Hello from CNN, I'm Joe Beck, with the five things you need to know for Wednesday, October 11th.

Israel is hammering Gaza with airstrikes and a humanitarian crisis is swiftly unfolding there,

a supplies dwindle. Whole neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble as homes, schools, medical centers and government offices have been flattened.

Hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave their homes,

while Palestinian officials say more than a thousand have been killed.

Doctors without borders has warned that hospitals in Gaza are overwhelmed

and are experiencing shortages of drugs, medical supplies, and fuel for generators.

Israeli forces say they're targeting Hamas,

after the militant group carried out a surprise attack in Israel

over the weekend, killing at least 1,200 people.

Some of the atrocities from that attack are still being discovered.

An Israel's military says residents in a small farming community were, quote,

brutally butchered, including children and the elderly.

CNN's Erin Burnett is in Israel, three miles from the Gaza border,

where troops are gathering amid a call-up of 300,000 Israeli reservists.

What we see here are armored tanks, we see armored personnel carriers,

and we counted just along this one ridge about 15 bulldozers, an ominous sign of what a ground

invasion would look like and what it would really entail when you talk about 2 million

people so densely packed on the other side of that border.

To hear a daily round up from CNN reporters on the ground,

listen to tug-of-war with David Rhined, available wherever you get your podcasts.

House Republicans are trying to pick a nominee for Speaker this morning, but so far it's unclear

...