GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz in Tel Aviv.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: The war between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate, with thousands already dead and power, food and medical supplies now dwindling in Gaza.

ABU HASSAN, Gaza Resident (through translator): All those who have been displaced don't have anything.

All they have is suffering, fear, and horror.

GEOFF BENNETT: Then: Here in Washington, House members take steps to elect a new speaker.

We break down the latest on the Republican infighting that's brought the chamber to a standstill.

And voting rights again make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, at issue, gerrymandering in South Carolina that's said to be putting Black voters at a disadvantage.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

A fifth day of heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas today, as the death tolls soar.

More than 1,200 Israelis and 1,100 Palestinians are now dead, with many still missing.

There are 22 Americans confirmed killed in Saturday's terror attacks across Israel, and Hamas holds an unknown number of hostages in Gaza.

AMNA NAWAZ: Here in Israel, the fear of a wider war seemed very real earlier after reports of drones and incursions from Lebanon.

Those turned out to be false alarms.

In the meantime, in Gaza, the last power station has now run out of fuel.

There will soon be no electricity in Gaza, along with no water and nor sanitation.

And food supplies are starting to become scarce.

Our colleague Leila Molana-Allen begins our coverage.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Block by block, Gaza is being blasted into dust, as Israel's punishing bombardment continues.

For the fourth day straight, residents woke up to a landscape of horror.

The streets of this densely populated coastal enclave are in chaos, as people rushed to clear the debris after Israeli airstrikes pummeled their neighborhoods.

Israel says it targeted a Hamas commander, but civilians say they are bearing the devastating consequences.

Abu Hassan's home was bombed without warning.

ABU HASSAN, Gaza Resident (through translator): All of the people living in the house are killed inside it, and all of our neighbors.

Where is the international community?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The strikes are part of Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the weekend's bloody terror strikes.

Today, the Israel Defense Forces released video of warplanes striking Gaza's Islamic University.

It says Hamas used it for training and producing weapons.

And Israel is striking critical infrastructure, including Gaza's port.

The entire Gaza Strip is under a total blockade, with more than 250,000 people displaced.

Israel has cut off all supplies of food, water and fuel.

To survive, residents help each other however they can.

AHMED YOUSSEF MEKHIMAR, Gaza Resident (through translator): I send water to those who have had their houses demolished.

All those who have been displaced don't have anything.

All they have is suffering, fear and horror.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: And now Gaza will soon sink into darkness.

Its last operational power plant today stopped working after it ran out of fuel.

"NewsHour" producer Shames Ouda spoke to us from near the plant.

SHAMES OUDA: This power station served all Gaza Strip, and now is turned off, Gaza without fuel, without electricity, without Internet, without food.

Gaza dying.

The people will pay the price of this war.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Inside hospitals, it's a race to save the wounded, but supplies are dwindling.

DR. ASHRAF AL-QIDRA, Spokesperson, Gaza Ministry of Health (through translator): The quantity of injured people arriving to our hospitals is huge and will mean we will not be able to accept more patients in Gaza.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Across the border, Hamas' rocket barrage continued to overwhelm Israel's Iron Dome defense system.

One rocket slammed into a medical center for children in the city of Ashkelon, all while Israelis spent another day burying their dead and promising retribution, as the army calls up hundreds of thousands of reservists to join the fight.

YOAV GALLANT, Israeli Defense Minister (through translator): And I'm saying here to everyone we will wipe this thing called Hamas, ISIS Gaza, off the face of the earth.

It will cease to exist.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The state of emergency has prompted a major shakeup in Israel's government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition party leader Benny Gantz said today they agreed to form a wartime unity government, a move that just a week ago would have seemed impossible, now deemed a necessity.

The U.S. has promised support.

And at a roundtable with Jewish community leaders in the U.S., President Biden again addressed the conflict.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: My commitment to Israel's security and the safety of the Jewish people is unshakable.

It is really important that Israel, with all the anger, frustration, and just -- I'm not explaining it -- that exist is that they operate by the rules of war.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The violence has now spread north of the Gaza Strip.

Israel's promised retribution was on full show today in occupied East Jerusalem.

Last night, two young Palestinian men were shot dead in Silwan by Israeli border police after throwing fireworks.

This morning, 24-year-old Ali Abbasi's family had gathered here at his house to mourn his death.

Security forces have just turned up to raid the home of one of the young men who was killed in Silwan last night.

They have gone into his home, firing tear gas to disperse the crowds and into the air to make sure everyone else in the neighborhood stays inside their houses.

Residents claim security forces stopped medics reaching the men and they bled to death.

The anger is palpable, as is the fear of more killing to come.

NAHIDA SALMAN, Aunt of Ali Abbasi (through translator): The Israelis come, they arrest our young men, demolish our houses, attack our women.

Why?

We fear for the future of this generation.

I wanted my nephew to get married.

Instead, he became a martyr.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Nearby Issawiya is sometimes called Little Gaza for its Palestinian only-population and for its residents' reputation for resisting Israeli laws that they believe discriminate against Arabs.

Israel's security forces have taken the name literally.

