ali velshi back on "consider this" at 10:00, to continue our coverage of the events in israel and gaza and the event on the ukrainian border. thank you for joining us. ♪ shot down over ukraine with hundreds of people onboard, we are covering both stories. live reports and the latest details. tonight, an al jazeera special report. i'm john siegen that willer, gaza continues tonight. a sports.

>> nick chef ron is hive in gaza, nick. what is happening right now? >> yeah, john, good evening you will get a sense of what is happening now. if you look over to the right, you can see some light, and if you look to the left, blackness, if you are able to see what i can see, this would be miles and miles of blackout. hundreds of thousands of gazans right now. having no power, that is something caused by the israeli e military strike. >> the envery that the israeli military will fire into the air, along the gaza strip, and we see that in the northeast, especially that means that trooping are coming in behind the flairs. with those they can see a radius of three or four miles this way to the west that's the

mediterranean sea, unprecedented shelling, also troops coming in there we believe, and in the south that is towards egypt. according to israeli military officials and the whole time up above, f 16s and drones. so john, a real sense tonight that israel is moving closer and closer. what are you hearing about goals for this invasion? >> yeah, let's look at the stated goals. first, these are opportunities that fighters use to get into israel from gaza, or use to smuggle weapons around. fire rockets, that is what the main goal according to netanyahu the prime minister of israel that's the main goal, to go into those and take away the capacity to use help number two, eliminate the capacity to fire rockets into israel, in the five

hours after a temporary cease fire, this was more than 100 according to the israeli military. that is the number two stated goal. blue the la larger goal is very large and the statement from the israeli government tonight is that operation protective edge prolonged period, while inflicting a significant blow to organizations the translation of that is that they want to move deep enough, and actually get to those rocket launching siting, which means israeli troops have to come in, to gaza and fight not only above ground, but also underground in those tunnels. the suggestion there this will be a very difficult process. >> we just heard the sirens. while you were doing your live shots we heard rockets attack. are this any signs or are you hearing any sounds of

what is going on. >> there are sounds all over the place. unfortunately, you probably can't hear all of them, we hear the constant buzz of drones. the big booms coming from the sea, large ships firing from the sea. into gaza, and then we are hearing artillery as well, and that is the new sound. that just means the tanks are coming in across the boarder, that's what people in the north are saying. and obviously artillery fires above troops as troops move in. what we are not hearing is very many rockets firing. >> i was doing to ask you how hamas is responding to the attack? as you can expect, hamas is saying that this is a big mistake, and that israel will really get --

receive inform i can quote the spokesman, he hit israel as hard as we can. what a lot of people are feeling is the fear, that this will increase the casualties especial hi among civilians. the israeli military has urged the evacuation of a lot of the areas that it is invading tonight. that evacuation happened yesterday. but inevitably, a lot of these targets are inside of residential neighborhoods. a will the of the rockets are being fired from there, so what you have seen is a large proportion, over half of all the wounded people have been women and children, and about 90 of the 250 killed have been women and children, so inevitably the fear here is that at steal moved in deeper, and goes after those rocket sites and after that tunnel lit be inevitable that civilians will be right near those attacks.

nick, thank you very much. the last time troops were inside gaza was in 2009. since then, on and off battles have been fought from above, and air strikes and rockets but in recent weeks the crisis has intensified. more with that. >> it's been a little more than four hours now since the military announced they are re'sing a statement. was entering a new phase, this latest breaking mountain is about much more than the cycle of revenge. in mid june, or even the death of two palestinian teenagers back in may. now this is about the worsening situation in gaza, and the prospect attacks. >> on june 28th, the first rocket in this latest cycle are launched from gaza into steal. israel responds with air strikes. after won more days of air strikes and rocket fire, on july 8th in a

tweet, the israeli military formally announced operation protective edge, and called up 40,000 reservists. analysts say it is part of the on going strategy to keep hamas in check. then hamas reject as cease fire crafted by egypt. on monday, july 14th israel mocked down a hamas drone. dui israel announces it's first fatality, and the palestinian death count nears 200. and yesterday, after a six hour break in the fighting, four palestinian children play on a beach in gaza, and are killed by israeli shelling just yards from hotels where foreign journalists are staying. inning mentions the tunnels talk about the significance of that. >> the tunnels are used both as lifelines for day lay supplies and as weapons of war by hamas.

