israeli forces hammer gaza overnight, as the israeli prime

minister warns of a long fight ahead. more children are among the latest casualties. look at the hole this shrapnel has blasted in this car door. imagine the damage that that would do to a child's body. >> more pressure u.s. and european leaders move to slap more sanctions on russia. as efforts to reach the crash site of mh 17 are blocked once again. >> we are sick and tired of being interrupted by gunfights. and desperate measures, liberia closes its borders in an effort to stop the worst ebola outbreak on record. >> welcome back to cnn newsroom. >> it's a pleasure to have you with us. >> we're going to begin with

israel's overnight barrage of air strikes on hamas militants in gaza. >> these were the sounds in gaza city overnight. one of the targets, al axa radio the finance ministry were also hit. this is a live look at gaza city today, the air strikes subsided before daylight, you can still see smoke streaming into the sky there. >> palestinians report nearly 1100 people killed and 6500 wounded since the violence erupted some three weeks ago now. israel says 53 of its soldiers have been killed in the operation so far. >> palestinians say eight children were among ten people killed. >> we spoke with some of the

witnesses including children whose guardians granted us permission to speak with them. >> you'll never get to meet little mohammed, but his friend next door wants to tell you a bit about him top of the clas n lionel messi was his hero. >> glass sprayed on me it was so loud, so terrifying, i can't even describe it she says. he and the other kids were playing toy guns. the children all dead.

>> i had this -- >> he reveals their names. >> it's a sight he should have never seen. >> i saw a boy cut up right there, over there a man, he looked dead, and i saw a boy who was dead too, he says just eight years old he mans up and describes the explosion. >> a bloody hand mark in a doorway. a lucky escape for them, but not their grandfather. i saw grandpa, his head was cut, his arms and legs were cut. he was all cut up, they say. witnesses young and old say they heard a drone and a missile

fired on to their street. while we were there, we saw a militant rocket launched about a mile away. the warring factions blame each other we've heard their excuses before. but there's no excuse for this or this. just look at the hole this shrapnel has blasted in this car door. imagine the damage that would do to a child's body. as i sit on the pavement, the ambulance arrived with young mohammed's body. i want to go and see my cousins he says. they may never have met mohammed, but it's already time to say good-bye. karl penhaul, cnn, gaza. >> tuesday's escalation in gaza comes after international

cease-fire talks accomplish virtually nothing. >> this attempt to get a cease-fire doesn't succeed, prime minister netanyahu warns his nation to be prepared for a long war ahead. >> we knew that we would have difficult days. this is a difficult and painful day. stamina and determination are required in order to continue in the struggle against a murderous terrorist group that aspires to destroy us. >> i said and i repeat, we must be prepared for a protracted campaign? >> coming up in about 10 minutes, some israelis are calling for the complete destruction of hamas. >> the pentagon's top intelligence officer tells cnn that could actually make matters much worse. we want to get you up to speed on the day's other big

stories. a convoy of international investigators will try again to reach the crash site of malaysia airlines flight 17 in eastern ukraine, it's 11 days since the plane was allegedly shot down. >> the 45 person team of dutch and australian experts were forced to turn back monday because of heavy fighting in the area. >> we are sick and tired of being interrupted by gunfights, despite the fact that we have agreed that there should be a cease-fire. on that site there are still body parts missing. there are still bodies there. there's a job to be done, it can only be done if the guns are down, we have no risk on our way there. >> nick paton walsh is traveling with the convoy and filed this report. >> days of planning, talking for dutch and australian police,

time to move. toward where flight mh 17 still lay in part. we stopped on the edge of the town where the separatists digging in on the roadside blocks the media's path while the inspectors continued. we heard distance shelling and later learned the inspectors had to turn back. they're taking up positions along this road, but people fleeing say that overnight two planes dropped bombs upon them. they're moving us back down the road. two planes dropped bombs and they are fleeing frankly fout o fear for their lives. the planes flew from this direction, my little one is terrified. we pull back to see more smoke. this car load saying the ukrainian soldiers there, it's

hard to distinguish them from separatists. on the backroads they also fled and we soon heard too close why. rockets landing nearby. quiet farm lives here torn apart by this violence before it brought down mh-17. now it keeps both these people and the relatives of the planes dead in limbo. they won't get answers or closure that they need, until inspectors can start work. those inspectors felt let down both by the ukrainian army and separatists. >> the ukrainians were on the move as well. the very moment they're supposed to be stopping fighting. >> the frustration is here with us. we haven't seen any troop movement i can't confer what the press has been stating.