After Saturday's horrific terror attacks by Hamas around the Gaza border, Issawiya was raided in full force on Saturday night.

OSAMA ISSAWI, East Jerusalem Resident (through translator): They were furious.

You didn't know what was going in their minds, because they were looking for someone to get revenge from.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Osama Issawi has lived in Issawiya all his life.

His is the first house after the village's entrance, and his family bears the full brunt of every raid.

Since Saturday, he says Israeli special forces have invaded the village almost daily, shooting tear gas and live fire and wounding and detaining an as-yet-unconfirmed number of young men.

He says Palestinian communities are being punished for someone else's crimes.

OSAMA ISSAWI: We feel this kind of anger about this.

We do feel that there is no justice in what's going on.

AMNA NAWAZ: And Leila Molana-Allen joins me here live in Tel Aviv.

Leila, good to see you.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Good to see you, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Just incredible reporting over these last few days.

I know you spent today speaking with a number of other Palestinian families in Jerusalem and in the West Bank.

What else are they telling you about what life is like at this moment?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Well, these tensions from down in Gaza are really boiling over, and you can see that this has actually been the most violent year in nearly two decades in the West Bank already, before any of this was happening.

I was here in July reporting on that.

And now, of course, that violence has shifted down to Gaza, but we're seeing it spread.

In the piece there, you saw the retaliation by security forces against young men in Jerusalem.

But we're also seeing battles between civilians.

There was a bus driver I met today, an Arab bus driver in Jerusalem, who was driving his normal bus route for the main Israeli bus company.

And some settlers saw him, young settlers on the street, and attacked the bus, throwing rocks, and managed to injure his eye.

He'd lost the vision in one eye.

He'd stopped working.

He was too scared to go back to work.

And he said this has happened to a few of his other colleagues in the last couple of days, people seeing an Arab driver and attacking them.

We contacted the company for a comment, and the company said to us, "This is a time of war, and we have no further comment" about their own employees.

So that's how difficult this is getting.

And, of course, once you get outside of East Jerusalem, which is contested, you're then in the West Bank, which is even more contested, because, of course, there are settlements being built there.

And as more and more of these settlements are built, the reason this is such an issue, they are deemed internationally illegal, but also the reason it's so important is, that's where a two-state solution would be.

So the more Israeli settlements that are built in the West Bank, the less chance there ever is of that two-state solution So we drove out.

We heard that settlers were blocking the roads, which is something they do quite often when they're angry about something, when they have an axe to grind.

There have been several Palestinian villages that have been burned by settlers this week.

We got a certain amount down the road and we suddenly started seeing smoke, we started hearing gunfire.

And this wasn't settlers.

It was Ramallah.

And I went and spoke to the IDF who were standing outside, the soldiers there.

And they said: "Look, take care of yourself.

We're expecting serious trouble, and there's nothing we can do for you if something kicks off, because we have been told to be here and alert."

What's happened is that they have been threatening to do this for several days.

They have now blocked off the entrances to every Palestinian town and village in the West Bank.

You are not allowed to move as a Palestinian unless you have a very special permit for health or an emergency.

So inside those towns, and Ramallah being one of the biggest, they're now protesting.

They're having big, violent protests.

So, we were there for a while.

We eventually moved on, moved away.

And we could see it escalating behind us.

And as we drove back down the road, we got a call that, in Qusra, four Palestinians had been murdered by settlers attacking the town.

AMNA NAWAZ: We're seeing that spreading, that escalation of the tension and the conflict.

But take us back then in Israel to the south.

What is the latest?

You have been tracking the situation there as well.

What do we need to know?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Well, now they're starting to evacuate people from the south.

I was in down in Sderot yesterday, which is one of the towns.

It was where that police station was attacked, lots and lots of Hamas fighters in there.

They were still fighting them when we were there yesterday.

They say, the IDF, that they have completely secured the Gaza border, but that's not the case.

We heard gunfire.

And then there were reports just half-an-hour later that there had been a full gun battle.

We got those images in.

So there are still Hamas fighters managing to make it across that border.

They have now pushed back.

They have evacuated that entire area, all those kibbutzes, small communities around the Gaza border where, of course, we saw such horrific massacres take place this weekend.

They have put an a security cordon there and moved them back, but still those areas just behind where many of them are, because they're injured, because they're in hospital.

There are rockets coming in every 10 to 15 minutes.

And in those hospitals, they're at risk too.

Ashkelon Hospital, where I was yesterday, gets the majority of these cases.

I was talking to the doctor yesterday about what they're going to do with the most injured who they can't move.

They have got a bunker downstairs.

They were starting to move them, and, today, the children's wing of that hospital hit by a rocket and destroyed.

AMNA NAWAZ: So that is in the south.

Meanwhile, in the north today, as we reported earlier, a lot of panic set off when there were reports of possible incursion across that Lebanese border.

They did turn out to be false alarms.

But what do we know about what happened and why that set off such a panic?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: So we don't yet know that much more about what happened.

Now, obviously, the Lebanese border is a big concern here.

