♪ we continue with the breaking news this morning. nine u.s. citizens are among those who have been killed during this unprecedented attack on israel. as of this hour israeli military says it has retaken control of all communities around gaza and is calling for a complete siege of gaza. no food, no water, no fuel, no electricity. cnn spotted israeli troops and heavy armored vehicles heading towards the border. at the same time hamas continues sending a barrage of rockets into israel, we're showing you new video there of rockets being launched from gaza city this morning. >> more than 700 people have been killed in israel, thousands more are injured. the death toll in gaza we are told is up to 560. this morning rockets hit what looks to be a residential street in israel. we're also seeing horrifying video of the moments the hamas terrorists ambushed and kidnapped israeli civilians, some -- do you know what, we're going to take a break from this video right now and go right to clarissa ward. clarissa is on the ground right now. clarissa, tell us what's happening. >> reporter: hi, john. so, forgive me, slightly unelegant position, but we have just had a massive barrage of rockets coming in here, not too far from us, so we have had to take shelter here by the roadside, we are just about five minutes away. gaza is in that direction, we can hear now a lot of jets in the sky, we could also hear the iron dome intercepting a number of those rockets as they were whizzing overhead and making impact in that direction, not too far from here. we came to this location because this was ground zero for this entire operation of carnage, hamas militants came on a pickup truck, this was the first place where they breached that border wall and they basically drove down this strip just spraying lead wherever they went. i was just grabbing it before that happened and we had to hit the deck, but heavy weaponry being used -- it's saying we can get up now. where are we moving to? sorry, just one second, guys. all right. so now i can show you the scene here. this is where those militants first came, opening up fire on all these vehicles. there is a baby carriage down there turned over on its side. you can see over there, clayton, if you just show in the distance there some kind of strikes, looks like in gaza as well, returned fire, or is that the smoke from the rocket launches? forgive me. it's a little difficult crouche know exactly what's going on. multiple casualties along this area. you can probably see the scale of the damage that was done to these vehicles, a lot of them just blew up with the force of the ammunition they were taking and they're just now toga way the actual pickup truck that was carrying those hamas fighters, and met with some resistance. careful, clayton. there were a couple of bullet holes in the window shield -- in the windshield, rather, so they stopped the car, they got out of it and they just went on this shooting spree. this is also we believe where a lot of hostages were taken. they just got out of this, started grabbing people, started shooting people and taking them back to that side of the border. john? >> so, clarissa, i will give you a chance to catch your breath right here. you were headed closer to the israel/gaza border, you heard some rockets being fired from inside gaza, maybe some of them, many of them, hopefully all of them being intercepted. what is around you in terms of civilian life? are the israelis back in their homes? >> reporter: not here they're not. this was, you know, the city of sderot is just over there, which is a pretty buzzing city, but almost everybody has left at this stage or they are spending most of their days in a shelter and this has really become a kind of -- an area where the only vehicles you see are ones like this, israeli military, israeli personnel, israeli army being moved and deployed all up and down along this border, fueling speculation that some kind of a ground offensive could be imminent, although obviously that is complicated by the fact that there are a lot of hostages. i'm just moving us out of the roadway here. oh, another one. you can see where they shot up this car here, just completely, completely destroyed. we don't know, we asked how many lives were lost here, it's very difficult to get a sense of who might be alive, who was taken as a hostage, but you can imagine the visceral terror as this scene was unfolding, john. >> clarissa, this is sara. let me ask you about -- you have not only been there where you're seeing rocket fire still coming in, but you actually went to the site where there was this festival and that awful video of people running for their lives and being slaughtered by hamas militants. can you give us some sense of what you saw there? >> reporter: so we visited there yesterday, share ration i'm just going to step out of the way, there's an ambulance coming this way. we visited there yesterday and, again, just carnage. you can still see the dead bodies of those hamas militants all over the approach where thousands of young revelers had gathered, celebrate the end of the high holidays, they were dancing through the night until about 6:00 in the morning when the militants started firing a barrage of rockets overhead, then they actually infiltrated the dance party -- sorry, i'm just going to move us over here again. we're trying to keep out of the way of these guys and let them do their job. i also wonder if someone in the control room can turn around that video that just showed the initial moments we were taking