a lot of fear here and as you can see a lot of damage. >> john hedron from gaza city. each side blames the other identifside, and each side said they will not stop until the other side does. prime minister benjamin netanyahu said hamas will not win. >> hamas itself will meet its end because nobody in the world is going to pay for the killing or support terror. that will be the best news to the people in gaza itself. >> hamas has said that israel is to blame for this new round of fighting. >>> an manner teen who was beaten by israeli police caught on tape is expected to return to the united states. he's scheduled to arrive this evening in florida. earlier this month israeli police beat him as he protested his cousin's abduction and murder. he was not charged with a crime although he was quite injured, and he was put under house arrest. >>> syrian president bashar al-assad was sworn in for a third seven-year term today. the lavish inauguration ceremony comes in the middle of a civil war. assad was reaelected in a landslide victory that the opposition and the west call a

will let's take you live to john hedron, the fifth day of airstrikes against gaza, what's the situation there right now? >> adrian, it's those incidents that stephanie and nick were just highlighting in their stories that are really what people here are focusing on. this civilian casualties. everybody has seen some of it. in addition to the strikes that they just talked about there was a strike on the salam mosque yesterday, on the hospital, and in this case nobody was killed, but at the mosque 22 people were injured. we went to a home two hours ago and those people who were admittedly well-connected with hamas, they were given a phone call that said get out. then a warning rocket and within a minute and 10 seconds after that rocket that house was destroyed. some how everyone else made it out. but everyone has a story. i'll give you one of my own. two days ago i went home in the morning to the hotel i'm staying in, and shipping container that had been sitting on the mediterranean had been blown up. this morning i arrive to see a ship in flames after the latest air strike. those incident

john hedron talks at the front lines about the efforts to shave lives. >> reporter: when serious things happen, people are brought here. when that largest incident to date happened and 18 people were killed at the police chief's home, the survivors were brought here. this hospital is full of people all suffering wounds. we talked to a little girl, actually we spoke to her father because she is no longer speaking. she has shrapnel in her head, in her arms and legs. a woman was injured in a bombing that struck a hospital for the disabled. everyone is suffering from those same kinds of wounds. we spoke to a doctor. he came from norway to help treat patients. this is what he had to say. >> the explosives, the bombs to destroy houses. normally everyone gets killed. it's an enormous energy, and they get killed by the explosion itself or pieces of building that drop on them. >> reporter: if there was a ground war, particularly a prolonged ground war, not only would hospitals like this be overwhelmed, but they would run out of equipment to treat peop people. >> israel's military said that it sh

john hedron is on the ground with gaza with more. >> reporter: in the past 24 hours we've heard a numberf rockets, a number of airstrikes. just today the rockets that we've seen and heard coming out of here, and perhaps they happen to be near us. they seem to be louder, more of them, and we're seeing massive airstrikes on the skyline. ones that leave unusually large plumes of smoke. as that is happening there have been 40 homes that have been targets and a number of centers of power. we were at the ministry of the interior today, that building was two weeks old when this bombing campaign began. it is now completely destroyed. we were at the home of a hamas official, his home was destroyed as was his neighbor's home. most of these buildings being destroyed are unoccupied. if they're a building that hamas is known to run they will have stopped occupying these buildings at the beginning of campaign because they've been through this before. so what the israelis are doing in those days, they're destroying infrastructure that will have to be rebuilt later. the tragic story are of the people wh

. >> john hedron keeping an eye on gaza city. >> reporter: groups of hamas continue to be fired upon from israel. hundreds of rockets have been launched into israel since tuesday. the cabinet has been holding its weekly meeting since jerusalem. >> reporter: sunday morning is the first occasion we know about are the israeli military has entered gaza on the ground. according to reports commandos entered by sea, going up the beach to attack what the israeli military call a long range missile launching site. three hamas fighters were killed in this assault, and four israeli commandos have been injured and are being treated in hospital. also the weekly cabinet meeting in israel. for the first time the content of that cap meant meeting held embargo. we don't know what the content of that cap meant meet something, and we're not going to be told when the details of that meeting will be revealed. they would blame iran partly for this latest flareup in fighting between israel and hamas. s. >> will the diplomatic effort find an end to the violence? we'll move to vienna where leaders met to spea

john hedron reporting now from jerusalem. >> the israeli military ground assault on gaza has pressed forward as rocket attacks have continued to come out of gaza. the stated objective of the israeli campaign is to launch a ground invasion that would stop the ability of hamas to launch rockets out of gaza, and also target the tunnels that allow the palestinians to infiltrate the israeli side of the border to allegedly sneak rocket parts and other weapons across the egyptian border and tunnels that would also allow leaders and some of those weapons to be hidden underground. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu had a cabinet meeting in which it was authorized to accelerate the ground campaign. the israeli military chief of staff said that that campaign will accelerate, but both of them lowered expectations, and net ha netanyahu said that there was no guarantee that this will be successful. they said they tried other options. they tried an air war. they tried a peace negotiation, and he said the price will go very high. he said there are facts that he cannot reveal to the public

now we're going to go to gaza itself, and to our correspondent john hedron. are we seeing any evidence of this being threatened by prime minister netanyahu. are you seeing anything of that in gaza? >> we're seeing that nothing has changed. the rocket talks coming out of gaza, the airstrikes coming in. you can only stand in the middle of the city to see the answer from both sides is no. we see rockets coming out of gaza just over my shoulder, that happened just a few moments ago. and then airstrikes coming in from time to time. just in the last hour and a half a number of rockets were fired to israel. israel responded back in a matter of minutes with 20 airstrikes. you can hear them behind me. and there is one development that remain takes up the escalation of this campaign. that is three rockets were fired from gaza to the nuclear plant. hamas took responsibility for that. the rockets were fired at the town. they did not strike at or near the plant, however, that's not the point. those rockets might not be able to penetrate that plant. hamas being within the

john hedron explains. >> reporter: they want to know how many times the israelis will drive her from her home. >> they never stop firing shells at us. our children are traumatized. it's driven them mad. it's driving us all mad. they have destroyed everything, the farm, the chickens, the house, everything. >> reporter: after the israeli air force dropped leaflets demanding that she leave her farm for the second time she returned with thousands of others to gaza city to a school now overrun with refugees. >> we return back home. during the night there were explosions, people were shouting all night because of the explosion. we didn't know where to go. we came back to the school and there was no longer any space for us. >> reporter: people here have twice been kicked out of their homes. this air dropped israeli leaflet tells them to leave. two hours after the deadline many of them are outdoors. >> reporter: some become refugees because their homes are gone. >> i'm unemployed. i have 50 family members. where can i take them to escape. they need a house. >> reporter: the refugee crisis wo

john hedron, al jazeera, gaza. >> let's take a look at this conflict by the numbers. israel has launched nearly 1700 airstrikes since the fighting began last week. those strikes have killed 194 people and wounded nearly 1500 more. on the israeli side israel said one person was killed in a hamas rocket strike at the border crossing into gaza. 26 israelis have been injured. the israeli army said hamas has fired 1200 rockets into israel since last to you. israel's iron dome defense system has intercepted just over 200 of them. al jazeera's has more from jerusalem. >> reporter: well, following the death of an israeli civilian at the border crossing between gaza and israel we have been hearing statements from israeli officials that could indicate that things could be moving towards further escalation. according to israeli media reports the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu who convened a security cabinet meeting in tel aviv tuesday night said that hamas is going to pay the price for deciding to continue with the escalation and that israel would continue to strike h