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this is cnn breaking news. we are following breaking news at this hour, israel's military says its ground operation in gaza is expanding. i'm anderson cooper in tel aviv. we are seeing live pictures out of gaza right now. large explosions over the gaza strip, the idf says it is, quote, operating forcefully. those are their words on all fronts and will continue striking gaza city and keep calling upon civilians to evacuate south. this comes as we're learning more about hostage negotiations with hamas. u.s. officials insisting hostage talks will continue even as the israeli military ramps up its air strikes and expanding its operation on the ground. jeremy diamond is in ashelon for us. >> we have been hearing the ste steady thud of these intensified bombardment thes and artillery fire on the gaza strip.

this has been the loudest and most intense, perhaps even the most sustained bombardment of the gaza strip that we have heard in three weeks of covering this war. all of this as the idf says it is expanding its ground operations inside of gaza. we have been watching over the last several days a buildup to in a moment, a buildup to a potential ground invasion, which as of yet, we do not have confirmation that this expanded -- these expanded ground operations are indeed that invasion that has been expected, that has been telegraphed by israel's political and military leadership, but we have seen over the last several days targeted raids carried out by israeli infantry troops as well as tanks rolling across the border into gaza targeting hamas's infrastructure and those tunnels, which israeli military officials say will be key to eliminating those tunnels in order to make it safer for their troops as they go into gaza. what we have also been watching today is those potential hostage

negotiations, which are very much now complicated by this expanded israeli ground operation inside of gaza. there were signs yesterday and this morning, anderson, that those talks were progressing in a very real, a very significant way. but now it appears that they are -- that they are all but stalled. officials insisting to me and my colleagues that these talks have not yet collapsed and a senior u.s. official telling me that they will continue despite what we are watching tonight, despite this expanded ground operation, despite this intensified bombardment, and even despite a ground invasion potentially beginning, anderson. >> and jeremy, from your vantage point in ashkelon, are you hearing beyond explosions the thuds of munitions landing? are you hearing small arms fire? are you hearing machine gunfire? >> we heard something that perhaps sounded like a machine gun or a 50 caliber weapon being

used. it could also have been a helicopter. you know, it's difficult. it's dark out right now. we are about 10 kilometers from the border with gaza. i don't want to make any definitive pronouncements. what we certainly have been hearing, anderson, is the outgoing artillery fire and then bombardment of gaza, which not only can you hear, but you can also feel it kind of shake the buildings, even as far as we are right now from the gaza strip. what we also -- what i can also tell you is that we have been hearing that bombardment continuous ly over the last sefm d several days. it has been nowhere near as intense as what we hear tonight. certainly as we get in reports from people who are inside of gaza reporting very much the same, that this is the most intense bombardment that they have felt. what's also notable, it appears that telecommunications, internet and phone service have been cut off in large parts of the gaza strip. >> are you still seeing rockets

coming from gaza? >> over the last couple of hours, we had two sirens that came this way. there was also fire earlier in the day towards central israel. the rockets here this evening appear to have been intercepted by the iron dome, but earlier today, anderson, there were actually two direct hits here in the city of ashkelon. one of them hitting the ninth floor of an apartment building. we actually went to the scene and saw the balcony that was destroyed in part by that rocket, and it also hits near a home, a residential home here in the city of ashkelon. no casualties were reported, but certainly one of the interesting things has been to see even as israel has intensified its bombardment, even as they have conducted these raids, it certainly has not stopped the pace of hamas being able to fire those rockets. we know that that's in part because they operate from out of these tunnels, these dozens of miles of tunnels under the gaza strip, and they are also able to

fire some of these rockets remotely as well, which makes the challenge greater for israeli forces to try and eliminate those positions. >> jeremy, it seems like there are some very heavy munitions landing in gaza. i mean, i'm in tel aviv, i can feel as we've been talking, i can hear dull thuds and actually sort of feel the reverberations of them from here. >> yeah, again, it has been intense, and it has been sustained, and you know, you can only imagine the power as i can feel the power here of those bombs landing in gaza, and you can feel the building shake. you can feel the windows shake. it is hard to imagine, anderson, the power and the destruction that those bombs are wrecking inside the gaza strip. we have watched already as israel has intensified its bombardment in recent days as the casualty count has risen to over 7,000, i believe, is the