I lived in Lebanon for many years, and we were constantly covering clashes down on the Lebanese southern border, the Israeli northern border that go across that area, because, in the same way, you have people who live up in the north of Israel who believe that that's where they should live, but they're constantly under threat of these missiles, rockets coming across, the people in the south of Lebanon at risk of that too.

And, of course, we saw that horrific war in 2006 that killed so many people, devastated a lot of Lebanon as well.

So tensions are really high.

Now, after the attack on Saturday, Hezbollah has been very measured recently.

They are in a difficult position, because they are part of the Lebanese government, and they have been trying to prove themselves legitimately as a political partner.

So they cannot be seen to be starting a war that could jeopardize Lebanese people.

Otherwise -- unless they can prove that it is to defend Lebanon.

So that has to be their narrative.

They can't be the inciters, because Lebanese people would die.

So, on Saturday, we saw them send some missiles into Shebaa Farms, which is a contested area.

That's the minimum they could do to show that they did support Hamas, but they weren't going to get any more involved.

But over the last few days, we have seen some exchanges of fire with the IDF.

And, this morning, anti-tank missiles were sent in, in response to a few Hezbollah members being killed yesterday, so tensions are already very high this morning.

The IDF immediately deployed tens of thousands of soldiers up to the northern border.

They have called up all these reservists.

They're now having to protect multiple borders, also rockets coming in from Syria.

So it's all very tense there.

And the other issue is, the reason that we think what happened tonight might have happened - - so, essentially, early evening, we suddenly got reports that there were drones, gliders coming across the border.

The war had started.

It's because they are on such a hair trigger there that they get so many missiles across.

It seems like something set those off, and we haven't got any evidence that actually happened.

But people thought for a few minutes the full war had started.

AMNA NAWAZ: It speaks to just how high those tensions are.

Leila Molana-Allen, thank you so much for your reporting.

Good to have you here.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Thank you, Amna.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: A strong new earthquake rocked the same parts of Western Afghanistan that are reeling from Saturday's deadly tremor.

This latest quake was centered on the outskirts of Herat and shook more villages into rubble.

At least one person died, and about 120 others were injured.

JUMA GUL, Herat Resident (through translator): We don't have any houses or food left.

We're scared that people here will die from hunger and the cold.

Nothing was left.

Nothing.

We are alone and have nothing.

GEOFF BENNETT: The country's ruling Taliban has said more than 2,000 people died across Herat in the previous earthquake.

Hurricane Lidia has largely dissipated after striking Mexico's Pacific coast overnight, killing two people.

The storm made landfall in a sparsely populated area near the resort of Puerto Vallarta before heading inland north of Guadalajara.

Locals took shelter as winds up to 140 miles per hour and rain drenched the region.

It did some light damage, but quickly broke apart as it moved over land.

NASA unveiled the first samples from the asteroid Bennu today two weeks after the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned them to Earth.

The samples were harvested nearly 60 million miles away.

Since then, scientists have been examining the ancient rocks, pebbles and dust in a climate-controlled glove box.

They say the material is rich in carbon and shows evidence of water.

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator: Carbon and water molecules are exactly the kinds of material that we wanted to find.

They are crucial elements in the formation of our own planet.

And they're going to help us determine the origin of elements that could have led to life.

GEOFF BENNETT: More specimens are inside the main chamber of the capsule that OSIRIS-REx dropped off in a flyby.

It has not been unsealed yet.

There's yet more data that students in the nation's high schools are falling behind.

The ACT college admissions test reports, scores for the class of 2023 fell to the lowest level in more than 30 years.

Overall, scores have dropped for six straight years and the trend accelerated during the pandemic.

The Biden administration proposed a ban on junk fees today on everything from concert tickets to hotel rooms.

Officials say companies advertise low prices, then take customers by surprise at checkout with the added fees.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says eliminating such fees will actually reduce competition.

And, on Wall Street, stocks advance despite a report showing wholesale inflation in September was worse than expected.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 65 points to close at 33804.

The Nasdaq rose nearly 97 points.

The S&P 500 was up 18.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": how misinformation about the war in Israel is spreading rampantly on social media; and the Supreme Court considers a racial gerrymandering case in South Carolina.

House Republicans are one step closer to selecting a new speaker.

They have nominated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise for the role, but not all members are on board.

And it's not yet clear if he has the votes to win on the floor of the House.

Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins reports on the busy day at the U.S. Capitol.

For the GOP, one decision made.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): First, I want to thank my House Republican colleagues.

LISA DESJARDINS: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is the Republican Conference's nominee for speaker.

His win was narrow, just 14 votes more than his challenger, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.

Scalise immediately took on the posture of speaker, telling reporters he would act quickly on aid to Israel.

REP. STEVE SCALISE: We need to make sure we're sending a message to people all throughout the world that the House is open and doing the people's business.

LISA DESJARDINS: But he is not speaker yet, and this could get complicated.

REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): Well, Leader Scalise won, and it's not over.

I'm still throwing my support behind Jim Jordan for speaker.

I'm not going to change my vote now or anytime soon on the House floor.

LISA DESJARDINS: Ohio's Max Miller was among those leaving the vote and refusing to back or unsure about Scalise.

