As many as 300 in the direction of israel. nearly half of them have been intercepted by the israeli missile defense system. nevertheless, that is a system checker that is not perfect. as many as three people, three israelis today died because of those rockets. shep: i mentioned the attempt on tel aviv. that is a red line and must have been a real shock there. indeed. the last time that tel aviv came under attack it was the first gulf war in 1991. many israelis feared an attack. they expected an attack. but when it finally happened, you re right. the best reaction to describe it was one of disbelief. israel said had destroyed many of the long-range rockets believed to be smuggled into gaza by iran. they were produced in iran and many israelis were hoping they had all been destroyed. that s apparently not the case. at least two of those rockets hitting the tel aviv area. authorities will not say where
The president and also to the appropriate members on the hill. shep: now we re hearing a woman who helped launch the investigation that exposed the affair apparently visited the white house a few weeks ago. details on that coming up inside fox report. first a fox urgent. air force officials confirm a fighter jet has crashed in the florida panhandle. kendall air force base. they say the pilot ejected safely. happened there, which is on the coast between pensacola, more specifically right around panama city. the jet was an f-22 fighter like this one worth more than $140 million. officials say it s now littering a base runway. the main highway there also shut down. no word on the cause of the crash. more details as they come in. world leaders are now taking action to try to defuse the violence between israel and hamas. coming up, what they re doing and how it s going so far. word from the white house as violence escalates.
Here, you see just how much is blown away. shep: lee land vittert. witnesses say many of the people in that building were at home with their children because authorities shut down local schools. i said he was in the gaza. he was in israel near the gaza border. a volley of rockets triggering warning sirens for the first name in decades. we ll get live report from inside israel coming next. he [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. ship fedex express by december 22nd for christmas delivery. sven gets great rewards for his small business!
shep: if could. before there, a ground incursion is possible. tomorrow, friday, the holy day clearly in the muslim world, the next day could be a big day. it could absolutely. this morning when i got up and read the overnight news reports, i thought well, this is just going to be the usual kind of thing, a flair up and it will be okay. but today we saw a lot of very intense activity. you had larger rockets than hamas generally uses and they know those rocketing come from iran. again, the israelis are feeling like they ve had almost 700 rockets this year. 300 or so in the last couple of days. launched into their territory. but what s significant is that the latest rockets, the ones that can target tel aviv are substantially bigger and they can have guidance packages and things like that, so they can be more accurate. of the evolution is a worrying trend and a bad thing for the israelis because you ll start seeing bigger attacks. shep: most crucial, if israel does go in to try and
Those calls involving president obama, the french president, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, and palestinian leader abbas. frankly from the west, most of the pressure being applied on hamas right now to cease the rocket attacks and the u.s. in particular, staying away from any criticism of israeli military action. ben rhodes, the deputy national security advisor, said in a conference call with reporters today, quote, ultimately it is up to the israeli government to make determinations about how they re going to carry out their military objective. the middle east peace envoy, tony blair, also put the ball firmly in hamas court. listen. all of it is deescalated back down. that means the rockets stop. because if the rockets carry on, the israeli air strikes will carry on and what happens as we ve seen is that in that, there will be innocent israeli civilians killed, innocent palestinian civilians killed.