Israel continues strikes on Gaza following Hamas assault
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00:00 Good evening and thank you for joining us on this Tuesday night. We're in Israel as
00:05 it prepares for an expected ground invasion of Gaza, what is already the bloodiest war
00:10 in decades.
00:12 Here in Tel Aviv, we heard air raid sirens throughout the day, with constant threats
00:16 of rocket attacks. On day four of this escalating war, Israel is pounding Gaza with hundreds
00:22 of missile strikes, targeting what the military calls a Hamas terror nest.
00:28 Just tonight, the IDF took out Hamas' economic minister. And more than 1,000 people have
00:34 been killed in Israel, with an estimated 900 in Gaza.
00:39 And we have learned some disturbing new details about a massacre that occurred in a small
00:44 Israeli village near the Gaza border, with the brutal murders of men, women and children,
00:50 including babies.
00:52 At least 14 Americans are among the dead, with at least 20 more Americans unaccounted
00:57 for. Some are being held hostage by Hamas.
01:01 President Biden spoke today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It has been their
01:06 third phone call since this crisis began.
01:09 We have team coverage tonight from Israel to Washington. And CBS' Holly Williams is
01:14 with us just back from the southern border. Good evening, Holly.
01:18 Good evening, Nora. Hamas says it won't hold any negotiations over the hostages that it's
01:22 holding while it's still under fire. And as we now know, some of them are American.
01:28 We should warn you tonight that our report contains some disturbing images.
01:35 Israeli airstrikes are pounding the Gaza Strip, perhaps softening the territory for a ground
01:41 invasion. Israel says it's destroying weapons storage and infrastructure used by Hamas,
01:48 which is designated a terrorist group by the US.
01:52 Palestinian officials put the death toll at 900. And the United Nations says there have
01:57 been more than a dozen hits on health facilities.
02:01 Israel's military says it's now positioned 35 battalions in the areas surrounding Gaza,
02:07 from where Hamas launched its attack on Saturday.
02:11 It caught Israel's security forces off guard. But Hamas propaganda videos appear to show
02:16 the militants training for a similar attack, complete with a model village.
02:24 The militants fired more barrages of rockets today, hitting the city of Ashkelon in southern
02:30 Israel. The country's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised his people they would
02:36 have vengeance.
02:37 Hamas will understand that by attacking us, they've made a mistake of historic proportions.
02:44 We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel's other enemies for decades
02:50 to come.
02:51 But the scale of what the militants inflicted on Israel is still emerging. In some small
02:57 farming communities, people were murdered wherever the gunmen found them.
03:02 Mothers, fathers, babies, young families killed in their bed, in their protection room, in
03:09 the dining room or in the garden outside.
03:13 Yehuda Gottlieb is a dual US-Israeli citizen who works as a first responder. He was outside
03:21 Be'eri Kibbutz as Israel's security forces battled the militants. Security camera footage
03:28 shows the gunmen breaking into the compound and shooting its residents. More than 100
03:34 people were killed there.
03:35 Have you ever seen anything like that before?
03:38 Never, ever, ever. We, like, drove all the way to the airline on the road. We were careful
03:44 not to get in bodies.
03:46 You had to avoid bodies on the road.
03:48 Exactly.
03:49 They were littering the road.
03:50 Terrible.
03:54 Anne Holly is back with us. And you have reported from Israel for decades. What have these attacks
03:59 done to the people psychologically?
04:00 Nora, I think it's rocked people's sense of security. Some people have told us that they
04:05 no longer feel safe in their own homes. This is a part of the world that's no stranger
04:10 to violence. But for many Israelis, this just feels very different.
04:14 That first responder who you saw just now in our report told us that he believes this
04:18 is the worst thing that's happened to Jewish people since the Holocaust.
04:23 Holly Williams, thank you for your reporting.