Dana breaking overnight israel Firing Hundreds of missiles targeting Hamas Terrorists in gaza. This in response to a barbaric series of Terror Attacks targeting children, women and the elderly. The death toll now eclipsing 1,000. President biden is set to break his twoday silence today. Good morning, im dana perino. Good morning to you. Bret im bret baier for bill hemmer. Complicating israels response an estimated 150 people taken hostage by hamas. Americans are believed to be among them and hamas is threatening to kill them onebyone for every time israel strikes gaza. Dana the families of the missing are calling on President Biden to act. Some of them as you can see here are about to hold a News Conference in tel aviv and well take you there live as it happens. Bret Peter Doocy Standing by at the white house. We begin with greg palkot reporting live from israel. Greg. Bret, dana, we are a mile and a half away from the gaza trip. The town of sarot, israel says this town is secure. Lets bring you up to date with the latest. The story changes by the hour. We have been watching israeli fighter jets cross over countless times. Weve been Hearing Blasts again and again and again inside of gaza. Now we have it confirmed that they have hit 250 locations today inside gaza, which they say is an infrastructure for the hamas militants. We see the rockets going to other way, across us, five at one time, most of them have been knocked down by the Israeli Defenses including the iron dome. But there are there is word that central israel, including tel aviv, including the International Airport has been Hearing Sirens and barrages of rockets coming from hamas militia. What weve heard from washington is that the first bit of u. S. Military aid is on its way. It will be coming here considering the amount of material that weve been seeing used here, that would come in handy. Just about ten minutes from where we are now one last area held by hamas militants has been liberated by the Israeli Military and they have shown the world that scene. I will step away here and let my cameraman show you what were seeing here. Basically this was the police station. This was where The Last Battle Between Hamas and the police and soldiers and security battled it out. They even had to use a bulldozer, the israelis, to knock down part of it but they have succeeded and now they are tearing it down. We asked one person why they were doing this at this time and they said were clearing it away because we want to rebuild. That is the kind of determination that we are seeing here right now. You have mentioned and this is the big complicating factor those 150odd hostages inside gaza right now. Some of them taken from this very town. Some of them taken from that Music Festival. There was a scene of so much death and destruction. And that is, in fact, what is worrying israel as it considers a Ground Incursion. Thats what weve been seeing here, too. Weve been seeing dozens of tanks, armored cars, other military elements, reservists coming into play just in case the decision is made to go in on the ground in gaza. That decision has not been made but it is very tense here still even though israel says it has it is very tense with all the death and destruction around us, back to you guys. Bret last night you had the israeli Prime Minister saying what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will revert brate for generations. We saw this morning these rockets hitting the International Airport. How many times throughout the day does it happen . A steady stream of these rockets firing . It has been, bret. Since weve been here weve seen multiple rockets being fired by hamas. Some estimates are theyve fired about 5,000 rockets in the past 3 1 2 days into israel. Some estimates, however, say that with the help of their big brother, iran, they might have had as many as 15,000 rockets. Crude as they are when they fire a lot of them they can overwhelm the defenses here and thats what they are still trying to do. They havent given up even though israel is very much in the fight right now. Bret greg on the ground in israel. Thank you. Dana President Biden is set to address the war in israel after two days of silence as he confirms that at least 11 americans were killed in the hamas attacks. Peter doocy is live from the white house and peter, we will hear from the president today . We will this afternoon. At this hour, a couple hours before the president is going to speak, they still dont know how Many Americans may have been kidnapped and are being held captive in gaza right now. And the furthest President Biden wanted to go so far he thinks kidnappings were likely. We dont even know if there are americans in this population of hostages and obviously wouldnt do to be talking too publicly in a hypothetical situation. Well do whatever we have to do to get those americans home. So far President Biden said i have directed my team to work with the israeli counterparts with the Hostage Crisis and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult and advice. The president got a briefing yesterday. They released the photo. The residence answered a special counsels questions about his classified documents case. And we do expect to hear from him at 1 00 today. Back to you. Dana well be paying attention to that. Lets go back to tel aviv. This is a Press Conference being held by families who believe there are americans being held hostage calling on biden to act. Lets listen in. I ran down the stairs to wake my two daughters so we could get into the Bombshell Tear in jerusalem. When we got out ten minutes later with the all clear, i normally dont use my phone on the jewish sabbath but it was an emergency and i needed to know where my son was. I turned my phone on at 8 23 in the