continuing coverage of breaking news of two major stories. i'm shepard smith from new york. first, the ground invasion on the left-hand side of your screen has begun in gaza. the israelis invaded 10:30 local time. 3:30 eastern daylight time here in the united states. the israeli defense forces say their goal is to take out the underground tunnels which the palestinian militants -- or i should say the hamas militants have used to launch rocket attacks on israel. thousands of rocket attacks in recent weeks. the israeli forces had hoped that they would be able to come up with a truce that would stop the rocket attacks from coming. today the israeli defense forces, with the government of

prime minister benjamin netanyahu, made a decision to go in full force. they say it will be limited incursion by ground, sea and air. more than 50,000 troops were amassed on the borders, now some are at least in the no-man's land if you will in the northern part of gaza, between gaza and israel. and they are moving in with the goal to eradicate the tunnels. the other story on the right-hand side of your screen is the crash of malaysia flight 17. 295 people are dead, after the united states now confirms to fox news, a surface-to-air missile took out a packed jumbo jet over the east of ukraine. this is an area of intense fighting between the ukrainian government and pro-russian rebels. officials on each side are blaming the other for the deadly attack. we have amateur video showing the exact moment that the jet crashed into the ground. watch. we're told that fireball was

malaysia airlines boeing 777 flight 17, as it exploded on impact with 295 onboard. all of them dead. there are reports that 23 americans were onboard. though, so far the state department has not confirmed that. it is what the manifest for that flight said. and these are the pictures from the scene. gruesome pictures. bloody body parts strewn across the landscape. in some cases, broken seats, and chunks of the plane's fuselage. according to reporters on the scene, some of the passengers are still strapped into their seats, as major portions of the airliner remain intact on the ground. we're told the debris and bodies stretch for nearly ten miles across eastern ukraine. the jet broke apart in large pieces, many with no evidence of any fire, as you can see here. suggesting it likely did not explode until impact with the ground. ukraine's president says his forces had nothing to do with the crash. he calls this an act of

terrorism. and vows that the people responsible will pay. same story for the pro-russian rebl rebels. on official said his government does not have the weapons to hit a jet at cruising altitudes, that their missiles can only go to 13,000 feet. that is not true, according to the reporting of our jennifer griffin. they report seeing a powerful missile launcher today in the same region where the plane went down. jennifer griffin reports that those separatists did take over a ukrainian military installation, where missiles capable of taking down a jet were located. initially, early going in all of this, in the first few minutes after the crash happened, some of the leaders of this separatist region, the donetsk region said, look what happened, there's video that we took down a ukrainian transport plane carrying, presumably they thought, ukrainian military personnel.

instead, what came down was malaysia airlines flight 17. en route to kuala lumpur from amsterdam. we'll show you the flight path on the wall now. the jet was headed from amsterdam to kuala lumpur in malaysia, just off the russian border. in a separate incident just last night, ukrainian officials said they shot down a fighter jet in that region using an air-to-air missile. officials in ukraine said it is proof the kremlin is supporting the separatists in the east of ukraine. the white house talked with vladimir putin. the two spoke briefly at the end of the conversation about the crash. president putin, according to the white house, confirming to president obama that a jet had gone down. the president spoke about the situation as a speech on the economy earlier today. >> the world is watching reports

of a downed passenger jet near the russia/ukraine border. and it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. right now, we're working to determine whether there were american citizens onboard. that is our first priority. and i've directed my national security team to keep in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why. and as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers wherever they call home. >> the kremlin reports that president putin has express rd his condolences to the malaysian government. just yesterday president obama slapped russia with more economic punishment for its continued involvement in ukraine. now, a game-changer, in an already tense situation. now we know that that plane was shot down. the united states officials at the pentagon confirm that to fox news. further, we know that these

