aviv. happening now, breaking news. israel appears to unleash a massive new air assault on northern gaza. flares lighting up the sky while rockets fly and explosions boom. cnn of course is on the ground as this powerful new israeli offensive unfolds. also breaking an ominous new warning from hamas as the israeli military says it has gaza city completely surrounded. a hamas political leader saying dozens of hostages are subject to the same, quote, death and destruction as others in gaza. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer reporting live from israel, and you re in the situation room. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. we re following the breaking news. we re live here in the middle east on a night of intense warfare in israel s battle against hamas in gaza. our cameras capturing truly extraordinary images in gaza as we follow this breaking story with our team of correspondents. first let s go right to nic robertson. he
recall. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer in tel aviv, israel, and you re in the israel, and you re in the situation room. captions by vitac www.vitac.com announcer: this is cnn breaking news. right now, we re keeping a very close eye in the skies over gaza after the truly extraordinary images of war we saw here on cnn just a little while ago with flares raining down for some 30 minutes as israel appeared to unleash an intense new assault in its battle against hamas. our correspondents are standing by here in the middle east as well as in the united states. first, i want to go to cnn s nic robertson. he had a direct view of the bombardment of gaza as it was under way from his position in israel not far from gaza. nic, tell our viewers more about what you saw and what s happening there now. reporter: yeah, wolf, we just had a very heavy detonation coming from the direction of where all those flares were dropping a
Reporter alshifa was one of the hospitals they said hamas were operating in. But when troops arrived they appeared to find very little evidence of this. Publishing these videos of a network of tunnel. What they dont show is what they would have found meters away. Multiple graves dug by civilians who were forced to bury their Loved Ones within the Hospital Grounds amid the continued siege. The Camera Man asks, who was in the grave . My mom, she replies. Can i just put to you a conversation i had with a legal adviser to the idf. They said to me at the end of the day, as long as hamas continues to use the hospitals for the military operations, our aim is to defeat hamas, there is absolutely no choice but to go there. Much of the death and destruction, damage, including to hospitals, health care
My mom, somehe replies. Can i put to you a conversation i had with a legal adviser. They said to me at the end of the day, as long as hamas continues to use the hospitals and facilities for their military operations and our aim is to defeat hamas militarily, there is absolutely no choice but to go there. Much of the Death And Destruction, damage including to hospitals, Health Care facilities, is known in advance. It is part of the calculation and that is absolutely a choice and to frame it not as a choice is to frame that Death And Destruction is an inevitability. Reporter those first two months of war are now among the most deadly and destructive of any conflictct in rerecent hist. The Questition Remaiains as to whwhether any Military Objectiv can justify this. Katie poll glaze, cnn, london. And cnn sent a list of the
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