shelter there when that barrage of rockets came in. but the scene at reim that you are talking about was just nothing short of horrifying, and the fear that so many families still have, they don't know, sara, if their loved ones are even alive. an israeli volunteer group that identifies human remains said at least 260 bodies were found, but there were thousands of people there and there are still families desperately looking, desperately hoping and not knowing where their loved ones are. >> what you are showing in stark relief right now, clarissa, this is kate, is that this isn't a terrorist attack from just this weekend. this is ongoing. take us back to -- i mean, when we came to you you had hit the deck with your crew. what is happening? what was happening around you and what does it tell about this ongoing situation? >> reporter: yeah, so just as we started this live shot the red alert went out which means incoming is imminent. we tried to run to the shelter, we didn't quite make it because we could already hear the rockets whizzing overhead so we had to sort of jump into a ditch over there and wait until the barrage passed. we could hear the iron dome being activated overhead. but it really just gives you a sense that even with the most sophisticated military technology the israelis are still up against a really tough fight and the prime minister bibi netanyahu, benjamin netanyahu, has acknowledged that himself. he has told the israeli people you have to prepare yourselves for a long fight, for a tough fight. at the moment the focus is obviously on trying to ensure that any hamas militants who were able to infiltrate that border have successfully been pushed out and to repair the breaches to the border. dozens and dozens of breaches all along that border. and of course then to try to win back the release of these dozens of hostages. hamas saying more than 100 hostages. the israeli military on the ground telling us they don't know if these guys are alive, they don't know what the situation is with regards to their whereabouts, to their health. and so it's a very, very delicate calibration that the israelis have to engage on trying to thread the needle between issuing a fearsome response to this unprecedented act of aggression, while at the same time trying to protect the lives of those who may be held hostage in the gaza strip. >> clarissa, thank you so much. we will get back to you, as always. keep going and stay safe. clarissa is in southern israel, very clearly. we will get over to nic robertson, but first john is over at the magic wall to show where we are talking about, where nic robertson s this is the scene of the music festival, that music festival massacre, if the control room can show john at the magic wall. john, he is in reim. >> this is where nic robertson is right here. clarissa, we are not giving the exact location, but at this area up here. >> let's get to nic robertson now, nick, talk to us about what you see there and also just more and more horrific stories that are coming out that have massacre. >> reporter: there's a lot that we can see from here. very quickly, gaza is just over there, a few miles away, you can see the smoke rising, we're seeing multiple impacts over there in gaza. i'm going to ask john to spin the camera around now on these vehicles here. there is a situation about to develop here. now, the people here are pulling the bags from the vehicles are volunteers getting the identification documents of all those young partygoers who were -- who were at the party. they were -- this is where they were shot up, all these vehicles were shot up, the soldiers here come over to make sure that these people have authority to do what they're doing, literally smashing the windows here. this is unfolding around us here right now. but these people -- it's okay. it's okay. >> not okay. not okay. not okay. it's not okay. >> reporter: we're explaining. >> don't talk to me like this. you can't treat a man like this. what is it? >> reporter: they're collecting the documents. it's okay this is up to him not me, i'm not involved in that. so this is an unfolding situation as we talked about there. passions as you can see are really high and with really good reason because this is where those young people had parked their vehicles for that party on friday night, saturday morning, and this is where they rushed back to when hamas raced in here to start killing them and this is where they were shot up. you can see car after car after car after car here. we see the bags being taken out, we've seen documents laying at the side of the road. it's confusing, an active situation. there are soldiers here, there are angry and upset civilians, there are volunteers taking the documents away. but look up here, more and more of these vehicles and it just really gives you that sense and understanding of the horror, the horror of the moment when in the early hours of the morning suddenly the partygoers found themselves being attacked by hamas, brutally murdering them. we have listened to testimony of doctors who have treated some of the wounded and the dying and they were trying to escape, they were trying to get -- they were trying to get away. it's hard to -- it's hard to overstate the horror of what was happening here, but you only have to look at the way the vehicles are parked, the way that you can see people are trying to throw themselves in to drive away here in desperation and just cut down. and the situation unfolds further down the road here, more shot up and destroyed vehicles as more