We’re in Israel, as it prepares for an expected ground invasion of Gaza in what is already the bloodiest war in decades. Here, in Tel Aviv, we heard air-raid sirens throughout the day with constant threats of rocket attacks. On day four of this escalating war. Israel is pounding Gaza with hundreds of missile strikes, targeting what the military calls a Hamas terror nest. Reports tonight, the IDF took out Hamas’s economic minister. And more than one thousand people have been killed in Israel with an estimated nine hundred in Gaza. And we have learned some disturbing new details about a massacre that occurred in a small Israeli village near the Gaza border, with the brutal murders of men, women, and children, including babies. At least fourteen Americans are among the dead, with at least twenty more Americans unaccounted for. Some are being held hostage by Hamas. President B spoke today with Israeli Prime Minister. It has been their third phone call since this crisis began.

Hamas says it won’t hold any negotiations over the hostages that it’s holding while it is still under fire. And, as we now know, some of them are Americans. Israeli airstrikes are pounding the Gaza Strip, perhaps softening the territory for a ground invasion. Israel says it’s destroying weapon storage and infrastructure used by Hamas, which is designated a terrorist group by the US. Palestinian officials put the death toll at nine hundred. And the United Nations says there have been more than a dozen hits on health facilities. Israel’s military says it’s now positioned thirty-five battalions in the areas surrounding Gaza, from where Hamas launched attack on Saturday. It caught Israel’s security forces off guard but Hamas propaganda videos appear to show the militants training for a similar attack, complete with a model village. The militants fired more barrages and rockets today, hitting the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel. The country’s prime minister, B.N promised his people they would have vengeance. But the scale of what the militants inflicted on Israel is still emerging. In some small farming communities, people were murdered wherever the gunmen found them.