early this morning a group tries to get into southern israel through a tunnel through gaza, the israeli army says it hit that with an air strike, and killed eight of the 13, and it is the second time something hike this has happened in the past ten days. as nick mentioned the army is now determined to take out what it called the terror tunnels. >> thank you, paul. mike is at the white house tonight, so what is the response to the israeli offensive, mike? >> john, this is sort of remarkable in and of itself. we do not have an personal response, mum is the word from the white house in response to what israel has done, as far as recorded over the course of the last four hours. the first thing we have seen is instead of keeping an appointment, john kerry the secretary of state was to speak at 7:00 p.m. here, and a historic synagogue that speech is canceled due to world events.

essentially, the president, the white house, are under two competing interests here right now, american domestic pressure, still in support of what israel is doing, viewing it as self-defense, after the barrage of rocket fire to give you an indication and renext of that. supporting israel 100%, of course, the republican hopeful from florida says 100%. now, as this plays out you will see more pressure from american alleys as well as arab allies around the region. try to put some pressure on israel, to relent. but i think it is destructive, and you just mentioned this, the fact that president obama appeared at suddenly, hastily, in the briefing room, yesterday afternoon, and said he was going to redouble efforts over the next 24 hours, to institute a cease fire to try to work with egypt after the

first abortive attempt to broker a cease fire. less than 24 hours after that, israel goes into disas gaza strip. now, today we have heard the spokes woman criticize israel saying it should be doing more to prosect civilians calling the ray tack that left four children dead on a beach in gaza for example, horrifying. but still reiterating that this is chiefly the responsibility of hamas. >> and quickly, mike, you don't expect a statement from the white house tonight, right. >> we probably will see something on paper, the president incidentally kept his schedule, he is at a second fund raiser. but we do expect to see some sort of paper statement. >> more information on this, so stand by, we will have much more on the invasion of gaza coming up.

the downing of a malaysian airline night, the plane went down in eastern ukraine, in an area controlled by russian separatists. u.s. intelligence officials say they are certain the commercial airliner was shot down. and ukraine is blaming russia, scott with the first network television reporter on the crash scene, and he gave us this report. we have seen four distinct debris feels. you will see that is the tail section of the mahay sha triple seven boeing aircraft. it is lying on it's side, 200 meters up from that, there is the tail section that was below this, just kind of back where the lavatories are. of this a little bit on the left hand side, appeared to be a bit of the fuse lodge.

then further down, this is obviously a field, a farmer's field, a road going down, and then further down beyond that, there was another chunk. you can see one of the landing gear, the tires are still on it, that was smoldering. they are telling us step kilometer circumstance presence is where this has lanced. there are rescue officials when we were here, but it was already dark, so they are not doing much, they weren't doing much then, not doing much now. obviously waiting for daylight to go wac in. they said they are going to invite international parties to come in. the self-proclaimed prime min terrible tragedy of the public's republic, that he has not made a

decision, if he will let ukrainian officials in, but he will open this up to international investigators. this is eastern ukraine, this is a part of this one that is under the control of these armed separatists fighters. the government, is not going to be able to come in here, that's what he is saying. so this is where we have serious discussions serious discussions that need to be made with these separatist fighters and allowing these other organizations to come in here, and quite honestly, knowing the aviation industry quite well. this aircraft was flying through ukrainian air space, so to not allow ukrainians to come here will probably hamper it to some degree. >> on the scene of the clash, now, russian president said this would not have happened if ukraine had not renewed it's offensive against rebels in the east. for more on the speech, and the kremlin's reaction, here is rory in moscow.

