Heres why you should switch from chrome to duckduckgo. Duckduckgo is a browser you download to your mobile and desktop devices. Unlike chrome, the Duckduckgo Browser has privacy builtin. It comes with a private alternative to google search, which doesnâ– t spy on your searches, and it blocks cookies and creepy ads. And theres no catch. Its free. We make money from ads, but they dont follow you around. Join the millions of people taking back their privacy by Downloading Duckduckgo On Mobile and desktop today. Welcome to Cnn News Central. We are monitoring massive explosions inside gaza today as israel claims to have hit at least 130 hamas targets in three hours. As we watch these live images of gaza, israel saying its helicopters have launched attacks inside lebanon, all of this retaliation, three days after hamas fighters stormed into israel from gaza, Slaughtering Civilians and assaulting military bases. Again, these photos coming earlier today. You see the explosions. The incursion by hamas appears to have caught israel completely offguard and we should tell you we are going to hear from israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu in just moments. We will bring you his remarks as they happen. At this hour more than 700 israelis have been reported killed as well as 560 palestinians who have died, thats according to the Palestinian Health ministry. Israels government has ordered what the Defense Minister called a complete siege of the gaza strip. Hamas claims to have over 100 israeli hostages and the group is still firing rockets from gaza into israel. A short time ago cnn chief International CorrespondentClarissa Ward and her team had to take cover during one of those attacks. Yeah. Yeah. Get down. Get down. Get down. Close. Close. Cl close. Youre fine. Youre fine. Youre fine. Youre fine. Youre fine. Youre fine. Youre okay. Youre all right. Youre all right. Okay. Thats the iron dome. Okay . Thats the iron dome. Yeah. G 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. Fortunately clarissa and her teammates are safe but this is an active war zone and the fighting could very easily spin out into a broader regional conflict, that is part of the reason the pentagon sent a Carrier Strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean and there are u. S. Forces in the strait of hormuz, where the u. S. Has had frequent runins with iran who has applauded these attacks. There are questions about how much tehran may have been involved in this particular at attack. With he want to take you straight to Nic Robertson who is on the ground for us. Nic, what are you seeing . Reporter theres literally an attack under way right now, incoming rocket fire. Were seeing the Interceptor Rockets fly through the sky, theyre just following tracing, following we will watch this rocket here, watch this interceptor here just intercept in the sky above us here. There was a barrage of rockets coming from gaza. We are just literally a couple miles from the border right at a Shelter Point, concrete Shelter Point here, but that barrage came in, you saw the intercepters fly up. Waiting to see if there is an all clear sign at the moment. But this is what were seeing here close to that, close to the border with gaza. I think the rockets have finished for now, so we will just step out of this bit of cover. We are okay, weve just been given an indication that its all clear. So looking across this way, i know its darkness right now, but looking across this way youre looking towards graez. Thats where the rockets have been coming from, the intercepters were trying to take them down before they could fly too far. But if you see a big flash over the horizon behind me, that will be the impact of an air strike or artillery on hamas inside gaza. Weve been seeing literally in the last few minutes here hearing multiple impacts, hearing multiple booms of impacts inside gaza, hearing the fighter jets in the sky. This has been going on all afternoon but theres quite an intensity right now. Hearing is that a warning . There is another warning. Were going to step back here towards the shelter because were hearing there is another alert warning going off here. It is a very active situation. If we see the Interceptor Rockets come up, we will point them out to you. So just at the moment staying close to this shelter building. We keep saying this today, its an active and dynamic situation and as you were just watching moments ago, my colleague, Clarissa Ward, perhaps about four or five miles at the northern tip of gaza not far from where we are now earlier on in the day coming under a barrage of rockets, a similar situation here again today. The number of Security Forces also here at this point taking shelter in this Concrete Shelter behind me. This is literally so close to gaza here that when the warning goes off, you have literally six, seven seconds maximum to get into shelter because those rockets really dont have far to fly before they impact here. The intercepters seem to be working, no indication that there were any successful Hamas Rockets Landing in this particular area right now. I think this is what were going to see all night, the tempo of this War Situation the siege of the buildup of the Israeli Forces here, the tempo is