Thats just a deal breaker for them. They just wont do it. I saw a report, i think on your network, someone said it was a republican, he said it didnt matter, he would do biden. Thats just a reality that republicans have to face up to if we want to win and we saw these losses in the most recent elections, lets give them a fresh america a chance for a fresh start and i think that the results will be very positive for us. All right. 2024 president ial candidate and Florida Governor ron desantis, thanks so much. Hope youll come back and we can talk about all the other issues we didnt talk about today. Thanks for coming on. That does it for us. Will do it yep. We appreciate that. That does it for us this morning. Jose diazbalart picks up the coverage right now. Ahead this hour, our special coverage of israel at war. Air strikes is, bombarding gaza with israels Prime Minister vowing devastation and destruction on hamas strongholds. The Death Toll Climbing as intense fighting continues. Plus, israels massive mobilization, Hundreds Of Thousands of reservists called up, raising speculation the country is preparing for a Ground Invasion. Also ahead, the terrifying threat from hamas that they will kill hostages, desperate families begging for help to save their loved ones before it is too late. One man breaking down this morning, talking about his missing mother. The optimistic scenario here is that she is held hostage in gaza and not dead on the street. And were showing you images of the white house, where President Biden is set to speak in just hours. I want to go right to our live images from gaza city. And as we can see, there is an increase in the bombings. Lets look. These are live pictures right now at gaza city and the gaza strip. You can see the plumes of smoke and, look, right there, a missile going off. Two. These are the sights and sounds going on in gaza city. Straight to nbcs chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel in ashkelon, israel. Richard . Reporter so, jose, as you can see right now all of these plumes of smoke in the air, this is hamas rocket fire. And it began on schedule. It is now just two minutes after 5 00 in the evening. And hamas, about an hour ago, warned that there would be strikes like this at 5 00 exactly. And just before the top of the hour, the rocket fire began. I think in the last couple of minutes we have seen dozens, maybe more than dozens of rockets fired at this city as hamas said would happen. Now the reason hamas said that it is firing here is in retaliation for israeli air strikes into gaza. If you go up into the sky, you can still see a lot of the smoke trails. And youll see these little circles. Those little circles are where the Iron Dome Interception System has exploded. So the way the Iron Dome Works is as the rockets come in, and i very much suspect there will be more of them soon, the Iron Dome System deploys, and in midair destroys the rockets. Now, this is also part of a Psychological Campaign by hamas, because in addition to warning that there would be this rocket attack, hamas also was issuing messages, social media messages, text messages, in hebrew, to the people of ashkelon, telling them to evacuate the city, telling them if they stayed and killed it would be their own responsibility. So, this is part of the Ongoing Campaign by hamas to not just attack israel with its ground forces, the commandos or the terrorists that breached the Perimeter Fence and went on a killing and kidnapping spree, but also by Firing Rockets at civilian cities. Since we have been on, there is a little bit of a pause and i think we can come back to you if you stay with us, well see if this is over or not. And, richard, while i have you, and i very much appreciate you and your extraordinary team, the crew that is with you, you know, obviously doing everything you can to stay safe, just in the time that you were talking, you showed us that the shot of the sky above you, you know, i counted like 26 of those little circles. So, richard, were talking about massive amounts of missiles in this specific case, where you are, in just a short period of time. Oh, there was an intense barrage, very quick. And just to reassure viewers were not insane here, were filming this from inside a bunker. So we knew that this was coming, like the people of this country knew it was coming, there was a warning. We wanted to see if it would happen, one, and what result would be with the iron dome stop it, would there be massive damage here . Hamas was promising to flatten the city. So we were able to set ourselves up in a position. So, yes, certainly dozens, from what i can see in the initial Battle Damage assessment, it does not seem there were many, many casualties or much destruction here from what we were able to see. Were not seeing lots of ambulances on the move. One ambulance does seem to be moving, but not lights flashing, not an emergency situation. So, so far it seems that the israeli Missile Defense systems have been able to contain this attack at least as far as we can report from what were seeing. And, richard, did most of the people actually leave that town . No. No. Many people have left ashkelon and gone into the military or taken other precautions. The city is still inhabited, not a mass exodus. We did not see people leaving in panic. The one of the aspects of this story and this is a long story, were talking about the war between hamas and israel as if it has never happened. There have been wars here before, and generally they have been rocket wars. And that is something this country is deeply prepared for. We just saw it ourselves. Hamas fired rockets. The rockets generally were stopped. Two years ago there was a another exchange like this, and hamas fired thousands of rockets into israel and two years ago, the israeli