he launched into what i suppose is a fairly scathing attack, and essentially said that it was the ukrainians who bore responsibility for this crash. because it happened on ukrainian territory. he then went on to say that it wouldn't have happened if there had been peace in ukraine. but that the russian government would assist in any way that it could with is investigation into this incident. you get the feeling here, that there is deep unease about what happened. the finger of blame does seem to be pointing at the moment on the separatists although the

russians don't acknowledge that at all. if it does transpire that it was the separatists who brought down this jet, that gives the governments here in moscow a huge headache, it really will be a game changer in this conflict. because they will have to work out with they are prepared to carry on backing the separatist or whether the time might have come to cut them lose. if it transpires that it is the separatist involved. >> it's been a day of fast moving developments and here is how it unfolded. >> the flight took off from amster bam deaded for kuala lumpur on a flight math that took it over ukraine. almost two hours hate terrible tragedy plane crashed, 30-miles from the border. the last radio contact with the airport was at 8:11 a.m. president obama was on

the phone this morning with russian president vladimir putin at the end of the call, according to the white house, obama was told about the crash. >> as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all the families. >> any announcement ukraine's armed forces did not shoot down the plane, the prime minister released this statement, which said i am shocked by reports that an plane crashed we are launching an immediate investigation. around 4:24 afternoon, reports started nodding in, ukraine placemented pro rush. this has been no confirmation of that claim. however, on facebook, the rebel commander egore, took responsible for

shooting down a plane, about the same time the malaysian jet went down. we don't know with he was referring to the malaysian jet. major airline now say they will avoided the flight area. >> there is now a global investigation underway trying to figure out who shot down night 17, and david chuteser here with that part of the story. >> u.s. intelligence officials tell us they have proof the jet liner was shot down by a surface to aramisle, however, the officials say the evidence about the location and origin of the missle launch is not conclusive. that's why they are saying it is a missle attack. according to members of congress, briefed by the administration, the proof involved electronic interintercepts and imnagery, and the lawmakers are not being as circumstance expect. they are saying there's

strong indication. >> it's capable of shooting down an aircraft nighing at an altitude of over 30,000 feet. it requires at least ten people and it's complicated to operate. so there have been long standing questions about with the russian military provided the separatist with training on the system, or foible gave the separatist some russian soldiers to help them use it. this week, the separatist took credit for shooting down a cargo plane nighing at 21,000 feet, and bringing down a fast moving ukrainian jet. this morning with long standing ties to russia claimed that another aircraft had just been taken down, his translation reads in the area, we have just shot down an, i 26 airplane, it is scattered about somewhere by the progress coal mine, we warned

them, don't fly in our sky. mere is a video confirmation of the latest bird drop, the bird fell beyond the pit heap, it did not damage the residential sector, civilians were not hurt. here is the video of the rebel commander posted on social i will media. it is the same location that would later be identified as the debris field of the crashed malaysian jetliner. this is one more piece to the puzzle that is now coming from the government. listen. >> . >> ukrainian officials say that is a rebel phone call that they highlighted intercepted today by ukraine's international jens service. the alleged fighter can be hear about shooting down an aircraft and then going to the location and discovering it was a civilian jetliner. once of the rebelled sounds exasperated. another alleged rebel then says their group must have been lied to,

about the aircraft that was headed their way. >> david chuter, david, thank you. now steven coen is the professor emeritus of russian studies almost. welcome. what do you make of the russian reaction to this? >> i think they are exasperated. they have been warning that push was going to come to shove in the skies over ukraine. because the back drop is, is that the ukrainian air force has been attacking since july 1. p increasing velocity, seven or eight year cities near russia, where ethnic ukrainians but they are russian speaking. and they think of russia as a place with which they have affinity. and russia has been demanding that this assault on the cities stop. about three weeks ago, the rebels on the ground acquired some capacity to

shoot those planes down. and they have shot a number of them down. reporters mentioned. some of them. i think it is possible that early this morning before the malaysian incident they shot down a fighter plane, and the pilot survived. and that's on record. but the russians have been warning this is extremely dangerous, and it needs to stop. and i think -- but i am not sure about this, that it increases the pressure in russia on putin to make military action. probably in the form of imposing a no fly zone over south eastern ukraine. because that's been the russian media. and to protect the cities and now you can see how dangerous it is up this. a tragedy a commercial airliner, why a commercial airliner is flying over ukraine these days is a mystery that international authorities will have to decide. >> as an expert on all things russian, and you helped us try to understand the situation, let me try to interpret rut what you just said, are you suggesting that

russia -- russian separatists russia or lush sean separatists are responding to kiev's attacks on the east? there's been -- the ukrainian government has been attacking these cities for three or four weeks. etch the new york times recorder finally went there, said that it is a shell, a ghostly shell. these cities are being destroyed and they are reacting. how is it reacting it is sending some defensive material to the rebels. >> to shoot down a jetliner? no, i am not speaking clearly. i don't suggest that the russians shot that down. i am saying the rebels have been shooting down war planes for three weeks. and russia has been saying to the international community, this is got to stop.

