heading south, away from israeli air strikes. israel says it s targeting hamas, a group designated as a terror organisation by the uk government, and responsible for killing 1,400 people on the 7th of october and seizing more than 200 hostages. jeremy bowen has been embedded with the israel defense forces, inside the territory. while the bbc retained editorial control of the report, the sections featuring the israeli military have been cleared by the idf. like young soldiers in many wars, israeli troops looked excited, not apprehensive, as they made their final preparations to join israel s invasion of the gaza strip. they re moving in as the war approaches a critical point. their colleagues already inside the strip have surrounded gaza city. these men might be part of the next stage, locating hamas tunnels and fighting street by street. israel s prime minister promised his country a mighty vengeance against hamas. but with so much firepower, one question is israel followin
by the conflict in the middle east between israel and hamas. undoubtedly, too, it has sucked up the attention of the biden administration. what effect do you think it is having on america s wider national security and strategic interests? well, clearly this is having some considerable effect. and we ve seen, of course, that president biden has linked the two together, both ukraine and israel, not just for the purposes of trying to get military support and financial aid through the us congress, but also because he does see a linkage here and i have to actually underscore that there is one and it does come in the form of russia, but also of iran. i mean, i think perhaps stepping back from all of the horrors that we re seeing on the ground on a day to day basis and looking at the broader geopolitical perspective around this, we actually can see the ways that now the actions in gaza and israel and ukraine are clearly linked. because russia has been increasingly dependent on iran