RAY SUAREZ: There was no let-up in the fighting between Israel and Hamas today, even in the face of international pressure for a cease-fire. Israel rejected a 48-hour truce and used air strikes to target the supply tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.
Israeli tanks and troops also lined up at the Gaza border, as a ground invasion loomed. We have a report from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.
JULIAN MANYON: Chaos in the streets of Gaza after another Israeli air strike. The latest targets were a mosque, said by the Israelis to be a militant weapons store and the offices of the Hamas prime minister.
Israeli video showed attacks on a rocket launcher and what was described as a Hamas military post.
The Naifa family are among many Palestinians traumatized by the violence and its effects on their lives. At the sound of explosions, the children show signs of panic.
Their mother, Nasreen, is in despair. The family has little food left and has even run out of flour. In tears, she told ITV News that her children are going hungry and living in terrible fear of the Israeli bombing.
As the jets fly over, their daughter, Malak, show signs of a growing psychological distress.
Israeli parents have been shocked by a Palestinian rocket strike on a school in Beersheba. Fortunately, the school had closed for the crisis and no one was hurt.
The man who may be Israel's next prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, took journalists to a place where an Israeli woman was killed. I asked him about the scale of Palestinian casualties.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Opposition Leader: We try to go after the terrorists, and the terrorists are deliberately hiding behind civilians as they fire into civilians.
JULIAN MANYON: As the world waits to see if Israel will now invade Gaza, Israeli remote-controlled machine guns are ready to fire.
There's tension here you could cut with a knife. Israel's political leadership has now rejected the idea of a temporary cease-fire as unrealistic. And here on the border, it feels like the calm before another storm.
In between bombardments, Palestinians queue for dwindling supplies of bread. The coming days could see their plight deepen once again.
RAY SUAREZ: In five days of violence, 390 Palestinians have been killed, 1,600 wounded, and four Israelis have died. On Palestinian television tonight, the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, said, "Victory is near, God willing, and it's closer than people think."
Also tonight, the U.N. Security Council planned to hold emergency consultations in New York and could meet formally later tonight.
President Bush spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today. A White House spokesman said the president made the call from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Olmert assured the president Israel was focusing its attacks on Hamas leadership, not civilians, and Mr. Bush pushed for a truce that is durable and lasting.
We'll have more on the Middle East right after this news summary.
Two American soldiers died in Iraq today from combat injuries. That brings the death toll for December to 14. Seven of those were killed in hostile attacks.
For the year, 314 Americans lost their lives in Iraq. That's down sharply from the previous year, when more than 800 Americans were killed.
In Afghanistan, this was the deadliest year for American soldiers in the now seven-year-long war. A record 155 U.S. troops died in 2008. That's compared to 117 deaths in 2007.
The increase was in part because roadside bombings doubled to 2,000 over the last year. Insurgents also changed ambush tactics, massing in larger groups to launch attacks. There are 32,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan now, with more set to arrive in the new year.
The Russian gas giant Gazprom said today it will cut off fuel supplies to Ukraine tomorrow morning. Negotiators failed to strike a deal on a new contract and resolve $2 billion in outstanding debt.
Gazprom warned supplies to Western Europe could also be affected. In 2006, European supplies were briefly disrupted in a similar dispute.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald asked for more time today to file an indictment against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Fitzgerald filed a motion for a 90-day extension to interview new witnesses who've come forward in recent weeks.
Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges earlier this month for trying to sell President-elect Obama's vacant Senate seat. Yesterday, the governor named a replacement for the seat, former state Attorney General Roland Burris. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight.
New applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week by 94,000. The Labor Department reported the number of workers filing fell to 492,000. The decline was pinned largely on the timing of the year-end holidays.
Still, the unemployment picture remained bleak. Total job losses for the year reached nearly two million.
Stocks ended higher today to close out Wall Street's worst year since the depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 108 points to close at 8,776. The Nasdaq rose 26 points to close at 1,577.
For the year, the Dow was off more than 4,000 points, or nearly 34 percent. The Nasdaq fell more than 1,000 points, a 40 percent decline. Foreign markets lost the same, if not more. Germany's exchange lost 40 percent; China's dropped 65 percent; and Russia's tumbled a whopping 72 percent.
Americans began the final countdown to 2009, as much of the rest of the world ushered in the new year. Australians were among the first to celebrate, with a huge fireworks display across Sydney Harbor. The festivities and fireworks spread westward from there to Taipei and Hong Kong.
In the U.S., work crews put the final touches on the New Year's Eve Ball that overlooks Times Square in New York. The crystal ball has 32,000 LED light bulbs and weighs 12,000 pounds.
That's it for the news summary tonight. Now: day five of the Gaza crisis; Obama and the federal judiciary; going green in Silicon Valley; the Senate's balancing act; and Matthiessen's "Shadow Country."
