Crisis in the Middle East
LEMON: Continuing coverage now of "Crisis in the Middle East." We have been monitoring the pictures coming out of Gaza from Ramattan television. There were several explosions that we saw moments ago filling the night sky in Gaza. And as we have been reporting here today, on CNN, the very latest information is this one coming from Palestinian security sources, they say that Israeli troops are now controlling parts of northern Gaza and that is just 24 hours after crossing over into that Palestinian territory. If you listen closely, you can hear airplanes and helicopters in the sky. And, again, as I said, the pictures that we are monitoring now, these live pictures, have been showing at least an increase in what we see - perceive to be bombings or air strikes happening over the area. Thousands of Israeli troops are advancing into this region, into Gaza, with support of air strikes, many like the ones we have been witnessing here and they have been striking against Hamas targets. Now, sources say that senior members of the military wing that were killed today in two separate attacks. Three senior members of their military wing killed in two separate attacks. More than 500 people have been killed since Israel launched its first air strikes. That was last week and that's according to our Palestinian sources. Again, we are continuing to monitor these pictures to see exactly what is going on there in the area. Israeli military sources say at least one Israeli soldier has been killed in this and it describes the ground assault as phase two of drawn-out operation designed to halt the nearly daily rocket attacks on southern Israel. We have live coverage here, rolling coverage because we don't know exactly what's going to happen here. Similar to the situation in 2006, a 30-day war, it lasted 30 days, not exactly sure how long this will last. But from the defense minister yesterday Ehud Barak said it will last for some time and it is not going to be easy. And we have been telling you also that we've only got limited reports out of Gaza since Israel's ground operations began but the descriptions we are hearing so far paint a very vivid and painful picture of fear among the civilians.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is a terrible life, terrible, terrible, the house is broken and we can't sleep in it. The kids left and the men and women left.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There is fear. All night there's boom, boom sound, one after the other, one after the other. The child puts his head in his father's or mother's lap from the fear and says to her "hide me and cover my face." It is fear.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The kids have just woken up. He was going to get dressed for school. They both got dressed and he was going to school with is brother. He hasn't even gone a meter and the strike began. The other brother got away. The other tried to get away. We looked for him and we couldn't find him. God bless his soul. God bless his soul.</s>LEMON: Some of the voices and the faces of this war in Gaza. Israel versus Hamas. We'll continue our live coverage on this conflict. Make sure you stay tuned right here to CNN.