That opens the door to a repeat of what happened in January, vote after vote on the House floor where a candidate fell just a few votes short of a majority.

It's on members' minds.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): We can't afford this dysfunction in the nation.

LISA DESJARDINS: And some Jordan backers agreed immediately, like Texas' Keith Self, part of the rebellion against Speaker McCarthy, but not this time.

REP. KEITH SELF (R-TX): We need to get back to work, and I think we took the vote, and Steve Scalise is our nominee, and I will vote for Steve Scalise on the floor.

LISA DESJARDINS: And this from McCarthy's loudest opponent, Matt Gaetz of Florida.

REP. MATT GAETZ: Long live Speaker Scalise.

LISA DESJARDINS: Within hours, Jordan told Scalise he would support him.

But there are still some who refuse, saying GOP voters want Jordan.

It is the latest test for Scalise.

He's been in leadership for nearly a decade, but is known as a survivor, recovering from nearly fatal wounds after a gunman attacked Republicans at a baseball practice in 2017.

In August, Scalise announced he was diagnosed with blood cancer.

He's currently undergoing treatment.

He campaigned as a unifier, and his allies and many Republicans want this resolved as soon as possible.

REP. JULIA LETLOW (R-LA): I'm so hopeful that we will unite quickly.

The world is depending on us, our country is depending on us to be able to get back to work, to go do our jobs that my constituents sent me here to do.

And I know the rest of the country is eager for us to do that as well, so I'm excited to get back to work.

LISA DESJARDINS: But as I speak to you now, Geoff, it is not clear when the House will get back to work.

Just a short time ago, Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry left the Capitol.

He was asked if he's gone for the rest of the night.

And he said cryptically, "Not necessarily."

Just not clear what's going to happen.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, Lisa, then where do the vote and the potential Scalise speakership stand at the moment?

LISA DESJARDINS: OK, let's break this down.

Right now, we are waiting to see if Steve Scalise can clinch that majority that he needs in the full House.

Let's talk a little bit.

Let's look at the numbers specifically.

To get the majority in the House of Representatives right now with two vacancies, you need somewhere between 215 and 217 votes.

That's including absences, which we usually do have a few of.

Now, who -- Scalise got 113 votes in conference today, but here's something important about that number.

That included the votes from three delegates from U.S. territories.

They can vote in the Republican Conference.

They cannot vote on the floor of the House.

So, when you add it all up, Geoff, where we are for Mr. Scalise is that he actually did not get a majority of the members of his conference who can vote.

And he is far way away from being sure that he has the majority of the House itself.

I think the more important number probably, though, is the number that we are getting of people who say they will not vote for him on the first ballot.

It is beginning to be a larger group.

I think producer Kyle Midura and I have counted five or six.

Other people say it's as high as 20.

And we -- as we know, Mr. Scalise can only lose four votes from Republicans and actually become speaker.

Right now, he certainly has more than that who say they will not vote for him.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about the majority leader, Steve Scalise.

Where does he stand on the issues?

What would it actually mean if he were to be elected and serve as House speaker?

LISA DESJARDINS: Steve Scalise, if elected, would be the first House speaker from Louisiana.

He is a conservative.

He is someone who is known as affable.

His style is friendly.

And even with reporters, he's generally not confrontational.

But we want to talk a little bit about where he believes -- what he believes on major issues.

So, start right with Ukraine.

That was a big difference between him and Jim Jordan.

He has generally supported aid for Ukraine, including a vote very recently.

How about abortion?

He is someone who gets high marks from anti-abortion groups.

He wants more limits.

But, in recent years, since the Dobbs decision, he has not been clear on whether he wants Congress to pass a national ban or not.

He says it depends on the votes that are present.

Now, on immigration, he is someone who talks a lot about building a border wall.

He is someone who has said in the past he would like to end birthright citizenship.

And then, finally, on the 2020 election, he is someone who was in Republican leadership at that time.

He voted to object to certifying the election.

He did that twice, both of those votes after the January 6 riots hit the Capitol and affected him personally.

And that is how he voted on those.

GEOFF BENNETT: So the group that objected to Kevin McCarthy being House speaker, are they the same group that's now objecting to Steve Scalise?

What's the overlap look like?

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

I have been texting with many members, Democrats and Republicans, who are amazed that actually, no, these are some different members, some overlap.

They all have different reasons for their problems with Steve Scalise.

One, Thomas Massie has said that he thinks Mr. Scalise does not have a plan for dealing with the upcoming spending problems.

There are others who have issues with different parts of his past, Nancy Mace of South Carolina concerned about a speech that Scalise gave in 2002 to a white nationalist group.

Scalise has since disavowed that speech, says he regretted it.

But there is a range of problems that these folks have.

Some of them just say the party is in disarray.

So this leads to the problem of whoever becomes the next speaker, that it seems we have a Pandora's box open here, Geoff, where for any kind of test of leadership, there will be a handful of Republicans who have an issue, specific or not.

GEOFF BENNETT: It also seems like we learned from one government funding deadline to another.

The next one's on November 17.

What does all of this mean for this next cliff?

LISA DESJARDINS: Well, whether they want to admit it or not, it seems clear that we need a temporary funding bill.

