Israel Considers Ground Attack as Conflict Escalates

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• RAY SUAREZ:

  The escalating Israeli-Hamas war. Earlier today, I spoke with Ethan Bronner, the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief.

  Ethan Bronner, welcome. Israeli tanks and other military assets have been massing on the border with Gaza for days now. Does Israel intend to mount a land assault on Gaza?

• ETHAN BRONNER, New York Times:

  I mean, nothing is certain, but it certainly seems like it. All indications for military and political leaders in Israel is that there will be a ground assault, yes.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  What is the objective? What does Israel think it can accomplish on land that it hasn't been able to do from the air?

• ETHAN BRONNER:

  Well, the objective — I mean, there are sort of a range of objectives, and there's a certain amount of mission slippage here and there, but let's speak about the clearest, broadest objective that Israel speaks about, which is to end the rocket fire into Israel from Gaza.

  So Israel's argument is that it needs to either get to the guys who are sending the rockets and end their will to do it or end their supply of rockets.

  So the idea is that Gaza is a relatively small space, and if you seal it off, and end all supplies into it, and start to go after the things that exist in it and the people who do the shooting, eventually you'll end the supply or the will or both.

  And the argument is, it's not all doable by air or by sea. There's some stuff in bunkers; there's some stuff underground. And that's what they're going to go after on land.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  Last night on our program, General Mike Herzog said that Israel's intention was not to crush or destroy Hamas. Tzipi Livni said something very similar today in Paris. What does Israel want to see when the smoke clears?

• ETHAN BRONNER:

  Well, as I said, the official argument is that Israel wants Hamas to be unable to continue to carry out rocket attacks on Israel. Implicit in your question, though, is, is that doable without essentially destroying Hamas? And I think they don't know the answer to that.

  I think that when Tzipi Livni and others are asked about Hamas, if you listen carefully, people will say to her, "Do you want to destroy Hamas?" She won't say no. She'll say, "Hamas is a problem." And Hamas is a problem for Israel.

  And I think that we don't know what's going to happen ultimately when they go in. We don't know how they're going to feel when they're in. But I think the temptation to do something besides end rocket fire will be great.