11 am EET: I couldn’t help but feel panicked. I was using the computer on the 7th/ top floor business lounge when the sirens went off in our hotel.  Since rockets obviously fall out of the sky, the top floor of any building is the last place you want to be during a rocket attack.  I quickly walked out the door and had no idea where the bomb shelter was.  In front of me is a window running the length of the hall that overlooks the inviting deep blue sea.  Strike two for me, windows are the worst thing to hide behind in an attack.  I cower behind one of the cleaning carts housekeeping uses and a steel elevator door.

I can’t hear the children in the daycare located in the hotel.  They’ve gone silent for the first time this morning.  Rocket impacts a couple miles away hitting a home.  No fatalities or injuries.   Family wisely heeded the sirens warning and fled to their bomb shelter.

11:30 am: At the front desk I notice this sign:
Dear Guest,

For your comfort there are shelters on floors 1, 4, 5, 6.

Regards,
Hotel Management

No internet in hotel rooms, but bomb shelters on 4 floors.

1 pm: Producer Ian Rafferty  and I go to fill up gas and pick up water and sunflower seeds for the crew.  The alarm goes off again.  The woman behind the counter pulls my arm and drags me to a closet that’s clearly used for storing.  Packages of soda, chips, and bottled water surrounded us.  There is so much you can tell about a person’s ego based on how they enter a bomb shelter here.

A man with his son entered the “safe room” lacksadaisically – making a show of himself about how he wasn’t scared and how silly everyone else was who ran into the shelter.  Much to the irritation of my producer Ian and the people stuck behind him trying to get in.

Keep Reading …

545 am EET: The sirens go off in our hotel.  I’m so tired but I know I need to go to the bathroom, sit in the tub, and close the bathroom door. No time to go to the saferoom.  I wonder if the rest of our FOX News crew made it to their bathrooms or if they just rolled over.

3pm: A rocket makes a direct hit on a home in Ashkelon about 15 miles from Gaza.

4pm: We’re at the home.  Dudi and Ian checkout the site and are optimistic we can go LIVE from the 2nd floor of the house where the rocket hit.

They scramble to make it work, but that requires borrowing power from the house next door.  At one point the security guard who has taken over the home refused to let them back in the house where all our gear has been set up.  Dudi says something in Hebrew.  Somehow he managed to get us back in.

5pm: We’re broadcasting live for “America’s Newsroom”. Producer Ian Rafferty and Cameraman Dudi make the impossible happen.  They manage to get us up LIVE from the middle of the rubble.  President Bush has just wrapped up his final press conference.  He says Israel has a right to defend itself as long as rockets keep coming.

After the home we’re at was hit by a Grad rocket,  I talk to Bill Hemmer about how these rockets are smuggled through underground tunnels from Egypt to Gaza. Israel says for any ceasefire agreement to happen they want the tunnels stopped.  They took out 20 yesterday.

6pm: We’ve shot a standup for “Special Report” tonight and are heading back to the Gaza border for more LIVES.  Tune in tonight to Special Report with Bret Baier.

Keep checking back for the latest EXCLUSIVE coverage from Gaza!

1 pm EET – There are two hurdles for women in a war zone.  Flak jackets and outdoor bathrooms.  The man from the flak jacket company brought several flaks, all of them too big for me.  I guess there’s not much of a market for women’s petite in the flak jacket industry.  I got fitted for a small flak jacket today. My producer Osnat helped to measure me.  “You don’t need to blog about this one,” she says to me before measuring.

2 pm — As I drive out to the border, there are still tanks being transported on flat bed trucks.  Some of these tanks are placed in storage facilities with humidifiers inside the tanks.  This way the tanks are battle-ready and can be used at a moment’s notice.

3:30 pm — I pull up to the hotel near the border where our FOX News crew is staying.  Ian Rafferty, my producer, tells me to check in first.  Journalists from all over the world are here, and there’s some worry there won’t be enough rooms.

The hotel isn’t allowed to use rooms on higher levels that are within range of rocket attacks.  Obviously with rockets falling from the sky, the higher floors are more likely to be hit first.  It’s one of the few times you don’t want to be on the top floor.

Ian has been to Baghdad.  He covered the 2006 Lebanon war from Israel.  He gets combat coverage.  He promises to help me move one of my mattresses up against the window of my room.  This way if a rocket lands nearby the mattress will help absorb any shrapnel or glass from shattered windows.  It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing. Truth is, if there’s a direct hit on the hotel the mattress really won’t help much.

4pm — We’re at the border with the rest of our FOX crew.  David Lee Miller is doing a live shot for America’s Newsroom.

I walk over to our Middle East Bureau Chief Eli Fastman.  He has set up a makeshift office (he prefers the term ‘command post’)  with a folding chair, binoculars, and a liter of bottled water.  He was the one who discovered this location.  Kind of funny — now dozens of international TV journalists are swarming the place.  Eli gets war and the Mideast.  And second only to perhaps Greta, he doesn’t sleep.  He’s here pretty much 24 hours a day.

