Good evening and welcome to the source. We start with Breaking News here tonight, as President Biden will be going to israel on wednesday, a critical trip that comes at a critical time. The major announcement was just made by the Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken following a nearly eighthour long meeting that he had with israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and his wartime cabinet he has recently formed. This trip is going to amount to a massive show of support for americas closest ally in the middle east. It is also going to be extremely high stakes both politically and securitywise. Secretary blinken previewed part of what will be on President Bidens agenda when he lands in the grieving nation. Hes coming here at a critical moment for israel, for the region, and for the world. The president will reaffirm the United States solidarity with israel and our ironclad commitment to its security. The president will hear from israel what it needs to defend its meme, as we continue to work with congress to meet those needs. Aides have told cnn that the president expressed a strong interest in making this trip, after he was invited over the weekend by Prime Minister netanyahu. For more on this Breaking News, i want to go to anderson cooper, who is live in tel aviv. Anderson, this is a massive development, one we knew the white house had been weighing. It will be seen as a sign of solidarity. It comes as President Biden has been warning other groups, other countries, not to take advantage of what is happening on the ground in israel right now. Yeah. I dont think you can overstate the sign of support this is for the people of israel. And thats the way its going to be interpreted here by many, many people. I was speaking to families of those who are being held hostage today and families who have lost loved ones today, and they feel very much that israel is isolated on the world stage. And Something Like this will certainly harden many people on the ground here and certainly sends a message to hezbollah, to iran, about u. S. Support. Obviously also the groups that are in the region as well and a Rapid Reaction force as well also bolster that message. Yeah, theres a lot of u. S. Fire power that is being sent there. I also want to bring in the former director of national intelligence, director james clapper. Director clapper, security is going to be a key part of this visit. Its the president s second visit to a war zone this year. We saw earlier Secretary Blinken had to go and shelter in a bunker because Air Raid Sirens were going off as he was trying to meet with the Prime Minister. How risky is a visit like this, in your eyes . Its clearly risky. Its not like going to a noncombat environment. So, there is that prospect. But, you know, the Secret Service is very professional about this, and they will figure out ways and means of minimizing personal risk to the president. And i do think that this is a powerful message, as anderson outlined. But i also think its an opportunity for the president to counsel israelis privately about temperance, as they consider a plan, an incursion into gaza. Well, director clapper, when it comes to an imminent do you think this visit could schang the timing of that . Could israel potentially delay a Ground Invasion of gaza, if they have one planned . It certainly could. The visit and as well as im still trying to sort my way through Secretary Of State blinkens announcement about safety zones or safety corridors. And i had trouble reconciling the creation of those and their operation with an invasion. Remembering what a compressed geographical area that is. So, if this it may be a good thing to delay an invasion for a while. He seemed to be talking about a plan to develop what could be a humanitarian area, a corridor, two things we have not seen established yet, anderson. Those are something we have heard from families stuck at the rafah crossing, unable to get out of gaza so far. Without a doubt. As you know the idf had told people in gaza to move to the south. Its believed several hundred thousand people have already heeded those warnings. The question is, could some sort of zone be structured there with tents, temporary shelters, food, water, access to medical care . I suppose that may be one prospect that they are looking at. That would be something that would be coming up through egypt if egypt was willing to open up that border. As you know, President Biden is also going to be meet being the president of egypt, el sisi, in jordan. So, that could be one option. If egypt is cooperative on that and if thats something that the u. S. Thinks it can put together. And anderson, as we were talking about the families of the hostages that youve been speaking with, tonight you spoke with the family of a young french israeli woman, mia shim. She is being held, we believe, in the gaza strip. She was in a video hamas releesd tonight. This is going to be something that is brought up while President Biden is there. What did you hear from her family tonight . For her family, her mother, brothers, this was the first proof of life they had had that mia is alive. They had not had any word. She was at the supernova music festival. She had gotten a call or text to her mom. I spoke to karen a short time ago about how her daughter looked to her. Listen. Shes been through pain. Shes in pain. And shes injured. She looks a bitter bit terrified, but shes alive and stable. Shes very, very strong. Thats why we all believe in our hearts that shes alive because we knew that she will never give up. I really knew it. The problem is that every time we opened the tv and i saw the numbers, it was very hard to stick to this belief. But shes a