Good evening

with the Israeli military saying troops have now surrounded Gaza City. We have been watching for most of the evening now some especially heavy

airstrikes on Gaza. Intense enough that's seen in military analyst Cedric Leiden earlier tonight

said it reminded him of what they called the shock and awe air campaign

against Iraq. Here's some of what it looked and sounded like from Storoz

is across the Gaza border in southern Israel. With flares overhead for much of the time Israeli warplanes launch wave after wave of air to ground guided munitions at targets in Gaza.

One ripple of tightly grouped ordnance after another could be seen streaking downward while in the background the sound of

outgoing artillery followed by thumps of the shells and warheads landing.

Shortly before this latest wave of strikes began, Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin left

on a swing including stops in Israel and Jordan.

His message to Israel was twofold.

As we've said, and it's important, Israel has the right and the obligation to defend itself and again to try to make sure

that what happened never happens again.

No country, not the United States, not anyone else that I can think of would tolerate the slaughter of its civilians.

But as democracies, the United States, Israel, other democracies have a responsibility to do everything possible

to protect civilians who may be caught in harm's way.

And so we will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimize harm to men,

women and children in Gaza.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials tell CNN they believe there's only limited time for

Israel to try to accomplish its stated objective of destroying Hamas in its current

operation before uproar over humanitarian suffering and civilian casualties reaches a tipping point.

And on Capitol Hill, the Republican controlled House tonight passed legislation providing $14.3 billion

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