rebels who were fighting on the russian side of things had possession of the sort of missile that the authorities now say took down this jet. of course, those who are accused now of taking it down are in control of the area where the plane went down and those separatists who are in control in the east of ukraine are not allowing ukrainian officials to this crash site. at least they weren't until the last hour. if they have since then, we don't know about it. we can tell you that those separatists are the ones who were taking charge of this scene. and that it's our belief that the black boxes from this jet will go not to kiev, the capital of ukraine, but to moscow, for further evaluation. in the meantime, it's important to note that the united states has many intelligence assets on the ground there. we have been monitoring the situation along this border for many weeks and months, since the uprising began in kiev long ago. in addition, european radar tracking stations are on site,

which we believe is the way that the united states learned that in fact a missile took this jet down. at this point, we've not been able to get anything official from american spokespeople, or sources for that matter, about whether this missile came from the russian side of the border or the ukraine side of the border. whether it was vladimir putin's troops directly who took this down, or whether it was those in support of russia on the ukraine side who took it down. either way, the belief is that the missile itself came from the russians. and the question is, what price will vladimir putin have to pay in the end for the killing of 295 people in this vast land in the east of ukraine. we've got a lot of information today from reporters who ended up on site in the very early going. at 2:25 eastern time, we got a report from the crash scene from sabrina who has been reporting on the separatist militants on the border region between ukraine and russia when the plane went down. she was among the very first

reporters to reach the scene. she wrote, a woman in a black sweater top lay on her back, blood streaming from her face, her left arm raised as if signaling someone. another victim naked except for a black bra lay on a field. her gray hair mixing with the green grasses. a young boy looked to be around 10 years old and lay on his side in a red t-shirt that reads, don't panic. she writes many of the victims were still in their seat belts and attached to pieces of the plane. one man still in his socks, but without his pants. lay there on the field. his right arm placed on his stomach as if in repose. a man in blue shorts wearing red nike sneakers laying with his arms and legs splayed outward, clutching his iphone. some of the 295 people who died at the hands of someone, who fired a surface-to-air missile,

and took down a passenger jet carrying 295 people. all 295 are confirmed dead. now, to find out who did it. and make them pay. ed henry is our chief white house correspondent and live for us there this afternoon. ed? >> reporter: good to see you, shep. bottom line, you've heard from the president earlier today in delaware. he was at an event pushing more highway funding. now landed in new york city a short time ago, going ahead with a couple of fund-raisers there tonight. democratic fund-raisers. vice president biden was giving a speech to a liberal organization in detroit and he topped off his remarks as well about the situation. he had just gotten off the phone with the new ukrainian president and said that the u.s. is pledging assistance. that's a broad statement obviously. what does that mean specifically. i think one thing that is interesting is that the vice president said the u.s. is sending its own law enforcement team that's headed to the region now, to help determine the facts about exactly how this plane was

shot down. given the fact that u.s. intelligence believes that in fact it was shot down. but who was behind it. that's obviously the key question right now. elliott engel, an ally of this white house, a top democrat on the house foreign affairs committee, from new york, put out a statement a short time ago saying, quote, i will remind all interested parties that we will get to the bottom of this, and hold accountable any person, group or nation responsible for this terrible calamity. you will remember earlier today, president obama was on the phone with president putin of russia. nobody knows who was behind this. but fascinating that on that call, we're told by both the kremlin and white house officials, that president putin was giving president obama some of the first reports about what was going on. passing along air traffic control reports about this. how much vladimir putin knew about this in the early minutes after it happened, is obviously interesting, number one. but number two, this has been a very frosty we've been cataloging that in recent months.

if russia had any direct or indirect role involved here, it goes without saying, that that frosty relationship is going to get a lot worse real fast, shep. >> should we expect more from the president later this afternoon or in the evening? >> reporter: that's a good question. given the fact that he's in the middle of the fund-raising, it gets awkward for him sometimes, and he ends up facing republican attacks when he's out on the road fund-raising and then starts commenting on other things. i'd anticipate if he doesn't say anything tonight, it's certainly possible we would hear from him tomorrow. he gets back here at the white house late tonight. has a full day of work here in washington. and given the fact that this is just the early stages of this, we would presume u.s. intelligence would have more information 24 hours from now, at least having more intelligence, a better analysis of the situation that we would likely hear from him again. >> ed, thanks. much of the information we brought in in the early going came from jennifer griffin, our

