aback by the ferocity of this latest israeli offensive. meanwhile, new threats by iran backed militias. a u.s. warship forced to shoot down several drones on the red sea, including one heading in its direction. back at home, arguments now happening before the supreme court in one of the highest profile bankruptcy cases in recent history. and it all stems from the nation's opioid epidemic. federal officials are closing an arizona crossing to help border patrol deal with the rising number of migrants coming into our country. and on capitol hill, a vote to launch an impeachment inquiry into president biden could take place as soon as this week. and we begin this hour with breaking news out of israel and the israeli-hamas war. israel is expanding its ground offensive in gaza four days after the collapse of the truce. israeli forces pushing deeper into southern gaza and ordering new evacuations. residents in gaza say they have no safe place to go. in northern gaza, we're getting a new look at the horrors of war as several abandoned babies were found decomposing in a children's hospital that was forced to evacuate last month. this according to a report from emirati tv, which nbc news obtained raw footage from and reviewed its contents. today, the president of the international committee of the red cross arrived in gaza as the u.n. says almost 1.9 million people have now been displaced in gaza since the start of the war. the palestinian health ministry, which is run by hamas, says nearly 16,000 people have died in gaza since october 7th with 70% of the victims women and children. this week will mark two months since hamas massacred about 1200 people during its terrorist attack on israel. nbc's richard engel has the very latest. >> reporter: israel is now focusing its military campaign in southern gaza, where many hamas leaders and fighters are believed to have fled. israel has dropped leaflets with maps dividing the gaza strip into a grid, and has been telling palestinians to move from one quadrant to another for their safety. but so far, gazans don't seem to understand the maps, don't have internet connections to read the qr code or simply aren't listening. gazans complain they have been corralled into the south and are now under attack. the biden administration has urged israel to be more precise, a senior u.s. military official tells nbc news he was taken aback by the ferocity of israel's renewed campaign. the united states urged publicly repeatedly israel to do more to avoid civilian casualties. do you think -- are you listening to that? have you taken that on board? >> absolutely. we're very attentive to the administration and military to military perspective, we're engaging with our american counterparts there is no fairy godmother that will make hamas disappear. >> reporter: in the southern city of rafah, our crew followed volunteers digging through night at a home hit they say by an israeli strike. they find a few survivors and 14 bodies. rafah is on the egyptian border. gazans can't go any further south than here. nearby, this woman and her husband live with five other families. when she was pregnant with triplets, israel allowed her to leave gaza to give birth in jerusalem, but when her permit expired, she had to go home, just before hamas attacked and gaza was completely sealed off. we found her babies at a hospital in east jerusalem. doctors tell us they're developing well. we managed to connect her and her husband on a video call for a precious peek. just as one was waking up. the war separated us. as a mother, i wish i could hug my girls, she says. >> and joining us now is nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel. the story you're presenting us is just such a horrible reality that so many people are going through and just thinking that we're up almost two months now since the massacre in israel on the 7th of october. how are things as of right now? >> reporter: well, two months in, and no end in sight. a week ago we were in a truce. and there were exchanges going on. hamas was releasing prisoners, releasing hostages and israel was releasing prisoners. that process has stopped. no progress as far as we can tell to resume those negotiations. instead, what we're seeing is an expanded military campaign and both sides are blaming the other. hamas says that it won't release any more hostages as lodge as the military campaign by israel continues and israel says the opposite, unless hamas leases hostages, it will continue the campaign. now the campaign is pushing deeper into southern -- the southern part of the gaza strip. and that is the most densely populated now. you said astonishing figure in your intro, 1.9 million palestinians displaced. many of them moving from northern gaza to southern gaza. that's almost the entire population of the gaza strip, which is roughly 2.3 million. and now all those people who have been pushed down into the south believe that they are under attack and they don't know where else to go. the city of rafah itself, on the egyptian border, can't go any further south than that, is also come under attack with this israeli strikes there. we have spoken to senior israeli military officials, a spokesman just this morning, and they say that they have no choice, they want to get rid of hamas. they do not accept and cannot accept hamas remaining in power. and the -- they say the only solution, the only solution that they have found is a military option to try and weaken hamas by targeting its leadership and now that the leaders, they say have moved from the north, with the people down to the south, they're chasing hamas leaders down into the south. but it looks like this continues we could be entering a new phase of the war that could potentially be far bloodier than first phase, which was very devastating to begin with because we're now seeing fighting in these densely densely populated areas in southern gaza. >> and, richard, just -- it is 6:07 p.m. your time. just in the time that you have been speaking, we have been hearing the sound of booms, what is that? >> reporter: so these are israeli strikes, some of them are tanks, some are artillery, some air strikes, they're drones. this is a full-scale war that israel is conducting