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Hello from CNN, I'm Joe Beck, with the five things you need to know

for Monday, May 27th. At least 18 people are dead in Texas, Oklahoma,

Arkansas and Kentucky after severe weather and powerful tornadoes hit the Central U.S. over the weekend.

More than half a million homes and businesses have lost power in 13 states,

and more than a third of all Texas counties are now under a disaster declaration. Texas Governor Greg Abbott

says seven people died there and more than a hundred were injured. We are going

through the heart-wrenching loss of life, including the heartbreak of a

family losing a two-year-old and a five-year-old child.

These men in North Texas spoke to KTVT

after their neighborhood was hit.

Coming back to this location right now

for the first time, knowing that I was just here

and it's all destroyed is it's mind blowing.

I'm still trying to process it. It's shock. Just everything you had worked so hard for all

these years is gone. And more than 120 million people are under a severe weather threat today on the east coast,

while South Texas is under an excessive heat warning.

At least 35 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on a camp for displaced people in the city of Rafa in Gaza.

The Israeli military says it struck a Hamas compound in the area yesterday and killed two senior officials from the militant group.

But authorities in Gaza say Israel had designated the area as a safe zone.

CNN's Nada Bashir has more.

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