PBS News Hour

GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

The bombardment of Gaza continues tonight, as Israel's defense minister told his forces to prepare for a ground invasion of the coastal region home to more than two million Palestinians.

AMNA NAWAZ: Since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, the death tolls continue to mount.

There are now more than 5,000 people dead, reportedly some 3,800 Palestinians, according to Palestinian officials, and more than 1,400 Israelis, according to Israeli officials.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the fallout continues from Tuesday's blast at a hospital in Northern Gaza that U.S. sources say came from a misfired Gaza rocket, with the region roiling and attacks on U.S. troops in both Iraq and Syria.

AMNA NAWAZ: A U.S. intelligence assessment sent to Congress today said the loss of life in the explosion Tuesday was on the -- quote - - "low end of 100 to 300 people," not the 500 initially claimed by the Gaza health Ministry, but a figure it's still called staggering.

Leila Molana-Allen begins our coverage again tonight.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Another morning marked by death and destruction in Gaza City.

This building used to be home to two doctors and their families.

Dr. Saqalla and Dr. Horshid (ph) once ran an eye clinic in the city, now buried under piles of rubble.

Their uncle, Mohammed Saqalla.

MOHAMMED SAQALLA, Lost Family in Airstrike (through translator): There is nothing to film here, no one to film here.

My family has been wiped from the civil registry.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: "NewsHour" producer Shams Odeh was at the scene.

SHAMS ODEH: This house is completely full of children, old people, and all of them are civilians.

They are working as doctors.

There is no reason to target them, more than 30 people killed in this house.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Not too far away, another home in ruins.

Paramedic Hussein Muhasin was looking for survivors when he learned his own family had been bombed elsewhere.

The target was one of his brothers, Jihad (ph) Muhasin, a top Hamas leader.

But among the dead were many of his family members.

HUSSEIN MUHASIN, Paramedic (through translator): There are about 15 people, all women and children, in that house.

Only two of my siblings survived and came out, but the rest are under the rubble.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: In Southern Gaza, meant to be a refuge from Israeli airstrikes, no child is safe.

This is where Israel ordered over a million civilians to move.

Gazans who already evacuated their homes say there's nowhere to go.

RAAFAT AL-NAKHAL, Displaced Gazan (through translator): They told us to come to the south, so we came to the south.

We found that the strikes intensified in the south.

There is nowhere safe in Gaza.

You have to be ready to die and to just stay in your house.

The injured are rushed to the overflowing Nasser Hospital.

Those that didn't make it, including babies, are laid to rest.

Gaza's Health Ministry sent a distress call to gas stations today, saying hospitals are running out of fuel.

They say that four major hospitals have already shut down amid Israel's punishing blockade, and those remaining are operating at over 150 percent capacity, but a glimmer of hope.

Aid trucks and volunteers are waiting at the Rafah Crossing after Israel and Egypt agreed yesterday to allow a limited humanitarian corridor into Gaza, expected to open in the coming days, all while a ground invasion of Gaza is imminent.

The commander of the IDF's Southern Command toured units in the area today and addressed soldiers.

YARON FINKELMAN, Israeli Defense Forces (through translator): Our maneuvers are going to take the war into their territory.

It's going to be long.

It's going to be intense.

The best commanders and soldiers are here.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: In the West Bank, Israel carried out a rare airstrike on the Nur Shams refugee camp after a raid last night and an ensuing battle in the streets.

Palestinian health officials say six people were killed.

Israel says they were militants.

In Southern Israel, the grisly cleanup from Hamas' terror attacks continues.

We're here in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz that's just two miles from the Gaza Strip, and now a complete scene of devastation.

The stench of death hangs heavy in the air.

The bodies of victims, grandparents, mothers, young children have now been removed and laid to rest.

But there are so many bodies that the rotting corpses of Hamas militants still lie scattered around; 24-year-old Ben Hardin, born and raised in Los Angeles, moved to Israel six years ago.

He's one of the IDF reservists tasked with sorting through the devastated aftermath of Hamas' onslaught on these small farming communities.

BEN HARDIN, Israeli Defense Forces Reservist: I would never wish these sights upon anybody else to see these things, blood stains in infants' beds.

Just all over the place, you see exactly what happened, RPG hits directly to -- direct hits on front doors.

