The u. S. More american aid workers being pulled out of western africa where officials call this a Public Health emergency. This morning dr. Nancy snyderman is answering your questions. Ending the itching, the app that promises to keep the mosquitos away. Well find out how well it really works today, thursday, july 31st, 2013. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning everyone. Nice to have you along on a thursday morning on today. We have another busy news day today. Thats right. The crisis in the middle east continues. There are new signs this will not be coming to an end any time soon. The Israeli Military is calling up another 16,000 reservists, that brings the total to about 86,000. The death toll in the threeweekold fighting is huge. More than 1,300 palestinians, 50 israelis, 50 soldiers. This morning, israel Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu is vowing to destroy the tunnels with or without a ceasefire. Well talk to the israeli ambassador to the u. S. In a moment. Lets get right to nbcs chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel in gaza city. Good morning. Reporter good morning. That death toll you mentioned includes at least three Israeli Soldiers and five palestinians killed overnight. Prime minister netanyahu said there will be no ceasefire until hamas tunnels are, quote, neutralized. Israeli troops push deeper into gaza searching house to house, and now reinforce. S are coming. Israel called up an additional 16,000 reservists for the mission to disarm hamas and destroy its tunnels. Israel says it doesnt target civilians but in crowded penned in Gaza Civilians are being killed every day in strikes like this one. A cameraman was filming as ambulances rushed to a blast in gaza city when suddenly the camera for a pro hamas Media Company kept rolling as 11 rounds rained down. At least 16 were killed. And anger is growing after another 15 people were killed in at least a sixth un school being used as a shelter. Its spokesman unable to contain his emotions in a live interview. Most israelis still support the offensive. Many want it to go further to stop hamas attacks once and for all. Israels image abroad is being tarnished. And worse, in europe, especially france and germany, attacks on synagogues and jewishowned businesses are on the rise, reviving painful memories for jewish communities around the world. Prime minister netanyahu says the Israeli Offensive wont be over until the tunnels are destroyed. The language here, matt, is quite important because Israeli Military sources are telling us that the specific tunnel mission could be completed by Israeli Forces within the next four to five days. So there might be an end in sight. Richard engel on the story for us. Thank you very much. Lets turn to ron dermer, israels ambassador to the United States. Again and again they say they dont target civilians, they go above and beyond to minimize civilian casualties. Yet we continue to see civilians die. The death toll is up to a thousand. We saw the strike on the un school. How would you grade Israeli Forces in terms of its stated mission of minimizing civilian casualties. You have to put it in context. What do you think United States would do if you had 200 million americans in bombshell terse, 3,000 rockets fired at you by an terrorist organization committed to your production, using your own people as shields, using schools, using mosques, using tunnels into israel. Given all those facts israel has taken great care to avoid civilian casualties. Were fighting an enemy that hides behind their civilians. That is the problem. It is the problem. I guess that raises the question then why play into hamas hands. Israeli Officials Say this is a strategy by hamas, to rack up the civilian death toll and get the tim sympathy of the world. If that is working, why play into it . What would you have us do . Youre sitting in new york right now. Would you allow you, in this case f you were the citizen in the country, allow you to sit in a bomb shelter for three or four weeks, or would you want your government or military to defend you . They are firing 100 rockets at our citizens every day. No country should have to live that way. Weve seen some anti israeli protests around, some turning antisemitic in nature. How concerned are you about that . Do you ask yourselves, we may be winning militarily but are we losing the larger battle, the p battle, perhaps minting the next generation of terrorists. Antisemitism has been a problem for a few thousand years. There was a hope in the wake of the holocaust that it would end and the establishment of israel would bring it to an end. What happened is that the brief period after the holocaust made it politically incorrect to make it antisemitic. Now you have antisemitism coming to the surface again. Now its happening again. I think the world should be outraged by it, take the stand against it. The birth of the state of israel didnt end hatred to the you wish people, it gave jewish people the ability to defend itself. Israeli ambassador ron dermer, we appreciate your time, thank you. A tragic scene in san diego where a small plane crashed into a busy parking lot killing its lone passenger. Nbcs Hallie Jackson has the story. Good morning. Good morning. Officials say its miraculous more people werent killed when the plane crashed. The burned out wreckage of a small plane sits in a parking lot steps from two of the san diego areas busiest stores, cosco and target. The crash happened at the peak of rush hour wednesday evening. Frantic communication between the pilot and the control tower