Iron Dome System stopped almost all of them. Thats why i think hamas changed tactics this time, they trained, they prepared, they put out training videos, and decided that the rockets are not that effective because the israeli Missile Defense systems are so precise and so plentiful, so they changed strategies and breached the fence and carried out boots on the ground murderous assaults. Yeah. Were hearing it again. Stay with us. There is one. There is a rocket. You can see it streaking in the sky right now. Turning. There is another. This is being launched from a different site. So now youll start to see the Iron Dome System taking them off. Again, many rockets, many interceptions. Not much damage. No damage. Richard, this is, you know, i dont even know how to describe what were witnessing in real time and, again, i just keep thinking about you and your crew and, of course, everybody there at ashkelon who is really under a direct mortal threat. Reporter they certainly are. And this hospital, we not only, again, to reassure viewers, not only did we set ourselves up in a bunker, were near the hospital. And this hospital was built for exactly this kind of situation. The Emergency Rooms and the Critical Care units are under ground. The hospital itself is a bunker. So this country is very well prepared for rocket fire. They have dealt with this before. They have dealt with this in previous conflicts. But what happened what was different this time is the Ground Assault and all of the hostages that have been taken. Were going to stay where we are because it is unclear how long these barrages last. We have been here now, it is just nine minutes after the hour. We have seen two barrages. The first one, far more intense. The second one that you just saw relatively small with maybe a dozen or more, maybe 20 rockets, difficult to count when theyre in motion. So we will see if there is a third or fourth or a fifth. And, richard, if you would, just give us a geographic kind of pinpointing of where you are, visavis gaza. Reporter so, we are in ashkelon, and Ashkelon Issen israeli city, not very far from gaza, on the mediterranean coast. It is a city that often comes under rocket fire because it is relatively close to gaza. But it is not right On The Gaza Border. It is not a place where hamas militants could cut a hole in any border fence and come here because there is quite a bit of distance, there are many soldiers, and what happened at the beginning of this conflict, four days ago, on saturday morning, at 6 30, is hamas caught the israelis flat footed. They werent prepared for a surprise attack. They werent prepared for a Ground Invasion. They werent prepared for a Ground Invasion with potentially several thousand hamas militants. We dont know how many militants there were. But they found more than a thousand bodies of hamas fighters, where we were today, On The Gaza Border, earlier today, we saw hamas bodies on the ground, dressed in Battle Fatigues with the webbing in order to hold ammunition for submachine guns. So, that area is on the border. That is where they saw the house to house fighting, hamas kidnapping people. We are separated from gaza by enough distance that it would be quite difficult and i would say now basically impossible for hamas to get this far because the israelis are not flat footed anymore by any means, theyre aware, theyre mobilizing troops throughout the south. I dont think it has been clear yet just the level of cruelty, barbarity and just inhumaneness that was carried out by hamas in this massacre that, you know, is just richard, is that you . Is that whats sorry, just whats the situation there right now . Is there a lull . Reporter yes there seems to be a lull and, again, you dont know if it is over or not. But were going to stay here, obviously. People always say that on air, well stay safe, well go some place safe, sometimes staying in place, if youre in a good location, is the best idea. So were going to stay here until it is clear that this is that this is over and there is a lull. But, the larger picture here is that hamas promised that it would fire rockets at ashkelon, at 5 00 local time, on the hour, just a couple of seconds before the top of the hour it did that. But the israeli Missile Defense systems seem to be very effective and as i said before, from what we can see, appear to have neutralized almost all of them. Richard engel with such clarity that you always have. Thank you so much for being with us. Of course, were going to stay very closely by your side and we will, of course, stay with you and bring you back if there is any developments. I thank you, richard. Please stay safe. Reporter hold on one second. Hold on one second. Hold on one second. All right. Lets see. All right. These are coming from the same direction as earlier. And seeing some also from the opposite direction. Those explosions are the Iron Dome System creating those circles in the sky. All right, we did hear what sounded like an impact. So, hard to know, but just from the sound of the explosion it does seem like one did impact the ground or impact some sort of building. Im not seeing the location where it may have come down. But, again, another barrage and, niko, our cameraman here, if you turn here you can get a sense of where they were coming from, from over these behind these considerable distance behind those apartment buildings, which are inside israel and went up and then were destroyed in midair, though one may have gotten through. But these are not guided rockets. So, if they got through, there is no guarantee that it hit anything of importance. It could have landed in an open area, it could have hit a building. When hamas fires these, it is using math and probability in its favor, just fires enough with the hope that some of them get through