against hamas and there are people in gaza who cannot escape. so they are caught in the middle of this. you hear some of them right now. we have been driving before we came on air now, along the border with the gaza strip, and there are tanks and armored personnel carriers on the move, the entire area around gaza is mobilized, because the offensive has expanded. it is not just in the north any longer. it is also in the south. so, hamas is still fighting. it is still firing rockets. it is still firing some mortars and they don't come in very often. but one of the reasons i'm wearing this flak jacket is sderot has been hit numerous times. since we're so close to the gaza border where you hear the incoming strikes, if it was lighter, you could see the puffs of smoke you don't get a lot of warning here when the rockets and mortars come in. they come in very quickly, usually just an announcement on a loudspeaker and people go and find shelter. >> richard engel with much of the sounds of war. i thank you for being with us this morning. really appreciate it. joining us now is ambassador michael orrin, the former israeli ambassador to the united states. ambassador, always a pleasure to see you. i thank you. with israel heading further south and we're just listening to richard's story there, the u.s. secretary of defense says that israel faces strategic defeat unless it protects more civilians in gaza. does israel face a possible strategic defeat? >> good morning. good to be with you, jose. excellent recording by richard engel as always. important to stress that israel, millions of israelis are under rocket fire. we also have displaced people. we have a quarter of a million displaced people who can't go back to their homes because hamas remains a strategic threat to the state of israel. so, there is another side to this story. strategic threat, i don't call it a strategic threat. there is grave, grave political and certainly diplomatic challenges facing israel here. hamas is hiding behind this population. israel has to destroy hamas in order to restore its security, in order to -- if we don't destroy hamas, large pieces of israel will be rendered uninhabitable. we have really no choice. and i think as richard engel mentioned, when the palestinian civilian population moved from the north to the south, hamas went with it. and it is continuing to use this population as a human shield. we have really no choice. secretary blinken gave us a dual instruction which may not be compatible. he said he wants israel to expedite the operation in southern gaza, and reduce as much as possible civilian casualties. but, of course, if you go faster, the number of civilian casualties will probably go up, not down. it is a tremendous, tremendous challenge for israeli military commanders, political decisionmakers, all around because we do very much want to stay on the same page with the united states. >> over the weekend, you posted about the horrors of what hamas carried out, not only during the 7th of october massacre, but since then. what are you hearing? >> what is coming out now are the hostages beginning to talk about what they went through. whether they were branded and blinded, talking about young children being shown the clips from those gopro cameras held on the chests and helmets of hamas terrorists while they were dismembering and burning and raping and showing these to little kids over and over again. we're just beginning to understand the long-term effects to vision of being held in darkness for 50 days. so, deep, deep emotional and physical torture by hamas. it is difficult to explain all this. this is what we're dealing with and why we have to eliminate it. and, by the way, it is not just for israel, it is for the palestinians themselves. there is no hope for the gaza strip and no hope for peace. >> but, you know, there are a lot of people and 1.7, 1.9 million who have been displaced in an area that has about 2.1 million total population. that's almost the entirety of the population saying, listen, we're not the people who carried out that october 7th massacre. but we are suffering very much as a consequence of that. >> recent polls show it remains quite popular. no one wants to see innocent people hurt at all. we have to stress again and again that hamas is using this population as a human shield. it is moving with the refugees to the south and continuing to hide behind them. and israel has no choice. as simple as that. hamas succeeds, hamas survives this war. there is no hope for a return to normal life and security to israel and no hope for peace for the palestinians. it is that simple. i've been around a long time, been involved in the peace process for 30 years. we forget in 2007, hamas' first victims were the palestinians who supported peace. they threw 600 of them off rooftops. it is not as if they're supporting a two-state solution. they're not. they're going to kill anybody who does. they're that type of terrorist organization. i think this is a war not just against hamas, it is a war for civilization, but certainly a war for peace. >> ambassador michael orrin, thank you very much for being with us this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you, jose. now to an attack in paris, over the weekend. a suspect is being held for killing one tourist and injuring two others. according to french authorities, he allegedly pledged allegiance to the islamic state before the attack, which is being investigated as a terrorist attack. they said the suspect had a prior terrorism conviction and had been in contact online with jihadists responsible for terrorist attacks in france. authorities said the suspect also suffered from psychiatric disorders and that his mother expressed concerns about her son. we're following breaking news, nbc news just learned about the arrest of a former u.s. ambassador accused of spying in what could be one of the biggest infiltrations of the u.s. government. details next. also up next, disgraced drugmaker purdue pharma helped fuel the opioid epidemic. we'll tell you about the case before the supreme court this morning that could have major implications for victims of the crisis. we're back in 60 seconds. