Israel intensifies bombing and ground operations, sending Gaza into internet blackout

Nick Schifrin:

Well, as Leila said, it's not clear, at least publicly clear, what the Israelis are doing, whether this is the full-scale invasion, the goals of which are to uproot Hamas physically and politically, or if this is just more what the U.S. military calls shaping operations, being incursions ahead of a large invasion.

Amna, I will say, there are certainly people here who believe this is the start of the invasion. And there are U.S. hopes that, if this is the invasion, the Israelis have decided to do it a little bit differently than what we have seen in the past, a little bit more measured, a little bit more slow-rolled, even though these images do not suggest any kind of measurement or slow roll.

The idea there is that, strategically, if there is less of a gigantic invasion announced publicly and that we could see literally rolling over Gaza, strategically, that doesn't preclude progress in the other areas that the U.S. and Israel are trying to make, most notably, hostages, as Leila was talking about.

Also, it doesn't erupt the region, as U.S. officials have been concerned about. Leila reported those 20 attacks already on U.S. troops by Iranian-backed militias. The U.S. has been very concerned a large invasion would actually yield even more attacks than that.

And, also, the other step the U.S. is hoping to take, getting some American citizens, 600 American citizens, out of Gaza. Tactically, what does that look like? The U.S. has been advising Israel to use less, for example, artillery and tanks, some of the big weapons, and more smaller special forces teams, mortars to try and eliminate or at least reduce civilian casualties as much as possible.

And that key factor here, Amna, hostages, there's a lot of domestic pressure, as you know, as you covered from families, Israeli families, on the Israeli government to prove that they're doing everything possible that they can to get those hostages out.

And the fear was that a giant invasion would stop any of that progress. There was progress, I'm told, officials — by officials this morning. The Israelis are looking for a large release. It's not clear how close or far they are, but there's some fear that any kind of large invasion would, again, preclude some of that momentum.

But, again, we just don't know, as Leila's been reporting, exactly what this is.

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