to say what space is actually at risk from being hit by that incoming rocket. Such a good point. I want to turn now to cnn military analyst mark hertling. So that point, the density and proximity as it appears israel is about to launch one of the more Significant Urban Warfare campaigns weve seen in a long time, intelligence has to be critical. How good is the idfs intelligence . They are gaining. Only thing that you can say. They lost attention and focus that is obvious on gaza the last couple years. They have seen it as a political movement. They havent paid as much attention to it. So whenever you take the eye off the ball even slightly, you lose some intelligence factor. When you have things like hostages and the potential to strike targets or even Ground Invasion or ground incursion, you have to have intelligence to drive your operation, to tell you where to go, what to target, what to see. And that is the problem that they have right now. They are trying to gain more intelligence back from what they missed the last couple months. Really Significant Development overnight for people just joining us, israel now says 199 hostages. That is way up. Big concern is the Tunnel Operation and where those hostages may be held. Can you compare the sophistication and the breadth of hamas tunnels decade ago . This is a simplistic diagram to show the kind of exit routes they have from buildings to Underground Tunnel locations. This shows two highrise apartments, one smaller going down a group of stairs. This doesnt really paint the picture. These stairs, these shafts, go down probably hundreds of feet and they are all over gaza. Mostly in the populated area. Inside the tunnels which this shows one tunnel with a bunch of guys coming through it with rifles, that is not an indicator of the complexity of these tunnels. There are hundreds of miles of tunnels underneath gaza. They are mainly in the major Populated Areas in the north, center and south. And so what you are seeing here is the ability for hamas to move around, to establish strong point defenses, and to hide hostages. Now we know there are 199. They can put them through that entire 25 by 2 mile area that is gaza itself. The other thing that is important is the u. S. Military has trained on Cave Complexes which are similar to tunnels. When you go this as an assaulting force into a tunnel, you are at a huge itdisadvantag because offenders know where they want to be and can fire on you. Weve had trainings where five or six can hold off hundreds inside of a tunnel or cave complex. And we have a video of what they look like in terms of entrances. And i think one of the big question, there have been update, they never stop necessarily building. So gathering the most recent intelligence is so critical here. If you are a Military Officer planning the logistics, what are you seeing here . Im saying first of all, oh, crap, this is hard. Second thing im seeing is you cant put many soldiers in here to attack. And when you do, they are stuck in there. Only one way in and one way out. Once you get itn there, you are curving around, there are different routes. And you cant resupply them. So you have to be carrying your allege munition and everything on your back. And these things are tight. Imagine yourself going through this with a pack on, with a lot of stuff. But then there is just the requirement for light, for night vision devices, for the ability to know where the enemy is. And again, when you are tar getting or when you are gaining intelligence above ground, you can have different intelligence drones or overhead platforms saying here is where the enemy is. You cant do that underground. It is very difficult to do. So it all just lends more complexity to the battlefield. And it is not even this time about striking them and destroying them and killing terrorists. It is about assuming that there are hostages held in there. And not only do you have hostages, but the fact that hamas can move them around because these are so complex. Thank you, general. Well hear from Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken shortly as the Biden Administration works to prevent a wired international crisis. Well bring you those remarks live. Florida and well also be speaking with a survivor of the hamas attack from the nova Music Festival who spoke to Secretary Blinken about it. President biden sounding off on the war between israel and hamas in a sweeping interview with 60 minutes. He touched on bringing the american Hostages Home and whether u. S. Troops could be sent into combat. Also talk about the humanitarian corridor in gaza and his message to hezbollah. Well to everything in our power to find those who are still alive and set them free. Everything in our power. And im not going to go into detail of that, but were working like hell on it. Can you foresee u. S. Troops in combat in this new middle east war . I dont think that is necessary. Israel has one of the finest fighting forces in the country. I guarantee well provide them everything they need. You would like to see a humanitarian corridor that allows some of the 2 million Gaza Stns Out of the area . Yes. You would like to see humanitarian supplies brought into gaza. Yes. So you do not agree with the israeli total siege of the gaza strip . Im confident that israel will act under the rules of war. Would you support Israeli Occupation of gaza at this point . I think that it would be a big mistake. Do you believe hamas must be eliminated entirely . Yes, i do. But there needs to be a palestinian authority, there needs to be a path to a palestinian state. I wonder what is your message to hezbollah and its backer iran. Dont. Dont, dont, dont. Dont come across the border, dont escalate the war. Thats right. Christian amanpour is live in london with more. And obviously they try to do with words everything they can to avoid a larger war. But nonetheless biden saying that while hamas must be eliminated, Reoccupying Gaza would be a mistake. How do you read Between The Lines here of what he is saying but most important what israel and its enemies are heari