passenger jet near the russia/ukraine border and it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. we're looking to determine whether there were american citizens on board and i directed my security team to stay in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any information we can to help determine what happened and why. our thoughts and prayers are with the families involved. >> tom costello from nbc is joining us. where does this investigation need to begin? >> it begin in the ukrainian territory and air traffic control because they have radar tapes of what happened in their air space.

they reported very quickly on that this plane was shot down. there has not been any information about whether there was a mechanical problem. they say it was shot down. they should know. so you'll probably get more information from them maybe releasing a tape. second of all, the u.s. intelligence agencies, as told by jim nbc to determine where is originated. this is flight mh-17. 295 people on board. it pushed back from the gate in amsterdam at 6:15. it took off at 6:30, bound for

kuala lumpur. this is east coast time. and then it went off radar in ukraine and they noticed there was a problem. at some point, they notified malaysia airlines that the plane was missing, that the plane had in fact lost communication with controllers and shortly there after the ukrainian interior ministry announced that the plane had been shot down. we have both sides pointing fingers at each other. we're told this was about 20 miles or so inside ukraine close to the russian border inside eastern ukraine. to get back to your original question, it's going to be difficult because this plane went down in a rebel-held area. a nine-mile area, according to

reporters, is the debris field. it's going to be very challenging to go looking through all of that and to try to piece together exactly what happened. we're told that the separatists already have the boxes. their objectivity in actually investigating this plane crash with this explosion is going to be questioned. the former head of the ntsb here in america said that if she was in charge today and any questions about sending u.s. investigators to assist, she would have serious concerns about their safety going into that area. two other points before i leave you, amsterdam airport says it's now preparing an area in the airport for arriving family members there in amsterdam who want to gather and wait for information. we continue to wait for a passenger manifest list from malaysia airlines. they are expected to release

more information at 4:00 eastern today and several airlines, the list is growing by the hour, are announcing that they will no longer fly into ukraine or over ukraine. the latest is emirates air suspending flights into kiev. british airways is investigating their one flight into kiev. by the way, united states airlines were told to avoid crimea because of the russian forces and most u.s. airlines have just avoided the area altogether. several russian airlines today say they will avoid flying into russian air space. what else can i help you with, guys? >> tom costello, thank you. i want to bring in john cox. john, are there any signs, anything that you have seen that could signify that this was not a missile?

>> well, i think the biggest thing we have to say right now is the size of the debris field is consistent with an in-flight breakup and the 777 has no history of an in-flight breakup so it says that something very, very unusual happened to the airplane or something external happened to the airplane and a missile strike would be an external force. it's one piece of evidence that is consistent with the presence of a missile strike. >> john, we've seen very sad and grizzly reports that the bodies of passengers on board are in tact at this point in the debris field. does that give you any sort of indication as to what may have happened here? >> when the airplanes break up in flight, they may very well go through a process of deceleration of slowing down as the part that someone is sitting

in arrow dynamically will slow down and so it's not at all unheard of to have in tact bodies after an in-flight breakup. the other thing, too, is after looking at the pictures that have come out is the type of wreckage is going to be of great interest to the investigators looking for evidence that the metal was torn in flight as opposed to being damaged after impact with the ground. if you look at some of the pieces, they would be consistent with that. it's too early to say that for sure. but it does say that all of these small bits of evidence do lend itself to the idea that the plane broke up in flight and 777s don't do that. >> john, working with the thesis that you've outlined, do you think if you were a pilot, that you had any warning that this missile was coming at you. >> there is no warning system on

civilian air plplanes to say th there was a radar lock. there would not have been any indication to the crew, if in fact it was a missile strike, that it was about to happen. >> stay with us. we're going to bring in a former ntsb investigator, greg feith. >> nice to be with you. >> we have conflicting accounts with ukraine as we've reported, accusing the separatists from doing this and about their responsibility. what do you think, in terms of the evidence here, that ukraine may have or be gathering, what will they be able to share and when? >> well, that's a very good question because of the political issues that surround this now unfortunate event. that's going to dictate how much information was released and the

context with which it was released. when we look at the event itself, if in fact it's a sis pell shoot-down, what was the intent, why did they target this airplane? was it an arrant missile shot that somebody believed they were shooting down a military aircraft? we won't really know. whoever has taken the cockpit voice recorder or data recorder, as has already been recorded, what intent do they have for that information if they can desize officer it. you have to have special equipment. what do they intend to do? are they trying to cover up a nefarious type of event? >> is there anything that ukraine, in your view, can do in the coming days if they wanted to show the world that they do

have something that supports their theory here? >> absolutely. they are going to have to provide any kind of factual information, if they have radar data, satellite imagery through the military. if there is some evidence that they can provide to the public that says that this was a missile shoot-down and that it was unintentional or intercepted any kind of communication that they were taking claim and they were able to dispute it or refute it, that type of information is going to have to be publicized. we saw this with mh-370 and all of the speculation that was abound. unfortunately, this has happened again in this particular event. it's automatically a shoot-down by a missile. we don't have any information to

