There's no way to fully describe in words what it feels like to be on the receiving end of an Israeli offensive.

But today's multi-media world gives us a chance to see an Israeli attack from both sides.

As part of its PR campaign, the Israeli military has launched a YouTube channel where it is posting video clips of its air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Below is the most recent one showing a massive hit on a government complex in Gaza.

While I can't be certain, I am pretty confident that the video below from Al Jazeera English is a shot of the same strike taken from a cameraman living nearby.

The two videos give you an interesting contrast in what it's like to be on both sides of a massive strike like this.

The body of a Palestinian security force officer lays in the rubble after an Israeli missile strike on a building in Gaza City, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008. AP/Fadi Adwan

On one hand, one can't blame the Israeli government for wanting to do what it can to prevent the world from seeing the effects of its devastating Gaza air strikes that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.

In 48-hours, Israel has decimated the Gaza Strip, killed more than 300 Palestinians and injured 1,400 others in a "shock and awe" air campaign. 

Israeli air strikes have targeted a mosque, universities, and private homes as part of the military campaign aimed at destabilizing Hamas rulers and preventing Gaza militants from continuing to fire endless rounds of rockets into southern Israel.

But, as the BBC's Jo Floto noted last month after Israel first barred journalists from entering Gaza, Israel has joined a notorious and small list of countries preventing reporters from doing their job.

Israel, which prides itself on being the healthiest democracy in the Middle East, joins North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma in denying media access to a major story.

In essence, Israel has transformed the entire Gaza Strip into a closed military zone. 

Reporters from every major news organization, from the BBC and CNN to The New York Times and The Washington Post to NPR and McClatchy to AP and Fox News, are being barred by Israel from going into Gaza to cover the deadliest military campaign there since Israel seized the area from Egypt in the 1967 war.

The Foreign Press Association, of which McClatchy is a part, has called the Israeli closure "insufferable" and asked the Israeli Supreme Court to take immediate action to lift the ban.

So far, Israel's high court has been slow to act and shows no sign that it is overly concerned. Appeals for a swift decision have been repeatedly rejected and the case won't be heard until Wednesday.

On Monday, the Israeli military went one step farther and declared the Gaza border, where tanks, artillery and troops are massing for a possible ground offensive, a closed military zone.

That drew another protest from the FPA, which denounced the closure, ostensibly being done for our own protection, "patently ridiculous."

Israel first imposed the ban on reporters going to Gaza on Nov. 4 when its military broke the cease-fire with Hamas by sending forces in to destroy a tunnel. Since then, Israel has opened the border for reporters for only a few days.

Israeli officials argue that the closure is meant to protect its staff at the border crossing from being exposed to unnecessary risks of rocket fire. But that argument holds little weight because the Israeli workers have been routinely staffing the border crossing to allow UN officials and Palestinians in need of emergency care in-and-out of Israel.

Just today, the Israeli staff allowed two UN workers to enter Gaza. Israeli officials ignored appeals from journalists that we be allowed to enter at the same time.

Today, the FPA issued a a new statement of protest, calling the Israeli ban "unprecedented."

"Never before have journalists been prevented from doing their work in this way," the FPA said in the statement. "We believe that it is vital that journalists be allowed to find out for themselves what is going on in Gaza."

Considering that Gaza is controlled by Hamas and that Israeli officials have cautioned reporters to be skeptical of the information coming out of Gaza at this time, you would think that Israel would want to allow reporters in to provide an independent view of the conflict.

If the mosque and university buildings were being used to house weapons, as Israel claims, why not let international reporters in to see?

But, in probably the most candid assessment of the situation from an Israeli official, Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said last month that they don't particularly like the coverage that comes out of Gaza.

"Where Gaza is concerned, our image will always be bad," Dror said. "When journalists go in it works against us, and when they don't go in it works against us."

The only other possible land route into Gaza is through Egypt, but the Egyptians have given no indication that they are prepared to let reporters into cover the conflict either. Egypt isn't a bastion of press freedom, though one suspects Israel wouldn't want to set its own benchmark for a free press by Egyptian standards.

In the meantime, the volatile conflict continues and the burden of telling the story is falling most heavily on Gaza journalists who are doing an amazing job of sending out video, photos and reports on what is happening - despite Israeli attempts to prevent reporters from covering the air strikes.