it's getting out of control, and today it got out of control. but the back drop, john, is that there's a war in the air over eastern ukraine. why would a commercial aircraft be there? i don't know. >> how much pressure and putin under in russia to intervene in ukraine? is. >> here i do have some expertise. unhike in some other areas. i read the russian prez, listen carefully to how i formulate this. even the pro kremlin press, pro kremlin, even kremlin control newspaper and television, are telling putin, he must intervene militarily in ukraine, to protect the eastern cities. or he, putin h go down in history in infame my, period. and that is being said almost daily in the russian national mass media. >> can putin stop them. >> no. >> he can't control them. >> no. well -- no. he can't stop them, he

can be an intermediary if he get as negotiating offer. and it's been tried. the problem with the cease fire is that kiev said first the rebels have to putter down their arms complete hi disarm, and secondly, we kiev will decide with whom we talk. that failed. i understand the pressure from russia, isn't there is international pressure to do something to calm this down now or not. >> you would have to tell me what it is he can do to calm this down. this civil war goes out hundreds of years of conflicts and antagonism in ukraine. when you talk about the international community, look at what is happening. france and germany who are the major european powers and italy, are

breaking with the white house over policy. they didn't sign on to these, that obama announce as day or two ago, and they try to persuade kiev. to continue the cease fire. and kiev, with washington's backing refused so now you have no unity between washington and europe. always good to have you on the program, thank you very much. our coverage of the crash of malaysian flight 17 continues in a moment, including why passenger planes were flying over a war zone in the first place. and tanks roll into gaza tonight, get the latest on the israeli offensive from our reporter on the ground, it is all coming up. @

call from presidentve add obama. he and i both agree, that the investigation must not be hindered in any way. and international team must set full access to the crash site. >> now as you can imagine, investigators want to try to get in there as quickly as possible, but the question is who is going to do this investigation. one source tells me that the rebels want the russian government, they are asking investigators to do the probe, but the government under international aviation law, they should be the ones directing this and they have indicated they want an open and thorough investigation. they are indicating -- will that happen, we will have to see in the days

ahead. after ten days of air strikes israel launches an evasion, the latest oen the strategy and reaction from both sides after this very short break.

special report, israel insides gaza, an airliner shot down. >> this is al jazeera america. the latest now on the downing of mo lay sha's airline flight 17. 298 people onboard were killed when the commercial jetliner went down about 10:00 a.m. eastern. it happened over eastern ukraine, in an area controlled by western

separatists. officials say they are now certain the airliner was shot down. the first network t.v. reporter to reach the scene. >> this is the very tail section of that triple seven, malaysia airline flight 17 that was carrying 295 people. in these fielding the two fields there's a road connected them, that's where these people lost their lives. now, this is the tail section, after the plane, the very back part, about 200 meters down, deeper into the field, is the tail fin. with the logo very very visibility, if you look down the road, this is a road that cuts between these two farmer's fields down there there's another chunk of the fuselage. it was burning when we got here, five hours after this came down, you can still see the landing gear, with it's tires still on. now, the rescue workers are here, they have been here since soon after the plane came down, but they

are not taking any bodies out. ner going to be working as much as they can. this is a very rural area, but the moist pain staking part of this is going to be in that field. that's where they are just remains of those 295 people remains scattered thinkout that field. >> dutch prime minister says this is probably the worst air disassumingner the netherlands history. friends and family members can be seen consoling one another. at least 154 passengers were dutch. mourners place nowers on the step of the nether-land embassy. the plane was headed to kuala lumpur in malaysia when it went down, and stephanie reports from malaysia. this is is the second major tragedy to effect the airline this year, with the loss of another mane in march. now, prime minister had spoken overnight, of his

