I want to show you what occurred about an hour or so ago, about five blocks away from basically very close to a media center where we were earlier. This is what we saw. We were not recording sound so you’re not going to hear sound until the end of this. But a very loud blast, as you see right there, basically all of us ducked down in the office. We thought that was the end of it. Neal, our cameraman, panned over and then a series of more explosions. It turns out this was a number of government buildings that is is what is said to have been hit. It’s not clear if those are secondary explosions or if those are multiple rockets going into the building. I then started pointing out it was not over at that point. You can’t hear the sound but let’s listen in now. 

 

That’s just the sound, at the tail end of it, the last few seconds which we were able to capture on tape. We did not think we were on the air during all this time which is why we weren’t recording sound, but you heard how loud the blasts were at the end. Consider how loud the blasts must have were even earlier when we weren’t recording sound. Really an enormous series of blasts. The percussion of it, you could feel for many, many blocks. A huge cloud of smoke blanketed the entire area here in central Gaza for several blocks. We don’t have information on causalities, if there were any, or if there were any injured. And today, though, a day of dramatic developments here on the ground. Bloodshed here in Gaza City, also in Israel as well. We’re going to have reports on both sides of the border. Also want to warn you, what you’re about to see is very disturbing. It’s what we witnessed with our own eyes from our vantage point here and what we saw in the last 24 hours here in Gaza City and also in Israel. Take a look.

 

Day seven, talk of a ceasefire or time-out never materializes and the fighting rages on. Rockets continue to fire from Gaza and massive explosions rock Gaza City. 

 

I think it’s pretty clear that we are moving in the direction of, I can hear shattering glass out there right now. The building just shook, of course, because I was looking at the camera I didn’t see where the blast took place. Anybody see it? Ok, to the north of the this building here, so despite talk of ceasefire Hala, it appears that the guns are still firing. 

 

CNN’s Ben Wedeman during a live report. We rushed to the scene of the blast moments later. 

 

I’m told that this house, this villa, belongs to a very wealthy man who is actually a member of Fatah who’s not here, as a wealthy banker, and some local people here believe maybe somebody else was living in the house or maybe Hamas had taken over the house and maybe that’s why it was a target. But now a number of ambulances have arrived on the scene but again, it just not clear if there was anybody inside the house at the time.