We were able to manage to get the orders, direct orders off of these Hamas terrorists, and they have very clear and simple orders: Hunt and kill everything that moves.

It is just it's cold-blooded hatred.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The threat here is so high, Israel has imposed a closed military zone all along the Gaza border.

Sirens wail, warning of incoming rockets.

IDF reinforcements roll in to the sound of outgoing fire.

On the horizon, smoke rises from the unrelenting bombardment of Gaza.

We're just half-a-mile from Gaza here and we have been warned by Israeli security forces at a checkpoint to take care because this road is so close that it's within range of how Hamas militants firing at vehicles.

The Gaza border is home to miles on end of agricultural land.

Now emptied of farm hands and residents, a few have stayed behind, doing everything they can to save their farms from ruin.

Hi.

How are you?

DOROR KHAVIVIAN, Farmer (through translator): The first three days were very hard.

We were stuck in the safe rooms for 48 hours.

Outside, we could hear the shooting.

The terrorists were all around us.

I was absolutely terrified.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: His friend Avi (ph), like many others here, has taken up arms to defend their homes if the militants try to come back.

DOROR KHAVIVIAN (through translator): This was such a trauma for this area.

It will take a long time to rebuild, if we even can.

The only way we can see a future for this place is if Gaza is not there anymore.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: For some, it's all ready too late; 73-year-old Leah Poliak spent more than 24 hours in her safe room in Kfar Aza, waiting desperately for rescue.

Rushed away by security forces as they fought back Hamas militants, her life will never be the same.

LEAH POLIAK, Kfar Aza Evacuee: I don't want to go back.

I really don't want to go back.

I read the list of all the people that are not with us, which means that either they are not alive or they're captured.

I don't know if I feel I can go back there and not see these people anymore.

It's terrible.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: For thousands of Israelis whose lives alongside the Gaza Strip have been uprooted, evacuated with their children, dogs and few possessions, the future for their rural communities is uncertain.

But what is clear to them is what must come next.

Imri was born and raised in Kfar Aza.

Kibbutz residents have traditionally been left-leaning, hoping for peaceful coexistence.

Imri's mother long advocated for negotiations with Palestinians.

Now all that's changed.

IMRI POLIAK, Kfar Aza Evacuee: All the time, we laughed and that, if a terrorist will come there, she will give him tea and cookies, you know?

She said that this event is unforgiven.

And if she says it, it's -- so you need to double it for 1,000 times, because she's really peace woman.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: As Israeli public opinion unites over military action against Gaza and impenetrable lines are drawn, the chances for peace in this febrile region grow slimmer by the day.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Leila Molana-Allen in Southern Israel.

AMNA NAWAZ: And Leila joins us now from Jerusalem, along with Laura Barron-Lopez at the White House and our foreign affairs correspondent, Nick Schifrin, here with me in studio.

Leila, you were on that Southern Israel border today with Gaza, as you reported, where the Israel Defense Forces are preparing, seemingly, for a ground invasion.

Give us a sense of what the mood was on the ground.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Amna, the south of Israel right now just looks like one huge military base.

We were driving south today, and I saw a stream of at least 100 tanks lined up two by two, just rolling over the hill as far as the eye could see.

And that's just one staging post.

Now, of course, this war has broken out in the middle of the biggest political crisis that Israel has seen in decades, with thousands of people taking to the streets to protest against the government.

All that has changed now.

People are completely united, hundreds of thousands of army reservists coming down south to serve, people everywhere donating to the soldiers, saying, we're behind our troops, they're fighting for us.

The other thing that's changed is the view of Israeli civilians.

For a long time, people have disputed, what's the best way to deal with the Palestinian question?

More and more, as you saw in that piece there, what I'm hearing is people saying, this unprecedented terrorist attack, unprecedented on Israeli soil, this can never happen again.

We need to hit Gaza.

We need to hit it hard now.

It's us or them.

It's their civilians or our civilians.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, Laura, we're speaking now as President Biden is preparing to address the nation later tonight from the Oval Office.

That speech comes after his trip to Israel, in which he expressed solidarity and unity with a key ally.

Do we know what we expect to hear in his speech tonight?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amna, the president tonight is going to be addressing the American public very directly about why the U.S. is standing in lockstep, in unity with Israel and also why it's standing in unity with Ukraine.