latest number insides gaza strip, nearly 3,000 of those casualties, anderson, it needs to be noted are children according to the hamas controlled palestinian ministry of health. so we know that every time we hear this bombardment intensifying inside of gaza, we know that there are lives being lost and in some instances civilian lives being lost including foing unfortunately children. >> jeremy diamond, we'll come back to you in ashkelon. i want to go to lieutenant general mark hurtling. what do you -- when you see what has been going on for the last two hours or so in our coverage, what do you think is going on? >> it could be a series of things or a choice of things, anderson. it could be an increase in bombardment to prepare for an assault, which normally happens. it could be a continued

bombardment just for the sake of knowing that the israeli defense forces have achieved targeting data and intelligence that shows where targets are. jeremy just said there are continued rockets going off. israel has the capability to see where those rockets are coming from. every time a point of origin appears on a radar screen or intelligence feed, it's going to be targeted by israeli aircraft. or third, it could be sending a message about the slow pace of returning the hostages. you know, it appears hamas is using human shields, hostages in this case, to delay israel's operation, and it's been 20 days since they took these hostages. israel's probably sending at least a partial message, even though that hostage negotiation continues of saying we're not going to put up with this anymore, either return the hostages or the operation will be executed. now, truthfully i'm your military analyst, anderson.

i'd like to be able to tell you what is exactly happening, but unless i'm in the operations center of israeli defense forces, i don't know what they're doing, neither do any of us who are making analysis on this, and guess what, neither does hamas. they don't know what's happening either. i will tell you that continued concussion of these bombs and these artillery shells is not only affecting them physically, but it's affecting them psychologically, because being under constant huge shelling like this, really takes its toll on a force. >> and lieutenant general, when, you know, i think many people when they hear about a ground incursion of israeli forces and knowing that there are more than 300,000 troops on israel's borders, they think it's going to be something large all at once. do you -- i mean, that's a possibility, i assume, but given their experiences with say fighting hezbollah in 2006, those movements were very slow

as they went into lebanon. what are you expecting in terms of the speed of any kind of operation? >> well, again, this depends, anderson. i hate to say this, but, yes, when israel went into lebanon against hezbollah in 2006, it was a slow operation, and unfortunately they paid the price for some of that. at the same time, in tw2014 whe the idf went into gaza, they had 70,000 forces go in on three different axes. that was a fast operation. there was also a lot of defensive positions that hamas had established. they've only improved those defensive positions and the tunnels underneath, the subterranean operations, so it could be a massive invasion and a massive incursion on four or five different axes. it could be a smaller invasion

to gain more intelligence to use air forces to strike them. it could be targeted operations on specific information that the israeli army has in a tunnel complex or in the bottom of a building. it could be any of those things. that's where really hamas is on their back foot, but they're in a very key defensive position underground. they can withstand some of this targeting, and unfortunately, the only people that are being hurt are the palestinian civilians who are being placed between hamas and israel and can't get out of some of the locations within gaza. >> lieutenant general mark h hertrtling, thanank you. wewe're going g to take a a sho brbreak. we'l'll be rightht back.

hostage negotiations are still ongoing despite what we're seeing these ramped up strikes on gaza. alex marquardt is with us now on what u.s. officials are saying about the hostage negotiations. alex. >> well, briana and boris, american officials are unwilling to say that given what we've seen tonight from israel in terms of its activities in gaza that the hostage conversations have collapsed. the american officials have told us, myself and several of my colleagues that those conversations will continue. one person saying in particular, there's no scenario until the hostages are freed that we would stop pursuing talks. now, one thing we have heard repeatedly from various biden administration officials is the need for humanitarian pauses to both allow aid to get into gaza, but also to allow for more time and ease for these hostages to come out. that is something that we just heard moments ago from the national security's john kirby,

saying that they have been having active conversations with israel about these humanitarian pauses saying that it's something that they absolutely would support. now, when you look at what we are literally looking at right now in gaza, that appears to be the last thing on israel's mi mind. they seem to be really pushing forward, expanding their military operations. that's something i'm told u.s. officials are also seeing but certainly trying to assess. they're watching this very carefully as well. they are certainly seeing this as an escalation of what we've seen in terms of incursions by israel over the course of the past few days. now, where these talks exactly stand about the hostages, that is hard to say. what everyone seems to agree on is that they are not in as good a place as they were earlier today when we thought that we were closing to a potential deal that could have seen a much larger group of civilian hostages released, so it appears that those talks have taken a step back. we have heard from the israeli