It's just a question of if Scalise, if speaker, could get one through.

We now know that, with 10-year Treasury bond rates going up, interest rates going up, the national debt is going up.

That concern is really prominent among House Republicans, and there is some concern over whether Scalise can guide them through this or not coming up.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lisa Desjardins reporting on another busy day at the U.S. Capitol.

Lisa, thank you.

LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.

GEOFF BENNETT: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an unannounced trip to Brussels today, his first time visiting NATO headquarters.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted him and 50 other leaders for a meeting on continuing to arm Ukraine, as Austin and the entire U.S. government also work on how best to arm Israel.

Nick Schifrin is in Brussels tonight and joins us now.

So, Nick, first on Ukraine, what was Ukraine's message to the world?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Well, the message that Ukraine wants to hear is that the world will continue to support Ukraine, despite the war in Israel, and that's the message that the U.S. and the West tried to send, certainly, today.

Zelenskyy came here asking for, as he always does, weapons, weapons for the counteroffensive, longer-range rockets, and critical air defense, ahead of what is expected to be another Russian campaign targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure this winter.

But he also admitted that he asked Western leaders whether they could continue to support Ukraine, despite the war in Israel, and he did not seem reassured by the answer.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President: My question was that, will your support will be less than now?

Even now, during the election period in the United States, you see the challenges, yes, there.

The partner says no.

But who knows how it will be?

I think nobody knows.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Now, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q.

Brown, did say that the U.S. would continue to support both Israel and Ukraine.

NATO allies promised $2 billion worth of assistance, including $200 million from the U.S.

But even before Israel, Geoff, administration officials were struggling to get their latest aid package for Ukraine through the Congress.

They have got about $1.6 billion left in replenishment stocks, that is, replenishing U.S. stocks that are sent to Ukraine.

That could really last as few as a few weeks, Geoff.

And so that is why the administration really wants to see the House of Representatives in order and Congress pass another Ukraine aid package.

GEOFF BENNETT: What is Israel asking the U.S. for?

And does that in any way complicate weapons deliveries for Ukraine?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Israel's asks have not been finalized, according to multiple senior officials that I'm speaking to.

But there are three things obvious that are on the list, number one, of course, Iron Dome interceptors that have been discussed widely.

The U.S. is also accelerating existing contracts for precision-guided munitions, specifically small diameter bombs that Israel already purchased from Boeing, and those already landed in Israel.

And the third, the administration is looking at additional precision-guided munitions that the U.S. already has in its inventory.

As for whether there is some overlap between Ukraine and Israeli asks, as for now, Geoff, the answer is no, because of the different systems that Israel and Ukraine use.

But senior officials do tell me that they are worried that, as the war in Israel becomes protracted, that could mean the possibility that Israeli asks and Ukrainian asks could overlap.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, on that point, how concerned is the Biden administration about the potential for this war to widen?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, in the words of a senior defense administration official, the administration is -- quote -- "deeply concerned" that Lebanese Hezbollah especially could enter the war.

And we have seen in the last few hours some skirmishes on Israel's northern border, including a false alarm about drones and gliders crossing that border.

U.S. officials insist this is why they have sent the most visible form of military deterrence that they have, an aircraft carrier strike group, which is off the coast of Israel.

But they also admit that keeping the war contained between Israel and Gaza will be increasingly difficult, as there are -- as there is a protracted campaign in Gaza and there are more civilian casualties.

And that drawn-out campaign, Geoff, has some administration officials worried about their ongoing efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and even their moral authority across the world.

GEOFF BENNETT: And lastly, Nick, I understand you have a tragic update to a story we aired earlier this week.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, Geoff, this is the story of Shaylee Atary and Yahav Winner that we brought to you on Monday night, how Yahav held off Hamas militants in their home in Southern Israel as Shaylee escaped their home with their 1-month-old baby.

The two of them had been together for 10 years.

She called him her best friend.

They waited a long time to have that baby.

And we learned that, unfortunately, Yahav died in the original attack, leaving behind his wife and his baby, Shaya.

GEOFF BENNETT: Our hearts certainly go out to her and her daughter.

Nick Schifrin reporting tonight from Brussels.

Nick, thank you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: The world is watching much of the violence and horrors of this war through traditional media and news broadcasts, but millions are also getting their information through social media.

But many posts are from unverified accounts, including some that are spreading misinformation and outright lies.

Laura Barron-Lopez focuses on that part of the story.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Geoff, some of the harshest criticism is being directed at the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and its owner, Elon Musk.

The European Union wrote to both X and Meta, which owns Facebook, urging the companies to take down misleading posts and videos and comply with European law.

Some posts can look real.

This one, for example, included videos supposedly showing footage of a Hamas militant taking down an Israeli helicopter.

But that video is actually from a video game.

Similarly, this video of an Israeli strike in Gaza is real, but it happened in May, not this week, as it was portrayed.

For a closer look, I'm joined by Emerson Brooking, a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab and co-author of "LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media."

Emerson, thanks for joining.

I want to show one more example of misinformation spreading across platforms like X.

This video states that Hamas captured Israeli generals.

