Reports from CNN on the ground in the Gaza-Israel conflict
Editor's note: CNN has crews in Israel, Gaza and around the region reporting on the latest attacks, talks and fallout from the upsurge in the Gaza-Israel conflict. Here are some of their stories:
Sara Sidner in Tel Aviv
[Updated 8:35 a.m. ET Wednesday]
A bomb exploded on a bus in Tel Aviv as it passed by Israeli army headquarters around noon local time Wednesday. The attack, which police said left at least 22 people injured, shook up the Israeli public and threatened to complicate efforts to achieve a cease-fire on the eighth day of violence between Israel and Gaza.
At the scene of the bus bombing, police cordoned off the street as ambulances arrived. CNN's Sara Sidner said there is a hospital nearby. Sidner said the injured included people on the bus and people who were on the street.
Anderson Cooper in Gaza City
[Updated 9:21 p.m. ET Tuesday]
Ben Wedeman in Gaza City
[Updated 9:17 p.m. ET]
[tweet https://twitter.com/bencnn/status/271035443208929281%5D
Arwa Damon in Gaza City
[tweet https://twitter.com/arwaCNN/status/271005184610664452%5D
Arwa Damon and Anderson Cooper in Gaza City
Damon reports that six or seven explosions could be heard from her vantage point in Gaza City a few minutes ago. This coincides with this tweet from Cooper, also in Gaza:
[tweet https://twitter.com/andersoncooper/status/270995853458681856%5D
The nighttime explosions in Gaza - and rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel - come after Egypt and Hamas had indicated that a halt, or calming, might happen around 2 p.m. ET. But Hamas and Egypt seem to have pulled back from those statements.
Anderson Cooper in Gaza
Cooper reports that in the last half-hour or so, an explosion happened at a villa owned by a well-known banker who no longer lives there. Locals told Cooper's team that they don't know who, if anyone, used the building. No injuries to anyone were immediately apparent, Cooper reported.
Arwa Damon in Gaza
Ben Wedeman in Gaza
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri says Israel has yet to agree to terms that could halt violence, Wedeman reports.
Ben Wedeman and Arwa Damon in Gaza
and Fred Pleitgen in Ashkelon, Israel
Both Wedeman and Damon report a huge blast in Gaza. The blast comes minutes before the start of what a senior Hamas official said would be a "calming down."
The Hamas official said an announcement would come from a Hamas official in Cairo at 2 p.m. ET. The "calming down" could halt violence, but is not the same as an official cease-fire or truce, Wedeman reported.
Pleitgen, in Ashkelon, Israel, says that in the past hour, he's seen rockets from Hamas intercepted by the Israeli military in the sky over southern Israel.
Reza Sayah in Egypt, near Gaza border
[Updated 11:33 a.m. ET Tuesday]
Sayah said three or four huge explosions happened about 35 minutes ago near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. He said he didn't know what exploded.
Sayah reported that other explosions have happened in that area over the past two days. Asked how people there react to the blasts, he said: "Frankly, they're used to it."
"They may duck, they may look to see where it came from, they may listen to the car alarms, but by now they're very much used to the explosions," Sayah said.
Fred Pleitgen in Ashkelon, Israel
Pleitgen, reporting from Ashkelon near Israel's border with Gaza, says four or five rockets were just fired from Gaza into Israel's airspace, and that it appears Israel's military shot down all of them.
He reports that the Israel Defense Forces claims five Israeli soldiers were injured in a recent rocket strike from Gaza - information that the IDF also makes on its website. Information on where the soldiers were injured wasn't immediately available.
Cooper reports he and his team saw a body of a man - alleged to be a spy for Israel - being dragged by a motorcycle that someone was driving along the main streets of Gaza City. The motorcycle rider was accompanied by other men on motorcycles, and the group alleged that the dead man was a spy, Cooper reports.
A rope attached the body's legs to the motorcycle, Cooper says.
Wolf Blitzer in Beer Sheva, Israel
[Updated 9:51 a.m. Tuesday ET]
Wolf Blitzer is touring homes that have been destroyed in Beer Sheva, Israel, says CNN producer Linda Roth, who is with him there. Eleven Hamas rockets hit Beer Sheva on Tuesday, causing casualties, according to Blitzer. He will have more from Beer Sheva on CNN's "The Situation Room" at 4 p.m. ET.
[tweet https://twitter.com/lindarothcnn/status/270851090885517312%5D
[Updated 8:40 a.m. ET Tuesday]
Damon's tweets came on a day when an Israeli official said his country is holding off on a ground offensive into Gaza, in hopes that a diplomatic solution may be achieved to halt the raging violence. But fresh rockets fired into Israel and strikes by Israel in Gaza showed there was no immediate sign of a cease-fire.
Eleven Hamas rockets came flying into the Israeli city of Beer Sheva, causing casualties, Blitzer reported from the city. More than 30 rockets were fired into the area Tuesday, but most were destroyed by Iron Dome interceptors.
[tweet https://twitter.com/wolfblitzer/status/270863446319435776%5D
[Updated 10:09 p.m. ET Monday]
Check out CNN's on-the-ground posts from Monday.
Filed under: CNN on the ground • Gaza • Israel • Palestinians
Jeff Frank (R-Ohio) "Right Wing Insanity"
The truth hurts more than the Hamas huh?
November 20, 2012 at 10:04 pm | Report abuse |
Media human shield
The media will report whatever has the most shock value. Supporting the Jews is just not "cool". It takes courage to report the truth. Omission is a strike against truth too. You will never hear this from CNN:
Hamas said, (and I quote): "the Palestinians are a nation of jihad and martyrdom; we desire death more than you desire life". Hamas TV instructs the population that (quote) "bombs are more precious than children." Hamas (and the other fine upstanding organizations) will hide behind their women, children, elderly, and the media; this is their "brave" tactic.Yet CNN equates the actions of hamas with the Israelis who value life.
J ff Fr nk R hio "Ri ht w ng ns nity
Now they're trying to disable my "name box" Who's doing this?
N.A.A.W.P
Colon Pow said I'm on the other side on the aisle now. Go fight this thing yourself.
BOMBO ©
Why must so many muslims reinforce the stereotype that they don't care about their own children?
November 21, 2012 at 12:15 am | Report abuse |
chicagorich
A bus was bombed in Tel Aviv at noon time Channel 7 is reporting, 3 hurt seriously, no deaths, the bomb was tossed onto the bus by a man who then ran, police have arrested one man related to this.
November 21, 2012 at 6:19 am | Report abuse |