>> each day lost, though, another 24 hours of pain for the relatives of those on mh-17. european union leaders are are scheduled to meet in brussels in the next hour, to decide on tougher economic sanctions against russia, including restrictions on russian state banks and russia's lucrative energy sector. >> we expect the european union to take significant additional steps this week, including in key sectors of the russian economy. in turn and in full coordination with europe, the united states will implement additional measures itself. our purpose is not to punish russia, but to make clear it must seek support for the separatists and stop destabilizing ukraine. >> ivan watson is joining us live from kiev. what additional sanctions does

ukraine want to see come out of this meeting next hour? >> the ukrainian government believes that it's fighting what it almost describes as an invasion by russia since it argues that the separatists in the east are armed and funded and trained by russia about accusations that the russians denied. but they want to see any type of pressure possible to try to bring an end to this uprising. the sanctions that are being discussed are supposed to be targeting different sectors. blocking russia's access to capital markets in the defense sector. dual use goods, sensitive technologies including the energy sector. the decision to hold this meeting which would gather ambassadors from 28 eu member

states came after an unusual video conference was held between the heads of state of five countries, the u.s. france, germany and britain after which there was an announcement made that there would be an attempt to bring more sanctions, presumably it would be coordinated between the eu and the u.s. against russia. the chief complaint being the accusation that russia has not stopped supplying weapons to the rebels in the east of ukraine, this does have the potential to have a significant impact on the europeans who are trying to recover economically. they have hundreds of billions of dollars in trade with the russians. of course, they import some huge amounts of energy. but also we know that the u.k. benefits from the financial sector, from investment from russia, in the city of london,

germany has thousands of company s in russia as well. there are signs that some of these targeted sanctions have made an impact. i met one of the senior rebels who lamented, complained about the fact that he had been put on an eu sanctions list earlier this month, and he had lost access to his vacation house in italy. and wasn't very happy about that. >> ivan, of course, meantime fighting is so fierce near the crash site. investigators haven't been able to get near there. they reported on their frustration about that, when will they be able to get there, and what role does ukraine need to play in that? >> well, at this point it seems that the separatists are trying to allow this international investigative committee to try to get to the crash site. but it happened that the

ukrainian military launched a pretty broad offensive on monday that hit the road that the investigators would have to try to take from the separatist held city of donetsk to the crash site. the fighting was so fierce they had to turn around. we heard now that the investigators very frustrated by this lack of access. the head of the dutch investigative committee in kiev on monday said he was very disappointed and he described the steps that the priorities, that the australian and dutch investigators, the stepsny would like to take if they can get access. take a listen. >> if they find remains, they will be recovered immediately. we will be using a refridge traitor train near donetsk. if the train is inaccessible for

whatever reason, we will find other transportation. we will not leave any remains behind. >> it remains to be seen whether these investigators will be able to get to the site, rosemary. a top level leader he claimed that military forces broke through to the crash site on monday. the ukrainian military denied that, though it's clear their fighting got very close to the debris field. rosemary. >> ivan watson reporting live from kiev. coming up, we turn back to the situation in gaza. >> israel is trying to root out the threat posed by hamas. but a u.s. official believes the vacuum left behind could lead to something even worse. an entire country on lockdown right now. liberia sales off its borders to fend off the spread of ebola. amam rich.

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this guy! bringing our competitors' rates to you -- now, that's progressive. even in this hour we continue our operation to neutralize the terror tunnels, we will not finish the mission, we will not finish the operation without neutralizing the tunnels, which have the soul purpose of destroying our citizens, killing our children. >> iz ally prime minister benjamin netanyahu. there is a new warning of what might happen if the group is

defeated. >> it's coming from one u.s. official fearing israel may face an even more vicious enemy. brian todd has more, some of the images in his report are disturbing. >> reporter: israel pushes on, destroying hamas tunnels. former israeli ambassador to the u.s. michael orrin says israel must be permitted to crush hamas. if hamas was wiped out, who would fill the void? the pentagon's top intelligence officer said the threat could grow even greater in an interview with cnn's evan perez. >> there are a few things there, if hamas gets out of the way, that could perhaps be worse. >> we would probably end up with something much worse. something like an isis or isil. >> isis, isil, now calling itself the islamic state. three names for the same group. radical islamic fighters that

have taken over much of iraq. so brutal they've been disowned by al qaeda. video of the aftermath of that battle purports to show the severed heads of islamic state victims impaled on poles in the city. cnn cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video. could this play out in gaza? there are elements of the islamic state in gaza. >> if familiar haase was somehow destroyed and nothing was left in its place, you could have a situation where palestinian islamic jihad could somehow band together into something more radical. but analysts say it's not likely the so-called islamic state would take over gaza. they're too small in number, not well coordinated there. how far will israel go with hamas. >> i think it's important to deal hamas a decisive blow, not

