>> coming up on cnn, the four-time indicted twice impeached one term president donald trump takes the stand as a defendant in the new york civil trial accusing him, his son's, and other trump organization executives of business fraud. and it's now been one month since the horrific hospitality on israel as war rages on. even official says the death toll in gaza from israeli airstrikes defies humanity. >> live from cnn center this is cnn newsroom with john vause. >> wherever you are around the world, thank you for joining us this hour. we begin with a historic day in a new york courtroom. for the first time in more than a century, a former u.s. president has taken the stand as a defendant and donald trump stayed true to form. during four hours of testimony insulting the court, insulting the judge, and insulting the prosecution. while repeating his favorite and in collect claim from the campaign trail calling is criminal charges part of a criminal witch hunt and election interference. on the stand monday also boasted about his wealth. the trial in new york is a civil case, which means that trump does not face jail time, unlike his for criminal indictments. but this new york case strikes at the very heart of trump's business empire and could end on a ban in conducting business in new york state ever again. in a pre-trial ruling, trump was found liable for trail -- in order to receive more favorable loans. the judge, who has been visibly annoyed with a trump's combative performance, ultimately decide the outcome of the case. trump's legal team has threatened to file a motion for a mistrial. cnn's chief legal defense correspondent paula reid has a closer look at what happened in court and what might come next. >> i think it went very. well >> former president donald trump leaving court after testifying in an attempt to defend his real estate business. >> it's a scam, and this is the case that should have never been. brought >> during nearly four hours on the stand, trump continuously clashed with trump arthur engoron. i am sure the judge will rule against me because he always rules against me. the judge responding, you can attack me. you can do whatever you want, but answer the question. in another testy exchange, the judge had to instruct defense attorney chris guys to control your client, adding this is not a political rally. we are here to hear him answer questions and, most of the time, he is not. the judge said, and then threatened to remove trump from the stand. on the financial statements at the heart of the case, trump said i would look at them, i would see them, and i would maybe, on occasion, have some suggestions. and, on his role in preparing the statements, i accepted it. other people did it, but i didn't say make it higher or make it lower, he said. when asked if he maintained accurate records from august 2014 going forward, trump said, i hope so. i didn't keep them myself. trump was also questioned about the valuation of his assets, including his trump tower apartment, which financial statements show a more than 200 million dollar value drop in one year. i thought the apartment was high, he said, adding, we changed it. saying, different property assets were both high and low. trump has long claim is florida, mar-a-lago property was undervalued, saying today it is worth one to 1.5 billion dollars. >> the numbers great her than on the financial statement. >> the judge cited a florida tax appraisal valuing the property at just $18 million in his decision, finding trump, his adult sons, and company committed persistent and repeated fraud. in court trump said, i thought mar-a-lago was very underestimated, but i didn't do anything about it. trump's conduct has become a flash point in this case. >> you have a racist attorney general, who made terrible statements. >> before he took the stand, trump took aim at the attorney general letitia james, later calling her a political hack in court. the only thing that matters are the facts and the numbers, and numbers, my friends, don't lie. >> the next is expected to be called by the attorneys general office in this case is the former presidents daughter, ivanka trump. she is expected to testify on wednesday and then defense attorneys are expected to begin their case at the beginning of next week. paula reid, cnn, new york. >> joining me now from los angeles is jessica levinson, a professor of law at loyola law school and host of the podcast passing judgment. good to see. >> good to be here. >> the four times indicted twice impeached for one term president spoke to reporters outside the court for monday, repeating much of what he said while on the witness stand. here is some of it. >> dissing that we are being sued and spending all this time and money, yet you have people being killed all over the world that this country could stop. with inflation and all the other problems that this country has, i think it is a disgrace. and when you look at the numbers, the full numbers that came out today from the new york times, people are sick and tired of what's happening. >> just in itself it's an odd thing to be saying in the middle of a court battle, but it does seem that there are two separate arguments being made in that courtroom. trump directly addressing u.s. voters making his case for reelection, while prosecutors argue why he should be banned from doing business ever again in new york state. >> i think you are exactly right to phrase it that way and it does feel like there are ships passing in the night, where this is not a typical witness on the witness stand. i mean, some people thought maybe we won't get trump with a politician because he will be under oath, he'll be there in a courtroom, these are very serious allegations against him that could potentially threaten his empire, which, of course, we know it's a big part of his persona and a big part of his sales pitch to the american public. but he really treated this like a campaign rally. he was very combative, he was nonresponsive, he was rambling. i don't think that his audience, in this case, was the judge, even though this is a bench trial. his audience was a political, his audience was his donors and his voters and i think you are exactly right that two things were happening in that courtroom today. >> as he arrived the former president repeated some very familiar and also some blatantly wrong statements, blaming his legal troubles, once again, on his political opponents. here's a little more from the former president. >> these are political offerings that i'm going to be dealing with right now. in the meantime, the people in the country