shock, and his determination. that those responsible be found and swiftly brought to justice. he said the airline didn't make a distress call, and so the importance now is to find out exactly what happened. and he said, the crash made a tragedy through malaysia airline? what has been a tragic year already. >> ukrainian officials knew of the risks of ground to air attacks and the state aviation administration had issued warnings. on july 8th the authority announced the closure of air space in eastern ukraine. put the european equivalent says malaysia flight 17 was flying at 33,000 feet, 1,000 feet above the restricted zone. ali velshi is here now to talk about this, alley, had a jet shot down

yesterday, now an airliner, why were commercial jets use that space? >> that was the first question i had, little did i know, everybody is flying over this. this is right in the rout europe and southeast asia. it is a very popular rout, because it is deemed to be the most efficient way. if you fly above 33,000 feet, on that highway, you have the best chance of getting to point a, to point b with the at least amount of fuel. as a result, everybody has said they are not flying through there. the american airlines say they are t doing it, although they typically don't anyway. that does make you think, we have these surface to aramisles a lot of hot spots and they can hit an airliner that throws 32 to fort thousand feet.

>> so you have been talking to experts, what do they say -- >> generally have the ability, so i spoke to a pilot who is boast a unionized pilot and a nonunionized pilot. he had the right to do that, but a lot of pilots don't. >> as a u.s. aaron pilot, as a captain of the major airline, united airline, i have the backing of the union. i was able to say, no, i don't feel confidentble going in this direction. i am aggrade that the captain did not have that luxury. >> and so this is one of those areas where he said look, i hike unions i don't, but the one place where it matters is the ability to go in and say i am not nighing that because i don't find it safe. >> what is this going to

cost the airline. >> they are all going to work around it, which means burning more fuel, it also means longer nights so that's more time and labor, and more fuel. that price is always passed on to the consumer, so you will probably see an increase, and on top of that because of what happened today, the price of oil spikes. we are in the middle of flying season, what impact h have this? >> fist of all, lit have a big impact on people flying malaysian. my producer was saying they had some 30,000 cancellations. there will be people that will cancel flights because they get freaked out by this. this is two this year, unfortunately they are both malaysian. on triple sevens one of

the safest airliners around. >> good information, thank you. >> ukraine has been blaming russia for escalating violence in the eastern part of the country for months. ukraine i don't know forces have been battling for control of several cities and the military stepped up attacks on separatists after ukraine elect add new president in may. in recent days there have been several reports of russian separatist shooting down ukrainian aircraft. don nickels is a professor of national security. welcome to you thomas, thank you for being with us. >> who has the capability to shoot down a plane like this? >> the russians to. and the ukrainian military has some of these but they are not in that area, so i think there's no question that the russians fingerprints are all over this, either directly or indirectly. that's one reason they fly that high.

>> to the rebels the russian separatist would they have the capability. >> not unless the russians gave it to them, no. this bok launcher is not something you can stick on your shoulder, thes the size of a truck, it take as lot of training, it takes several people to operate it, this isn't something that you pluck out of an armory and turn the key and it goes. this takes people who know who they are doing who send to do what they are doing. they have to have training and i think this was clearly done with either the conniving of supply from the russians. what impact does this have the nato. >> i think this is the day russian policy went off the cliff. even people who have wanted to stand a bit back from the russians and give them some benefit of the doubt, now are faced with a moment

that's a lot like the moment in 1983 when the soviet union shot down a korean airliner. that one is simply impossible to avert our eyes from. i think that will have some effect. there's nothing we can do about it militarily, nothing will bring that airplane back, nothing will stop the russians from treating you drain as though it is just a satellite. but putin can put a stop to this, he can order them to stand down. they are taking their orders from moscow and reporting back to moscow. and the responsibility heeds back to moscow. >> as we know, the flight originated in the nether hands which is a nato member country, so does this mean that nato is suddenly going to be more involved then they would have otherwise? >> i don't think so, i think this is not a direct attack on the dutch or the malaysians this is reckless violent behavior.