necessarily replacing it, and demilitarize hamas so you have a defanged hamas running gaza. >> could a defanged hamas some day run the area? matthew leavitt says maybe not. hamas would still have a lot of political and social power in gaza. brian todd, cnn, washington. now, at this point i want to bring in michael herzog, he's a retire retired brigadier general i'm sorry, he's a fellow at washington northeast university. we just had that report speculating essentially at what a defanged hamas could mean for the future. the current aim is to destroy the vast network of tunnels. why are we seeing such a high

civilian death toll? something that makes this conflict even worse? >> well, the challenge for israel in this kind of asymmetric war is that hamas deliberately located its military infrastructure and command and control structure in populated areas. underneath these urban areas, it's very challenging when you fight them and you want to degrade the military capabilities to separate between civilians and noncivilians, the idea is to take measures to do that breaking into the regular transmissions and so on. they're fighting back, the ministry of the interior is calling on people not to leave their homes and unfortunately

and tragically, people are caught in between. i don't know the exact number of casuallies. you'll have to wait and see until the dust settles, this is an ongoing challenge. they fired over 2,000 rockets in israel. >> why not, if it's too difficult to differentiate between where civilians are and are not, why not hold backfire, not fire on places where civilians are possibly located and not make the situation worse? you know, israel is looking for more security, so it has justified it's right to exist and not having rockets fired from gaza, it's understood the more civilians die in gaza, the less secure israel becomes. >> it's not our intention to target -- israel does not target civilians like hamas.

i think the alternative of sitting idly back and allowing them to fire rockets on israel. they sent 30 of them into the area yet. i think sitting idly back and providing impunity to people who hide behind civilians is not an option for israel. that will not guarantee sustainable cease-fire. >> i don't think anyone's -- >> targeting of civilians, i don't think any country would do so. >> i don't think anyone's asking for israel to sit back, but i think there's a space in between sitting back and doing nothing, and killing civilians, you have experience representing israel working for the military there during peace talks, dating all the way back to 1993, i'm

wondering if you think that if more was done to address the economic situation in gaza, there would be less animosity between the two sides. what area has been the sticking point thus far. >> first, let's remember why the crossings to gaza were closed. they were not closed always. since hamas took over gaza in 2007 and started firing rockets on israel. they closed the border because it became a hostile entity. none the less, since then until now, including during this confrontation, israel continued to provide about two thirds of gaza's electricity, their drinking water, all of their base basic needs. medical supplies, food supplies and so on. why did they close the border? i would suggest you ask the

egyptians. it would be for the well being of their citizens. there are years when they're much better off financially. and yet they invested all their money, most of the money in their arsenal. for example, we discovered over 30 offenses, used them to kidnap and kill israelis. each took hundreds of tons of cement, steel and concrete. these are products that came in from israel for housing projects in the gaza strip. but they were used to dig offensive tunnels into israel. let's remember the context in which hamas pushed gaza into -- >> i appreciate your time michael herzog joining me from

tel aviv. so many aspects to all of this. coming up next hour, we will hear from an editor of beirut's daily star newspaper. he says, we just talked about the tunnels there, it's going to take a lot more than destroying tunnels, this person believes to solve the israeli palestinian conflict. >> there is a reason why this has not been solved for decades. >> yes, it's complicated. >> so many diplomats have weighed in, tried to find a solution, they've finished their term with it not at an end. it is very, very difficult. we're going to take a short break, just ahead, they put their lives on the line, fighting the spread of ebola. >> now, two u.s. aid workers have caught the disease they were determined to beat. more on this when we come back.

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liberia has shut down most of its borders in an effort to stop a deadly outbreak of ebola from spreading. the liberian government says it's setting up ebola testing centers at the few points of entry that are still open. ebola is confirmed or suspected to have caused the deaths of more than 120 people in liberia alone. no one is immune. >> every day they worked with one of the world's deadliest viruses, and now two americans are sick with ebola. >> we prayed that god will have

mercy on them and they survive this. >> this is dr. kent brantley, a 33-year-old father of two. he recognized the symptoms and placed himself in isolation. his co-worker also tested positive for the disease. she's married and a mother of two. >> they care about people, they care about liberians, from the time that ebola broke out, nobody's talking about leaving. dedication in the face of the deadliest ebola outbreaker. since march, more than 1,000 cases have been reported in guinea, sierra leone and 660 of them have died. there's no sign the epidemic is slowing down. >> it's probably going to be several months before we're able to get a grip on this epidemic and redo you understand the number of cases. >> growing fears that the virus could spread beyond the three

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