Israeli troops fighting in Gaza

Israel has sent soldiers and tanks into Gaza as it tries to stop members of the Hamas group from firing rockets.

For more than a week, Israel has been dropping bombs on Gaza, which is home to about 1.5million Palestinians.

Israel says the bombing is necessary to protect its people and it won't stop until the rocket attacks stop too.

So far, neither side is backing down, but world leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, want Israel and Hamas to end the violence.

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The latest fighting has been going on for 10 days, but there's been a lot of trouble in this part of the world for years.

It's all to do with who has the right to live where.

Lots of Palestinians live in Gaza, which is a tiny strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and Israel, or another area called the West Bank on the other side.

But Israel gets to decide who and what comes and goes from these areas, and Palestinians want them to give up that control.

Peacemakers

Other countries have been trying to help sort out the situation peacefully, but the violence keeps restarting, sparking protests all over the world.

Now French president Nicolas Sarkozy is heading to the Middle East for new peace talks. Officials from Europe and Russia are already there.

Protesters all over the world have been demonstrating against the violence

Palestinian health officials say more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured since the latest bombing began more than a week ago.

The Israeli army says one of its soldiers has been killed and 34 wounded after going into Gaza, at least two of them seriously.

The President of Israel, Shimon Peres, says he just wants to stop Hamas firing rockets, and when that happens the military action will stop and Israel's soldiers and tanks will leave.

What is Hamas?

Hamas is an armed group that controls the Gaza Strip and its members and supporters are the people firing rockets into Israel.

Four Israelis have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza.

Israel says it is trying to destroy Hamas buildings, places where Hamas trains soldiers and stores its weapons.

Buildings are packed really close together in Gaza, so Hamas structures are often very close to ones where ordinary people live and work.

No journalists

It's thought around a quarter of the people killed in the military action in Gaza so far are ordinary people, or civilians.

But it's quite hard to work out exactly what's happening in Gaza as Israel is refusing to let international journalists into the area.