pentagon correspondent who has been working things from washington. jennifer, many of the lies that were spouted in the early moments after this crash, you debunked. >> reporter: well, it's interesting, shepard, i think it was notable that what you saw coming across the news agency and rt television, these are the propaganda arms of the russian regime. we lived in moscow for years, and it was very clear that moscow was on the defensive from the get-go after this plane went down. particularly after there were those very sort of tweets from the russian separatist rebels that eventually were deleted on the twittersphere, targeting a ukrainian earlier today. those were deleted. we found deleted tweets from the donetsk republic, which is what the separatists call themselves, june 29th, where they bragged about taking overtaking a debuck

missile base. the buk, as we've been discussing all afternoon, it has the capacity of flying up to 72,000 feet. very few surface-to-air missiles can fly that high. this plane, as we know, from officials, was flying at about 33,000 feet. that could not have been brought down by a shoulder-fired missile. it was very interesting to see the rebels, the separatists start to try and point fingers at the ukraine military, suggesting that they had brought down this plane. it is true that the ukraine military has buk missiles in its possession, because, remember, they were allies of russia for many years. so it's natural they would have bought these missiles which are really like a patriot missile, intermediate range missile that the u.s. has. so it's been very interesting to see the tap dance coming out of moscow, and how they've been trying to put outinformation,

making it look like these missiles were not coming from the separatists. i think the most telling bit of all of this, shepard, is that less than 24 hours ago, when the president of the united states stood in the white house and announced sanctions against eight russian defense firms, including the one which makes the missile, this is before we had been talking about the buk missiles, it was clear that the u.s. had concerns that those missiles were making their way into ukraine, into separatists' hands, and they wanted to -- this was their shot across the bow at russia, saying, cut it out, we've seen your advanced weapons systems moving into eastern ukraine, and less than 24 hours later a commercial aircraft, malaysia airlines flight 17 is brought down by none other than a buk missile. >> jennifer, with all of that evidence amassed, it is not the end of it. john busty from the "wall street journal" is with us.

two intercepted phone calls? >> so say the ukrainian security forces. it has to be taken in that context. they're going to argue their own book on this. the two calls they say they intercepted were between a rebel commander, and a russian are military intelligence, so they say. in which the rebel commander says that we shot this plane down. the other telephone call, they say, was between a rebel who was at the crash site and one who was off-site, in which the one of the crash sites said, yes, we shot this down, i'm at the site right now, and it was our installation, our group that did the shooting down and it was about 15 miles north of here where they were stationed. so that's the latest data point. at the end of the day, this is a time where the citizens around the world are going to be very happy for the nsa, because they're going to be scarfing up these telephone calls.

they're going to be able to analyze this data. they'll be able to determine most likely some of the communications that went on after the crash happened. which will probably clarify the picture of the days to come. >> the pictures coming to us from sky news now are worth putting up. this is from 27th of february in crimea. remember, this is where the russians invaded. this is where the russians took over. this is the spot where vladimir putin insisted we have nothing to do with whatever is going on in crimea. and then, of course, these pictures as the russians took over crimea. there's the reason we're talking about crimea down there in green, and the area there that has just been shaded. the donetsk region, you can see that's the spot where this jet went down. that whole area that's now shaded is the one which these separatists have taken over. and it is in that spot that these pictures were taken today that the jet went down. there are distraught relatives,

shielded from the media at amsterdam's airport. that was where it took off. agency french press journalist saw several family members, many of them in taergs, led into a restaurant, on the upper deck of the airport from where the ill-fated jet had taken off just hours earlier. shocked passengers due to catch a later flight to kuala lumpur, which was the destination of the crashed plane, said they were determined to make their journeys. i'm going to board the plane, i'm sure the airlines are now taking precautions. and that is a write-through from asp. the sky news reporting a number reported -- the numbers of passengers onboard, they have the manifest. what they say is, there are 154 dutch, 27 australian, 23 malaysian, 11 indonesia, 6 british, 4 germans, one canadian with no mention of any americans. noting all 15 crew members were malaysian nationals. now, we've been told throughout the day that the manifest