the Iron Dome System and some of them hit targets. And thats what these are designed to do. Theyre designed to kill people. Theyre unguided rockets fired at a civilian location with one purpose alone, to terrorize and kill civilians. Richard engel, thank you. We will, of course, stay with you and, please, stay with us and stay safe. Going now to nbcs ellison barber. She is in israel and molly hunter at our london bureau. So, ellison, how is the situation where you are right now . Reporter hey, jose. You heard richard talking about the best situation to stay safe is to stay in place where you are and shelter where we just were, we were coming under rocket fire in that area. We have some of the video of it for you. I think we can play some of the sound for you. Were at a moment where there was a lull, where the safest option was to start evacuating and thats why were in the car right now. If you can see some of what we saw in serot, a community where civilians have been evacuated. We only saw about three people who were still there. I spoke to one man who had witnessed the moment near that Police Facility where hamas militants had come into the town. He talked about hiding in his apartment, looking through the window for a span of 30 to 40 minutes on saturday afraid if they saw him, they might fire his direction. But also feeling like he needed to see what was happening. He said he had never heard so much artillery before. We know, theyre saying get on the ground, dropping down there, that area where we were, it is about two and a half miles from gaza and what happens in that area is something that is very different than in places like ukraine when youre in places like kyiv or like here if youre in tel aviv, a bigger city, you have more distance from where the rockets are being fired. That means you usually have more time to get to the shelter in places close to gaza like we just were. You have seconds to take shelter. Once you hear a siren go off, it is maybe, if youre lucky, 30 seconds before you start hearing the rocket fire and then there is a tenminute window where shrapnel, people were telling us, can fall down and you have to stay sheltered in place there. Look, the situation right now in terms of the movements we have seen toward gaza, israel, they have two over Hundreds Of Thousands of reservists they have called up now. They say they have dozens, over two dozen brigades that have now stationed around the gaza border. They say they have a blockade there, a full blockade and they say they have control of that border. They have told civilians inside of gaza to leave. But the crossing that they told them to leave from, that crossing and idf has confirmed this, is not open to them. You have a number of civilians in this area as hamas is Firing Rockets at civilian areas in israel, places like where we are and also Israeli Forces firing into areas where civilians, because they cannot leave, are also inevitably nearby in areas. Overnight, Israeli Forces, they say they hit 200 plus targets within gaza. They say they hit a mosque and acknowledged hitting homes. They claim that is because hamas had weapons storaged in that area and also command centers. The u. N. , though, they say right now there are close to 200,000 civilians displaced within gaza, staying in u. N. Run shelters. The death toll, jose, it is staggering. You went through some of those numbers, over 900 People Killed from the israeli side, over 700 palestinians, that includes over 140 children. We know there have been civilian casualties, Hostage Situations here on the israeli side as well. Im speaking with a medic, jose, and he was talking about the youngest person that he had seen killed and injured since this began on saturday, and he talked about kids under the age of 8, a family going into a home that had been hit by rocket fire, he said the parents were dead, a sibling was dead, the only survivor was an 8yearold little girl. When they found her, she was huddled in a closet. I asked him what was first thing you did when you went in there, he said all of them just grabbed her and hugged her. He himself is a parent of four and talked about how in these moments all he can do is just try to block everything out and just act because if he thinks too long about the devastation that is happening, the defer station that will likely come in the days and weeks for israelis as well as palestinians, it is just too much to bear. Jose . And ellison, i want you to stand by if you would. And molly also stand by. Right to these pictures that we have been showing you. These are live pictures. This is gaza city, as you can see. Were also just as ellison was speaking and you can hear some of the sounds of what is going on there. But i want to also, i dont know if we still have that other camera angle of what is a dock or a port of some kind where at least two small boats have been hit. And as ellison was speaking with us, there was another hit right in that area there. I dont know if we have that camera angle or not. But these are we dont. Well, that was as ellison was speaking. I want to go back now, keep if we could, lets keep these pictures live on as we speak. I want to go to molly. Molly, this situation that were seeing in real time, and there you see another plume of smoke right in the middle of your screens, there has been another hit and this is inside gaza city. This is the one, the area that this is probably one of most densely Populated Areas on earth. More than 2 Million People make gaza city their home. And it is currently under attack. Molly, the Hostage Crisis continues to grip israel. There is there are very real fears that dozens of innocent men, women and children were taken from israel and are now being held there in gaza city. We heard from families of missing americans this morning,