Hospitals overwhelmed as Gaza siege intensifies and Israel vows Hamas will ‘be crushed’

Geoff Bennett:

It is the sixth day of war, as Israel retaliates against terrorist attacks from Hamas, with the coastal region under extraordinary bombardment by Israeli jets and artillery and the siege tightening.

Amna Nawaz:

Here on the ground, nearly 3,000 people have already died in less than a week of brutal violence. In Israel, more than 1,200 people have been killed. That includes 27 Americans. The U.S. government now says it will begin operating charter flights tomorrow to evacuate any of the more than 100,000 Americans currently here.

And, so far, 1,500 Palestinians have been killed. That includes 45 members of the same extended family all killed in an airstrike on their Gaza home tonight, according to officials there.

We begin tonight in Gaza with our colleague Leila Molana-Allen reporting.

Leila Molana-Allen:

In the heavily bombarded Gaza Strip, a frantic effort to find survivors. Gazans desperately search mounds of rubble for signs of life with their bare hands.

This is the densely populated Al-Shati refugee camp, hit by one of Israel's latest acts of retribution.

Man (through interpreter):

You can see the destruction. We have martyrs under the rubble. We pose no danger. There were children there. What did the children do to deserve this?

Leila Molana-Allen:

In the nearby Al-Shifa Hospital, the horrors of war stream in. The procession of stretchers is never-ending.

Inside, the hallways crammed with the injured, hospital staff scrambling to treat them, among them, the bloodied bodies of Khadija Soulieh's children. They were having breakfast when their house was bombed.

Khadija Soulieh, Gaza Resident (through interpreter):

I didn't even see the house. There was nothing left of it. All of us were injured, my husband, kids. We have nothing to do with any of this. We have nothing at all.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Hospital director Dr. Muhammad Abu Salima says Al-Shifa no longer has enough beds for the overwhelming number of patients.

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salima, Director, Al-Shifa Hospital (through interpreter):

The hospital is unable to accommodate this large number of injuries. The Gaza Strip has never seen such numbers under any the day or in any war. Families have been exterminated.

Leila Molana-Allen:

For the families of the dead, there is no hope left, the loss unbearable as they mourn in constant fear. Humanitarian groups say, with the city under siege, its hospitals risk turning into morgues.

Amid such carnage, Secretary of State Antony Blinken touched down in Israel this morning.

Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State: Good to see you. Sorry it's under these circumstances.

Leila Molana-Allen:

His host, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, renewed his uncompromising warning to Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

Hamas is ISIS. And just as ISIS was crushed, so too will Hamas be crushed.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Blinken doubled down on U.S. support. But as Israeli forces intensify their military campaign, he delivered a word of caution.

Antony Blinken:

It's so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Horrifying new evidence of Hamas' campaign of terror continues to surface. This kibbutz was reduced to ashes. Video appears to show bullet holes splintering the walls of a child's bedroom.

Secretary Blinken described images of victims he saw.

Antony Blinken:

A baby, an infant, riddled with bullets, soldiers beheaded, young people burned alive.

Leila Molana-Allen:

And as Hamas' indiscriminate barrage of rockets continues, the fighting has spread far from Gaza and the surrounding area.

This morning, Syrian media reported Israel struck international airports in Damascus and Aleppo. On the border with Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters continue to exchange fire.

We're heading up to the very northern border of Israel with Lebanon, and things are always tense here, because Hezbollah dominates the territory just across the border. In the last few days, there's been a lot of rocket fire back and forth across this border. And, last night, there was a false alarm where, for a few minutes, everyone thought the war that they'd feared for years had finally started.

In the town of Shomera, just three miles from the border, Smadar and Momi Amsalem were preparing dinner when the alarm sounded.

Smadar Amsalem, Shomera, Israel, Resident (through interpreter):

We received an alert, and they told us to go to the shelters and not to leave them.

Leila Molana-Allen:

As the barrages increase and the likelihood of a cross-border war grows, the Israel Defense Forces have advised everyone in this area to leave. Swathes of residents have headed south to comparatively safer areas.

Aside from sporadic rocket fire, Hezbollah has thus far stayed its hand. It says its red line to attack Israel would be a ground invasion of Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu says that invasion is Israel's only option.

Smadar Amsalem(through interpreter):

Yes, there are people who are worried. They have little kids and babies, so they evacuated themselves.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Samdar's was visiting from Los Angeles with his four kids when the weekend's terror attacks unfolded. The family fled home as soon as they could get on a plane.

But Momi and Smadar have lived through war after war in their 60 years here. Momi has worked through every one, delivering the eggs the area is famous for.

Momi Amsalem, Shomera, Israel, Resident (through interpreter):

my job is vital. I need to supply the eggs because people need to eat. Even under fire, you have to continue your work.

Smadar Amsalem(through interpreter):

We didn't leave and we're not going to leave. This is our country, and we're not afraid of Hezbollah or anyone else.

Leila Molana-Allen:

But not everyone is so sure. The closer you get to the border, the emptier the streets.

Here in Shlomi, 18-year-old Nehorai Zeno narrowly escaped death when a Hezbollah rocket hit his father's hair salon two days ago. He spends most days there hanging out with friends and helping his father. Now the family's livelihood is gone.

Nehorai Zeno, Shlomi, Israel, Resident (through interpreter):

It feels so strange to know I could have been here. It could have hit me and my family.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Today, the family came back to inspect for damage. His mother, shaking with fear and too traumatized to appear on camera, told us she no longer trusts the Israeli army or her government to keep her safe. She's desperate to leave as soon as possible and get her children to safety.

