Israeli Troops on the Move
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Erin, thanks very much. Good evening, everyone. We begin tonight with breaking news. Israeli troops on the move right now. The Israeli army is moving 1500 to 2,000 troops to the border with Gaza. Many fear a ground offensive if Israel chooses to launch one could be the spark that engulfs the region in conflict. Now inside Gaza, scenes like this playing out right now. A constant bombarded. The Israeli military says at least 300 rockets from Gaza have been fired into Israel since yesterday. Israel says at least three people have died. Israel firing back with its own missile launches and airstrikes. This is what happens on the ground in Gaza, huge mushroom clouds of destruction, buildings left in ruins. Israel says it's targeted more than 300 terror sites. That's what they call them in Gaza. And the bombs fall, neighborhoods go up in flames. Bodies on the streets. Health Ministry officials say at least 18 Palestinians have been killed. CNN's Sara Sidner is in Gaza City witnessing the violence, the rockets and gun fire raiding down. Here's what she told Wolf Blitzer this afternoon. Watch.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: OK. That is exactly -- all right. I'm going to move out of the way. I'm going to let you get a look here. I'm going to let you get a look at what is going on. Now I can see the black smoke. It's difficult to capture on camera but you saw that flash. This is what we have been dealing with all day. We've also been dealing with -- I'm sorry, the power has just gone out, we've been dealing with power outages, Wolf, but this feels like war. It may not have been declared but it feels like war to the civilians who live here.</s>COOPER: Sara Sidner joins us now live from Gaza. Sara, what are you seeing? We just saw there were airstrikes earlier in the day behind you. What's going on now?</s>SIDNER: The same thing throughout the entire night. We've been hearing some teeth-rattling blasts over Gaza. We do know there have been at least a dozen blasts over the past few hours. Very, very, very loud, strong blasts here. It's very dark. I'm going to kind of move out of the way just to give you a look. It's dark here and power is out in much of the city. Those who have generators, you will see a few lights just there behind me, but it has been a very, very difficult night for the civilians living here, certainly difficult also, to be very fair, for the civilians living in southern Israel. We were there this morning, we were there for quite awhile and we ourselves in just about an hour and a half time, saw at least 13 rockets come over from Gaza into Israel. Now we know that that number is somewhere around 300 since this latest fight, this latest battle between Gaza and Israel began. It has been a very difficult night for people here and you can really tell, because when you go into the streets, this is one of the densely populated cities of the world, perhaps the most densely populated city, and if you look in the streets that are usually bustling, filled with people, filled with cars, there are hardly any cars. There have been almost no people and all the shops closed. So a very, very tense place here in Gaza and in southern Israel as well.</s>COOPER: Yes, Sara, stay with us. I want to bring in Frederik Pleitgen. He's in southern Israel. Also there, Noga Tarnopolsky, a senior correspondent for Global Post, and Fouad Ajami is with here, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Fred, I know you're hearing jets right now. What's the latest where you are?</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely right, Anderson, there are some jets from the Israeli military just passing overhead, literally, a couple of minutes ago. So it looks as though Gaza might be in for a few more airstrikes. What's happened here on the ground, in Ashkelon, we're only about eight miles way from the border with Gaza, they've had at least 20 rockets come over from Gaza here into Ashkelon. What they have in place here, though, Anderson, is a missile defense system called the Iron Dome and across southern Israel, the Israeli Defense forces say that that missile defense system has intercepted as many as 130 rockets coming out of Gaza, but of course, it can't intercept all of them. That's the reason the Israelis say why they keep sending those war planes over there to try and suppress especially the medium and long range rockets coming out of Gaza, because one of the things that also happened today is that the outskirts of Tel Aviv were actually hit by a rocket as well. No one was injured in that. However, it is very, very concerning to the Israelis if their main city, if the biggest city here in this country can in fact be targeted and the message that we're getting from the Israeli defense forces and from the Israeli government is that they're both capable and very much willing to keep on widening that operation. In the short term that will probably mean more air strikes, a lot more air strikes and in the longer term, or in the medium term, it could in fact mean a ground offensive. We're also, Anderson, seeing a lot of movement on the ground here, tanks and other vehicles being brought into place -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Fred, I have been in Ashkelon, in that entire region and also along the Lebanese border. The rockets when they come over obviously very imprecise. You've been told that the Israelis are more than willing to widen the operation and the breaking news tonight that troops are moving toward the border right now. How likely is it that ground troops will actually be sent in?