indicated there were 23 americans onboard. the state department would not confirm that. we've gotten no confirmation of it. except the original manifest indicated that there were 23 americans onboard. that said, this list of people who were onboard does not add up to the right number of people. so in the early going, we can't yet be sure exactly who was on that flight. but we can tell you that all 295 onboard were killed. >> yeah, my list has those numbers you just gave, plus 47 unknown. perhaps the nearly two dozen american citizens we think were on the plane, are among those unknown. bill maldin of the "wall street journal" just reported that putin says, look, the responsibility for this crash is firmly on the government in kiev. because they're the ones that govern this territory. when we know in fact that that simply isn't the fact. as a result of russia sporting

separatists in this region, that it has essentially broken away from the central government. >> we'll have continuing coverage of the crash of malaysian airlines flight 17. but ed, if you've been with us, you know there's another major story developing as we speak. israel has invaded gaza, by land, sea and air. the israeli invasion began just about 1 hour 50 minutes ago. their goal, according to the israeli defense forces, to take out the tunnels and the weaponry, which the hamas rebels and militants have been using to wreak havoc in israel. more than 2,000 rockets have landed in israel in recent days, and weeks. and the israelis insist they want it stopped. so the ground invasion has begun. and with a moon high in the sky, our own john huddy is on the border in gaza city, and watching as this invasion begins. in addition, our own david lee miller is there. the war in gaza, when fox news channel's breaking news

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an israeli ground invasion of gaza began today, 3:30 eastern daylight time in the united states, 10:30 local time. by land, sea and air as the israelis put it, they will go in to try to stop the rocket lau launches that have come from gaza into israel. i believe that is a live look into gaza city. we have two correspondents on scene, john huddy and david lee miller, also in the region with a clear view. john, let's begin with you. update us as of the moment. >> reporter: shepard we are now in day 11 of the invasion on the

ground. a day that the ground invasion started. we just got an alert from the ids, the israeli defenses forces, saying that an additional 18,000 reserve troops have been called up. so that kicks the number, the total number of reservists on duty now, ground infantry, to 58,000 amassed along the border. so here we go. what we've seen so far is what we've been describing. heavy artillery fire, to the north and to the east. many locations getting targeted. missile strikes as well throughout the day, along with rocket launches targeting israel. cannon fire from offshore. we've seen helicopter, most likely apache hellfire missiles bearing down on targets. we've seen to the east, a great deal of fighting, heavy artillery fighting. that is where those ground forces are amassed right now. we've seen on the ground, we've seen the tanks with 105-mill mere cannon.

we've sear 155-cannons. and the infantry to go along with it. the tunnel busters. massive bulldozers that can take a direct hit from a land mine, or roadside bomb. they go in, they dig out those tunnels. that is what the israeli military is going after from day one, shepard. that is what the target has been. the underground tunnel stretching from south to north, from east to west, that hamas, according to military officials, has used for the storage and transportation of its long-range, medium and short-range rockets. two rockets in particular of great concern, m-75s, m-302s. m-302s have a range of up to 200 miles. right now it's quiet. we see tracer fire in the distance, but we're expecting things to get heavy even more. >> john huddy in gaza city. john, thanks very much. let's go in john to david lee miller.

the lights are where david lee is, as we've been reporting. there's a power outage. but you don't want to become a target, so david lee is in an isolated sort of situation. what's your vantage point? >> reporter: i'm about a few hundred yards from the gaza border. as you mentioned, it is dark. and it's become increasingly dark. during the past few hours, there have been more and more lights going out in gaza. this is a night operation. and that's the way the israelis want to operate. they have the advantage. they have the night vision goggles. and they operate best at night. what we're probably observing here are the first few hours of what will likely be a limited ground incursion into gaza. it is highly unlikely that the israelis are going to attempt now to retake all of gaza. but what their goal is here, as you've heard john huddy say, and we can't overstate it enough, is to go after these tunnels. when we talk about the tunnels,

