and division over the war you rages on college campuses. also good news about the u.s. economy, but why so many don't believe it. elle reeve is in west monroe, louisiana, to understand. and a school shooter hears his ntence, an emotional day for the parents of four students he gunned down. the united states vetoed a u.n. security council resolution, calling for an immediate ceasefire in gaza, citing no mention in the resolution of the attack by hamas. 13 countries voted in favor. the uk abstained. in israel, that country's defense minister said he believes there are signs hamas is, in his words, beginning to break inside gaza. today, an israeli flag was raised in the middle of palestine square in the heart of gaza city in the north. alex marquardt has more on the scale and intensity of the battle. alex joins us now. what evidence, if any, is there to support what he said? >> reporter: well, anderson, no doubt israel has significantly degraded hamas' capabilities. they have taken out several thousand of their fighters. they have killed several, many in fact, of their mid and senior level commanders. anderson, intense fighting remains, particularly around the city of khan younis. that's where several of hamas' top leaders are believed to be, including the most senior leader, yahya sinwar. hamas continues to fire rockets. there are three barrages aimed at tel aviv today. the iron dome was deployed. there is still a lot of concern about what hamas can do. there's an expectation that this phase, this high-intensity phase, of the campaign is going to continue for at least a couple more weeks. many, of course, asking, at what cost? anderson, we have to warn our viewers that some of the images they're about to see are graphic. >> reporter: the fight in gaza's second biggest city intensified. israel's military claiming today to have killed dozens of hamas militants in khan younis, in what it called tunnel to tunnel and house to house raids. khan younis is a main stronghold of hamas, israel believes, where top hamas leaders may -- strikes were carried out in gaza on around 450 targets over the past day, israel said on friday, as the hamas-controlled health ministry reported the death toll in gaza had climbed to around 17,500. according to the world health organization, khan younis hospitals are now at the breaking point, over double capacity. this father of a wounded boy says they were in a designated safe zone and the children were playing outside when a deadly strike happened. the health ministry added today that infectious diseases are ripping through the population. some 300,000 cases of 15 different diseases, which cnn cannot verify. [ speaking in a non-english language ] "all this water is salty, it's dirty, it's got diseases in it," this woman says. "we drink it, we wash with it, the children have gotten diarrhea from it." gaza, a u.n. official said, is on the brink of full-blown collapse. the fighting forcing even greater waves of palestinians toward the southern most point of gaza, where there isn't enough shelter, food, water, or fuel. israel accused hamas on thursday of firing rockets from within humanitarian zones. and today sirens blared over tel aviv twice. [ sirens ] to warn of incoming rocket fire. the booms of the iron dome intercepting the rockets echoing across the city. hundreds of terror suspects have been arrested in gaza, the idf says. and they accuse the men in these photos of being members or suspected members of hamas, stripped down to make sure they weren't carrying explosives. but one news organization said they spotted one of their journalists, and the relative of two other men told cnn his brother and cousin have no militant ties. >> and alex, the idf has said two soldiers were severely wounded in operation rescue hostages. what more do we know about that? >> reporter: anderson, they announced that today. they said it was an operation overnight to rescue several hostages. the operation was not successful. you have these two soldiers who were severely wounded, the idf saying that they did actually kill several hamas militants. we know of at least one other rescue operation like this carried out by special operations at the end of october. a young private was rescued. of course, anderson, these hostages -- and there are 137 of them who still remain in gaza -- are being held all over, we believe, by different groups above ground, below ground. we believe that they are being moved. this comes at a time -- these operations are happening at the same time that the hostage talks have come to a complete standstill. the mediators, qatar, egypt, and the u.s., trying to get israel and hamas back to the table. but it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon. we have seen startling divisions on college campuses in the wake of the war in harisrae and gaza. -- refuse to say that calls for genocide against jews on campus would violate their schools' codes of conduct on harassment and bullying. there are calls for those university presidents to resign. nick watt has more on the divisions at another major school in california. >> i hope they know. look at it. >> reporter: those five seconds have been reposted by national influencers, viewed millions of times on instagram. watch again. >> i hope they all are. >> look at the news. >> reporter: the caption attached, this usc professor, john strauss, threatened these students. hope you get killed, and i hope they all are. during a campus rally for gaza. we call on usc to terminate this professor immediately. the college paper claimed tenured economics professor says, i hope they all are killed, walking by an event mourning palestinian deaths. is that really what he meant or even what he said? strauss, who is jewish and pro-israel appeared on the campus news. >> media spoke with a usc processor who was put on leave. >> i started getting emails, very, very nasty emails, things from, i hope you die you fascist pig, to, palestine forever. >> reporter: while an actual war rages thousands of miles away, this video and its fallout tip identified the conflicts on so many american college campuses. >> we have an atmosphere that's hostile to free speech is the key problem. the people who are going to college are adults, but a lot of them are acting like children. they want to see people punished for their speech. >> reporter: so, what actually happened that day here in l.a.? well, here is a longer version of that video, 21 seconds, not 5. >> people are ignorant. >> professor strauss, i believe. >> everyone should be killed. >> and that they should all