military spokesperson who was asked about this, as he announced the expansion of these military operations, briana and boris, he said that you should not believe the rumors about a potential deal. we are told reliably that the conversations continue. they just don't seem to be in as good a place as they were earlier today and yesterday, guys. >> and alex, as you were speaking we were hearing some very loud what sounded like explosions or very loud thuds as we take a live look at the skyline in gaza. it's been lit up multiple times since we've been watching. we want to take you now to doha in qatar with cnn's becky anderson because, obviously, becky, the qataris are an integral part of these negotiations. what's the latest? >> reporter: yeah, these are qatar-led negotiations. there's been two cycles of these

of course with an american civilian and her 17-year-old daughter released, and two israeli citizens, elderly women released on tuesday. there had been some momentum, we were told by diplomatic sources who are very familiar with the talks earlier on today, and it's now quarter past 11:00 in the evening qatar time. earlier on today, we've been told that significant progress had been made in these hostage negotiations. we were told that there were still issues that were outstanding. i'm just reading my notes here, but talks were ongoing, and at the time earlier today they remained hopeful that this momentum would continue, and at that point there was a suggestion that at least in principle there might be an announcement on a large number, a relatively large number of civilian hostages being released at some point in the next few days. it's not clear given that we have now had the idf announce

expanded operations in gaza whether or not that momentum for this mediation continues, certainly we know that there are 229 hostages or abductees as described by the idf earlier on today. what we don't know is how many of those are israeli citizens and how many are foreign nationals. how many are women, children, and the elderly as opposed to military hostages, i.e. hostages who are of either soldiers, serving soldiers or reservist age, what we understood was that the negotiations were on the release of a significant number of civilian hostages. whether that was in exchange for more aid and a pause in the fighting, whether the details on that had be organized. that's certainly the sense we had at the time. as i say now here, as we move

towards midnight, qatar time, certainly no evidence that the momentum for these talks has in any way slowed down. certainly no evidence that these talks had fallen apart. certainly no news as of yet as to whether this -- these talks continue at this point with a view to news of a hostage release anytime soon. >> do we have any view into the details of these talks? how shrouded in secrecy are they? what are the interests of the parties as they are discussing who to release, how to release them? >> reporter: yeah, that's a really good question, and the details are not absolutely clear, but i think we've got some sort of parameters that at least we understand were being discussed right from the outset, let's remember, right from when we first knew that they had hostages being taken, and i'm

talking about nearly three weeks ago. the israeli had said there will be no cease fire until -- if at all, until hostages are released. they didn't see that as a credible demand from hamas who was saying they wanted to see a cease fire before hostages were released. as things have moved on, it does appear that there were a number of parameters here. there was the rafah border crossing, how much more aid could hamas demand was sent through that wordeborder crossid to where. incredibly important that humanitarian aid, fuel, medical supplies gets into gaza, but massive concern and a red line by the israelis from the beginning of this saying that those -- that those medical supplies, that fuel could not go to hamas. we do know that the rafah border crossing as we understand it has been in play in these negotiations, and then the other

point is where are these hostages? does hamas have all of these hostages? could it be that there are some hostages who aren't with hamas at the moment? and then how many -- what's the exchange as far as civilians are concerned, it did appear that that was an exchange for aid that was being discussed as opposed to a prisoner swap, which would be military for women and teenagers, palestinian women and teenagers being held in israeli jails. so perhaps it can be described as a twin track. i can't stand that up. certainly we've heard reports of that, but at present all we do know is that there are 229 hostages as described. that's the number that was described by the idf earlier, and at this stage it's not clear whether any of those, be it a large number or a smaller number, will now be released anytime soon. >> many unanswered questions to

this point, now nearly three weeks into being captured, abducted by hamas. becky, please keep us up to speed with the very latest as we take another live look at gaza. the skyline lighting up repeatedly throughout the evening. clear signs that israel has expanded its ground activity in that region. the white house, though, they are not confirming whether israel notified the united states in advance of any operation. obviously a lot to watch in this situation. >> certainly. we will be keeping an eye on this. live pictures out of gaza. we will bring you the very latest after a quick break. my .

