1st American Reporter Into Gaza strip
The acrid smell of spent machine gun rounds was floating up through the load master’s porthole on the turret of the Merkava Tank. It burned my nostrils and made my eyes water. The sun had gone down and the little DV camera I had was not getting a good picture of the big cannon on the front of the tank in low light. So, I fished in the pocket of my flack vest and pulled out a little l.e.d. flashlight. I held the camera in my right hand, cause my left one is broken. I used the broken hand to hold the flashlight and tried to illuminate the cannon on the front of the tank.

Adam, the load master, tapped on my leg from the inside of the tank. He told me I needed to get my feet over to a rail that ran along the edge of the cabin inside the tank because the 120 mm cannon was about to fire and if the recoil hit my legs, it would be bad.
So, I had my feet pitched off to one side, both hands extended out like a crossing guard, one recording, one lighting. I balanced by wedging my flack jacket in the porthole. My head was sticking up out of a Merkava tank, in combat. I was scared.
Did I have my legs out of the way enough? Was I going to lose my hearing? Was I going to get knocked silly and fall into this tank when it fired?

  I got my answer soon enough.
From a distance tank fire always sounds like trucks crashing head-on, without the screeching of tires. When you are balanced above the cannon, it sounds like a big pop. I was wearing one of the Israeli tank crew helmets complete with ear protection. But the headset wasn’t a good fit. There was a gap by my right ear. As I write this, my ear is still ringing. There was a tremendous flash of light. I was knocked off balance but saved because my Kevlar-wrapped girth kept me wedged tight in the small porthole. The cannon fired a total of 3 times. That followed all of the small arms fire that was directed at a Palestinian Mortar team in the Gaza strip.

Colonel Yigal, who was the commander, told me the mortar team had been firing at infantry soldiers with Israel’s Givati brigades. There were 5 people on the mortar team, 3 of them, he said, had been killed.
That’s the part that struck me. The machinery of war kept me very distant from the human impact. We were roughly 300 yards from the mortar team, but I never saw them. I never heard one of their rounds. From my perspective, we could have been blasting away at a shooting range. But as I watched the number of Palestinian dead increased by 3 and with combat still raging as I write, the death toll has crossed 900 and edges ever closer to 1000.
Keep checking back for the latest EXCLUSIVE coverage from Gaza!
Mideast Correspondent Mike Tobin has provided on-site coverage from the Israeli-Lebanese border during the conflict in the Middle East. He also covered Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s hospitalization in Jerusalem, the evacuation of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, the Iraqi elections in Baghdad and Operation Iraqi Freedom from Centcom in Doha, Qatar. 
Sounds to me like the IDF is doing one hell of a good job. Those guys rock!
With Palestine no longer on any world maps and no ‘right of return’, it’s time for world leaders to ask Israel and Palestine to decide which way they want the baby cut in pieces. Then Isreal can stop building their Berlin Wall and the world can find a place for Palestine to move to…and then, the USA can again be the first to acknowledge the new Palestinian homeland…maybe in one of the world’s far flung deserts with enough land to support new populations with new jobs with the New Palestine’s ‘Right of Return’…where peace prevails and there is a drug that can be taken by Israilis and Palestinians which would erase the word KILL from their minds. Then Fox’s imbedded reporters will not have to count dead Palestinians and Israelis, they will only report on the new schools and jobs the world has helped these two new STATES to accomplish in just 60 YEARS. What a farce we are witnessing…there will be no peace in 100 years or more. The world has no committment to it.
With Palestine no longer on any world maps and no ‘right of return’, it’s time for world leaders to ask Israel and Palestine to decide which way they want the baby cut in pieces. Then Israel can stop building their Berlin Wall and the world can find a place for Palestine to move to…and then, the USA can again be the first to acknowledge a new Palestinian homeland…maybe in one of the world’s far flung deserts with enough land to support new populations with new jobs with the New Palestine’s ‘Right of Return’…where peace prevails and there is a new drug that can be taken by Israelis and Palestinians which would erase the word KILL from their minds. Then Fox’s imbedded reporters will not have to count dead Palestinians and Israelis, they would only report on the new schools and jobs which the world has helped these two new STATES accomplish in just 60 YEARS. What a farce we are witnessing…there will be no peace in 100 years or more. The world has no committment to it. Britain was right to let the USA take on Israeli troubles.
Why are the UN trying to get in. Hamas has been firing rockets for how many months and Israel just took it. Look Israel is the Holy Land for a lot of people. Everybody got different religions and different beliefs. Right now I am studing who was there first. First was the Israeli people. Then a drought came in. They went to Egypt. When they came back they found Palistin there. That is the start. So I would say now. Let Israel do there stuff. They are doing the right thing.Why would people protest about it? Yes inocent people die. They die on the streets of America and every where else. When the Israeli government feel like they did there job they can pull out. If Hamas, wait Lebanon fired a rocket in North Israel. If I was president I would send some black ops in for five months. FInd out where they are hiding and whatever. Then put C4 or Artiliry the building. That is what we got to do. Once that is done in Gaza. I would turn at Lebanon and tell them ” Hey fire another rocket in my country see what happens” if they do, put artiliry on them and choppers. Then we got the Holy Land defending THEIR LAND. Peace WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!!! You can only bring some peace from punishment. Which in this case is military power.