Nehorai Zeno (through interpreter):

Most of my friends have left. Some have stayed, and some are really scared. Overall, I'm OK. But my little brothers and sisters and mom and dad are really tense.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Across the north, the same question, to stay or to go. And with the whole country descending into violence, where to go, meanwhile, coming in the opposite direction are the tens of thousands of army reservists who've been deployed to Northern Israel in recent days.

As hostilities on the northern border intensify, towns and villages here are clearing out. Here in the village of Zar'it just a quarter of a mile from the Lebanese border,it's completely evacuated, the only people around IDF soldiers who've been sent up here to defend it.

Joining soldiers are the few residents staunchly determined to stay and fight and the local militias made up of townspeople who have fought these border battles for years. From their outposts, they have watched in recent days as incoming fire killed and wounded both Israelis and Arab Israelis living here and the IDF's retaliation.

With such an unprecedented number of soldiers deployed, locals here say the IDF is struggling to get them enough supplies. So, Israeli civilians have stepped in. At this restaurant just south of Shlomi, the owners and staff have been preparing hundreds of hot meals to distribute to soldiers for the past three days.

Sandrine Hazan, Restaurant Owner (through interpreter):

There are so many soldiers. They're wary. They don't want what happened on the south to happen here. So they're here to protect us. So we just want to give them a little something, something to eat, a little gift to give them strength.

Leila Molana-Allen:

As the drums of war bang faster and louder. Similar scenes of unity and preparation are playing out across the country, Israelis readying themselves for what they believe will be a brutal, but necessary battle.

Amna Nawaz:

And joining me here live in Tel Aviv is Leila Molana-Allen.

Leila, fantastic reporting, as always. Good to see you.

Leila Molana-Allen:

Thank you so much, Amna.

Amna Nawaz:

You know northern Israeli border with Lebanon so well. You have seen how quickly tensions there can flare.

What did it feel like when you spent the day there today?

Leila Molana-Allen:

It was extremely tense. The streets are sort of echoey, they're so empty, and people aren't hiding inside now. They're leaving in their droves.

You see people sort of walking out with a bag, getting it in the car, moving off as fast as they can, and then some people wandering around wondering whether or not they should, because, of course, the IDF has suggested that they leave. But they have not said that they have to do. That is their choice.

And a lot of people who live up near this border live there because they believe that that's where they should be living and they want to stay and fight. And fight is what they're going to do. So all these IDF soldiers have been sent up there. But as well as that, you have these local militias I was talking about.

Now, they are so concerned about being targeted, that there was no chance that they would appear on camera. They work directly in front of that Lebanese border. And you can see the sights of the people that they're fighting from where they sit every day.

And they were talking about the sights they have been seeing the last few days, militants trying to come over the walls there. They have been attacking. They sit there with their guns all day. And it's such a different relationship between these people who've been fighting these border battles, as I said, there for years.

They're really used to this fight. And then these young IDF reservists, many of whom have come up from centralized Israel, even from studying abroad, they're technicians in companies. They might be young corporate lawyers. I met people with all sorts of modern jobs, haven't served for years.

And they have suddenly been sent up to this active war zone. So there's a very interesting relationship going on with those people there. And they're sort of wandering around, these young soldiers, ready for something, but they're not quite sure what.

Now they're getting a huge amount of support from all these local volunteers who are cheering them on, who are saying, you're here to fight for us. But it is a very tense situation. You can see all these people streaming in that they really feel something's about to start. And, of course, they are trying to protect these multiple borders now.

And this is where this decision comes in of what these people have to do, whether they're going to stay, whether they're going to go. I met one woman who was so petrified, she was shaking. I had to hold her while she was speaking. And she was saying: "My babies. I don't know what to do about my babies."

She didn't have a car. She was asking us if we could help her organize a car to get out because she was so afraid of what was coming. And she was absolutely desperate. People really are feeling like the entire country is falling apart.

And we have now had another escalation, which is that Human Rights Watch have just confirmed that they're reporting says that white phosphorus was used by Israeli forces in both Gaza and on the Lebanese border in the last few days. Now, white phosphorus is a substance that burns human skin horrifically.

It can disperse into the air. Hundreds of pellets from each of these dispersals comes down. And if it hits you in the skin, it will burn you down to the bone. It can burn your lungs out. Just 10 percent of burns from this can kill a human being. And if it doesn't, the lifelong injuries are horrifying, as well as the fact that it can burn down entire communities.

So, if this is the case, that's a major escalation in the fighting and also a terrifying prospect for people on both sides of the border in terms of how angry that kind of weaponry being used could make people.

Amna Nawaz:

Leila, you have also reported on how this conflict here will have ripple effects well beyond these borders.

You mentioned, of course, Syrian officials saying Israeli airstrikes crippled two of their main airports today. What should we understand about that?

Leila Molana-Allen:

Well, so this is very interesting when this happened earlier today, because the explanation could be that it was a retaliation for any number of strikes coming in from Syria or Lebanon.

But the Iranian foreign minister is in Iraq at the moment and was supposed to travel to Syria tomorrow and then to Lebanon afterwards. And there's suspicion that this might have been an attempt to stop essentially a council of war. People think that foreign minister's trip is to drum up support for Hamas after the massive attack that happened, but, of course, everyone suspects was funded by the Iranian government.

So, potentially, this attack happened in order to try and put out both those airports at the same time, so that he couldn't arrive and that meeting wouldn't happen.

Amna Nawaz:

Leila Molana-Allen reporting for us tonight.

Leila, thank you so much — Geoff, back to you.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Amna, our thanks to you and Leila as well.