by people who have been given advanced weaponry who are acting irresponsibly. and i think that's how the reaction has to be phrased. actually i shouldn't say that because we don't know where the missle was launched from, but i don't see nato activated or more involved. i think this is a longer term issue that really the russia's true intent and the true level of brutality they are willing to engage in is clear. >> you know, everybody has been trying to figure out why this happened and we don't know. we don't have the answers or who did it. and maybe we will know in the next couple of days, but you try to figure out, whether this -- the strategy behind an attack like this, or could it just have been an accident? it's possible that shooting directly at a civilian airliner if the transcripts that have been put out on the internet are accurate, it

may be the guys that fired that missle were surprised themselves. i think we are going to no everything and soon. this did not take place in the middle of nowhere, this is a very closely watched area. one reason i think it may have been just purely violent reckless and that they were bracking about it this morning. the separatist on their facebook page were saying they had shot down an airplane, and then they immediately took it down, they were all over social media about it until perhaps they realized what they had done and started to take it down. i think it was also revealing that president putin felt the need to call president obama. somebody walked into the emelin and said we have a problem here. but they have been supplying these guys encouraging them. neff been encouraging to act as if there are no restraints. >> good to have you on the program, thank you again. >> our other top story we

have been following the israeli invagues of gaza began five hours ago, thousands of troops on the ground, backed up by israeli war planes. >> goofed evening again, just about a mile or two behind me, you can't can see is that neighborhood, it is very dark. >> f mile that waif into that neighborhood. we believe that because we can hear the projectile knifing fromming that way over this way.

>> f f f f f f f f f f f f offense f f f f f f f f f f f f jumping north. f being one of the main places where rockets are fired from here, one of the main places that israel has targeted from the air. residents are now say they are hearing the sounds of tanks. we are getting the sense that they are moving in from the north and west. >> nick, we will get back to you, thank you very much. p.j. crowley is a former assistant secretary of state, and an al jazeera board member. p.j., welcome. >> hello, john. a planned offensive like this had to have been planned stuff obviously it is cliff kateed and takes time. so has israel been planning this for a while inform well, israel had a great does he feel of experience, obviously we also saw a version of this in 2012. the rockets have periodically hit israel over several years and they have been closely

tracking hamas as a military threat. and obviously been prepared to respond both in the air and now on the ground. >> and how will hamas respond, do you think. >> well, you have the two agendas here. israel quantities to try to impose as much damage on hamas' capability as possible, for as long as they can operate securely in that area. hamas is coming at this from a relatively weak stand point, weaker than they were in 2012. and 2008. for example, they lost their home, when they backed the syrian opposition. they lost one of their leading advocates when egyptian president mohammed morrissey was turned out of power. obvious hi we will see who is able to communicate with hamas. be uh what they are looking for is obviously

to build up sympathy for the impact that this operation but the day-to-day grind is having on the palestinian people. they are looking to get some sort of political edge, in their battle, which was absence is from the ceil fire, is some sort of f relief, some indication that measurably more aid will come to gaza in the coming weeks and months. >> what is israel's objective here? dream's objective, and perhaps working quietly with egypt, is to try to seal off these tunnels that provide not only a lifeline to the imported materials that can be dually used. obviously, the materials to be aable to build these rockets that i will also go after as much as the leadership and they

can identify. so from steal's standpoint. here you only had two years of calm. they are going to want to push off and say to the people, we have done sufficient damage that they are not going to threaten israel in such a meaningful way. >> any sense on how long -- >> any sense on how long this will take? i think nick's reporting i think is dead accurate, which is israel, now that they are into gaza will fry to do as much as they can, for as long as they can. the pressure will build, there will be further cease fire, i think we are talking about several days before the ingredients are there, and from both sides they are able to say to their respected constituentsies you have done enough. >> as always, thank you. >> thank you, john.

uhm next, a look at the history of passenger planes being shot out of the sky, and how the victims are being remembered on social media. p

more on our top story.

