Heart-stopping moment reporter forced to duck for cover on live TV as rockets fire overhead

CNN's top international reporter had to duck for cover as a 'massive barrage of rockets' flew overhead while covering the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

At least 1,600 lives have been lost following the 7 October attack by Hamas and retaliatory airstrikes by Israel.

The Israeli military says that over 900 people have been killed in Israel, most of them civilians, and authorities in Gaza and the West Bank say at least 704 people have been killed there.

Israel declared war on Hamas, the militant group in control of the Gaza Strip which has been designated a terrorist group by the US, UK, Israel, Canada, Japan and European Union, after they fired thousands of rockets into Israel and militants crossed the border, killing people and taking hostages.

Among the targets was a music festival where at least 260 people were killed and many more wounded.

CNN

Following their declaration of war on Hamas, Israel has stopped access to food, fuel and medicine in Gaza, where over two million people live and the United Nations says a majority rely on international aid to survive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations."

Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists according to the country's media, while the UN says over 187,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have fled their homes.

Most are now sheltering in schools run by the UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

The UN also said that damage to three water and sanitation sites had cut off services to 400,000 people in Gaza.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jazarevic said seven hospitals were 'running beyond their capacity' after their supplies had already run out, while Doctors Without Borders said that two hospitals they ran in the Gaza Strip were also running out of supplies.

Egyptian officials say they are in talks with Israel and the US about setting up humanitarian corridors to deliver aid to people in Gaza, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007.

CNN

Reporters covering the conflict have found themselves close to danger as missile barrages and airstrikes have struck near where they have been reporting from.

Among those who have had to take cover amidst their broadcasts is Clarissa Ward, CNN's chief international correspondent.

Footage of her reporting on a road which Hamas attacked was interrupted when Ward and her crew had to rush towards a ditch and take cover, with the sound of explosions audible in the background.

Ward then delivered a piece to camera while lying in the ditch in cover, explained that her 'slightly inelegant position' was due to a 'massive barrage of rockets'.

She reported that she could hear 'a lot of jets in the sky' and Israel's iron dome missile defence system 'intercepting a number of those rockets' from where she was.

The CNN reporter had been near Gaza to report on the road where Hamas militants drove into Israel, describing it as 'ground zero for his entire operation of carnage'.