For the moment, some of the best reporting is coming from Al Jazeera English and its Gaza-based reporter, Ayman Mohyeldin. You can watch one of his most recent reports below.

An explosion is seen during an Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip on the border with Israel, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

The Gaza Strip has had its fair share of bad days over the years, from the spark for the first Palestinian uprising to the razing of Rafah to the Hamas takeover.

So to say that Saturday was the deadliest day in decades for Palestinians is saying something.

Israel is in the midst of carrying out its own version of "shock and awe" by dropping more than 100 tons of bombs on Gaza that have killed more than 250 people, injured hundreds more and set off a volatile new phase of the conflict with Hamas.

The images broadcast here were graphic and striking. The Al Jazeera English report below captures the extent of the devastation caused by the initial strikes.

The attack caught Hamas off-guard, and Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth reports that the Israeli government used calculated deception to catch the Gaza rulers by surprise.

Israeli officials and the Israeli media suggested that Israeli leaders would confer today on an attack, creating the impression that nothing would happen over the weekend.

Israel then launched the attack on the Jewish Sabbath.

Israel continues to bomb Gaza. It has hit a Gaza City mosque across from the main hospital, police stations, security centers and more.

Gaza militants are responding with sporadic rocket fire, including one that hit Ashdod - the farthest into Israel that a Gaza rocket as ever hit.

Israel has moved tanks to the Gaza border and is calling up reserves as it warning that it may soon launch a ground offensive.

Meanwhile, Israel is barring international reporters from getting into Gaza to report on the situation.

Aside from a few days, Israel has prevented journalists from getting into Gaza for nearly two months, a move that has raised serious questions about Israel's commitment to freedom of the press.

The Foreign Press Association, of which McClatchy is a part, is taking the issue to Israel's Supreme Court this week.

So far, Israel has offered no serious rationale for preventing reporters from going into Gaza.

In the meantime, local Palestinian journalists, including McClatchy's Ahmed Abu Hamda, are risking their lives to cover the unfolding conflict where there are no front lines and no way to ensure their safety as they rush from bomb site to bomb site.

How does one tell a story that has been told millions and billions of times throughout the millennia?

Finding new and interesting ways to talk about Christmas in the Holy Land can be a challenge.

Last year, British graffiti artist Banksy brought a new dynamic to Christmas by hosting his annual "Santa's Ghetto" exhibition/sale/political statement in Bethlehem.

This year there was no Banksy, so reporters searched for other ways to tell the tale.

Perhaps the most inventive, and time-consuming, approach came from Aleem Maqbool of the BBC.

In past years, UK reporters have noted that, if Mary and Joseph were to try and trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem today, they would have to get through a network of Israeli checkpoints. 

In 2005, the BBC itself was among the UK media outlets to report on the checkpoints, a story that drew the ire of the Israeli government. 

This year, the BBC went one step farther as Maqbool literally recreated the journey by riding a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

To be precise, on the 10-day journey, Maqbool actually rode five donkeys, as the Israeli authorities prevented donkeys from going through various checkpoints, telling the BBC that the donkey paperwork was not in order.

The donkey denials brought to mind one of Banksy's most famous Bethelem works, a silhouette of a soldier checking the paperwork of a donkey.

Some Palestinians failed to appreciate the irony and painted over the Banksy political statement, which some saw as the artist comparing Palestinians to donkeys, a cutting insult in these parts.

This year, a reporter from Der Spiegel noted that the remaining Banksy pieces remain tourist attractions. 

Over at The World, reporter Quil Lawrence raises a provocative question: Was Jesus Christ actually born in a different place? 

Quil's piece looks at archaeological evidence that Jesus was actually born in what is now northern Israel in a place called Bethlehem of Galilee, which is actually much closer to Nazareth than the Bethlehem widely recognized as Christ's birthplace.

Over at the CBC, in a print piece titled "A quarrelsome lot, these Christians," Peter Armstrong writes about the ever-surreal disputes in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that lead to frequent skirmishes between the various religious denominations uneasily sharing Christianity's holiest site.

The AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning photog Mohammed Muheisen captured this only-in-the-Middle-East image today of a Palestinian protester using a sling shot to hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during a protest against the West Bank separation barrier.

On a more festive note, The New York Times notes (as also noted here)  that life for Palestinians in the West Bank is slowly getting better. 

The piece ends with this quote from Bethlehem Governor Salah Tamari: “Israelis are paranoid because of their past, while Palestinians are paranoid because of their present. But we are doomed to live together or blessed to live together, depending on your point of view."

(Photo of Banksy graffiti: Yossi Zamir/Flash90) 

He was a nine-year-old icon of the first intifada, a skinny, stone-throwing symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

Now, 29-year-old Ramzi Aburedwan is helping to lead a cultural revival in the West Bank

Aided by savvy music teachers from Ramallah to Boston to France, Aburedwan traded a young life of violence for the viola.

Instead of embracing what most likely would have been a comfortable European life in self-imposed exile, Aburedwan returned to Ramallah to establish Al Kamandjati, a music conservatory that now teaches hundreds of kids from Beirut to Hebron.

The school's operating credo: "He who works for the advancement of culture is also working against war."

This Christmas season, Aburedwan and Al Kamandjati wrapped up the year with a Baroque Music Festival that brought Bach and Handel to Jenin, Jericho and Jerusalem.

The festival featured a new youth choir made up of Muslim and Christian students who performed Christmas tunes in German in Anglican churches across the West Bank.

You can see some video clips of the performances here and here. 

Ramzi Aburedwan, far right, performs with visiting musicians at the Good Shephard Anglican Church in Nablus, West Bank on Tuesday, Dec. 16th, 2008 as part of a Baroque Music Festival.

It wasn't your average interview.

BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who spent nearly four months in captivity in Gaza, sat down recently with Ingrid Betancourt, who spent six-and-a-half years as a captive of Colombian rebels.

Afterwards, Alan explored the feelings the meeting brought up for him in a special commentary for the BBC.

 "We share an experience of a particular kind of darkness, and fear, and inhumanity that changed each of our lives for ever," Alan says in the piece.

(You can hear Alan read the commentary here.) 

Alan recently released a book about his captivity and his life: "Kidnapped and Other Dispatches." 

For those interested in a fascinating look at life for Betancourt and the other hostages in Colombia, along with the daring Hollywood-esque rescue operation, check out "Operation Checkmate," an in-depth article from last month's Vanity Fair.   

Still searching for the perfect holiday gift?

Running out of time to find something unique, something special, something that entertains, bemuses and perplexes that certain someone special who seems to have everything?

Why not buy them donkey doo from the holy land?

This year, Israeli tour guide Menachem Goldberg has developed one of the most remarkable gifts of the holiday season: Donkey doo sealed in hardened, see-through plastic.

"It can be very nice for Hanukkah or Christmas," said Goldberg. "It's very, very special."

Goldberg is the 36-year-old founder of Kfar Kedem, a tourist stop in the Galilee near Nazareth that is billed as "life passing through a time tunnel to the Galilee of antiquity."

Kfar Kedem is a recreation of a 2,000-year-old village where vistiors are encouraged to wear Biblical dress as they press olives, stomp on grapes with their bare feet, herd sheep and take extended multi-day donkey rides "in the footsteps of Jesus."

Goldberg started Kfar Kedem six years ago as a way to lure tourists to the Galilee.

This year, he had a unique epiphany: Why not turn the donkey dung into a cherished memory for his guests? 

The idea was rooted in a joke someone made to Goldberg several years ago.

"Somebody at the tourism ministry said that, if I wanted to be a rich man I must do this and write on the cube: Holy Shit from the Holy Land," Goldberg said in a telephone interview from Kfar Kedem. "I thought about it, and it's not so nice to compare, or make a connection to, our holy land with a sentence like this."

So Goldberg didn't give the idea much serious thought, until this year when he came up with his strategic marketing ploy.

Instead of writing "Holy Shit from the Holy Land" on the cube of donkey doo, Goldberg has put a saying from the Jewish Talmud that is part of a debate between two rabbis over the coming of the Messiah.

"Let the Messiah come," one of the ancient sages is reported to have said. "May I be worthy to sit in the shadow of his donkey's dung."