And it was posted by an account with a blue check mark.

It's been viewed by nearly two million people, but it isn't actually what it says that it is.

It's an older video of authorities in Azerbaijan capturing a separatist leader.

So why is misinformation like this so dangerous, and what examples of it are you seeing across X?

EMERSON BROOKING, Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab: Well, first, Laura, I should say that disinformation is endemic in warfare.

It's not specific to a particular platform, but there are things that platforms can do to make it better or worse.

And in the case of X, Elon Musk has made decisions quite deliberately which exacerbate this problem, which make it harder to tell the truth and distinguish terrorist and war propaganda from reality on the ground.

The first big thing he's done is essentially removed the ability to find and verify credible accounts, journalists or other people who have been vetted and trusted.

And then, second, he's introduced a for-profit motive, which didn't previously exist in the platform, which incentivizes accounts, often under specious identities, to share false content as quickly as possible in order to maximize their own revenue.

And all of this matters because so many policymakers, so many journalists, so many people still use this platform to understand what's happening.

Now it's become much harder.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: You mentioned two changes that Elon Musk has made to the platform.

He also laid off a number of employees that handled content moderation and made sure that accounts followed the rules of the platform.

So, how much do you think Elon Musk himself is to blame for the spread of misinformation X?

EMERSON BROOKING: I think Elon Musk bears significant personal responsibility for the state of platform in this time of crisis.

And it came from a place of arrogance.

He said repeatedly that he doesn't believe in, what he says, the so-called mainstream media.

He wants to tear down all gatekeepers, even when gatekeepers are performing an invaluable public function.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And Telegram is a secure messaging app that is also being used to spread misinformation.

It has some 700 million users, and it's become an outlet for Hamas militants to share their videos.

Can you explain the significance of Telegram and how it also contributes to this fog of war?

EMERSON BROOKING: Of course.

So, whenever you see propaganda footage from the conflict today, chances are they did originated on Telegram.

There are hundreds, even thousands of different Telegram groups which are linked to Hamas or associated organizations.

Essentially, almost all primary video, primary evidence of the war is coming from these Telegram groups, which are essentially unmoderated.

Because Telegram is not a U.S. company.

It's not easily subject to international law, it's extremely unlikely that content moderation action will ever be taken against Telegram itself.

So this content is always going to be there, but what effects it has when it spreads to other social media like X, those are still decisions where we have some control.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And the E.U., the European Union, has warned X and Meta about this content that is spreading across their site, specifically saying that some of it appears to be illegal content.

So what do you make of that and what can we expect if there will be any penalties for these companies?

EMERSON BROOKING: So the E.U.

has recently put into force their Digital Services Act, which is a sweeping piece of legislation that really changes the rules of the road for social media companies.

And, also, it increases their obligations.

It increases the sorts of material that they have to share with European governments, and it institutes quite severe penalties for companies that fail to meet those standards.

It appears, in the case of X, that they have essentially ignored the law.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: What advice, Emerson, do you give to everyday news consumers, to everyday people who are using these apps on a regular basis and are trying to sift through credible sources and not credible sources and misinformation?

EMERSON BROOKING: Well, look, Laura, I have spent more than a decade now studying the relationship between social media and war.

I help lead a team at the Digital Forensic Research Lab focused on war crimes verification, on tracking conflicts in real time.

And my most important piece of advice is to not believe anything you see online, especially now.

If you see something in this fast-moving and confusing stage of the conflict, if you see something circulating online, don't believe it until you have seen significant corroboration and have verified it from multiple sources, because chances are as good as not that it's a fake intended to mislead you.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council, thank you for your time.

EMERSON BROOKING: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: With thousands already dead, we're only days into what could be a cauldron of ever-increasing violence between Israel and Hamas.

John Yang gets perspectives now from two experienced leaders and observers in Israel and the West Bank.

JOHN YANG: Geoff, in its 75 years of existence, Israel had never seen anything like the brutal attack by Hamas on Southern Israel, Israel's 9/11.

And now Israel is poised for a military operation in Gaza that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed will exact a price that Israel's enemies will remember for decades to come.

We get two views on these historic events.

First, Yohanan Plesner, who is the president of the Israel Democracy Institute and a former member of the Knesset, the Israeli legislature.

Mr. Plesner, first of all, thank you very much for being here.

Why did Hamas act?

What was their -- what did they try to accomplish and why did they do it now?

YOHANAN PLESNER, President, Israel Democracy Institute: Well, those are two questions.

It reminds me of the question after 9/11.

So many Americans asked, but why did they do it?

Why did they do it?

And the answer is very similar.

Hamas is a terrorist jihadist organization with ISIS-like tactics and state-like capabilities and an ideology, a strong ideology, that calls for the annihilation of the state of Israel.

It's both an ideology and an operational plan, annihilating the Jewish state and killing all Jews.

And, in this respect, nothing changed for 30 years.

It was building up capacity, building up capability, looking for the right moment.

And, in fact, in 2014, there was an attempt by Hamas to launch the exact same thing.

Just, this time, the Hamas terrorists tried to infiltrate through tunnels, rather than in the way they did it this time, and they just failed.