shepard, specifically we're talking about the infiltration tunnels, the tunnels they have tried to use to infiltrate the israeli border. as of early this morning, 13 hamas militants made their way into israel using one of these tunnels. and it was soon thereafter that the israeli government apparently made the decision that enough is enough, and the tunnels have to be destroyed. over my shoulder, the blackness behind me are some of the towns in northern gaza. these are some of the towns that the israelis during the past few days have warned people that they have to evacuate. it is in this same area that a few years ago, shepard, the israelis detected an infiltration tunnel and destroyed it before militants could use it to cross the border. what we're witnessing now is the beginning of this process to destroy primarily these infiltration tunnels. this poses a serious threat to

israel. and underscoring that, shepard, hours after the 13 militants were detected, there was a spotter, there were spotters along the border, there was an air str were no bodies recovered. no one was captured. it's not clear if any of them were killed or they all returned alive to gaza. but there were other reports, at least one other report of a possible infiltration. this is something that has israelis very, very concerned. and it is one reason right now that we are witnessing this ground incursion that is taking place. it is very likely the israelis could be on the ground in gaza for the next week to ten days. if in fact this is the limited operation that analysts predict. a great deal will depend on what type of foe hamas and the other militants prove to be. in the past, going into gaza was a very difficult undertaking. these tunnels are often booby-trapped. there are other obstacles in

place. there are mines. hamas is well prepared for this. they have anti-tank missiles. we could see a very, very bloody fight taking place over the next few days. shepard? >> david lee, we're showing the video of the militants that you mentioned earlier. these are the militants coming to this tunnel, all racing toward it. and then the israelis drop a bomb on them. the israelis have said today, we think we saved a lot of lives here. we think they were coming into israel. we think they were a mini invasion of sorts. >> reporter: i don't want to sound overly dramatic, but you are right. i think one of the israeli officials said a catastrophe was averted. if these militants were successful in their infiltration into israel, what were they going to do? we don't know for sure. but it's very likely they were going to go to a nearby community, take people hostage, kill israelis and/or take israelis captive, kidnap them

and take them back to gaza. and you might recall that a number of years ago, you think an infiltration tunnel, militants cross the border, captured a military soldier and held him captive for about five years. he was finally returned to israel. but only in exchange for more than 1,000 palestinian prisoners. a very heavy price. israel wants to make sure that doesn't happen again. >> david lee miller, our veteran war correspondent on the gaza border. as always, david lee, thanks very much. it's now believed according to american officials that a surface-to-air missile shot a passenger jet out of the sky and 295 people are dead as a result. now to find out, did that missile come from the red zone there, in the ukrainian territory, or did it come from the other side of the russian border. under all circumstances, it would appear at least here in the early going, as one official put it to the "wall street

journal," all roads lead to moscow. that there is no way separatists could have done this without the help from russia. so what happens next. that investigation, and conti e continuing coverage of gaza and israel is next.

we have brand-new information on the missile that is believed to have brought down malaysia airlines flight 17 over the east of ukraine. jennifer griffin has it live from washington. jen? >> reporter: shepard, i'm told by a senior u.s. intelligence source that right now, the u.s. intelligence committee -- community, excuse me, is ruling out that the buk missile fired at the malaysian airlines plane was fired by the ukraine military. we reported in the past the ukraine military as well as the separatists and russia have these buk missiles which are able to fly up to 72,000 feet. now i'm told from a senior u.s. intelligence source that it was either an sa-20 or sa-11.