We’re hearing that a United Nations school was hit by an Israeli missile.  UN officials on the ground here can’t reach people in Gaza.  Phone lines are cut. There were 40 Palestinians killed in that attack; 55 injured.

Israeli army says they received mortar fire from the school and returned fire.  They also say senior Hamas militants were killed.  Hamas TV hasn’t announced if any senior militants were killed, and it’s hard for us to independently confirm it.

UN is calling for an independent investigation.  They say they carefully vet anyone who enters these shelters, and there’s no way Hamas would’ve been allowed in.

The director of UN relief efforts in Gaza, John Ging, says the Israeli military was given the GPS coordinates for all UN schools and shelters.

Keep checking back for the latest EXCLUSIVE coverage from Gaza!

LIVE Gaza Updates

1:30 pm EET: My cameraman Dudi and I are driving on Highway 1 from Jerusalem to the Gaza border.  There’s a flat bed truck with a giant Merkava tank being transported next to us. You can see war everywhere here. Cars are being checked by police on the highway.  They’ve set up a check point where cars coming from East Jerusalem and the West Bank can be searched.

2 pm: An Israeli radio station interviewed the mother of the first Israeli soldier killed in Gaza from this operation. She said her son sent her an SMS on her cell saying:

“My dearest mother in the world.  I’m looking after myself.  You look after yourself.  We will prove to the whole world and return the honor to the people of Israel.”

Israeli military came to the kindergarten where the mother works.  When they asked if she was the mother of Staff Sergeant Dvir Emmanueloff she said, “I understood. He was dead.”   Emmanueloff was part of a Golani combat engineers unit.  He was hit by shrapnel in a mortar attack.  Dvir Emmanueloff was 22 years old.

4 pm: A kindergarten has been hit in the Israeli town of Ashdod.  That means the rocket traveled about 25 miles.  Thankfully the school was closed, but the rocket hit the playroom. We walk into the school.  Legos were scattered everywhere on the floor amongst broken glass and the crumbled building. As we prepare to go LIVE on FOX, the Red Cross uses a megaphone to tell residents in the apartment building around the kindergarten to go back to their homes.  “Go on with your lives,” the Red Cross worker says.  He also warns there could be more rockets. The kindergarten teacher from the school tells me she prays for peace on both sides.  “I’m 52 years old and living in Israel this kind of war is all we’ve known,” she tells me.

5 pm: We’re headed back to the Gaza border.

6 pm: It’s now dark.  We can see and hear a lot of military activity in Gaza.

7:30 pm: There are lots of flares in the sky.  We hear drones and helicopters above.  Tank fire can be heard, and we also hear rockets landing in Israel.

8 pm: There’s an unexpected situation inside Gaza with grave consequences for the Israeli military.

8:30 pm: We can hear sirens.

Keep checking back for the latest on the Gaza border!

Update -5:00pm: The Indian media here are reporting Deccan Mujaheedin has sent emails to Indian Media saying a 2nd attack will come Dec 3rd- Dec 7th and will target Delhi, Bangalore, or Chennai  airports.

I heard one guy practically yelling on TV saying, “If I’m going to get killed in a war – I don’t mind.  I just don’t want to get killed while eating food with my parents at a restaurant.”

4:42pm: Pierre was attacked by an angry mob last night while we where in between LIVE shots.  One man started shouting and threatened to beat him.  They were looking to pick a fight.  Varuna stepped in and spoke to them in Hindi.  That managed to calm them down.   People are so emotionally charged here.  Tonight feels like the climax.  We took no chances.  We headed to the area of The Oberoi Hotel to do our LIVE shots, instead.

A young girl, no older than 5 years, was selling coloring books.  20 rupees for one (40 cents) or 10 for 180 rupees ($3.50). I bought 10, gave her 200 rupees and told her to keep the books.  She refued and said I had to take them.

3:13pm: The crowds are getting out of control.  We can’t find our driver to head to The Oberoi Hotel for lives. No one has a cell phone signal.  Crowds keep streaming in from all directions.

We decide to take a cab.  All the taxi drivers refuse to take anyone.  After the fifth cab refused us.  I just opened the door to the sixth cab and got in.  Cameraman Pierre, Producer Mark and Varuna, and I pile in.

1:15pm: As we made our way to The Taj Hotel LIVE shot position, just before sunset, we knew we had problems.  Thousands of Mumbai residents were marching to the hotel.  It was supposed to be a peaceful solidarity march but there was lots of negative energy.

Some signs read:

“Die Pakistan Die”

“Make Pakistan history”

“8% GDP growth, 100% terrorism growth”

My cameraman Pierre and I climbed up a street divider full of plants to do a standup to show just how large the crowds were.

Keep checking back for more updates LIVE from India!