survivor. And they are hopeful today in a way that perhaps they havent been before. They at least know that she is alive. And of course im sure a visit by a u. S. President will only help bolster that hope. But director clapper, when you look at how difficult it is to get to these hostages, i mean, our reporting tonight is even obviously there are americans being held among those nearly 200 hostages that we believe hamas is holding in gaza. The u. S. Has limited intelligence on this hostage situation. How does that factor into President Bidens visit and what hes expected to potentially deliver by the end of it . Well, i dont know that the visit will have any impact. It would be wonderful if it did. But i dont think its going to have any impact on locating the hostages, which is the key piece of intelligence information you need. It sounds like an obvious point. But you cant rescue the hostages if you dont know where they are. And i suspect these hostages are underground and widely dispersed. And i also could expect theres precious little intelligence on their location. Obviously the intelligence community, both ours and israelis, will be pouring over this video for any clues, the slightest clues or suggestions as to location. I think in this regard, though, the president s visit is also a message to the families of the hostages. I think it also reinforces and underscores his commitment to freeing them. And he certainly said thats a big priority. Anderson cooper, director james clapper, thank you both for joining me tonight. Meanwhile, as hamas is releasing this first video of a hostage that it captured, which i should note, we are not sharing for obvious reasons. We are not playing that video. We just showed you mia shib. That is the young woman featured in that video. You heard from her family what that video meant to them. Families across the globe are desperate for any news about their loved ones who have been taken hostage. That includes the family of judith rannen. When they were taken by hamas. Their family tells us tonight this is a statement from them they say, we pray and hope that judith and natalie are well and healthy, kept captive together, and keep each other safe. We are people of peace. We seek the well being of all people and denounce violence of any kind to any human being. Im joined now together by judith and natalies rabbi. Thank you for being here. When you hear this Breaking News that President Biden is going to visit israel on wednesday, does it give you more hope that judith and natalie can potentially be brought home . Thank you, kaitlan. Its definitely reassuring that the United States is so supportive of israels right to defend itself and of the need to rescue all these hostages. And of course its reassuring that the president is making a special trip to israel. I want to share, if you give me a moment, a little bit about judith and natalie. We are a synagogue, a small synagogue in evanston, illinois. Judith is one of our con gre gats. She would come to our congregation every single chabad, sabbath, and hold our baby in her hands and parade around the house with this glee and joy of just being part of a Beautiful Community and part of our family. And we are devastated to be honest. Im holding right in my hand right here a prayer book that is pink because judith k. Wanted to bring a gift for my 7yearold daughter. Right before she left to israel, she dropped off this pink prayer book. And in it, she inscribed a little note that states that this is for your daughter, hannah, with love from both of us, judith and natalie. The fact that someone who lives next door to us and is a part of our community is a hostage in israel makes the devastation and the pain and the grief that all j jews around the world are feeling that much more real and brings it home in a way that is so much more a part of our life here, even though were on the other side of the world in United States. I know, rabbi, youve been talking to judith and natalies family. How are they holding up . What have you heard from them lately . You can imagine that this is beyond devastation for them. This is news that they have to process day by day. But more important than that, theyre doing everything that they can to try and bring their family members, their daughter, and daughters mother back home. And anything that they can do to get the message out, theyve requested that i help to get the message out, that the world knows that these are honest people, that these are people that are citizens of the United States, a mother and a daughter, a young woman, a young girl, who is innocent and just visiting family in israel. They went to a trip to israel for a trip to see friends and to see family and to spend the 85th birthday of natalies grandmother. This is a travesty. This is devastation. These are the pain is just unimaginable. And the family is certainly going through the hardest time of their life. Yeah. I mean, you cant even imagine what that feeling is like, especially, i mean, when were seeing videos like what were seeing released tonight by hamas. These obviously propaganda videos. We are obviously thinking of all of them and keeping all of their family in our thoughts. Please pass that on. Rabbi meir hecht. Kaitlan, if i may just share for another moment, i think it is of utmost importance that all of your viewers understand that this is a war between goodness and evil. The savage murder of young children, of babies, of burning people alive and taking hostages, innocent people to a foreign country, this is terrorism versus civilization. And when people understand what were dealing with, what were facing, i think the outrage needs to be something that every human being of moral compass