not letting up, were going to see more of this going through the evening, i think. Nic, that iron dome as youre seeing it right in front of you, extremely effective, but missiles of course do get through. And youre almost certainly right that this will continue in the coming hours. You are that close to gaza. What sense do you have in terms of the buildup of the Israeli Military around the gaza strip and any sense that a Ground Incursion into gaza may be coming soon . Reporter i dont think there is a Ground Incursion soon, but obviously the caveat is we dont know the military planning, you know, we only see a partial picture, but what we have seen today are the biggest concentrations of Israeli Defense force firepower, a raid in the fields near gaza, a few miles away, concentrations of more than 20 tanks in one area we saw. We havent seen that in recent days. Were seeing a lot more troops on the move. A lot more heavy Military Equipment on the move. Its very clear that the tempo here in terms of military readiness, if there was a Ground Incursion, the tempo is stepping up at the moment, but it still feels to me as if its still some way off and we dont even know if the political decision to call for that has actually happened just yet. Were being told that we can step back up here a little bit to less these let these troops do their job because their job is to make this place safe so we moved out there and they can now they can now point their weapons where we were standing. Thats their job and ours is standing here reporting. But this is going to be an ongoing situation through the evening. It absolutely is. And as youre saying that is correct nic, were looking at live pictures of gaza where the skyline has been lighting up all night. You see there in the sort of center of your screen the glow from an explosion that took place just moments ago and intermittently weve been watching it light up for hours now. Reporter yeah, thats what were witnessing here. I just saw a flash on the horizon, slightly to my south over in this direction in gaza. Its fluid. You know, the strikes are going to come where the Israeli Military think that they need to put them down. Not hearing fighter jets at the moment, but that doesnt mean anything because they can come back in seconds. The tempo of this its up, its down. Every soldier will tell you this, that when youre so close to the conflict like this, there will be moments of calm that can feel like they stretch out and then concentrations of activity, of adrenaline, of movement, of motion, of readiness, of those rockets coming in. These soldiers taking cover, us taking cover, then it drops away, you enter another lull, it will cycle back up again. Yeah, and as you say, nic, that tempo almost certainly going to continue into the evening as we watch that sky in gaza glow presumably from israeli jets firing into the gaza strip. Nic robertson in central israel, we are lucky to have you, we know that you will stay on top of this and we will come back to you as things arise. Now, turmoil in the middle east of course between israel and the palestinians is long simmering, punctuated by clashes, uprisings and wars like the one we are seeing unfold right now. Yeah, but of course the two sides that have been at this for a long time dont see an end to this violence anytime soon. Their animosity dates back long before the late 1940s when israel first became a state. The current map, though, dates back to 1967 when israel captured the gaza strip from egypt and began to occupy the region. We should point out what you are looking at in front of you is an area of about 2 million palestinians. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world and that complicates the picture when it comes to avoiding civilian casualties. Now, the militant Islamist Group is hamas, they were formed in 1987, it is an has nim that means Islamic Resistance movement, its backed by iran, listed as a Terrorist Organization by the United States, by the eu as well as obviously israel. Hamas does consider israel an illegitimate state and they have long fought Israeli Occupation of gaza and the west bank. Back in 2005 when israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip Hamas eventually took over and by 2007 was in full control of the territory as they still are today. That led to israel and egypt, the country to the west, to impose a strict blockade on gaza which still exists to this day. I want to bring in Michael Orrin a former israeli ambassador to the United States. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us at such an important moment. Were watching these live pictures from gaza, weve seen both rockets flying into israel, presumably fired by militants, weve also seen strikes by the israeli side into gaza. I want to ask you what we were just talking about with our correspondent Nic Robertson. He has been seeing amassing of forces, of equipment, the tanks. Do you have a sense that a Ground Invasion by israel into gaza is imminent . Good to be with you, and thank you for that summary of the history of hamas. Just very two very important points before i get to your question, one is for israelis, not just for israelis, barbarians who shoot 260 young people at a rave concert, who put children in cages, Who Parade Women Naked through the streets of gaza, Go Into Houses and take out families and shoot them, these are not militants, these are not fighters, these are terrorists and its important to state that. I can also say that i was the deputy to the Prime Minister, a member of knesset and i was in charge of gaza and in charge that have blockade. The blockade was never a blockade of food or medicine, it was solely a blockade of materials that can be used for armaments or had a dual use that could be used to make a tunnel and cement or maybe a 2 x 4. Never food, never medicine, never any other essentials for life. Its important to state this. It was a Military Blockade not a civilian blockade. As for your question the answer i think unfortunately is yes. This is now the fifth round of our fighting with hamas, every single round has ended in basically a return to the status quo and the hamas or islamic jihad, these two organizations, these organizations in Gaza Fire Thousands of rockets at us, we fire back, there is a ceasefire and we go back to that status quo. I think that is no longer possible and i think though im not a spokesman for the Israeli Government i think i do represent israeli Public Opinion in says that israeli people are unwilling to go back to what was, we can never allow hamas to attack us in this egregious bar Bar Rouse Way and it will involve Ground Action which will be very complicated, certainly because of the density of the population of gaza, because the fact that gaza hamas will not only be using its on population as Human Shields they will be using our hostages as Human Shields. Then it raises the spectre of the possibility of a multifront war, as im talking to you now there is fighting on the gnash front as well. So it is not an easy decision for israeli leaders, but i think right now and given the state of israeli Public Opinion its inescapable. Ambassador orrin, we are getting word that the death toll on the israeli side has gone up to 900 due to these hamas attacks, that is a significant increase from the previous figure. I also want to ask you about these hostages that hamas is holding, weve just gotten word that hamas has warned that they will execute civilian hostages if israel targets people in gaza without warning. Do you have any sense of what both israel and the international community, including the u. S. , because we understand there is a good chance that our americans are among the hostages, what they might be doing to get those hostages out . First of all, as for the casualties, 900, understand that in american terms proportionately we are talking about 13, 14 times the number of casualties and deaths that america experienced on 9 11, something equivalent to 35,000, 40,000 americans would have been killed in israeli terms and the hostages probably over 100 hostages, we are talking about in american Terms Thousands of hostages and probably upwards of 100,000 proportionately casualties for the United States. Imagine the immensity of the pain and the cost of this egregious attack by hamas on our civilians. Just unspeakable. What we can do about the hostages, israel will be doing its utmost with the United States and other democratic allies in the world to try to locate them through technological means. We have Special Forces who are specially trained to rescue hostages in very difficult situations. A number of these units have been operating in releasing hostages from the various farms and settlements surrounding gaza because Hamas Terrorists took a number of hostages in those settlements and they were successfully released. Were talking about the hostages who were dragged into the gaza strip and tortured and beaten there, israel will do its utmost to try to locate them and to send the forces necessary to liberate them. All right. Ambassador michael oren, we do have to leave it there. As we leave you we continue to see the sky over gaza lighting up. There certainly is a sense that this is just the very beginning of what could be a long and deadly conflict. Ambassador michael oren, the former israeli ambassador to the United States, thanks very much. As were Hearing Explosions over gaza we should, again, point out the breaking news that hamas has warned they will kill israeli civilians, some of them potentially americans, hostages that they are holding if these attacks in Gaza Continue without warning. That news coming just moments ago. We are awaiting word from israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu, he is set to speak at any moment. We will bring you those remarks live. And the pentagon has deployed Carrier Groups to the region, the u. S. Pledging to provide even more Military Support in the coming days. We will get a live report from the pentagon in just moments. Plus, families desperately searching for their loved ones taken by hamas, as we go to break, here is one mothers plea for the safe return of her daughter. Im a mother who is looking for her daughter. Every minute that passes by, the chance to find her alive, you know, are reducing, and theres nothing nothing anyone can do. Right now the United States is ramping up Military Support to israel as israel prepares for what could be a Major Campaign in the gaza strip. The Secreta