die, everyone one of them, referred, of course, to hamas. >> the longer video of professor strauss was shot and posted by this student, founder of trojans for palestine. she asked that we obscure her identity for fear of reprisals. your identity is hidden, but you exposed the identity of professor strauss. how do you reconcile that? >> professor strauss, first of all, like, he is, a grown man, tenured faculty who harassed students. >> reporter: he said strauss stepped on the names of the dead. he said that must have been an accident, emotions, she said, were high. >> they were filming the names and laughing at them. >> reporter: we spoke to a jewish student who was there, remembering their own dead. he did film the names, and he was disrespectful. he apologizes for any offense caused but told cnn he does not know for sure that all those names are innocent dead palestinians because the source is the gaza health ministry, controlled by hamas. and that's a basic problem on these campuses. the two sides barely agree even on any basic facts. >> trojans for palestine. why did you feel moved to create that? >> we have a very large jewish population on campus. we have obviously the -- foundation. i've seen a lot of misinformation being spread. >> reporter: and the two sides cannot even agree on the meaning of what actually comes out of mouths at the many pro-palestinian rallies. [ crowd chanting ] >> reporter: many pro-palestinians say it's just a call for freedom. many jews say it's a call for genocide, for the destruction of israel, which right now lies between the river and the sea. >> is there a way back from where we are right now, where both sides feel similar things in terms of their voices being suppressed? >> on a personal level, no. what i know about someone is unequivocally going to support israel, i will cut them out of my life. >> and nick watt joins us now from los angeles. what more is usc saying about this? >> reporter: well, that's very interesting. what they're saying basically gives us the other slice of the story, which is how college administrators across this country are struggling to deal with this. they're trying to not offend, and they're making mistakes in the process, as we've seen on capitol hill. here at usc, they say strauss was never placed on administrative leave. he says he was, on november 10th. so, i kept on pushing. eventually they told me, our statement discusses his status since november 13th. not exactly clear and candid. they now say that -- they have said all along that they are shocked by the comments attached to those videos. and they now say all ifted. he's allowed back on campus. also worth noting classes for the semester have finished. they also say he has not been punished in any way. last i heard from his lawyer, he's still under investigation and still could be punished. as i say, they don't appear to know how to deal with all this stuff that is going on on college campuses. and it continues to happen. >> appreciate it. thank you. we mentioned the controversy over the comments made by harvard, penn, and mitt. harvard's president apologized saying, i'm sorry, she told "the harvard crimson," words matter. josh gottheimer went to penn and harvard. i spoke to him earlier. congressman gottheimer, thanks for being with us. i'm wondering what your reaction to what these university -- when you heard these university presidents saying this, what they declined and what they said in that house hearing, and how they've been trying to clean it up? what do you make of it? >> i literally had to watch it multiple times because my jaw was on the ground. i couldn't believe they were actually saying that calling for the genocide of jews did not violate their code of conduct and trigger bullying and harassment issues on their campus. so, frankly, i think the level of outrage across the country, you know, is making them try to rewrite what they said. but the bottom line is, they were saying, unless there was actually conduct, unless a jewish student was killed, it didn't violate their code of conduct and bullying and harassment unless it was actual conduct. i think we're all in the same place on this. and everyone you heard ask questions of those presidents in shock. >> the harvard president told the school's "crimson" newspaper, quote, i am sorry. words matter. when words amplify distress and main, i don't know how you could feel anything but regret. the university of pennsylvania president, i'm not sure she directly apologized. she said, in that moment, i was focused on our university's long-standing policies aligned with u.s. constitution, which says that speech alone is not punishable. she went on to say, i was not focused on the repeated -- call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. it's evil, plain and simple. do you think they've gone far enough? do you think they should step down? >> i certainly think the three of them should step aside. imagine being a parent of a student on that campus. i don't ever want any student, muslim, jewish -- i don't want anyone to be afraid to go to class, to be who they are, regardless of their background. and to me, i don't know how if you're a jewish student right now and those campuses, frankly a lot of campuses in our country, you're not just afraid. and that's when people are screaming death to jews or dirty little jew or other things i've heard from a lot of my constituency of students of what it feels like. they literally don't want to go to class. they can't wear head covering, yarmulke. they just can't be who they are. freedom of speech, i believe in strongly as a member of congress. but you also do have a freedom from fear. no one should be afraid. >> we mentioned the workforce committee investigation to harvard, mit, and u penn. do you have a sense of what the lawmakers would be investigating, what kind of leverage they would have over private colleges? >> each of these colleges receives a large amount of federal funding, research funding, and other resources. and a third violation of title 6, i think the department of education needs to investigate as well. they can lose their funding. the government should not encourage environments that literally put students in fear. again, regardless of background. and i mean, if it's anti-semitism, islamophobia, none of this should be accepted. we need to send a strong message to these campuses that this can't go on and whatever these presidents said shouldn't be accepted. >> incidents of anti-semitism in the u.s. have been widespread, not just these three universities. how do you want to see