it isn't clear for the airline was the intended target, we want to go to our science and technology correspondent. is it possible to say different types of aircraft from the ground? >> yes, it is. an experienced operator would be able to do it. there's a difference between hike a sleek fighter jet looks like, and what a big bulky commercial airliner looks like. they are very different in terms of their reflective surfaces. plus, beyond that commercial airliners are just cob can standly squawking their location, they are not trying to hide anything, if there was an experienced after the controls they would know it was flying at 30,000 feet, and flying along 9180, which is is one of the great super highways in the sky above europe, if you wanted to hail a passenger jet, and warn them off, in theory you could use the international emergency

frequency in which you can hail any plane and tell them to get out of here, it is a military environment. >> sounds like human error is the most likely explanation or not. >> well, the thing to understand, and i think human error is undeniably -- no one i don't think intended to shoot this thing out of the sky. but one thing to consider, and one thing to think about is that the bok system, the missle system most likely to have done this, is usually used in a big bank of four or five of them networked together, but they are can also be isolated with with into a single unit, and you can turn on an automatic system that will automatic hi acquire targets and fire at them without a human being. so it is the point and shoot equivalent of a camera, in the missile world. and so there are -- it could be that an experienced operator

could think i can turn on this automated system and pick up targets as they come in. not realize bag that person was doing. >> jake, thank you. today is not the first time a commercial aircraft was shot out of the sky. there have been many cases. john, extremely unusual, if you think of f the tens of thousands of aircraft in the sky around the globe every day. this is unusual, but of course it has happened before. in the same area as well, back in 2001, a plane in siberia airline passenger plane, was shot down into the black sea. and the ukrainian military later admitted that it was one of their missiles. like liniered by accident for some reason, that brought down that plane. 78 passengers and crew members killed. also, back in 1998, the

u.s. may be on duty on patrol in the persian gulf. protecting oil shipments. a missile cruiser shot down an iran air passenger plane the death count there two hung 90 passengers and crew. navy officials saying crews onboard the ship thought the plane they were seeing on radar was a fighter jet. also back in 1983, soviet fighter planes encountered 70ed and shot down a passenger plane out of the sky, this is a korea airline passenger jet. this plane was well off it's intended course, and was near or in russian air space. it had crash of malaysian

nateed in new york, touchdown from anchorage for refueling. 269 people killed including a u.s. congressman. that heightens the tensions. and someone firing back saying it was something that had all been fabricated by spies in the u.s. the commercial plane somehow intentionally into russian air space to test russian defenses. also in recent decades we are seeing a number of accidents unsolved accidents in world hot spots and war zones. in somalia, in georgia, in iraq. people on the ground may have said that was an airliner that shot down. we don't necessary hi have an investigation and proof of what happened in those cases. not unusual, looks like it is happening again.

so here is the latest on the two breaking stories. israel launch add large scale ground attack in the strip, six hours ago, the israeli military says it's goal the is is to strike a significant goal to hamas. and says the operation is open ended. the invasion follow add ten day military campaign to destroy hamas' weapons and tunnels. a spokesman warns that israel will pay dearly. >> it flew over a rebel held region in eastern ukraine, still not clear who fired the missle, whether it came from the russian, or ukrainian side of the border. the plane was carrying 298 people, including several prominent researchers. the government fighting in that region have both denied responsibility nor the strike, the u.n.

security council expected to hold an emergency meeting friday morning on ukraine. the plane crash victims were caught in the crosshairs of a geopolitical conflict, friends and family international travelers spend the day checking social media, trying to figure out if they knew anyone onboard. friends have been writing well wishes and prayers on her facebook wall. in malaysia the sister of 67-year-old passenger on the flight, she was traveling back to celebrate the end of ramadan for the first time in 30 years and this image, a couple on a bus, traveling to a separate area to receive updates about their relatives. as the news spread, mourners made their way to the dutch embassy. tonight families around the world, are grieving this boy light as candle to remember. that's our newscast at this hour, america tonight is coming up next, our special

coverage of israel invading gas & the down airliner continues, we will see you back here at 11:00 p.m. eastern.

>> saturday >> prop 8, really made us think about this process of coming out. >> meet the committed couples >> gay marriages, straight marriages... have the same challenges. >> it's all about having the same options as everybody else. >> that fought for equality

>> saying "i do" changed everything. >>every saturday, join us for exclusive, revealing and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. "talk to al jazeera" saturday 5 eastern only on al jazeera america tonight an america tonight special report, two breaking news stories this hour. >> israel invades gaza, underway, at this hour. israel launches a devastating ground assault on gaza. going down deep, to flood the tunnels where they say hamas threats are hiding. it is the heaviest show against hamas in years. a jet with fearly 300 pe