Our 9/11: Israeli ambassador to the U.S. discusses reaction to Hamas attack

John Yang:

It is impossible to understate the devastating effect yesterday's attack had on Israel, Israeli citizens and their leaders. Michael Herzog is the Israeli ambassador to the United States. Mr. Ambassador, thanks for joining us. And first let me begin by offering our condolences on the loss of life in Israel yesterday.

And I wonder I'll see if we could put it into perspective a little bit because I found that when things happen in Israel, it's such a relatively small country. Everyone knows someone or know someone who knows someone who's affected by this.

Michael Herzog, Israeli's Ambassador to the U.S.: Thank you very much for your condolences. And yes, this is a serious blow to the State of Israel. Hamas wage war in Israel yesterday an unprovoked attack on civilians. They fired thousands of rockets at Israeli populated centers, and then they breach the border fence and sent in hundreds of armed terrorist infiltrated almost all the border towns and Kibbutzim and basically murdered hundreds of people.

Right now the official count is at least 700. But the number we're still counting and numbers will probably go up. There was a beach party not far away from the border in Gaza, we just counted 260 bodies. This is unimaginable. This is someone said our 911. This is war. And we have to consider it as a war.

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