of the partygoers were trying to leave. but i can tell you the situation here is very dynamic, it's very fluid, it is changing and as we've been drying in here just to get to this spot, we passed an area where hamas fighters, terrorists, were shot and killed by israeli defense forces, their vehicles are laying at the side of the road, their bodies are still laying at the side of the road and we've also seen the biggest deployment we've witnessed to far of israeli military defense forces with tanks, howitzers, armored personnel carriers deployed out in the field, dozens and dozens of them, the biggest deployment we've seen so far. while we were driving down here we've seen a lot more reinforcements on their way. this is an area that's having increasingly more and more troops put in here. very close to gaza as we are talking about over here and, again, that's the impact of air strikes there on gaza. and they are ongoing. we hear the fighter jets in the skies above us and then you will see a plume of smoke rise up from over there. the reason that these people are rushing in to take away the possessions of all those who were killed, injured, during the hamas killing spree, they're rushing in and they're doing this at high speed because they're very concerned about the security situation here. what they're trying to do is to bring information and relief to some of those families who have no knowledge of what happened to their loved ones. you've just witnessed what it's like here at the moment. there's multiple things going on and tensions are high, concerns are high. most of the civilian population has been evacuated from around here. >> i was going to ask you about the civilian population there because we are watching a woman there with a backpack trying to get whatever she can. are people being allowed to come in and do this, or were they nearby? do you have any sense of what's happening at the security there because obviously you are very close to the border, rockets have been coming over this morning. we just saw clarissa hit the deck. it is a very dangerous situation and i know that there are also, i think you just showed when you swung the camera around, a place where people can hide, they have shelters, but, you know, with the barrage of rockets you just never know what's going to happen. is it open so that people can come in there right now? >> reporter: it's not open at all. there are military check points to get in here, several of them, so you get -- you get questioned by the military to get in here. there are military encamped literally across the road from us, this he came and checked us as well. we can be sure if these people got here, they got here with a position -- with the permission of the military who control this area. it's not -- it's an area where the civilian population has been advised to get out of. it's an area where the government has been quite literally busing hundreds of civilians out of at least 20 of the villages that are close to this area along the border because of that fear, very real fear, reality, of possible hamas continued incursions, even though this morning the israeli defense forces said that they had taken back and secured control of this area, you still go past check points where some of the check points are very twitchy, they are very concerned, they will come at the vehicle with their weapons absolutely at the ready to check you. while we've been here there are multiple different military units coming through, multiple different police units coming through here. you just get the sense that this is at the leading edge of a massive military deployment. the situation is fluid because it has never stopped being fluid since the moment the attack took place down here. the lead element, this is so far from being an established set, if you will, ready for an incursion or ready -- or ready military maneuver. it is fluid, it is in the flow and you have just witnessed some of it here. >> nic, before we let you go, very quickly, you did say that an idf spokesman said that the hamas terrorists had been cleared from the region, but have you seen any evidence of ground fighting still taking place or even heard any evidence? >> reporter: no, we haven't, and late last night in the early hours of this morning it was still happening and we were witness to it, and we haven't had that same experience today, obviously even with the number of teams that we have, we are not everywhere all the time, that goes without saying, of course, and we've been moving around a lot but we haven't seen any active engagements and i would say the posture of the troops who we met just around the corner controlling this area, they were a little bit more relaxed than some of those two hours ago on outer perimeters. here they are on high alert, don't get me wrong, they are absolutely on high alert, they're ready, but slightly more relaxed. i don't think they feel there is an immediate threat. i'm going to ask john to spin around here and take a look. we've been talking about the heavy armor here, this is one of israel's main battle tanks, merkova battle tank, i think, i don't want to give it a wrong description but i would estimate that's what it is from this distance. increasingly we're seeing tanks like this deployed in the area. we've seen dozens of these thanks already this morning. so if you saw the camera shaking, that was because the ground was literally shaking. i don't think john even you and your skills can hold a camera still during that. that just gives you a sense of the power