The IDF intercepted their attempt.

This time, as a result of an intelligence failure and an operational failure, the IDF was not able to intercept this operation.

And we ended up with this catastrophe.

And, as a matter of fact, from their vantage point, it's just a minimalistic outcome.

They had many more -- much more ammunition, hand grenades, side bombs.

They were ready to kill way more babies, to conduct way more atrocities, to rape way more women, and it's -- rape way more women.

And it's the bravery of those soldiers and civilians that blocked them that saved us from even a greater catastrophe.

JOHN YANG: You mentioned an intelligence and operational failure.

Do you think Israel was distracted by the domestic politics?

Do you think that they had felt that Hamas was bottled up in Gaza?

What do you think happened?

YOHANAN PLESNER: Well, the fact that Israel was deeply immersed in an internal debate around the nature of our democracy might have - - again, I don't have the intel, but I do have impressions, and we did have some evidence over the time -- might have given them the idea that Israel is now in a weak spot, and it's an opportunity for them to attack.

But they don't really need an excuse or motivation, and this also leads us to what should be the outcome of this entire event.

Hamas, as long as it controls state-like capabilities, will continue to try, strive to destroy and kill all Jews.

And it's just less than a mile away from our communities.

So there's no option.

It's -- they introduce us a choice of a zero-sum game.

It's us or them.

And, obviously, it will be us.

And this, the Hamas capabilities, Hamas leadership, Hamas operatives, all of them need to be obliterated.

They need to be crushed.

They need to be dismantled.

And, of course, it's very hard, it's very difficult, because they perpetrate double war crimes.

They both target civilians, but they situate their capabilities within the civilian population.

They use their population as human shields.

You won't be surprised if I will tell you that they situate their capabilities in mosques, in hospitals, in schools, in residential buildings.

And, therefore, to dismantle Hamas capability, which is not only an Israeli interest, as a matter of fact, imperative, but it's in the interest of the entire free world, because Hamas is an Iranian ally.

It's a Hezbollah ally.

They want to dominate the entire region with their murderous ideology, and obviously to gain control of the region's resources.

And that would be a disaster for the entire world and, of course, for the free world.

So we -- only one outcome can come out of it, dismantling Hamas.

And it will be long.

It will be painful.

And, unfortunately, there will be a dear price in lives, in Israeli lives and also in Palestinian lives, not only of Hamas operatives, which, obviously, I'm not very sad about it, but Palestinian civilians as well.

Unless they manage and work towards detaching themselves of Hamas capabilities, there will be tragic civilian casualties as well.

And we have to understand it.

But, ultimately, this is the only way to save lives and promote freedom.

JOHN YANG: Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democracy Institute, thank you very much.

YOHANAN PLESNER: Thanks for having me.

JOHN YANG: For another perspective, we're joined by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti.

He's a leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, which advocates nonviolence and offers an alternative to both Hamas and Fatah, which is the major force in the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank.

Dr. Barghouti, as the head of a Palestinian organization that advocates nonviolence, what's your reaction or what was your response to what happened in Southern Israel?

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, Palestinian National Initiative: You are absolutely right when you say that I'm an advocate of nonviolence.

We were shocked about what happened.

I, as a person, always say that I am against any killing of any civilian, whether Palestinian or Israeli.

And we're sorry for all those people who were killed, Palestinians and Israelis.

But, unfortunately, everybody keeps avoiding the root cause of the problem.

And, unfortunately, what we see today is a very intensive campaign to dehumanize not Hamas only, but to dehumanize Palestinians completely.

And the war that Israel is conducting today is not at Hamas.

It is at the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The reality is that we are in this situation mainly because there has been an occupation, an Israeli occupation of Palestinians, of Palestinian land for more than 56 years, the longest occupation in modern history, an occupation that has transformed into a system, as Amnesty International described it, and Human Rights Watch, as well, and even the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, a system of apartheid, a much worse apartheid than what prevailed in South Africa.

This is the root cause why there are Palestinians who are turning to violence, because all hopes have been lost.

And Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, who came to power in 1996, killed every potential and every possibility for peace talks.

I am so surprised and really amazed that a person who's in charge of a democratic institute in Israel speaks about zero-sum game.

What does zero-sum game mean?

It means either us or them.

That is not a way to make peace.

Mr. Netanyahu said that all Palestinians in Gaza must evict their homes.

And then his military spokesperson said that all Palestinians in Gaza, the 2.2 million people, should evict to Egypt.

That is the meaning of zero-sum game.

It's about ethnic cleansing of all the population of Gaza.

This is something everybody should know.

Mr. Netanyahu raised a map of Israel annexing all of the West Bank, all of Gaza Strip, all of the Golan occupied territories.

That is what he's saying.

And he said he will change the situation for 50 years to come.

So what he meant is ethnic cleansing of Gaza and then annexing it.

That is not the way to peace.

That is what zero-sum game means.

JOHN YANG: You talk about the root cause, and there are -- there's a generation of Palestinians who reject your call for nonviolence, who feel that this is how they have to respond.

What do you say to them?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: I say to them and I try to prove to them that nonviolence is a much more effective way of achieving our freedom.