morning and when i turned it on there were two texts in a row from him at 8 11. The first one said i love you. And immediately at 8 11 also it said im sorry. And so i knew immediately wherever he was, it was a terrible situation. I took it to mean i love you and im sorry because whatever is going to happen is going to cause you tremendous pain and worry. Since that time, i tried calling him right back. There was no answer. I texted him a couple times are you okay . I have not heard from him since the text i received at 8 11 on saturday morning. Weve since found out from putting together eyewitnesses from a picture from inside of a bomb shelter that we saw we tried to put together who was in there with him. Eyewitnesses, we know he was injured in a gun battle. They were all civilians at a Music Festival and they were fish in a barrel sitting in this bomb shelter. Terrorists came to the door and throwing grenades in, shooting machine guns, and we know that our sons arm from the elbow down was severed. Was blown off, and that he tied a tourniquet around with his shirt and hamas came in after the gunfire settled down and said anyone who can walk stand up and walk out. We are told he was completely calm. I think he was probably in shock. He got up and walked out with five other people, young people from the Music Festival. Two young women, three other young men, they were put on a pickup truck and driven away by hamas. Then the police told us one thing they knew is that the last known cell signal from his phone was on the border with gaza. Not much to add. He was at the festival with one of his best friends. By eyewitness accounts from the people we talked to who are in this bomb shelter, several people, independent of each other said your son and his friend saved our lives. Anybody who is alive because as grenades were being thrown in they were tossing them back out trying to comfort people and so i just thought i would add that. Maybe you could add this. I will just say rachel and i both grew up in chicago. We were living in california in 2000 when our son was born and moved to israel in the summer of 2008, our oldest child, our son, only son, was 7 1 2, almost eight when we moved to israel in the summer of 2008 and living in jerusalem ever since. We have two daughters 20 and 17, and i just want to take one minute to talk a little bit about our son. He is a smiley, funloving guy. People of all ages just gravitate towards him. If you mention his name to his friends, his teachers, my friends, our friends, you mention his name and people smile. He is the kind of guy fun to be around and makes people feel good and have a good time. He has a few passions, one of which is traveling the world and he is saving his money to go on his big trip at the end of december. Thank you, everybody, for coming. Our as this tragedy was unfolded on saturday morning, me and my other siblings were talking to my mom on the phone trying to calm her down. Things were sort of calm when she heard gunfire outside of her shh shelter. We tried to calm her down and thats when i dropped off the call and both my brother and my sister were on the call with her as the terrorists bargeed into her home and we heard a little bit of screaming and thats that was our last contact with her. There was no shooting on the call and the neighbors downstairs also didnt hear any shooting. My mom used the little bit of arabic she picked up working as a nurse in the hospital for 20 years to calm down the terrorists and it is our hope, which is a little bit ridiculous at this stage to say, but the optimistic scenario here that she is held hostage in gaza and not dead on the street of the town. My mom is 66 years old, proud mother of me and my three other siblings who are in the room with me. She has seven grandkids. She was sitting on the porch of her home on saturday morning when this ferocious attack happened. My mom devoted her life to helping other people of all races and genders in her practice as a nurse in the hospital. Her passion was her kids and grandkids. As i said, our last contact with my mom was saturday morning around 9 45 a. M. As a terrorists burst into her shelter in her home. There are a lot of images spreading around, which i dont feel the need to talk about. I want to bring forward the responsibility that the Israeli Government has to bring back all the hostages that are kept in hostage by the Hamas Terrorists. While saying this, i want also to speak about the responsibility that the u. S. Administration, President Biden, and the Secretary Of State blinken has for the lives of every u. S. Citizens that is out there and they are responsible to bring the u. S. Citizens back home safe and sound. We expect nothing less from the u. S. Administration and President Biden and Secretary Of State blinken. I speak in the name of myself and my family, and i wish for the quick solution for this terrible, terrible situation that all of us are in. We never imagined that this is how it will look. Thank you again for coming. I am going to read out. My name is eye anna im the youngest of my mothers children. My mother, adrian, is missing and was probably taken by Hamas Terrorists to the gaza strip. My mother is an exceptional human being. She spent most of her adult life as a nurse in the community and then as a midwife in a hospital. When she walked into a delivery room, she saw a human being in front of her, not a religion, not a race, not a orthodox jew but always a human being she saw. We once calculated that my mother has brought in thousands of lives into this world. When hamas walked into my mothers room, they saw her alone but they did not see a human being. Again, thank you for coming. My name is on behalf of before starting, i just wanting to ask all of you here and thank