of those military machines. the reality is it's going to take a lot of them to maintain security here and if there is going to be an incursion it's going to take a lot more than the dozens that we've seen so far today, john. >> nic robertson there with the car alarm still going off around you, you see that massive, massive military equipment coming right down the road. nic, thank you so much. we will have much more of our continuing coverage, the breaking news coming out of israel, the war in israel. israel at war. we will be right back. all right. welcome back. just moments ago cnn's teams on the ground near the israel-gaza boarder, they had to take cover, jump in a ditch because of what was happening overhead. i'm going to show you these moments. listen to this. >> yeah. yeah. get down. get down. >> get down. close, close, close. you're fine. you're fine. you're fine. you're fine. you're fine. you're okay. you're all right. you're all right. >> okay. >> that's the iron dome. okay? that's the iron dome. >> yeah. >> guys, are you seeing our situation, guys? >> yes. >> okay. >> can you hear the shots? >> stay down. >> we have to stay here. >> fuck. >> we have to stay here. >> guys, come to us. >> fuck. >> multiple rockets. multiple rockets. >> we should be clear, lying on the ground keeps you some distance but there is no guarantee. this is a terrifying situation for the reporters who are there, for the families that are there, for the army that is there. it is a terrifying situation because nothing guarantees your safety when a rocket is coming over. nothing. except for the iron dome, but there are so many rockets being sent over from gaza that the iron dome can't get them all. and so there is always the possibility that you are going to be hurt or you are going to be killed. so those situations that you see clarissa and her team in, you know, they are raw, they are real, and they are terrifying and they're still doing their job just as the army is doing this job and just as civilians are trying to get to safety. >> to tel aviv where becky anderson is standing there by. tel aviv in the middle of the country. becky, i know you have been hearing the air sirens all day long. >> reporter: that's right. i mean, where clarissa is about 75 clicks, kilometers down the coastline to the south here from where we are in tel aviv and the continued -- and this is a really intense bombardment by the israelis today. we continue to hear the booms of what is going on as the idf target military sites in gaza. on the flip side, of course, we have been witness to the iron dome intercepting outcoming fire from hamas, targeted on central lebanon where we are -- sorry, central israel where we are here in tel aviv, sirens going off here in tel aviv and in jerusalem today. we had an engineer at the airport coming in four hours ago, i'm not sure we have the video to show you, but they hit the deck as there was an enormous boom and an enormous amount of smoke. hamas taking responsibility for those rockets fired into central -- central israel today. i have line of sight from here up the coastline to the north towards lebanon and we do know in the past couple of hours and we've seen the smoke, we've witnessed the impact as it were of israeli idf helicopters striking what they called armed operatives who had breached the israel-lebanon border. so what i'm trying to explain here is, you know, the ratcheting up of what is going on, not just in gaza at this point, but up this coastline, targeted by hamas militants and then the idf needing to do its work up to the north. there have been reports of some 15 strikes to the north by the idf. not clear where those armed operatives are from, which group, there are a number of groups that they could be affiliated with in lebanon, but that's the sort of -- that's the enormity of this scale here. and we've been talking about how we are in uncharted territory at this point. and we really are. i mean, we're three days in, 50 odd hours into this, 4,000 or more rockets fired by hamas, strike after strike after strike by the israelis on military headquarters in gaza. now we are witnessing more than 20 armored vehicles and we've witnessed this ourselves at cnn, moving towards the border with gaza. so this begs the question what happens next? are we on the verge of an incursion by the idf into gaza? and we've been talking today at length about just how complicated the idea of a ground incursion is, primarily as far as the israelis are concerned because of those hostages, those more than 100 according to hamas israeli hostages who are being held in gaza. of course, there are 2 million palestinians who are living in this incredibly congested area whose lives, you know, are also at risk at this point. so we know that hamas is holding these hostages, but we don't know where these hostages are being held. what we do know is many of them are women, children, the elderly and it is a horrifying situation. nic robertson just reporting from the area of the music festival on saturday where so many young israelis were slaughtered and so many of those hostages, as we understand it, were picked up from. i've got a family member now on the line who has lost at the moment contact with a number of members of her family. she is from a community just on the israeli side. she joins me now. just describe what happened to you and your family. >> [ inaudible ]. my family lives in -- i'm sorry. saturday morning we received video of my cousin, my beloved cousin, with her two babies being kidnapped by hamas terror