should stand up and should have a forceful voice tell the world, i am here to support goodness. I am here to bring light to the world. And the foremost jewish leader of our times has made a public plea in times like this that we bring goodness and light to the world, that we ask everyone to pray. Please, open a prayer book and say a prayer that judith, natalie, and all of the hostages and all the people of israel and all those that are suffering should be safe. And i ask the jewish men put on the and jewish women, please light the chabot candles. These are the things that will bring light to the world against The Dark Skpns the evil that we are facing. And the more light that we bring, this will make a transformative difference for the world. Rabbi, thank you for that, and thank you for that message. Thank you, kaitlan. Coming up here on the source, there is more on the military response from the United States and from israel. One of the biggest obstacles for Israeli Forces in this maze of tunnels that lie beneath gaza, where Hamas Terrorists hide, plot, and move their tunnels around. What could t Tunnel Warfare potentially look like . Well tell you next. Tonight, we are learning that roughly 2,000 u. S. Troops r preparing to potentially deploy to israel. We are told they would provide medical and logistics support, but thats it. Also a Marine Rapid Force is heading to the coast. Already an Aircraft Carrier is in the Eastern Mediterranean sea with another aircraft on the way. Here to talk about this, mark hertling. Thank you for being here tonight. In addition to what we just laid out, were also learning tonight israel is striking what they say are hezbollah terrorist targets. What is your concerned about where this could be heading, big picture . It would rapidly expand, kaitlan. Thats what concerns me. Theres a lot of things going on. Israel is looking in multiple direction. They focused on gaza, but now theyre having to deal with terrorists inside of Southern Lebanon, which is a normal problem for them. That happens a lot. Theyve been fighting in Southern Lebanon for several decades actually. I mean, one of the big things that they do is just watch that area because they do have settlements there. The other thing is the west bank. Palestinians are, you know, rising up in that area, and they also have to look to syria. All of this is being well, lets just say iran is contributing to this. But the u. S. Forces going into the area, two carrier battle groups, strike groups, thats a lot of ships. Its more than just what appears op the surface of the Aircraft Carrier and destroyers and cruisers. Theres a lot more than that. The Amphibious Readiness group coming from the marine corp. Is something thats normally with the strike group. They provide a whole lot of omission capabilities. Everything from amphibious landings to helping this particular group, this special operations, capable. That all the way to noncombatant evacuation operations. We see all of that getting ready. What seems the most imminent, and thats still a question of when, is this potential Ground Invasion into gaza. Last time israel went into gaza. We saw how that went. In that, thats when they learned about the vast array of tunnels that hamas operates out of that is underneath gaza. Obviously this idea is that theyve only grown more sophisticated. You can see them here since then. How do they prepare if that . How does that factor into their plan of attack . Lets go back to 2014. In that year at operation i cant remember the name of the operation. Israel mobilized 70,000 soldiers. They have now mobilized over 300,000. During a 50day period of time in that operation, they took israel took 66 soldiers casualties, 6 civilians casualties. The palestinians took about 2,100 casualties during that period. Were way beyond that period already and they havent even started the ground operation. We see the Israeli Air Force doing significant damage in northern gaza. And thats only going to get worse, as the Ground Forces going in. As you said, the Tunnel Complexes have expanded significantly, i mean, by a lot. Theyve got more rockets. They have all kinds of antitank guided missiles. Theres indicators they have shoulder launched antiair missiles. Youre seeing hamas just garner a great many more capabilities than they had a decade ago. And theyve been practicing. Whereas israel took their eye off the ball inside of gaza. And youve seen we talked about this about the difficulty of training and other places in the middle east of how to go into caves where terrorists or terrorist groups are hiding. Are they prepared to go into this . Do they have enough intelligence and understanding of what this complex Tunnel System Underneath Gaza is going to look like . Im not going to say they dont. But knowing how difficult it is to go into tunnel and shaft complexes, i would say this is going to be really tough. Really tough. Because it takes just a couple of people to defend in a complex like this against literally hundreds. We saw that in ukraine at mariupol. This is going to be a tough operation. And they need intelligence, which right now they dont have. We saw that from the origin of the attack. Lieutenant general mark hertling, thank you as always for sharing your expertise. Pleasure. Thank you kaitlan. Absolutely. Up next tonight some 2,000 u. S. Forces have been put on notice by the pentagon to prepare to deploy potentially to israel, the rapid Marine Response force already being ordered to the region. The chaithe chair of the Foreigs Committee will weigh in with his thoughts right after this quick break. Youre probably not easily persuaded to switch mobile providers for your business. But what if we told you its possible