On the ground in Gaza

>>> a barrage of rocket attacks in israel overnight appear to be pushing that region closer to, who knows, hopefully not all all-out war. it could turn into a ground campaign before long. and eman joins me. this all started not just to respond to what had been a slew of attacks by hamas over the border, but they went after a specific hamas leader. tell us more.

>> reporter: well, chuck that really depends on who you ask, there's no doubt from the israeli narrative that they felt that a number of rocket attacks coming from gaza into southern israel , that started the response. if you ask those here, it's actually been a continuous attack on the gaza strip . and that ultimately led to frustration. over the past week, we've seen several palestinians killed. today, we've seen from the israeli site, three people have been killed from palestinian rocket fire in the southern part of israel . i'm going to tell you where we are quickly to give you context. we're standing at the upmost or farthest point on the gaza strip . between the crossing between israel and gaza. on the way in here, we saw about three dozen aid workers , from oxfront are and others, they're here, the 1.5 palestinians still here, you can hear that sound as well but for them, they're unable to leave. so there's a great fear, anxiety and tension that the coming days are only going to have more violence. over the past 24 hours there have been a barrage of rocket fire into southern israel . but we've noticed there have been several israeli air strikes inside here.

>> ayman, it's worth bringing up the fact this is the biggest conflict between the two sides, between israel and the palestinians , since egypt 's leadership has changed. and we know that egypt has a different reaction to this than they did under president morsi than they had in the past under former president mubarak ?

>> reporter: absolutely. on a few different fronts. one, the leadership here, it's currently aligned with the one that runs egypt . and president morsi comes from that. and the more important one, for the past several days they've been trying to mediate between the palestinian faction in israel . they reached a truce, but that truce didn't hold for long. more importantly, israel is trying to resume a bit of a leadership role. yesterday, they lobbied to secure the security council . and also they convened with the arab league to try to put an end to the barrage of fire. some for its part are calling on egypt to sever ties with israel . that would be a major setback for the united states because the israeli/egyptian peace treaty has been a cornerstone of u.s. policy in the middle east .

>> ayman, we'll be checking in with you all day, i