Terror attacks by hamas forces against israeli civilians, men, women, children, 10 20 days ago. Hamas will pay for its crimes against humanity. Hamas will pay for slaughtering are people. And tonight, we are starting payback. We are bringing justice to this terrible despicable disgusting terrorist group. And they will pay for their crimes. And once again, not just israel will be better off afterwards, but the people of gaza will be better off without them as well. Those comments from Senior Adviser to israeli Prime Minister netanyahu. Heavy israeli pomerantz throughout the day in what appears to be an increase in coming days. Hundreds of charges in a short period of. Time idf is saying its a greeting is ground operation, including a target raid in Northern Gaza which it calls preparations for the next stages of combat. Part of the reason we do not know much is because we currently have no way at all to communicate with people on the ground in gaza, the 2 Million People that live in tha
air strikes which, of course, we can see the evidence quite clearly all around this town, dozens of burnt out tanks and tank carriers and armored personnel careers that were hit in the first days of the air campaign. is it just because of the weather, or is it your sense that it s hard to determine this, but a lot of us have thought that since nato took full command there would be a reduction as opposed to the united states? some are suggesting it s largely because the weather was inappropriate to send some of those flights in, but how has the weather been? reporter: well, the weather the day before yesterday, there was a very intense sandstorm, but since then the weather has been good. i mean, today it was slightly drizzly, partly cloudy. don t mean to give you a weather report, but certainly they i have done i didn t see any impediment to air operations. it does appear that there may be
you do hear airplanes overhead, but maybe it s because it s because of these changing libyan army tactics that it s much more difficult to find the targets which until a few days ago, were very clear. in fact, right outside of ajdabiya, there s the wreckage of many tanks, armored personnel carriers, tank carriers. the tactics have changed, and it s now probably harder to find a target to hit, john. and ben, one last question. in that sense, as they ve been forced into retreat, what is your sense? you talk about the chaos, not a clear strategy. do you get any sense of confidence that they ll be able to regroup and start heading back to the west, where they were just a week ago, several days ago, or is the goal going to be just to consolidate here and try to hold it? reporter: well, today we did see some signs of consolidation. they have sort of moved away from the main highway, putting up some positions in the desert,
you have to have tank carriers. and it s not clear that the rebels have them at least in sufficient numbers. it s not clear to what extent they can operate some of these things, whether it s the tanks or anti-aircraft weapons. and the one thing that colonel gadhafi does have is control of a bunch of air strips and control still of the air force. that can be if there s no way of counterattacking that he can use that to pretty good effect. why does he have this ability to stay in power, yet the leaders of tunisia and later egypt, they collapsed within a matter of days? it all comes essentially in this kind of situation it comes down to the willingness of the army to shoot people. in egypt and tunisia, the army was not willing to mow people down. in libya it was. and that s partly because you had key commands in the libyan military controlled by gadhafi s sons. the president of the united states says now often television, said it in a written
a little bit longer in tripoli than we might have thought a few days ago, and maybe some of our forecasts were a little bit tinctured with hope rather than reality. people don t realize it s 500 miles from benghazi along the mediterranean coast if you re heading west towards tripoli, that s a long way to go. and for armor, for example, if you want to transport tanks from ben gaze all the way to tripoli, then you ve got to have tank carriers, and and it s not clear that the rebels have them, at least in sufficient numbers. it s not clear to what extent they can operate, you know, some of these these things, whether it s tanks or anti-aircraft weapons, and and, you know, the one thing that colonel gadhafi has is control of a bunch air strips and control of the air force, and that can be if there s no good way of counterattacking that, he can use that to pretty good effect. why does he have the ability to stay in power yet the leaders of tunisia and egypt, they