That's the best way of doing that.

But one should ask the question, why these young people go in that direction?

It's simply because they see no hope; 80 percent of young educated people in Gaza are under siege and are unemployed.

The poverty is unbelievable.

The GDP per capita in Israel is $56,000 per year, while it is less than $1,000 per year - - per capita per year in Gaza.

Yet, Gazans are obliged to buy products at Israeli market price.

These people don't see a hope, don't see a future.

That's why I'm calling for a peaceful resolution.

That's why I say, now, instead of talking about zero-sum game, we should move in the direction of immediate cease-fire, de-escalation, immediate release of all Israeli prisoners in Gaza, in exchange of releasing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, who are 5,300, including some people who have been in jail for no less than 44 years.

And 1,260 of those prisoners don't even know why they are arrested.

They're not charged.

They're not taken to court.

Their lawyers don't know why they are arrested.

They're basically taken hostages.

So, release prisoners, exchange prisoners, have cease-fire, stop this madness that is going to happen, and let's open a road for peace and for a peace for resolution by ending occupation and allowing us and the Israelis to coexist and live in peace.

JOHN YANG: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative, thank you very much.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Thank you, sir.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we will have continuing coverage of the Israel-Hamas war this entire week, including a one-hour prime-time special Friday.

"War in the Holy Land: A PBS News Special Report" starts at 8.30 p.m. Eastern.

Check your PBS station for local listings.

The U.S. Supreme Court today heard arguments in a key racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina.

The state redrew their congressional map, moving thousands of Black voters out of a competitive congressional district, shoring it up as reliably Republican and diluting the Black vote.

The outcome could determine the balance of power in Congress.

For more on today's court proceedings, we're joined by "NewsHour" Supreme Court analyst Marcia Coyle.

Marcia, it's good to see you.

MARCIA COYLE: Good to see you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So we know that two lower courts agreed that there was a clear racial gerrymander in this case, but at least a handful of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court today appeared to cast doubt on that.

Tell us more.

MARCIA COYLE: OK. First, let me say that a racial gerrymander is when a district has been drawn with race as the predominant motive or factor.

That's unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment equal protection guarantee.

During the arguments today, the chief justice and Justice Alito both seemed to be somewhat skeptical that the challengers here, the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, had carried its burden of what they call disentangling race from politics.

Politics was what the state legislature claimed was its motive when it drew District 1 in South Carolina.

The chief justice said, for example, that there was no direct evidence that race was used.

There were no kind of bizarrely shaped lines around the district, which is often a tipoff.

He said that all it is, all they had was circumstantial evidence.

And if the court were to accept that, he said that could be a huge change or expansion of the court's voting rights jurisprudence.

That was really the strongest comment, I think, that was made about the challengers' evidence and their arguments today.

But there was pushback.

Justices Kagan and Justice Sotomayor felt that the circumstantial evidence, one, was very strong, and that was all that was needed under the court's voting rights jurisprudence.

They said that the lower court had found that what other right -- what other reason could there be, other than race, when you see the legislature move 30,000 Black voters out of the district into another district in an attempt, basically, to keep a 17 percent of Black voting age population in District 1?

So there was pushback there, and yet I think what all the justices seem to agree today on is that this is a very, very difficult case, trying to separate out whether race was the predominant motive or whether partisanship was the predominant motive.

And, Geoff, as you know, partisan gerrymanders are not unconstitutional.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the impact here is, of course, huge.

Our team spoke with South Carolina public radio reporter Thelisha Eaddy, who explained what this means for local voters in South Carolina.

THELISHA EADDY, South Carolina Public Radio: Some voices will not be heard during the next congressional, state and other local elections.

So for the Black residents who are now living in this diluted or cracked First Congressional District, issues that matter to them will be hard to hear, or hard to get representation for those issues moving forward.

And then for those voters who have been packed into the Sixth Congressional District, issues that matter to them or their larger community, these coastal issues, those voices or those issues may have a hard time being heard because they are now lumped in with residents who live almost 100 miles away.

GEOFF BENNETT: So that's the potential impact on folks in South Carolina.

What are the national implications, Marcia?

MARCIA COYLE: There are a number of redistricting battles going on right now throughout the country.

They're not all racial gerrymander claims.

Some of them are under the Voting Rights Act.

And yet you know that courts and litigators will be watching what the Supreme Court says today.

And what it does say today could very well have an impact on, for example, the U.S. House elections and control of the U.S. House in 2024.

So that's a very significant impact.

Also, the challengers claim that, if they don't succeed here, that state legislatures will be able to use politics or partisanship as a proxy for race and shield their plans from challenges.

On the other side, the legislature claims that, if the court rules against them, it's going to draw courts into very difficult battles trying to find the difference here, whether it is race or politics.

GEOFF BENNETT: "NewsHour" Supreme Court analyst Marcia Coyle, thanks so much for your time.

MARCIA COYLE: Thank you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

Remember, there is more coverage online.

AMNA NAWAZ: And join us again tomorrow night, when we will have the latest from on the ground here in Israel.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

Thanks for joining us, and have a good evening.