And thus the Holy Land Donkey Dung gift was born.

Goldberg had 50 chunks of donkey doo encased in clear plastic with the Talmudic lesson written on the side.

They are on sale for $70.

If sales are brisk, Goldberg plans to produce more. A friend says he plans to put one up for sale on E-Bay.

"Nobody in the world has anything like this," Goldberg boasted.

(Photo: Menachem Goldberg and his Donkey Dung gifts/Ygal Levi-Flash90)

Remember all that pre-election Obama anxiety in Israel?

Fuggedaboudit.

These days, it seems like everybody wants to catch some of the post-election Obama glow. 

Of course, there was the Lost Bedouin Tribe of Obama in northern Israel that made tenuous claims of a blood link to the president-elect.

And there are the various Israeli political parties appropriating Obama's message in their own campaigns.

But probably the best bit of Obama-envy comes from Sagiv Assulin, an aspiring, 30-year-old candidate running on the center-right Likud Party list in the November parliamentary elections.

As part of the internal party campaign, Assulin's supporters produced an homage to the world-famous Obama Girl by creating an Israeli version of the "I've Got a Crush on Obama," video by Amber Lee Ettinger that has been viewed at least 12 million times on YouTube.

You can watch the original, below, and then, below that, watch the homage by Israel's "Assulin Girl."

"Assulin Girl" has only gotten 6,000 hits on YouTube so far, but, if you take into account that Israel only has 7 million people, per-capita, she's not doing so bad...

(By the way, Assulin ranked 33rd on the Likud list, a position that puts him on the cusp of winning a seat, depending on the vote in November.)

While our own Warren Strobel is in Iran and has been blogging about his time there, my friend Mahdis Azarmandi is presenting her unconventional view of the country few Westerners ever visit.

Madhis, who is a German-Iranian student studying in Spain, has transformed photographs of her recent trip to Iran into a new, thought-provoking images.

Mahdis used the same process earlier this year to create a series of images on life in Jerusalem. 

If you happen to be in Castellon de la Plana tonight, you can check out her work as part of an art opening.

For those of us not able to make it, Mahdis has been kind enough to send me some of her work that will be on display.

It it jarring, compelling, disturbing and thought-provoking.

Now, after sparking debate in Israel, the award-winning, animated Israeli war film "Waltz With Bashir" is coming to the United States.

The documentary film about a haunted Israel's exploration of his role in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila is winning spots on film critic lists for the best films of 2008. 

Last week, it was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Film category, and is set to be Israel's official selection for the Academy Awards.

"This film manages to touch people who don't even know what continent Israel is on," said director Ari Folman. "That's the beauty of cinema, that's its power."

As with "Beaufort," the stark, Oscar-nominated 2007 Israeli film about the last soldiers to leave Lebanon in 2000, "Waltz With Bashir" offers a personal exploration of life as an Israeli soldier caught up in often-inconceivable inhumanity.

“This film documents — really documents — the feelings and sensations and emotional experiences of a simple soldier in a war which is very similar to those being conducted now in Gaza and in the West Bank,” said Ron Ben-Yishai, an Israeli journalist famous for his reporting of the 1982 war and a character in the film.

The film has generated raw debates in the Middle East. Some see it as a thoughtful exploration of Israel's culpability in the Lebanese massacres. Others think it fails to show the true impact of those events on the victims.

When Arab-Anglo blogger Doshka saw the film in Israel in June, she offered a thoughtful review that captured the nuance and complexity of the story.

"You leave the theater somehow forgiving of Israel's limited role in the massacre because they talk about it, examine it, acknowledge to their culpability as it arises," Doshka wrote."Which is true, if we are just talking about Sabra and Chatila, and Ari. But Ari, this is about you, but it's also not just about you... Despite the criticisms I have, this is an utterly worthwhile film. As art, its beautiful. As a story, it's one of the important stories, belonging to a narrative of this region's mishmash of memory. It's worthwhile too, for its use of irony, music and surreal montages. It's worthwhile for its self-reflective criticism: a shot of a tank in Sidon seen from the outside crushing cars and bashing holes into homes _ and seen from within the tank as well."

The film opens in the US on Dec. 26th. Look for it in a theater near you.