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get way more into what you're into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. and we're back live from israel. i want to go to lieutenant general mark hert lling, we got some night vision shot from reuters. i just want to show that to our viewers. i'm not sure you can tell exactly what's going on. i'm told that some form of shelling across the boarrder. this is from a short time ago. >> yeah. that looks a lot like a direct fire shot from a tank, anderson, because it's on a flat line right above the surface. you can -- i mean, tank rounds move pretty fast, about a mile a second. you can see that it not only comes out of the whatever it is,

the tube, and then hits something and explodes, so i would suggest that's probably a tank round. and based on the sound -- >> it seems to be parallel to the ground. >> it sounds like a tank round hitting a target. >> so there are tanks f , if th is a tank round, which it seems to be firing from the border. what does that tell you about the closeness with which forces are operating? >> well, the effective range of a tank is somewhere between 2,503,0 2,500, and 3,000 yards. they have great night division devices within the tank that will set on a target and be able to hit it at those ranges, 3,000 meters. they go about a thousand meters a second, most tank rounds, so you can hit a target 3,000 meters away and even further if you can see it, but it tells me

that there is something they're t targeting on the other side, probably the movement of some type of hamas forces or hamas vehicles or the establishment of some type of battle positions by hamas. they could also be seeing trucks moving up toward the border planting improvised explosive devices, a series of things could be happening, that is a direct firefight from a ground vehicle, anderson. >> i want to show some video from about two days ago released by the idf, which they call a limited cross border operation to hit reconnaissance, any reconnaissance positions or any munitions. this is from two days ago. this is from wednesday. we see bulldozers literally flattening the ground. what do you make of this? >> well, first of all, you see that long line of vehicles, the tanks and what looked like personnel care yeses with the flat roofs, but the tanks with the gun turrets. they're being led in across the

border with bulldozers. those things will clear rubble so the tanks can follow on behind them. they might also pick up because bulldozers are run by the engineers. they also have sappers that will find mines or improvised explosive devices and disarm those so the follow-on vehicles, the tanks and the personnel carriers can go in behind them. what i also saw was one of the bulldozers that looked like it was leveling the ground at the crossing point. it looked like there was a berm there that it was leveling off because you don't want a tank going up over the top of a berm because it exposes its underside. you want to go straight across so it can maintain its turret, and its orientation of its main gun tube on the enemy. >> so in terms of moving forward, idf forces moving forward into gaza, the deeper they go, you and i have talked about whether this could be a

multipronged blitzkrieg fast operation or slow, methodical, are mines a concern along the border with gaza? do we know? because i was out with the idf during operation 2006 during the fight against hezbollah in an armored personnel carrier going across the border and it was supposed to be an hour operation, and it lasted, i think, about 14 hours because the movement was so slow because of concerns about mines. >> well, mines and improvised explosive devices, and anderson, shifting from this conflict to the ukrainian one, that's exactly what's slowed their forces down, going against russian mine fields, and hamas has learned from other armies. they know that a massive ground assault with tanks and personnel car carriers, which protect the crews, also have to travel on routes and go either over mines or improvised explosive devices, and what i'd also suggest is the

iranians have likely provided hamas with something, a special kind of ied called an efp, an explosively formed penetrator. we saw those with iranian proxy groups in iraq, and they are deadly against armored vehicles. they fire a stream of hot molten copper metal into a tank and can slice through like a knife through butter. so they're going to be watching for mines, ieds, efps, explosively formed penetrators, sniper positions, defensive positions, and in addition to that, the israelis are going to have to go through the rubble that they created by bombing buildings. so what you're not going to see is a very fast assault with a lot of vehicles. what we just saw in that film you showed is probably about a tank company of maybe 100 soldiers. you're not going to see a tank brigade going on one route