shortly before the crash. Oh my god, im not getting any altitude now. Full throttle. Im full throttle. Turn back to the field. Im going down the plane clipped the roof of the target store, taking out a nearby light pole before slamming down between the two stores and bursting into flames. While the 52yearold pilot survived, sadly, her only passenger was killed. Police say it was a miracle there were no other fatalities on the ground. We were very lucky it came down where it came down. Obviously it was low enough that at least one person survived the crash. Witnesses say problems with the fixed wing single engine plane began seconds after taking off. Chopper pilot vince carter was flying in the area and heard the distress call. She came up on her takeoff and lost power. Reporter people on the ground raced to the scene, some with fire extinguishers to help the victim. Several of the rescuers who pulled the people from the plane pulled received minor injuries and burns. Reporter the pilot is in a local hospital with severe injuries. At this point its not clear why the plane crashed. The ntsb is investigating. Typically, matt, the agencys preliminary report would come out within a week or two. It could take months for the final assessment. Hallie jackson, thank you very much. Meantime there are no concerns that the largest Ebola Outbreak in history is about to get worse. The medical charity, Doctors Without Borders calls this crisis unprecedented while the peace corps is removing its workers from the region. We have nbcs Stephanie Gosk in charlotte, north carolina. Good morning to you. Reporter good morning. The cdc is asking u. S. Officials to be vigilant looking for signs of ebola. When a patient walked into this emergency room here at this hospital and triggered red flags including telling nurses he had recently traveled to africa, they isolated him and cordoned off a section of the er. For seven hours Charlotte Medical Center was concerned one of the patients had ebola. It turned out to be a false alarm. Dr. Katy pacioretty says the hospitals response was the right call. Its either back off and mez v put measures into place later down the road. Reporter balancing trying not to alarm the public is tricky. In sierra leone aid workers san jose they believe this is the tip of the outbreak iceberg. They are scared, if you look over and look at the patients and you know their chances are very small. Its horrible. Reporter the peace corps announced it is temporarily removing 340 volunteers from the region while american aid workers nancy writebol. They prayed for their recovery and spoke by phone with her husband who says his wifes condition is improving. She was sitting up and talking with us and shes able to move about, but she still has a long way to go. Shes still very ill. With cases mounting, containment gets harder and harder. The big concern is air travel. Direct flights out of the affected region reached 35 countries. But officials and medical experts in this country are asking americans to take a collective inhale and not panic. We havent had any cases in the United States today. And i think there are the infrastructure in place in hospitals to try to prevent any potential threat to patients or Health Care Workers. Reporter officials here at this hospital stress that the best way to narrow this gap between the publics perception of the threat and the actual threat is to educate. So much of this fear comes from a lack of information. Matt and savannah . Stephanie, thank you so much. It goes without saying this crisis has a lot of people talking. Dr. Nancy is in the orange room all morning long, shell answer the questions coming in. Well check with her later. First tamron is here fortunately, more on the Immigration Crisis this morning. Today the border crisis is getting a lot of attention on capitol hill, where the house plans to vote on a 659 million immigration bill, much smaller than the package president wants. It would send money to the border and help speed up the return of unaccompanied children from south america. House republicans are pressing ahead with a lawsuit against president obama. On wednesday lawmakers voted along party lines to move forward with a lawsuit accusing the president of exceeding his authority in implementing the health care law. The president calls it a stunt that will cost taxpayers. That massive Water Pipeline break at ucla finally stopped leaking during the night, but not before spewing more than 20 million gallons of water. Six facilities were damaged, almost 1,000 vehicles were trapped in garages, many below waters. Repairs could take days, even weeks. The legal team of Michael Skakel is following a victory wednesday. Last year a judge overturned sakals murder connection in the 1975 death of neighbor martha moxley. Now a battle over evidence, more from nbcs ron mott. Reporter Michael Skakel was the focus of cameras as he arrived at court. How are you . How are you. How are you enjoying your time out . I wouldnt say enjoying. Spending time with your family. As much as i can. Reporter inside the courtroom, arguments centered on evidence including two hairs from unknown individuals found near Martha Moxleys body the night she was murdered. The defense believes they could tie other people to the crime scene and want them saved for dna testing. We want to make sure the state preserves that type of evidence so in the future there would be testing that would be able to be present for. Reporter prosecutors are appealing the decision that granted skakel a new trial and argued it was too soon to argue about evidence