it addressed on a national level? >> as someone who went to one of these schools and who is on the intelligence committee and seeing not just what's going on here but around the world in terms of the surge of anti-semitism, which has reached all-time highs, what do i think? i think as a country, we need to make sure we stand up to hate in all its forms. a lot of it is about education and teaching. i believe that tiktok is right now the disinformation, is causing huge destruction to the truth in our country. i think we have to make sure that we get the facts out and that we teach that hate is unacceptable in all forms. and the most important place to teach that, of course, is at our college campuses and our schools. >> congressman josh gottheimer, thank you for your time. >> thanks for having me. i really appreciate it. still to come tonight, trump loses another fight over a gag order. this time involving the federal 2020 election case. there is, though, one person on the case he can keep criticizing. we'll have details ahead. also hunter biden facing a new indictment and speaking out, attacking congressional republicans in a new interview. what he said, ahead. . a federal appeals court panel today largely upheld the gag order in the former president's federal election subversion case, writing that his public statements about witnesses and others pose a, quote, significant and imminent threat to the trial's proceedings. the decision bars the former president from talking about witnesses, court staff, and their families. he now can comment specifically about special counsel jack smith. the judge also called any delaying the trial date counterproductive, and they said he can't use his presidential candidacy or first amendment as a shield. quote, we do -- public interest in what he has to say, but mr. trump is also an indicted criminal defendant and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants. that is what the rule of law means. the former president vows to appeal. i want to get perspective from actual attorneys, elie honig, a former assistant u.s. attorney, carrie cordero, assistant to the attorney general for national security. >> i think the court of appeals got it spot on. what the court of appeals has done is craft a ruling that's as narrow as possible, that protects donald trump's broad first amendment interest, but also protects the trial. i think the best way to understand it is if we look at the history. originally doj asked for an over-broad gag order. judge chutkan wisely rejected that. she instead said, he can say what he wants but he can't talk about court staff or witnesses, and he can't do something that might interfere with the jury. the court of appeals narrowed that a little bit more by saying, he can talk about jack smith, though. really he can say much of what he would want to say to protect himself vigorously in the public. >> the former president has vowed to appeal the gag order ruling. what are the chances of him winning this if it ends up at the supreme court? >> well, i think -- i agree with elie that i think the appellate court drew -- walked a really difficult line and drew the line where they should. i don't think the supreme court would necessarily alter it too much. but we honestly don't know, anderson, because this is a really challenging order to be implemented. i think it's going to be hard if, for each instance that the former president then says something or tweets something, if then that goes back to the district court judge whose order has now been slightly adjusted by the appellate level, and how is the district court judge going to have to navigate each one of those instances? because the former president -- we know how he acts in public. so, he will go right up to lines. he will try to cross the line ever so slightly. and i think it's going to be a difficult opinion to implement as a practical matter. >> and elie, the former president continues to insist that he has absolute immunity, which is obviously an argument that judge chutkan has rejected. they're going to appeal it. but there's a lot of -- that's an important issue to decide. >> yeah. the gag order is important. but the immunity issue is make or break because if trump wins, i think it's unlikely -- it's possible but unlikely. if he wins on this, the case is over. now, he's appealing now. he's arguing to the court of appeals first of all there is such thing as criminal immunity. we don't even know that. trump is trying to argue there's criminal immunity. he's arguing what i'm accused of doing here was part of my job as president. judge chutkan has rejected that. i think whatever the court of appeals does, this is going up to the supreme court. the other thing that trump is arguing is, while i'm going through the appeal, everything at the trial court level, all the discovery, all the motions, all the stuff you get ready to do before trial, all that should be put on hold. that could jeopardize the march trial date. that's really important. we have to keep an eye on that. >> carrie, what would you expect the supreme court to do with that question of whether trump has immunity? >> on the immunity, i think he's going to lose substantively. he has tried to make these different claims of immunity in a number of different contexts. he loses every time. he continues to create a law that is not in his favor on that issue of immunity. he tries to claim it as a former president. so, i think he loses on that. but i do think that there is the potential, as it makes its way through the court, particularly if it ends up in the supreme court, to push that march trial date. so, i think he has less substantive merit on that case, different than the appellate decision on the first amendment issues, which acknowledge that he had some credible argument. >> so, elie, do you agree that there's a chance the court will put everything on hold until a decision is made and that would push the march 4th trial date back? >> i think that's possible. i think it is incumbent on both the court of appeals and the supreme court. whether they put things on hold or not, they have to move at lightning speed. people ask, how long does an appeal take? the answer is as long as judges want it to take. i've seen it take two years. but we've seen cases get resolved the in three, four weeks. these judges have to operate in the real world. they need to be ready to rule quickly. coming up next a parade in politics, what voters at a holiday celebration in louisiana have to say about the economy and why that could be a challenge for president t bidenn hi