because you just can't maneuver into an urban environment like that. and the streets of inside of gaza are very narrow and they've been rubbled for the last 20 days by air force bombers. so all of those things in combination with the subterranean fight that you have hamas in tunnels probably with human shields, likely with the hostages, are going to make this battlefield some of the toughest that any infantry or armored warfare has seen when you're talking about combat in the city. >> so in terms of comparing it to fallujah and comparing it to mosul, i've had some military officers, former military officers tell me that they think this will be harder than those operations. do you agree with that? >> well, yes. my command was responsible for a fight in mosul in 2007 and 8, and what i'd say is this would

be 10 to 20 times harder than mosul for a variety of reasons. you have like you said, the mines. al qaeda had ieds and efps. they didn't have the mine fields. they didn't have the subterranean fight that they could duck into. they didn't have high-rise buildings. the highest building in mosul was like i think 6 or 7 stories. so all of those things compound the fight when you're talking -- oh, by the way, they didn't have close to 2.5 million people in mosul that were the citizenry of the city and al qaeda for the most part was not using them as human shields, and they also didn't have 229 hostages. so when you try and compare fallujah or mosul to what's going to happen in gaza, there is no comparison at all, and i'm telling you that from a guy who commanded forces in an urban environment. it's just going to be so much tougher. >> and we're obviously seeing some very large explosions, one after the other in gaza right now. before we let you go, colonel,

general hertling, let me ask you, the other factor in this, which is different than perhaps in mosul and fallujah, hamas has had -- if they have been preparing for the slaughter that took place on october 7th for two years, they've also had two years to prepare for what they knew would be an inevitable ground operation in the wake of that slaughter. so they've had a long time to prepare and think out and game out what israel is about to do. >> that is correct. and that's why i think you have israel conducting the kind of operation they're doing, trying to strike targeted infrastructure, trying to strike entrance to the tunnels, trying to strike locations where they know the hamas has fired rockets from because that's the kind of intelligence they have. again, in mosul, al qaeda was moving in and out of the city.

there was a free movement in all directions, north, south, east and west. what you have in this case is you had hamas in this city preparing defensive positions and tunnels and the kinds of ambushes that they want to conduct against the israelis, they want -- hamas wants israel to come into this city. they -- that will meet every demand they have because now the only will they be able to fight the israeli defense forces, they will be able to blame the idf for all the palestinian casualties that are caused by them inside of the city because they have held on to the palestinian population. so they want israel to come in and they don't care if palestinians are harmed. >> general hertling, we'll talk with you throughout the night. we're going to take a short break. our coverage continues.

welcome back. i want to bring in our jim sciutto who is in northern israel along the border with lebanon. jim, let's talk about what you're seeing there and also what you are hearing internationally, both from israel's allies and from their enemies. >> so you have from their enemies clear warning, you had the iranian foreign minister say on npr that their fingers are on

the trigger, they being iranian proxy forces around the region, and we witnessed that since we've been in northern israel up on the lebanese border. we've seen regular speaking to idf forces there, regular strikes from hezbollah both from the air in the form of artillery, sniper fire, but also attempted ground incursions, and of course we saw these attacks elsewhere in the region on u.s. bases in syria and iraq, which is why you saw the u.s. fire back today with those strikes on iranian bases in eastern syria. that is how israel's enemies are reacting, and the question has been will they amp up those attacks from the north, from the northeast in the event of a major ground operation in gaza, and if this is indeed that major ground operation underway, we're going to know. we're going to know in the coming hours and days. i can tell you israeli forces in the north, they are very much on alert for that kind of thing.

i think what's notable, if israel is indeed going for a full scale invasion here, they're doing so with the open opposition of many in the arab world. we heard a short time ago from the jordanian foreign minister saying such a ground war would in his words be a humanitarian catastrophe of ep ic proportion. from u.s. officials we know in recent days they've been counseling israel to know what their goal is, right, and raising questions as to whether the goal of eliminating hamas as israeli leaders have said is achievable or even if it's achievable at what cost, based on as you were talking about with general hertling there america's own experience in places such as fallujah and mow sal. you have israel acting not just with deep opposition for many in the arab world here but without the explicit report and even some skepticism from its closest ally the u.s. based on that