we've been talking about a sa-17 earlier today. i'm told by this source who is following the intelligence very closely, that they have ruled out the sa-17. it is either an sa 11 or or sa-20. they said they saw they had an 15-11 a few weeks ago, but it was not operational. then in the last 72 hours, when they saw three planes fall out of the sky in the same location in the donetsk region, they started to believe that the sa-11 was in fact operational. the senior u.s. official tells me that they cannot rule out that the missile was fired from the russian side of the border. right now, they're working till gently to trace the missiles' path. they will eventually be able to show the exact coordinates from which it was fired. they have that information. they are also curious right now,

i'm told from these intelligence sources, as to whether moscow had realtime visualization of the missile as it struck, whether this was an integrated air defense system. this intermediate range system known as the buk is sophisticated enough that it's usually integrated. its radar talks to other radars. so right now the u.s. is determining whether moscow had visualization of this missile strike. so again, a lot of developing information. but they are ruling out u.s. -- u.s. intelligence sources are ruling out if it was fired from the ukrainian military. >> thanks, jennifer. so they say they don't know exactly from whence it came. believe that? or is it more likely that they know what happened, they know exactly what happened, and they're working behind the scenes to y to get some information from those who were responsible. like maybe they want to get all

their ducks in a row. i say this based on our knowledge here of all of the assets that are available in the region, in the way of intelligence. the united states has space assets, as they like to call them, satellites that have been retrained from wherever they were looking before, over the past two months, to be focused on this very, very small area, a very small area in the east of ukraine. the europeans have satellites that are there. there are radar stations that are there. and it is our belief that they can track anything going up or down into this region, within centimeters. that the technology is there, and that they would know in realtime, oh, look, there goes a missile. oh, look, there goes a plane. and that they'll know exactly where it came from, and exactly where it went. that's the thinking. is that probably right? michael, director of foreign policy research at the brookings

institution, and live with us this afternoon, this certainly does change the game, doesn't it? >> hey, shepard. well, yeah, this will change no matter what. we can all imagine different things that happened here. i still think, first of all, that you're right, we have a lot of information. although i'm not so sure that we immediately knew how to interpret it. you know, think back to benghazi. it took a few days at a minimum to sort that out. there's a lot of confusion there. a different kind of intelligence problem. but ifrs at the cia september 12th, 2012. for the first six, eight, ten, 12 hours, there was a lot of confusion. but i think piecing this together is going to take some time. because the size of the surface-to-air missile we're talking about, while it's certainly not tiny, doesn't compare to the size of the icbm rockets that a lot of our satellites are designed to track, you know, when they get launched from geosing kro nis orbit.

there are other ways we can look. i don't know what kind of cloud cover might have blocked some of the signature of this missile. but i think your fundamental point is correct, there's a lot of information, and i think it will come together. and at some point we'll have a very clear sense of just what happened. and no matter what happened, it's going to change the game, to go back to your earlier question. >> no question vladimir putin is playing a dangerous and deadly game as he asserted force in that region. the thinking has always been that some sort of accident could happen that would change the game. it looks like now based on the totality of the reporting, it looks as if now somebody tried to shoot down a ukrainian military plane, and oops, the missile went the wrong way and took down this 777. if that is the case, what is the new world regionally and internationally for vladimir putin? >> well, i think you first of all, i agree with your hypothesis. you and i would both hasten to

add, we'll find out more and we need to stay open minded until we do. secondly, i think that as you and i know, the western world has been trying to calibrate this just right, to punish putin and his cronies enough, that they don't feel like they got away with crimea, and that they also are aware, we're still watching them carefully in eastern ukraine. but there hasn't been a real heavy additional imposition of new sanctions. of course, yesterday we did add some more. but most of our european partners did not. so that raises the question, now that we have this dramatic event, and if our hypothesis is correct that it is a russian-made weapon shipped to the separatists that brought it down, you have to ask, should we really work with our european allies to present the russians with a very stark choice. we are going to dramatically increase the sanctions now, unless we have some verifiable way of knowing that you're no longer arming the separatists. that's the kind of policy option i think we'll have to think through. >> i wonder if there wasn't

more. because when you boil it right down, vladimir putin just killed 154 dutch people. and he may well have killed 23 americans. we're waiting on the rest of the manifest. >> yeah. you're right. it could be more. in other words, it could lead to much greater implications. certainly if this thing was fired from russia, by the russian military, then all bets are off. i have a hard time going down that path just yet. i'm dubious about that. but either way, i still think your point is basically correct, that it was putin's machinations here that he thought he could somehow cleverly get away with, and keep below the radar, so to speak, that led to this tragedy. now that it's happened, to continue the same policy that led to this tragedy, would be somewhere between, you know, a crime and an atrocity. i think that gives us an opportunity to really force him to an fundamental decision.