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. s you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. 16 past the hour. today at the nation's highest court, justices are weighing the biden administration's objection to a bankruptcy plan allowing the family of the center of the opioid epidemic to avoid more lawsuits. the sackler family previously controlled purdue pharma, the maker of oxycontin, highly addictive painkiller. between 1999 and 2021, the cdc says nearly 645,000 people died from an overdose due to opioids. and under a major settlement, the company had been ordered to pay $6 billion to those harmed by this public health crisis. the family told the supreme court it backs the settlement, but the biden administration says the provision that shields the sacklers from future lawsuits is unfair. joining us now, nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. ken, good morning. what is at stake in this case? >> what is at stake in this case is whether families and states that have sued the sackler family get billions of dollars sooner rather than later. there are also implications for other settlements involving the boy scouts and the catholic church. the background here is that purdue pharma and the sackler family are widely considered to be among the chief architects of the opioid crisis because of how the company profited from deceptive marketing of the drug oxycontin, which fueled the addiction nationwide. the company twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and 2020 reached a massive settlement with state governments and individuals under which the sackler family agreed to pay $6 billion. the settlement involves a bankruptcy proceeding and calls for the sacklers to be shielded from other lawsuits, even though they didn't file for bankruptcy. that's a third party release and that's what is at issue in this case. they objected to the sacklers getting this release from liability and is arguing the bankruptcy law doesn't allow for the sacklers to be shielded in this way. the state governments and the families that stand to benefit from this settlement disagree and they say that a ruling against them would put the settlement at risk. the legal dispute here is very technical, but the outcome obviously has huge implications for bankruptcy law, for other cases, and for many governments and individuals who are hoping to get some of this settlement money, jose. >> and, ken, meanwhile, nbc news confirmed that a former united states ambassador to bolivia has been arrested in a long-running fbi counterintelligence investigation accused of serving as an agent of the cuban regime? >> yeah. this is a big deal, jose. a senior official tells me this former american dip sat, served as an ambassador to bolivia, has been arrested in this fbi investigation that uncovered what this person said was one of the deepest foreign penetrations of the u.s. government in modern history. the ap reported that manuel rocha, who is 73 years old, was arrested in miami on friday, and i'm told that more details about this case are expected to be released shortly. now, he's not expected to be charged with espionage, i'm told, but rather with acting as an unregistered agent for cuba. he was a u.s. diplomat for 25 years. much of that time in latin america during the cold war. he was born in colombia, grew up in new york city, and obtained degrees from yale, harvard and georgetown before joining the foreign service in 1981. rocha was the top u.s. diplomat in argentina between 1997 and 2000 and appointed ambassador to bolivia. u.s. ambassadors are privy to very sensitive intelligence about, for example, cia operations and the identities of undercover operatives. rocha served in italy, honduras, mexico and the dominican republic and worked as a latin america expert for the national security council. more to come on this, but a big deal, jose. >> as an expert for the national security council on latin america. and, ken, there is a difference, i guess, is it semantic or otherwise, between not charing him with espionage? >> espionage, they have to prove an exchange of information to a foreign government for money, which is why you remember some of the famous cases they do sting operations, they catch the person in the park leaving the dead drop, that's really difficult to do. but it is often much easier to establish the person had a pattern of taking money from a government, was acting as an agent for the government. the damage may end up being the same, jose. >> ken dilanian, thank you very much. appreciate that. now to more breaking news from the 2024 presidential campaign trail. moments ago, north dakota republican governor doug burgum announced he is suspending his presidential campaign. burgum's departure narrows the field days before the next republican presidential debate on wednesday. burgum said in a statement that, quote, we remain committed to improving the lives of every american by moving america 180 degrees in the opposite direction of joe biden on three critical issues. the economy, energy and national security. up next, arizona's senators call the crime, quote, unacceptable. what federal officials are doing today to stem the rise in migrants crossing the southern border. plus, expelled from congress on friday, but today, today george santos says he's going to be filing his own ethics complaint against four of his former colleagues. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. u. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. tt whatever we did here would be an emblem of what small communities can achieve. trying to give a better life to people that don't have the means to do it. si mi papá estuviera vivo, sé que él tuviera orgulloso también de vivir de esta viviendo una vida como la que estamos viviendo ahora. es electricidad aquí es salud. whenever you're hungry, there's a deal on the subway app. buy one footlong, get one 50% off in the subway app today. now that's a deal worth celebrating. man, what are you doing?! get it before it's gone on the subway app. ♪♪ lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose. delicious too. just ask my old friend, kevin. nothing like enjoying a cold one while watching the game. who's winning? 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