</s>PLEITGEN: Well, that's a very good question. It's certainly something that the Israelis are leaving on the table. At this point there's a lot of speculation. And one of the things that the Israelis are not willing to say is, what would actually trigger a ground offensive. There are some who are saying perhaps if Tel Aviv, for instance, took a direct hit from a larger rocket, that that could trigger a ground offensive. We asked spokespeople for the Israeli defense forces and they're just not willing to commit and say this would be where the red line would be crossed. However, they are continuously saying that yes, they are perfectly capable and willing to start a ground offense if they feel that they are not achieving their objectives with the aerial bombardment or if in fact they feel that they need to do more than they're already doing right now. They say what they're doing right now is what they call surgical airstrikes where they say they are predominantly taking out these rocket positions in Gaza. They say if they feel that they're not achieving that objective, that then a ground offensive would still very much be in the cards. And the other thing that they're doing, Anderson, is they're also mobilizing the reserves which is another indication that they are very, very seriously -- serious about possibly going into Gaza with ground troops.</s>COOPER: And Noga, I understand you heard air raid sirens recently. What are you seeing now?</s>NOGA TARNOPOLSKY, GLOBAL POST SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Sorry, I didn't hear your question.</s>COOPER: Noga, I heard you heard air raid sirens recently. What are you seeing now?</s>TARNOPOLSKY: Yes. I think I'm quite near where Fred is so mostly we're hearing jets overhead. There was an air raid siren here about an hour ago but then we didn't even hear a boom.</s>COOPER: Fouad, what are the consequences, I mean, for this region if this does widen and what do you think the likelihood that this could widen?</s>FOUAD AJAMI, SENIOR FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY'S HOOVER INSTITUTION: Well, I think for Prime Minister Netanyahu he has been -- he prides himself on the fact that he's been in power for six and a half years. One-term as in the -- in the late 1990s and now. And during these six and a half years, he never engaged Israel in a war because the Israelis know that these wars are easier to begin than to end. They had a war in 2006 against Hezbollah in Lebanon, it was a disaster. They had a war against -- in Gaza in 2008-2009, it was a disaster. So they're on the horns of a dilemma. They don't want to really escalate. I mean I'm skeptical that there would be a massive invasion of Gaza. They may be forced into it. They may be forced into it if, again, if the folks in Gaza target Tel Aviv, that is exactly -- as the reporter there would say, that is the red line. But I think caution is the word for the Israeli Cabinet.</s>COOPER: Yes, do you think Hamas crossed a red line by targeting Tel Aviv?</s>AJAMI: Absolutely. I mean -- and remember one thing. This Palestinian question has always been nasty enough and tenacious enough, and then you have Hamas. It seizes Gaza. I mean, what is Gaza? It's a lawless land. You don't really have a government. Much of the effort of Israel diplomatically is to get along and to reach an accord with Mahmoud Abbas and the West Bank, but then Gaza is this lawless world and that is a problem because you're not really dealing with a government. You're dealing with gangs. And then Hamas itself says, ah, but we're not really responsible. There are subgroups that are Islamic jihad, there are all kinds of people. Any five, six people name themselves a group and launch rockets into Israel and we have this crisis.</s>COOPER: Noga, earlier you were at an apartment where three people were killed. What did you see?</s>TARNOPOLSKY: Well, what we saw was really massive, massive destruction and the British ambassador was there when I was there and he seemed I would say almost physically shaken at the sight of blood on the child's bed and you saw breakfast dishes that were kind of left in disarray and basically, the front part of a balcony and living room just shaved off. So it was shocking.</s>COOPER: Fred, what are you learning about casualties from air strikes? Fred, what are you learning about casualties from air strikes?</s>PLEITGEN: Yes, I'm sorry. We just had a couple -- another jet has come over. Well, there were three casualties today on the Israeli side, Anderson. And it is actually just a couple of miles away from where I'm standing right here. These were people who were in their apartment building. That apartment building was then hit by a rocket and these people were dead immediately. Other than that, there haven't been any casualties on the Israeli side simply because in places like Ashkelon, as you know, the people do take all this very seriously. If there is a siren that goes off here in Ashkelon, people do take shelter, they hit the deck, they go to the ground. They deal with this kind of stuff every day. I talked to the mayor of Ashkelon --</s>COOPER: Fred, sorry, I just want to go to -- Fred, I'm sorry, I just want to go over to Sara because she's hearing blasts behind her. Sara, what are you hearing now and what do you know about casualties?