advice it's been giving. that is a precarious position to be in, especially if this is a long, drawn-out conflict here. and by the way, i should say an israel that is surrounded really by iranian proxies. do those iranian proxies act on the words of the foreign minister? in other words take their fingers from being on a hair trigger to firing their weapons in numbers at israel. that's a real concern tonight. >> jim sciutto, thanks very much. we'll check back in with you, sara sidner joins me here in tel aviv. i keep thinking about people who certainly have family in israel who are watching around the world who are concerned about their loved ones who are reservists and soldiers waiting there on the border and also people who have relatives in gaza who apparently it seems like communications have been stopped from there. >> that's what we are hearing from people who have family in gaza. they cannot communicate with them at all, and as you might imagine, they are watching these

bombardments as we are and it's the heaviest one we've seen in days if not the three weeks that we've been watching this, and so they are extremely concerned. they can't contact their loved ones at all. there's just no communication. we heard from jawal, the palestinian telecom there. they powered the whole strip and they said zero communications, that the bombardments have knocked out all of the routes between gaza and the wider world. their telecom systems are completely down. so we're getting reaction from that. and the idf would not comment on whether or not they had cut off the telecommunications there, and you're hearing some noises there. you're also seeing some blasts go off, and we actually hear them. i know you've heard them plenty of times today. you don't just hear the rockets coming over and the iron dome intercepting, but you actually hear we're not that far from gaza. you hear the blasts going off there and they rumble like thunder over you. so families there are terrified. we're hearing from the jordanian

foreign minister who has said, you know, this is -- if you do a ground incursion, this is going to be a catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe on top of what is already a catastrophe there, and we're also hearing from the prime minister of the palestinian authority who believes that this is a concerted effort to darken things so that israel can, as he put it, commit crimes. israel, of course, saying they are doing a limited ground operation right now, and this was part of the plan that they were going to do something on the ground. we'll have to wait and see, but the bombardment is extreme and no one can get in touch with anyone in gaza right now. >> sara sidner, thanks very much. our coverage is going to continue. we're going to take a short break, and we'll be right back.

our coverage continues from along the border with gaza. jeremy diamond is there in ashkelon. tell us what the last couple of minutes have been like. >> reporter: well, not only have we been hearing these really loud thuds, the sound of outgoing artillery fire, but also, of course, bombs being dropped on gaza which can sometimes are so loud that they shake the windows and the walls of this hotel where we're staying in ashkelon. which we're ten kilometers away from the border with gaza. what we are also hearing which is interesting, anderson, is we're hearing a lot of helicopters which is the kind of activity that we have not heard over the last several weeks. we've been hearing the bombardments, feeling them. but what we haven't been hearing is helicopters that have been

constantly buzzing overhead in the area over the last couple of hours. so that's just an interesting data point here as we try and figure out exactly what this expansion of ground operations by the idf announced this evening actually is. we know that israeli military and political officials have been telegraphing over the last several days that a ground invasion of gaza will come, that it was simply a matter of timing, and that that operation would come at a time of israel's choosing. whether or not that is what is happening tonight we don't know. but they certainly have been preparing the terrain in the last several days with several targeted raids inside of gaza involving tanks, involving naval forces, involving infantry forces over the last several days to try and target those tunnels inside gaza, miles of tunnels under which we know that hamas uses to operate, where they're hold a number of these hostages. and also where -- which present

a significant risk, of course, to an israeli ground force that would go inside of gaza. not only because hamas fighters can use those tunnels to their advantage to evade israeli forces, but also because they can use them, of course, to ambush those forces, as well. >> and we should point out, sara sidner was talking about it, communications on the gaza side have been shut down. israel has not said that they have done that. but it would certainly from a military standpoint if they want to stop hamas from communicating, that would certainly be a strategy. >> reporter: yeah. again, when we are in this moment where we have less than a full picture of exactly what is happening, exactly what these operations are, we look at a number of these different data points to try and understand what is different tonight from what has happened over the last several weeks. again, what's different tonight is the intensity of the bombardments, how loud they are

from the position we are, the types of munitions they may be using. there's the smoke to our correspondent nic robertson was hearing, seeing, as well, which was different. and of course the communications being cut off is not something that the idf has done in the last couple of nights even as they've conducted those targeted raids. all of that indicates that what we are seeing right now, what we are hearing right now is something much, much larger. whether or not it is that ground invasion remains to be seen. anderson? >> jeremy diamond in ashkelon. thank you. "the lead" with jake tapper starts after a break.

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