group. you can see in the video and in the photos holding her two beautiful babies. we don't know what happened with her husband. later on that day when the army entered the kibbutz and went through the houses to find people they didn't find my uncle and aunt, her parents. my aunt has -- disease and needs her medication. i'm sorry. it's been -- we are in a nightmare. we don't know anything. we haven't received news. these are innocent civilians that have rights. water, the baby needs to be fed. it's incredible. we don't have signs of life. >> it is your understanding that they have been taken hostage by hamas and taken back to gaza? >> yes. yes. >> reporter: and you've heard nothing from them since. >> my uncle and aunt, nothing. all six of them, nothing. >> how old are they, yifat? >> my uncle and aunt are in their late 60s, my cousin and her husband are in their 30s, the babies are nine months old and a 3-year-old child. i beg you, all the institutions of world to help these civilians. please, do something to force hamas to release them alive. nothing like this has happened before. we need everyone's help. we need the president, we need the king of egypt, we need everyone to help us. please. i'm sorry i'm so emotional. >> reporter: your message is being heard. no, it's totally understandable. it's totally understandable. yifat, have you heard anything from israeli authorities or the military about their possible whereabouts, about possible rescue efforts at this point? >> my other cousin, their daughter -- other daughter, that's the only survivor from -- survivor from the family that lived in a kibbutz nearby is here with us in the center of israel with her three children, received a message this morning, only this morning from the military with a contact person that might help them in the future, but it's the first word -- it's the first sign of help or something organized that's not through the media and not through facebook or -- i don't know if the family received as well any word, but this is the only thing i can tell you and they didn't say anything about their whereabouts or anything about them. it's very sensitive. >> you must feel so helpless. >> i guess they don't want -- >> reporter: understood. and i sense your sense of helplessness and i have spoken to so many families now who have lost family members and many of whom were at the concert in the desert and haven't heard from their kids since. and your response and your helplessness really mirrors what i'm hearing from so many people. yifat, i will leave it there, i'm sure you've got an awful lot to do, but we thank you so much for sharing your story today. >> thank you. >> reporter: john? >> becky, our thanks to you and our hearts go out to yifat and her family and all those families in israel that are going through this right now. i'm joined now by retired general william breed lala. let's start with the situation that was just described there. this is the region we are talking about here, gaza, we can see the towns around gaza that were attacked. this is where the people were taken from back in to gaza territory. so from a military perspective now as the israelis are talking about complete siege, a complete siege of gaza, how will they do that and what consideration must they take with 100 hostages somewhere in the city? >> well, thanks for having me and this is a tough problem. the israeli military is extremely capable and very talented, but the problem much what we used to call military operations in urban terrain, this is hard no matter how good you are. that's what they're facing. gaza is a very dense place with lots of problems for mechanized forces, et cetera, et cetera. so i'm sure that israel is getting things set, setting the conditions as we say in order to not only blockade, but then to begin surgical insertion and to pull their people out. >> general, one other thing we heard becky anderson reporting moments ago was, yes, i think there are armored columns moving towards gaza right now for this siege of gaza, but becky was reporting up here in the north and this is the border between israel and lebanon, some select operations over possible infiltrations in this region here. why is that important? what is israel's concern to the north? >> well, you don't have to go very far back in history and remember what the golan heights means to israel. israel has been forming friendships all around its borders, to the west, to the south and to the east, but they have not been able to make any progress in the north of course. syria and the southern part of lebanon are home to many black flag organizations supported by iran and the terrorist network that extends out of iran. so israel is going to be very close to the issues in the north so that a second front doesn't become a problem? >> in 2006 there were rockets from hezbollah and then some cross-border skirmishes there. israel ended up bombing severely southern lebanon to try to squelch that even as they were fighting with hamas in gaza as well. i want to talk about what the united states is doing now, sending a carrier group into the mediterranean. what will u.s. forces be doing here? >> well, there's a couple of things happening. one of course the ford carrier group is moving closer to the problem to lend whatever aid it may need, and possibly to support any u.s. action. remember there are u.s. citizens now being held by hamas. additionally, the united states is moving aircraft from the u.s. air force and other parts of our air power nation towards this area in order