understand it, they and see me, and they don't like it. it is political warfare, or as we call, it political lawfare. >> it seems if you look at what is happening in the other federal indictments with these ongoing court cases, is defenses there, the legal campaign, everything happened all at once today if you like. >> it was the coming together of a lot of things, as you say, a big part of his pitch was i am very successful. i am a hugely successful businessman and, interestingly, that did bleed over into his testimony today where he didn't, as much as i thought he would have, frankly, point the finger and say, no, not it, it was the attorneys, the accountants, it wasn't me. he said, in fact the new york attorney general, you are wrong, i didn't overvalue i undervalued because i am worth so much money. the trump brand brings all these properties up. so it was interesting, legally and politically, you see the kind of convergence of this argument of, i am worse so much money. and it is the same argument that he has made to the voters, which is i am successful at a business and therefore i'll be successful at running the country. >> what is interesting about all of this is that the case is not about guilt or innocence. a pretrial ruling found that trump and the trump organization is liable for fraud, in the words of those assets and -- the hearing will determine the penalty for that fraud and, as a headline in the guardian noted, speeches and grandstanding, trump scored a few if any legal point in the court. but does it matter? legally is trump toast no matter what he says or will he make it worse for himself? >> so, i think he thinks he's toast either way. of, course there was seven counts in this complaint and the judge granted summary judgment, as you noted, on one of them, finding that there was in fact fraud. but trump committed fraud, the trump organization. there are six other counts where the judge is looking at potential liability and when you are extremely combative and nonresponsive with as a judge, who again is acting as a jury, that is not a great legal tactic. the fact that he was so aggressive and critical of the judge indicates to me that he largely thinks that this is lost, at least on liability, likely on remedies. and so he is making his case to the voters. see, i told you, it was a witch hunt. i told you it was election interference and the fact, again, that he pulled no punches indicates to me that he thinks this is largely lost. now, of course, the defense has not put on their case yet. they estimate that their case will last until mid december. so we will see what illegally they will argue in terms of whether or not values are subjective and whether or not these were some bookkeeping errors, so to speak. >> jessica, it's great to have you with us. thank you. just get levinson los angeles, thank you, we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> now, israel's war with hamas which began one month ago. prime minister benjamin netanyahu says once a hamas has been destroyed and the fighting ends, israel will be responsible for gaza's security for an indefinite period of time. netanyahu made those comments during an interview with abc news, his first public remarks about the future of gaza once the war is over. and, until then, he stressed there will be no cease-fire with hamas into the militant group releases all their hostages. now, according to the palestine ministry of health, in the west bank more than 10,000 people in gaza have been killed during the monthlong israeli offensive. a senior u.n. official says that number defies humanity. for more, live now to elliott gotkine live in london. elliott, netanyahu didn't go into a lot of detail here, but what more is known about the security play for gaza after the war and an ongoing israeli security presence in gaza has never been popular among israelis in the past, i will give you this? now >> john, beyond this death toll, which as you say, the u.n. chief described as defying humanity, one of the key concerns or criticisms of this war between hamas and israel is that there hasn't been a lot of thought going into what happens the day after. whether it is in a few days, weeks, or months, when this war ends, and it will end eventually, what is the plan for the gaza strip especially if israel succeeds in's objective of destroying hamas militarily so that we can never inflict the pogrom of sorts on october 7th, and politically so that it can no longer remain in power in the gaza strip? now, there's been talk about potentially the united nations coming in, perhaps the arab states. i suppose the most elegant and convenient solution for the israelis, the u.s. and many other countries internationally would be for the palestinian authority to come in and take a charge once again in the gaza strip. of course, it lost power in the gaza strip when hamas violently seized it in 2007. of course, the palestinian authority is, to begin with, lacking legitimacy. the president is now in his 90th year of a four-year term and there is no way the palestinian authority will want to come in and be seen as a puppet of the array israelis, unless, by some miracle, there is a grand plan or bargain that leads towards a two-state solution. so, that seems to be a nonstarter. prime minister benjamin netanyahu, when he was asked in this interview with abc news last night, gave his thoughts as to, perhaps, part of what comes the day after this war ends. >> i think israel, an indefinite period, we'll have the overall security responsibility because we've seen what happens when we don't have it. >> now after withdrawing, at least from the ground in the gaza strip in 2005, i don't think israel has any desire to reoccupy on the ground in the gaza strip or to control it, but certainly from a security perspective, netanyahu says that is what israel will do for an indefinite period. of, course that could be a short period, good could be a long period. but the other saying, i think, that is worth noting is that in the wake of previous wars where major questions have been raised about the conduct or the decision-making of the government of the day, the prime minister and the government have been ejected. this happened in 1973 with gold may, it happened after the lebanon war in 1982, it happened in the wake of the second lebanon war in 2006. as political analysts, the chief political analyst of channel 12 in israel told me, it would set a precedent for netanyahu not to be ejected from power afterwards. with that in mind, it won't actually be netanyahu's decision as to what happens to the gaza strip once