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"Israeli warplanes have complete control of the skies," NBC's Martin Fletcher told us. "Israeli bombs did not stop for a moment today." ABC's Simon McGregor-Wood noted that the IDF's targets had graduated from military sites to "everything with a connection to Hamas" including Islamic University and the residence of the Health Minister. He quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as declaring: "We have nothing against the citizens of Gaza" even as he showed the funeral procession of five sisters, girls who were crushed to death when "an Israeli strike caused a wall to collapse in their home."
NBC's Fletcher was confused about the motives for the IDF assault. He quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling for Hamas to agree to "a new truce" while Barak declared "war to the bitter end" against Gaza's rulers. Fletcher reported that the IDF had planned a five stage offensive: "Stage Five is a ground invasion." At the same time, he pointed out, "Hamas has been training for a year, too, to repel an Israeli ground invasion: 10,000 fighters, well-trained and well-armed; and thousands more police; a sophisticated network of tunnels to smuggle arms; and boobytraps." CBS' Mark Phillips evoked the IDF's incursion into southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006: "Hamas does not have to defeat the Israelis to win this conflict. It merely has to survive." Phillips surveyed the "huge imbalance" between the Israeli bombardment and Hamas' rockets and wondered: "How many new recruits? How many new militants? How much more hatred is being created by an assault on this scale?"
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