But on the Israel front, the president is expected to continue to talk about what he did when he was just in Israel just the other day, making the case that the United States fully supports them, but also offering some words of caution, which he did when he was there, comparing it to the emotions that were felt in America after 9/11, and saying that, ultimately, that he hopes that Israel will not act in rage.

As the president is trying to balance these two messages, Amna, of full support for Israel, but also trying to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza and the West Bank, and making sure that this conflict doesn't expand beyond what it is right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: Nick, as part of that support, we know the U.S. has been speeding military aid to Israel, boosting its firepower in the Middle East.

But, today, we saw rockets launched from Yemen heading northward.

Do we know where they were headed, what happened?

And is this evidence of the conflict spreading in the region?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Well, there's certainly concern about that tonight in the White House and across the U.S. government.

So what we know is that Houthi rebels backed by Iran based in Yemen fired cruise missiles and drones.

That is not that unusual, but the direction was.

Usually, Yemen Houthis fire into Saudi Arabia.

You see that.

But these were heading up the Red Sea.

And that is why some U.S. officials have concluded that the most likely target was Israel.

And this is on top of Shia militias attacking U.S. troops in Iraq.

And this is exactly what U.S. officials have been concerned about, Iranian-backed groups, whether in Lebanon, whether in Yemen, whether in Iraq, whether Iran itself, taking advantage of this situation in Israel to try and open a second front.

And that is why you're seeing so many of these U.S. assets, including two aircraft carriers, heading to the Eastern Mediterranean off the Israeli coast.

Certainly, the main message there is deterrence, but, Amna, they also have significant air defense capabilities.

And if the president wanted them to, they could engage Hezbollah rockets.

AMNA NAWAZ: Nick, beyond the military, do other officials you talk to also express concern about this conflict spreading more widely?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Very much so.

There are massive protests across the region that we have seen, of course, Amna, especially after that hospital attack yesterday; 70 percent of the region are young people.

They have made it very clear they do not like U.S. and Israeli policy.

And the short-term impacts, those - - that deterrence we talked about gets harder.

And the long-term impacts for U.S. interests in the region also get much more difficult.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Laura, in terms of what the president is asking for here, we know he's preparing to send a national security package request to Congress as early as tomorrow.

What do we know in terms of the details and how it will be received?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amna, multiple sources told myself and Geoff Bennett that this package is going to be an estimated $100 billion total national security package.

And within that, that's going to include $60 billion to Ukraine, roughly $10 billion to $14 billion to Israel, roughly $10 billion to Taiwan, and another estimated $10 billion to U.S. border security.

The remainder of this package is expected to go to humanitarian aid, including to Palestinians.

And, Amna, on that last point, I should say that a number of Democratic sources told me that in meetings that they had today on the Hill, aid to Palestinians was something that they desperately wanted.

They hoped that that's a robust number in this package.

In terms of how it will be received, that border security is something that the White House is hoping will attract Republican votes.

And then, lastly, I should just say that the president did speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today and reiterated that the U.S. has wide bipartisan support for Ukraine and that, ultimately, they really want to help them defend their democratic future.

AMNA NAWAZ: Leila, in the few seconds I have left, I have to ask.

You have been speaking with a number of Palestinians and Gaza and in the West Bank.

How are they feeling in this moment?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Well, Gazans are living in hell.

They are running from daily bombardment.

There is no safe place for them.

Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank have a very difficult choice to make now.

Do they support the Palestinian cause or do they fight for their own lives, so they don't end up the same way?

They feel there's no faith in their leadership, the Palestinian Authority, whatsoever.

They don't feel led right now.

So they're all really in the quandary as to how to react to this, some people out in the streets protesting, some people hiding at home hoping to keep safe.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Leila Molana-Allen in Jerusalem, Laura Barron-Lopez at the White House, and Nick Schifrin here with me in studio.

Thank you to you three.

And we bring you now some more sad news, just to update a story that Willem Marx reported last night.

Two of five family members taken hostage by Hamas have now been found dead.

Israeli-American Carmela Dan and her 12-year-old granddaughter, Noya, were discovered by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza in recent days.

Noya's father, her older sister and her younger brother remain missing.