this war is over. john? >> elliott, thank. you elliott gotkine there in london with the very latest, we appreciate it. we're gonna take a short break, when we come back here on cnn, in northern israel most have been evacuated in force from their homes. cnn will take you to some of the thousands of those evacuees and why and how much longer they'll be away. >> tens of thousands of israelis have been forced to leave their homes in the north of the country. clashes between israeli forces and hezbollah militants and lebanon continued escalate. many of those villages and communities are not completely abandoned with only israeli troops remaining to battle those militants across the border. cnn's jim sciutto has details. >> visit northern israel today and you find ghost towns, evacuations in the wake of the october 7th attacks have left communities such as metula, -- empty except for soldiers deployed against hezbollah. kibbutz, situated right on the lebanon border, is among those communities now abandoned. >> we are staying here on the site. >> residents island weisman and her partner now make their home in a hotel, some 40 miles south in tiberius. >> everything that is here in the middle, from the children's things, were all donated. >> residents here are among 60,000 israelis who have fled south. one consequence of the october 7th attacks is a temporary migration from northern israel south into southeast israel north, with top of the israeli military creating a buffer zone inside gaza, and perhaps later in southern lebanon. the reality today is that those buffers zones exist, but inside israel. for evacuees from kibbutz -- the pain and fear of october 7th remains raw. a polina still has trouble explaining what happened to her three children. do you think the kids understand what happened? the eldest children, she tells me, understand that we're fighting for our home. >> do you talk to them about it? they see and they are aware. this is the reality of israel post october 7th. a country more aware than ever, perhaps, of the threat on its southern and northern borders. but that awareness leaves open the question of when they will go home. ellen and joseph tell us it's just a matter of time. >> we are told we can go back will go back. >> if the government says it's fine, you will. go >> will go. >> sharon and her husband, with a two-year-old and six months old little girls, are far less certain. will you feel safe moving back? north >> we think we are not going to stay there after what happened in gaza. we don't trust. >> today they are thinking of moving further south for a good, or of leaving israel entirely. >> i won't lie and tell you that we didn't think about moving to another country. >> where would you move if you thought about? >> maybe to canada. >> there's another possibility that some israelis here suggest that, after the idf finishes its military operations in gaza, continued skirmishes along the border will force the military's attention north and bring an invasion of southern lebanon. >> they say that they will finish in the south and then maybe start in the north, correct? >> but that prospect has a troubled history. israel's 18 year occupation of southern lebanon from 19 80 to 2000 with costly and hezbollah returned, and its incursion into southern lebanon again in 2006 was costly as well and hezbollah returned again. still, what is clear for many here is that after what they witnessed on october 7th, the north will never be the same. >> somehow we lived in the kibbutz and didn't think about everything that has happened on the other side of the fence. and now, after all of this, finally it opened our eyes. >> open eyes to growing threats from the north and the south. jim sciutto, cnn, northern israel. >> still to come here on cnn, israeli airstrikes on gaza are both unprecedented in death toll and destruction. what the idf insists is effective hitting hamas. but how effective and what is next? you want to be able to provide your child with the tools or resources they need. with reliable internet at home, through the internet essentials program, the world opened up. fellas, fellas. that's how my son was able to find the hidden genius project. we wanted to give y'all the necessary skills to compete with the future. kevin's now part of this next generation of young people who feel they can thrive. ♪ ♪ >> about 2.3 million palestinians live in gaza and almost all of them are unable to leave gaza. according to the u.n., about 70% of the entire population has now fled their homes. forcibly displaced by a war between israel and hamas, and it could soon get a whole lot worse. more now from scott mclain and his report contains video which some viewers will find disturbing. [sound of artillery] >> without power, gaza city is pitch black at night. now lit up only by israeli airstrikes and the terrifying sound that comes with some. [sound of artillery] from the ground and from the air, israel says it hit 450 hamas targets in the past day. at the beach refugee camped named for its coastal location, they are sifting through the rubble after a bombing overnight. i don't know what to say, this woman says. there is nothing to say. there is no more -- not on children, elderly, or women. complete destruction. the injured bull rushed to the nearby al-shifa hospital where the sky flashes red from strikes nearby. i don't remember what happened, it was like a shock says mohammed, who lives in the beach camp. i don't remember how i fell down. suddenly i felt things fall on my head. the idf says it's doing what it can to minimize civilian casualties, but the human toll in gaza, following october 7th terror attack on israel that killed more than 1400 people, has now surpassed 10,000 according to the hamas-controlled ministry of health and gaza. hospital morgues now spill out onto the streets, like this one in central gaza. overnight at that same hospital, victims arrive at the back of trucks, some clinging to life. -- this girl is one of the lucky ones. inside, covered in dirt and shaking. she tells the doctor her name is jenna and that she is in pain. we, as medical teams, are no longer in a position to be able to fulfill our obligations towards our people, says this doctor. all the beds are occupied. we may have to announce suspension of services in the hospital at any moment. the hamas-controlled ministry of health and gaza says that these pictures show the aftermath of an israeli strike on a children's hospital in gaza city. several holes blown through the walls and one through the ceiling. the idf told cnn it has not struck any hospitals yet. aid is