to be ready for whatever might happen. >> and one of the things that has happened is the united states, both the president and the secretary of state antony blinken have warned other nations in the region not to try to take advantage of this. this is iran over here obviously which has supported hamas, substantially in the past right now. what will the u.s. be watching in terms of the iranians? >> well, don't quibble, you talked about it being in the past. iran is connected to all manner of terror around israel. they are flush with money now, i think they feel emboldened, i think that a lot of the snatching of hostages in israel are because iran has seen how hostages are helpful to their efforts. so we need to make sure that we understand without eve vocation that iran is pulling the levers here, financing the problem and encouraging the problem. >> there's no question of the connection between hamas and iran. general breedlove, we appreciate your help on this. thank you very much. obviously we're getting new information from the ground in israel. our reporters are right on the border between israel and gaza. we will have the very latest right after this. rheem rime. we have seen rocket fire, we have seen air strikes happening all morning long. we have more coming in also on the still developing situation in israel and gaza following the terrorist attack by hamas on israeli civilians this weekend. israeli officials are now ordering a complete siege of gaza. israel has launched an overwhelming response to the attack, launching air strikes in fwaez. video shows mosques and residential buildings have been flattened there. the israeli defense forces claim the buildings hit were being used by hamas to launch attacks into israel. palestinians in that area say over 550 people have been killed there. the israelis say more than 700 people have been killed in israel. meanwhile, hamas says it's fired 120 rockets towards the southern israeli cities of ashdod and ashkelon. israel says, again, more than 700 people killed by hamas since it launched the surprise attack, which includes at least nine american citizens. this is all coming as hamas claimed it has taken more than 100 hostages into gaza. that includes men, women, children. high ranking israeli officers and possibly u.s. citizens. this morning our colleague poppy harlow spoke with a man who was on the phone with his daughter when she and her husband were killed by hamas. >> this is not a military event. it's not a military strike. the historic interpretation or explanation is when a military strikes at civilians and this attack was rehearsed. well rehearsed, well planned, carried out. you look at what they're doing, they're taking hostages from infants to senior citizens, people older than i am, denying them their rights. sure, this is a human rights outrage that really echos what the kind of -- that made my grandparents leave europe for the safety of america. >> it has been terrifying, especially for those watching their loved ones being taken by hamas militants. cnn's hadas gold is live for us in jerusalem. can you tell us what the situation is there? i know there have been sirens going off all morning. >> reporter: yeah, so sirens have been going off across israel all day long and while there had been some respite from the rockets being fired towards the big cities of jerusalem here and tel aviv, that was not the case earlier today. sirens going off i think it was around noon here in jerusalem, i was in my apartment and when i came out after the sirens were done and we heard the explosions in the sky, i saw black plumes of smoke that may indicate there had been impacts of some kind. as we speak there are still sirens going off, especially in southern israel, meaning that rockets are incoming. our own correspondents are experiencing that firsthand. the israeli military saying that they are continuing to strike the gaza strip with a bit of intensity. we are seeing movements of ground artillery, tanks and the likes on the ground, approaching the border between gaza and israel. this is to reinforce the border that had been breached dozens of times by hamas militants who infiltrated israel but also could be the stager of a potential ground incursion. it's hard to imagine that this situation will continue without some sort of ground incursion, that would only be by air. another thing that's incredibly concerning right now, guys, is what's happening on the north. this is a quickly developing situation because in the last few hours there have been several reports, there were sirens going on in the north, the idf confirming at least two mortars were fired from southern lebanon into israel. the idf also reporting that there was an attempted infiltration of some sort of people interest southern lebanon into israel and they engaged in fire fights with israelis there, the israeli military saying they struck the area with their helicopters. this could really be a huge explosion because if hezbollah gets involved and hezbollah of course is the one who controls the militant who controls southern lebanon, that could put this on a different plague level. there are pockets of palestinian militant group, and there is nothing to happen without hezbollah's permission or what is happening, and there is a previous calm to the situation, and this is hamas and palestinian militant group, but this could open it up into a multi front war. >> that is biggest fear is that this is a renal nal war. hadas gold, thank you for all of the reporting there. i send it over to kate