while the appeal was pending. The judge ordered all evidence, including those hairs, be preserved. Im going to order the state to preserve all items of evidence. Reporter skakel left court saying he was happy. Very. First and foremost, we couldnt be happier about the way the proceedings went today. Reporter still unclear is whether the state will be able to use a key piece of evidence, an audio recording of skakel discussing the night of the murder. The defense agreed to put off the fight to keep them out of the retrial. Absolutely. That evidence was seized without a warrant, no doubt in my mind. Reporter for today, ron mott, stamford, connecticut. A girl in california was climbing in eaton canyon when she slid down the side of a cliff and was saved, thats the description, by a tree. The slide caught on someones cell phone. Rescuers were able to bring her down. That hirking trail is being closed tomorrow. A surprise president ial farewell for derek jeter as the yankee captain. Jeter played his final game in texas. Former president george w. Bush gave jeter a signed picture of the two of them taken soon after 9 11, the night after the former president threw out the first pitch in game three of the 2001 world series. Back then jeter told him not to bounce it or the crowd will boo. Jeter said not many people can say theyve had the president come out and honor them. Pretty cool there. 7 15. Jeter gave two pieces of advice in that game. Pitch it from the mound, otherwise theyll boo you and dont bounce it, or theyll boo you. And he threw a strike, the former president. Mr. Roker . We have Severe Weather cropping up in western new york making its way right toward a good portion of new england. Were looking at these severe storms firing up. We currently have severe thunderstorm warnings in effect western new york from oswego to syracuse. Heavy showers and thunderstorms. Reports of water spouts coming off lake erie as well. We have the risk of strong storms today later on moving into albany, into upstate new york and new england. Were watching this system. Were also watching heavy rain coming out of texas into parts of arkansas and louisiana. This is going to be going on all day today. Already theyve seen a lot of rain and theyre going to get more. We have flash flood watches in effect in a good portion of the region as you can see from texas into parts of louisiana and the southwest, flash flood warnings, flash flood watches. Why . Well see anywhere from two to three inches of rain. Well see anywhere from two to three inches of rain. Locally could be up to four hey, i heard you guys can help me with frog protection . Yeah, we help with fraud protection. We monitor every purchase every day and alert you if anything looks unusual. Wow youre really looking out for us. We are. And if there are unauthorized purchases on your discover card, youre never held responsible. Just to be clear, you are saying frog protection right . Yeah, fraud protection. Frog protection. Fraud protection. Frog. Fraud. Frog. Fraud. I think were on the same page. Were totally on the same page. At discover, we treat you like youd treat you. Fraud protection. Get it at discover. Com well none of our microclimates are on the same page this morning. Good morning im Christina Loren. We are stocked in with low clouds in tiburon. Meanwhile you can see the clouds at the midlevel clouds overhead and plenty of midlevel clouds right now in san jose. Well be completely sunny here around 10 00 today. 63 degrees right now on the peninsula. 62 in the south bay. Overall mild to start. Its going to be hot later on, 90 degrees for the south bay. 85 degrees today in peninsula area. Thats your latest weather. Al, thanks very much. We saw earlier dr. Nancy is in the orange room with carson taking questions about the Ebola Outbreak. Guys, what are you hearing . Dr. Nancy, youve been on our Facebook Page taking questions. What sort of con stirn in general do people have . People want to know is it coming to United States, what are the symptoms, where did it come from and how do we keep ourselves safe. Christopher ask what are symptoms of ebola. The early symptoms are very vague, almost flulike, nausea, vomiting, headache, high fever i. Mean 104, 105. Its in the early stages when someone needs to get medical attention because you dont want the kidneys to shut down. People die because they start to hemorrhage. We know the two americans right now who are fighting for their lives got early aggressive treatment and thats probably why they are still alive. Is the virus airborne . It is not airborne. You get it through direct contact with an infected person, usually through vomit, saliva, feces. It really is when someone is actively transmitting the virus. Amanda asks why hasnt there been a virus created . There are vaccines in the pipeline. What always happens, these Ebola Outbreaks come, they burn out fast. The populations are small. I expect a vaccine for this virus will probably make it to market by the end of next year. Thanks, dr. Nancy. Shell be here all morning long taking your questions. Back to you. Coming up, he was the governor of virginia, now hes on trial, explosive testimony and allegations on him and his wife on the lavish life that landed them in a courtroom. And on rosen reports an undercover investigation into an Energy Drink Company raising concerns on college campuses. Is it recruiting campuses with possible access to private jets and fancy cars . Well meet a man who says he was duped and wants to warn other students. First this is today on nbc. 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