</s>SIDNER: There have been three distinct blasts. We're seeing some of the smoke kind of billowing, actually literally just behind us a few hundred yards. We know that there are 19 people who have been killed here -- all right. There is another one of the blasts. I'm going to move out of the way and just again to see, because sometimes you can see a real huge, what looks like a flame almost that lights up the night sky and then it subsides. You usually hear these in succession, it's usually not just one. You'll get a series. This is maybe the third or fourth in a series of hits that we've heard and again, what happens is you can hear the jets. As Fred was saying there in Ashkelon, you can hear those same jets as they come over. I'm actually looking at where there are some quite -- it looks like some flames just near to -- closer to the scene but what I can tell you is that you normally hear the sound of the jets and then you hear that sort of bone-rattling blast and then you see the smoke. There's another one. So just as I was saying, you get these in succession and these sound really like thunder, like a terrible, terrible thunderstorm that keeps happening again and again and again. So far again, 19 people have been killed. We know that at least nine of those have been militants but we also know that children have died, a pregnant woman has died, and an elderly man has died. We are standing in a place where we are above the city. We're looking down upon this highly populated city and it is absolutely deserted. A lot of concern here about where those blasts are coming from. People have been warned. There was actually the Israeli military dropping leaflets in some of the neighbors here -- neighborhoods here warning people not to be around some of the Hamas militants, not to be in areas where they know there are weapons caches because those places would be targeted and we've seen that again and again and again but certainly civilians are also being caught in some of this crossfire.</s>COOPER: And Sara, are the -- are the -- are the bombings mostly at night or during the day? Or is it different?</s>SIDNER: It's interesting you ask, because oftentimes it's at night. Oftentimes when night falls, you really start getting these, especially overnight, in the overnight hours, as in right now, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in the morning. But today, it has been pretty constant. We heard it early in the morning. There was a bit of a lull in the afternoon, a bit of a lull during prayer time, and then in the evening again, a barrage of air strikes. We're also -- the thing we're not seeing right now, though, and we haven't seen in a bit, are rockets coming from Gaza into Israel, but throughout the day, we saw them again and again and again, from different parts of the city, these air strikes, by the way, are all over the city. It's not just one particular place. Sometimes they're very far away and we can see the smoke and sometimes they are very, very close to us. A few times we had to duck underneath a desk here for fear that we would be hit by some sort of shrapnel. So this is definitely offensive that people feel like they're in a war.</s>COOPER: Yes.</s>SIDNER: Now whether or not that's actually been declared by either side is a different thing but certainly the civilians here feel like this is war.</s>COOPER: Fouad, obviously we've seen protests over fuel prices in Jordan. There's questions about whether Egypt might get involved in some way, Turkey as well. Do you think -- do you see them rallying to Hamas or not?</s>AJAMI: The one government that's very sensitive to Hamas and very friendly to Hamas ironically is of course the Mohamed Morsi government in Egypt. There have always been historic ties between Gaza and Egypt. Egyptians are very sensitive to everything that goes on in Gaza.</s>COOPER: Many tunnels from Egypt go into Gaza to get supplies.</s>AJAMI: Absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, under Mubarak it was much easier because Mubarak couldn't care less about Hamas. This is a very different issue here, because the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt really is the mothership, if you will, of Hamas and other such organizations. But will -- what will the Egyptians do? They've recalled their ambassador from Israel and they have -- they have told their people that look, President Morsi is talking to President Obama about bringing the fighting to a halt so that's one thing that we can look forward to. One thing that's very important, tomorrow is Friday. There has already been --</s>COOPER: Friday prayers.</s>AJAMI: Exactly. There have been calls for a massive demonstration, a million people march, in Cairo against the Israelis. I think this will be the one country and the one theater to watch.</s>COOPER: All right. Fouad Ajami, thank you, sir. Sara Sidner, stay safe. Fred Pleitgen, Noga Tarnopolsky as well. Thank you very much. Let us know what you think. Follow me on Twitter right now @AndersonCooper. I'll be tweeting throughout the hour. Up next, former CIA director David Petraeus is going to tell Congress when he testifies on the Benghazi attack tomorrow. We've got some sources that have some information on that. Plus a reaction to the video the lawmakers got to see today of the attack on the consulate as it unfolded. The first time they have seen that. We're told it was surveillance video and from a drone. We'll talk to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and see what they think happened on September 11th in Libya. We'll be right back.