you for coming and all of those listening to us, please do not think of us only as a headline. We are more than that. Im here with my family, my two sisters. We grew up in new york city. We like to say we are the proud outcome of the new york Public Education system, still have family out in new jersey, long island, and i would like to talk about family before talking about out of some twist of fate, we became family. In addition to us weve identified about ten other families like us that have a u. S. Citizen missing. This family and my family is now missing. We have a missing person in our family. Whats in my family, i have an addition, two sons, one of them, the youngest, is actually celebrating his barmitzva this weekend. For those of you who do not know, thats the ceremony where a young jewish man becomes a man. And my son, in order to be home this weekend, elected to be at his base the previous weekend in order for us to celebrate the bar mitzvah as a whole, the whole family. We still hope that that celebration with my sisters and my family will happen in the near future. And i am sure my friends here as well, all my new family, have additional events happening that they also wish to have that wholeness of these events. So please, you know, think of us not just as that headline but we are people with families and we want to be families again. My son joined the army about a year ago. He is in the armed corp. He was serving on the border of gaza. The last time that we heard from him was saturday morning when he said that they were under attack. We know that he was active, that he was in communication for a while but since then, silence. The formal indication that we received from the idf is he is defined as missing in action. What does that mean . It means that nobody since saturday morning has been able to physically locate him, identify him and say that they saw him. It also means he is not in the hospital. It also means he is not on the deceased list that has been identified. You would think it would be a good assumption to say that after 70 hours, if he is not in the state of israel, he might be some other place. And if that is the case, then he is by definition pow, u. S. Citizen, israeli citizens, and what we are asking for his captives and for the u. S. Government as well, to ask the captors hamas to be treated as a pow international law. Having someone visit him. Have a doctor see him, have the u. N. Red cross representative see him as well, and as said before, we want to be back and go back to become family. We want this to happen as soon as possible. Hopefully with your help, the people here will help us amplify this message to the u. S. Government, Secretary Of State, that until now have been saying all of the right things but we do ask on behalf of my family am asking the u. S. Not to take a back seat. The u. S. Has a lot of resources at its attention and able to do many things that can be different than what the Israeli Government could do and we are asking on behalf of my family for President Biden, we are sure his heart is in the right place with is ran and the Secretary Of State to make it end for us as soon as possible to become family. Whole again. Thank you all for coming this afternoon. My name is jonathan. I am a lifetime member of the border since 1990. It was attacked in the Early Morning of this saturday and i have children and grandchildren who live there with me. The city is no more. It was destroyed in a barbaric, inhuman attack in which dozens of my friends, my neighbors, were killed, many dozens more are either known to be hostages or missing. I am here speaking today reaching out to my son, who grew up there, and he is an arm length away in gaza, evidently but couldnt be farther from me and our family right now. I grew up in connecticut, as you can probably hear from the accent. But i have never felt farther away from there, either. My son is the father, 35 years old, the father of two beautiful daughters and his wife is now pregnant with their third daughter. My son is exactly the kind of son that every father would want to have, a leader, a friend, a loving man. He and many other such young men on the border are missing after having tried to repulse the attack by evidently hundreds of Hamas Terrorists and looters. Many died in the process, our son was not found and we have heard or seen no trace of him since then. The survivors of the border, we were a community of 400. We know of 160 survivors. The rest have either died or are, as we said, prisoners or missing. The survivors call this its not a war, its not a fair fight. It is a pagrome. Hundreds of heavily armed, wellorganized terrorists walked, rode, ran over the border with one object in mind and that is to kill, maim and destroy life on the board. It seems to me that the United States, my original home and still a very beloved place for me, and always wants to be and must be on the side of good. Hamas is evil. It is difficult for me to say. I am what is called a peace knick in israel as many of the Cab Utes Members are in our area. But this kind of savagery and inhumanity must be stopped. And as a result, like the other five people on this stage who would prefer to be anywhere but here right now, do appeal to the United States government, to the congress, to do what they can on the side of good here. We are waiting for our son to come home. We do not know what fate he met along, as i said, with dozens of other people from our area and these arent all 35yearold men. These are children, aged people, and everything in between. So if there ever was a moment of good against evil in the harshest terms, this is it and i thank you for listening to us and im sure all of us will welcome questions. We will answer as we can both for our children