and i think that's where probably our policy needs to go. >> michael o'hanlon from the brookings institution, michael, thanks again. >> thank you, shepard. >> our coverage continues after this.

continuing coverage of the crash of malaysia airlines flight 17. excellent reporting of the "wall street journal" and same from jennifer griffin and others here at the fox news channel, it's all coming together. >> maybe a little surprisingly, so, that the u.s. is determined that it was shot down by a missile. but officials at the pentagon go beyond that. they say, look, this was a very complicated system. it is a very effective system. it involves radar interacting with radar. being able to fire and hit a plane at 30,000, 35,000 feet cruising at 500 miles an hour is

a difficult undertaking. and separatists aren't going to be able to find a system like this and hit a missile launch. they have to be trained. then have to be familiarized with the system. so one of two things. either they were closely trained by the russians to fire this system, and they had it in their possession, or it was fired from the russian side of the border, or it was fired from the separatist region by russians. but what officials are telling julian barnes, our pentagon reporter, is that, one, all roads lead to the russians to some degree or another. that's where the pentagon already is. we'll see in the coming days whether the additional surveillance that's now been turned on the region from satellites that have been repositioned, to give a better read of what's happening on the ground, and other data that they examine, whether it leads to that conclusion as well. >> we'll have more on this in just a moment. in addition, our correspondents

are still on standby along the gaza, where the israeli invasion of gaza began just about 3 hours and 15 minutes ago. by land, by sea and by air. two breaking news stories. coverage next. well, did you know words really can hurt you? what...? jesse don't go! jesse...no! i'm sorry daisy, but i'm a loner. and a loner gotta be alone. heee yawww! geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. jesse? really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close.

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we're approaching the top of the hour on fox news channel. and all these hours later, the look at the landscape of things, we have a jet shot out of the sky presumably by someone along the russian border with ukraine. 295 innocent dead in a field. and in the middle east, israel has invaded the palestinian territories. israel has invaded the gaza, by land, sea and air, in an effort to knock out the rockets, to quote the israelis. the tunnels which the

palestinian militants use to cause harm in israel. when you look at the whole map, there's trouble. john with some final thoughts. man, it's a mess out there. >> this is some of the largest problems, foreign diplomacy has faced in the united states, in several decades. jay solomon has written about this quite recently in the journal. 58,000 israeli soldiers poised to go into gaza. what's going on in the middle east, what's happening in the ukraine, separate from this plane shootdown, what was already going on there, how this escalates it. afghanistan, which is highly unstable after a contested election. iraq, which we see dissolving before our eyes. syria, northern africa, where oil shipments are disrupted again out of libya. all the way through to asia, where there's a lot of friction over territorial disputes there. this is a very difficult time

for u.s. foreign policy across a wide array of fronts. it also speaks to the need for our allies to step forward. europe, in the case of ukraine, where ukraine is located, china, or japan in the case of asia. we need to encourage those global players to actually take a much bigger role here, and not just rely on the united states to be the policeman for the globe. >> john busy from the wall street. thanks very much. after six or so hours of breaking news coverage, we're going to return to regular programming at the top of the hour, after a quick commercial break. for all of us on the news deck, i'm shepard smith. stay tuned.

this is the fox news alert. i'm bret baier in washington. two major stories breaking at this hour. a missile hit a malaysian airlines commercial plane carrying 295 people, causing it to break up over embattled eastern ukraine. there are no survivors. the plane was shot out of the sky. we still don't know exactly who fired that missile, but senior u.s. officials tell fox they're ruling out it was fired by the ukrainian military. and just in the last few hours, israel has launched a ground incursion and air bombardment in the gaza strip. that on the heels of palestinian rocket fire that broke a cease-fire and a wave of retaliatory israeli air strikes. we begin with the story that had been the