Anderson in Israel

It was just a matter of bringing the New Year in. I am sure that at 12.01 AM Anderson had a foot in the plane to fly to wherever there was conflict, and on Monday he will be reporting from Israel.



updated 43 minutes ago

Israeli ground troops enter Gaza

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza on Saturday night as the military launched the second phase of its assault on the Hamas-ruled territory after a week of airstrikes.

"Obviously, ground forces have capability that air forces don't have," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN.

"We want to create a situation where the civilian population in southern Israel is no longer on the receiving end of those deadly Hamas rockets. When quiet can be achieved, this operation can be finished."

The goal of Operation Cast Lead is to halt what Israeli officials describe as a near-constant barrage of Hamas rockets into the southern part of the country from Gaza.

"We haven't articulated regime change as the goal of this operation. Our goal is to protect our people," Regev said.

Israeli officials say four people have been killed and 59 wounded in Hamas rocket attacks in the past week.

Palestinian medical sources said Saturday that at least 460 people have been killed and 2,750 wounded in Gaza.

As night fell on the eighth day of the bloody conflict, both sides remained defiant, vowing to stand their ground and accusing the other of breaking a cease-fire that had been in place until last month.

Not long after Israel's ground incursion began, Hamas vowed to "fight until the last breath" and warned Israel that "Gaza will be your cemetery."

"You will not live in peace until our Palestinian people live in peace," Hamas chief spokesman Ismail Radwan said in a statement on Palestinian network Al-Aqsa.

"We will not abandon the battlefield, and we will stay on the thorny course and we will fight until the last breath," he said."God is great, and the victory will be that of the mujahedeen."

Overthrowing Hamas, which controls Gaza, is not Israel's goal, Regev said. He added that Gaza's civilian population was not Israel's enemy.

Leaflets signed by the commander of the Israeli military were dropped over northern Gaza on Saturday morning, warning residents to "leave the area immediately" to ensure their safety.

"In many ways, they are victims like us. Both the civilian population of southern Israel and the civilian population of the Gaza Strip have been victims of this terrible, extremist Hamas regime," Regev said.

Before crossing the border Saturday, Israel Defense Forces used ground artillery units, firing from Israel into Gaza.

The IDF said it had kicked off a large-scale drafting of reservists, some from the home front command and others from differing military units. Watch the conflict unfold on both sides »

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal promised bloodshed if Israeli ground troops enter Gaza.

"As for you, the soldiers of the enemy whose leadership are getting you ready to enter Gaza in a ground attack, you need to know that doom will await you and you will be killed, injured and captured," Meshaal said on Al Jazeera television network Friday from Syria.

"If the enemy got into Gaza, our people will fight from one street to the next, from one house to the other, and on every inch of the land." Find out who's who on each side »

An Israeli airstrike hit a mosque in the northern Gaza village of Beit Lahiya on Saturday evening, killing 13 people and wounding 60, according to Palestinian medical sources. Watch the chaos after the mosque attack »

An Israeli attack earlier Saturday killed Azkariah al-Jamal, commander of Gaza City's rocket-launching squads, Palestinian and IDF sources said.

Another airstrike killed two Hamas militants in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

Israeli missiles hit 25 Hamas "outposts, training camps and rocket launching sites" Saturday morning, an IDF statement said. Watch explosions in Gaza »

The houses of two alleged Hamas terrorist operatives were also hit, the IDF said. One was the home of Azadin Hadad, described as the head of the Hamas military group in eastern Gaza City.

The other, in Beit Lahiya, was used to store rocket-launching equipment and was the home of Ismail Renam, who "has a central role in the launching of Grad-type rockets against Israel," the IDF said.

Grad-type rockets have a longer range than the rudimentary Qassam rockets Hamas more commonly uses.

Meanwhile, Hamas militants launched 20 rockets from Gaza into Israel by late afternoon Saturday, IDF spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said.

Rockets set a house on fire in Ashkelon, damaged a kibbutz dining hall and slightly wounded two people in an eight-story building in Ashdod, according to Israeli ambulance services.

"We still see that Hamas is targeting Israeli civilians. Namely, we still did not reach the goal of crippling Hamas' launching capabilities," Leibovich said.

CNN's Barbara Starr said top U.S. military leaders were aware in advance of Israel's plans to enter Gaza.