what s the latest? reporter: hi, wolf. a few hours ago we had volleys of rockets going overhead past us. there must have been 15, 20 of them going north towards tel aviv. two rockets were intercepted by the iron defense system just south of tel aviv and over the city itself. also in jerusalem, the idf saying one rocket hit jerusalem. it is quite clear that hamas is stepping up its campaign, irrespective of air strikes all day along the gaza strip. we were standing over looking the strip. could you see columns of smoke from those air strikes, apparently very targeted, they say. we do know civilians died in amongst the 16 that lost their lives so far inside the gaza strip. those air strikes clearly making no difference to hamas.
past to reach within the reaching point of communities. we posted on the border of gaza and they serve as a physical border between hamas terrorists and our civilian communities. if we need to mobilize, we will. we don t want to. we clearly said it last week we have no interest in any confrontation or escalation with gaza. but unfortunately, hamas made this bad decision. so if hamas stops firing rockets and missiles into israel, you ll step back? no, i think that they have we are beyond that point now. hamas are going to pay for the attacks they are carrying out. we refuse to be held hostage by this terrorist organization. that things they can launch rockets at jerusalem just here in jerusalem and the that can paralyze our cities.
israel. dealing with millions potentially of civilians. diane is on the scene for us. along the mediterranean coast, not far away from gaza. sirens are going off not only there but in tel aviv and jerusalem. diana, what s the latest? that s right, wolf. the last three hours or so, it s been fairly quiet here also. but about three hours ago, there was a real barrage of rockets coming over our heads. air raid sirens sounding and they were sounding in jerusalem and tel aviv as well. two rockets intercepted by the iron dome, miss i ll defense system, clearly doing an extremely effective job of intercepting rockets that could potentially cause problems in israel s major cities. one intercepted just south of tel aviv and one intercepted over the city itself. but we know that one rocket went as far as hadara, which is 116
iran s nuclear progress. they re about a year from getting a bomb if they want it. the prime minister echoed those statements, agreeing with that. so of all of this talk of division between the two and problems behind the scenes, none of that evident today. very little daylight. ed henry is traveling with the president and is live in jerusalem. a lot of talk about the reports of chemical weapons being used in syria and the definition of chemical weapons varies between ours here and there s over there. it does. the president was on defense because a reporter from israel questioned and suggested the president, the u.s. has 0 done nothing to stop the salute nowhere syria. the president pushed back and said while it hasn t been arms support there were other support. he was skeptical about reports
might hit jerusalem or israel. it was dramatic and it made me wonder if we missed something. i wonder what you re sense of where we are on this matter today is. reporter: well, it still is confusing. there are reports all over the map. prime minister netanyahu s intelligence minister today telling army radio that there are suggestions to him that chemical weapons in fact were used by the syrian government. but there was a hearing on capitol hill where in fact there were lawmakers kicking it around and the u.s. embassador to syria said we don t know this as a fact yet. it needs to be investigated. the embassador echoed what president obama said. another key republican, mike rogers, the house intelligence chairman, was on cbs news this morning and said he thinks, it