00:00 covering the conflict for us in Israel today is our senior reporter Catherine
00:04 Norris-Trent. She's currently in the city of Tel Aviv and she joined me on the
00:08 programme. Catherine, let's talk about the ground war in Gaza if we can. The
00:15 Israeli army isn't releasing a lot of details about what it's doing but it
00:20 does say its soldiers are approaching Gaza City. What can you tell us? That's
00:27 correct. The Israeli army is keeping most operational details of its military
00:33 offensive in Gaza under wraps. International journalists do not have
00:38 access there but what they are saying, a spokesman for the IDF said that they
00:43 have broken through Hamas's first line of defense and another commander in the
00:48 field in Gaza has said that they are on the outskirts of Gaza City. We know that
00:54 there have been a number of Israeli casualties so far including 11 Israeli
00:59 soldiers killed in one missile strike on an armored vehicle there. They say that
01:04 this campaign is long and proving difficult. This is what various political
01:10 leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu have said. They've also, we're getting
01:15 from our sources in Gaza, talk of another strike on the Jabalia area of
01:20 northern Gaza there, that densely populated area which has seen strikes in
01:24 the past two days as well. So clearly the situation there, extremely difficult for
01:31 the civilians remaining there. The Israeli army has been calling on them to
01:34 move south, towards the south of the Gaza Strip, saying that the north of the Gaza
01:40 Strip is a war zone. But the UN and other aid organizations operating within
01:45 Gaza say that there is no safe place within Gaza and that the strikes are
01:50 continuing in the south as well. So a dire humanitarian and security situation
01:56 for people remaining there.
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