and john. >> for more on this, we bring in ambassador, and fewer american diplomats are familiar with the long history here thank you, and first and foremost hearing the reports that hadas gold is talking about and what the idf says is possible people coming to infiltrating is the word they are using from the north, and the northern border, what does that, what does that -- what does that do to your level of concern of where this could go? >> well, i was concerned before i heard that. i think that we have to understand that hezbollah represents even much more of a severe military threat than hamas does. and the assessments of hamas's capabilities were underestimated prior to what we have seen them do over the weekend. in the case of hezbollah, they have at least 150,000 rockets and it could be hitting israel with 300 rockets a day d and with that, hezbollah knows what israel would do in response, and hezbollah is facing a reality where the country is completely impoverished, and their own base, their own shia base is showing signs of increasing alienation, and i expect that hezbollah would like to signal the iz sraelis if they go into gaza, that hezbollah may feel the need itself to act and come into israel. but i also think that we should be looking at the current reports being mindful of how they could escalate, but be aware that hezbollah may want to look like it is supportive of hamas, but it may not itself want to get involved. the best indication that is the case is that they would be signaling israel by allowing the actions that you are seeing, by allowing hamas in southern lebanon the take certain steps or hezbollah, itself, it could fire mortars of rockets in southern israel to say, look, we are going to show that we are supporting hamas, but we don't want an all-out war with you, and this is an easy thing to signal, and not an easy thing to control, but hezbollah may not be so enthusiastic to go to wa with israel, and iran would love to see that. iran would love to sit on the sideline and they don't mind fighting to edge of bleeding hezbollah as much, and no question that iran has played a major role in leading this, and the mosque -- >> i wanted to ask you about this, because as of yesterday, yesterday he told cnn, we have not seen any evidence that iran is behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long attack, but an attack on this scale, this scope is seen by so many not to be possible without the coordination of iran, and do you agree? >> i do agree that iran has played a role here. you know, the question is were they instigators of this, and did they plan it, organize it? the reality is that hezbollah does training with hamas, and hamas went to iran and organized meeting in lebanon with hamas and hezbollah. and so they wanted to stop the breakthrough of saudi and israel breakthrough, because that would be states that increasingly successful and contrasting with the failures and looking at lebanon, gaza, and looking at what is going on within the iran, and all of the places, the publics suffer. the only thing they are good at is developing military capabilities, but they are basically failed policies or failed states. so the last thing they want is to contrast with something that is looking increasingly successful where the publics have a sense of possibility about the future. >> that is important when you are talking about the future, and when you are talking about the response in the immediate right now, the fact that there are now, as we hear from the state department nine americans who were killed and possibly more being held hostage, how does that complicate things for the united states? >> well, it certainly creates an american stake in this independent of our support for israel. we would be there for israel regardless given what hamas has done, but we are directly engaged because we have americans who have been both killed and very likely are part of the ones held hostage, and so it is going to give the united states a stake in terms of what the united states has done, and not wanting to see the war expand. the war expands and more americans will be exposed. so there is no escaping the fact that we have a stake in what is going on. we also have a stake in ensuring that the end result of this is not the appearance of a hamas victory. hamas wins or looks like it wince, this whole ideology of resistance of war and terror is given a huge boost, so we have a stake at hamas being defeated. and israel is at war because what they have experienced is unprecedented. you have to go back to the israel war of 1958 to see that many deaths. no war at this time has exposed israel in the same way that we have seen now. we have seen more israelis lost in one day than lost in any single day of the 1973 war. so we are in unchartered territory, and for israel, they are dealing with the need to not only re-establish security, but a sense of security, and to deal a setback to hamas so that the hamas ideology is also defeated in the process. >> ambassador dennis ross, your perspective is always important in this issue, and so thankful to have you here today. the war they are fighting and a war ignited by a terrorist attack on the israeli civilians. dennis ross, thank you. john? we are getting new information of what israel is calling infiltration of its country from lebanon and also the israeli troops of armor moving to the gaza bord, and we saw the tanks rolling by and the special live coverage continues right after this.

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