corroborate it. >> it was a terrible and horrible accident, what about those claims? >> well, i would think that under the circumstances, given the rebel fighting, given all of the political circumstances that occurred, that had been occurring in the ukraine right now, i mean, this is a route that apparently malaysia has been flying. this is probably a daily flight. so this isn't anything new. this is not one of those aircrafts that have drifted off course and then the russians shot it down thinking it was a threat. whoever did this probably had some level of intelligence but may not have actually been able to have enough information to believe that it was a civilian

airliner versus what they believe to be a military cargo airplane or a perceived threat. >> greg, please sit tight. we're going to turn to andrea mitchell, host of "andrea mitchell reports" here on msnbc. >> what just a dreadful situation. we don't know the cause but it's terribly suspicious and we know what petro poroshenko is reporting. >> let's talk about the foreign policy background. president obama spoke with putin

about the sanctions that we just levied on russia. do we have any feel about why we have the additional sanctions coming into place now? >> because there was intelligence which tells you that they have a very good and quick way to find the signature of whatever did happen to this airplane. we have very good intelligence, according to the white house and treasury as to what is happening across that border by russia. in contrast to vladimir putin's promises on d-day, on june 6th he had lunch with president poroshenko and other leaders as well and they were on the sidelines of the normandy commemoration and what the president was calling putin on today was to explain the sanctions, to say, according to the white house, how much he regretted doing this but he had no alternative because there

was, in fact, an increase of armaments occurring. that t that has led to several incidents, two planes that have gone down in the last couple of days. one was a troop cargo plane and the other was a fighter last night when this horrible incident took place. >> we know that the sanctions, the ramping up of the sanctions this week has made russia extraordinarily angry. medvedev saying we may go back to the '80s with our relations and we reserve the right to retaliate, calling the united states evil. and then something like this happens following, as you noted, the downing of two ukrainian

planes this week. it's very curious timing. >> curious and terrible times. look, this buk missile system, the uk, could have been what nato calls a sam 11 or sam 17. they are virtually indistinguishable. either would have been unable to take down a plane. it could have been some tear blg incident not related to russia. it lends to this allegation. poroshenko spoke with vice president biden who was in detroit on another trip and biden was talking to the kiev leader about his concerns. we've talked to others who were involved in election observation as the ukrainian election led to this result and not to a

dimminuation of the conflict. this, at the same time as you were alluding to, when the president and the white house has the conflict to worry about in the middle east, the continuing escalation between israel and gaza, despite a brief couple of hours of a humanitarian time-out in relation to a u.n. request today, increasing diploma see behind this. serious talks with iran, iraq, afghanistan, terror in pakistan, this is a very, very difficult time for this white house. >> indeed. always an honor to have angry yeah mitchell with us from washington. our next guest is michael weiss who just wrote a piece about russia firing missiles at ukraine. timelier than he can imagine. there have been reports of two ukrainian planes recently shot

down. so a quote from the guardian, if the plane was shot done, it could have obama have been shot down by a state authority. the only country that is trying to prevent ukrainians from entering air space is russia. russia has forced ukraine to use troops. what do you think? >> i think he says it must have been a state actor involved. that's a clever way of putting sanctioned by a member of the gru, today, in fact, he put up on the russian version of facebook a press statement saying that we have today downed a ukrainian cargo plane. he gave the exact location and said we warned them, do not come into our skies. that has been taken down since.

in addition to which, his militia, people republic of donetsk, they posted an image of these buk anti-aircraft systems. they are quite capable of hitting at the altitude that the malaysian airlines flight was flying in. they are doing it with material that was almost certainly sent to them by russia. separatists have acknowledged that they've received tanks for the purpose of defending slovyansk. >> how concerned should vladimir putin be at this point saying russia is not involved in this, our hands are clean when in fact

russians have been across the border that have helped the separatists with this. how does that change the situation? >> it's sort of comical to say that they have crossed the border and come back with heavy -- the russian side is controlled by the sfb, russian intelligent services. the idea that tanks could roll across that border without being hindered in any way is farcical. why is he appointed himself between kiev and the west to try and resolve this crisis? what does russia have to do with it? by mr. putin's own admission, absolutely nothing. there was forensic evidence, admissions by the actors on the ground. russia is feeling this crisis.

they are giving us the material that we need. they are promising us that more is on the way. more heavy equipment. what more do you want here? that's not to say definitely who shot down the plane. >> if the plane was in fact shot down there's a lot that we don't know. we're speculating. i want to speak out to the reports that you're talking about, they posted those items on the web and twitter and msnbc has not confirmed the voracity of that. all of that said, if the outline is true, that the aircraft missile system came from russia and it's the separatists work that brought down this plane, what does that mean for the u.s., their relationship with russia which is already obviously in a very tense place? >> well, again they are a gru

agent. he's a russian spy and military intelligence officer. russia's capability is indisputable. now they need to prove exactly what happened. this is a contaminated site. the separatists own the territory where the plane crashed. they are saying that they will return the black box. to russia, instead of handing it over to the international community to be defended. they've talked about a level of coordination between the kremlin and the people republic of donetsk. >> michael weiss, hang with us at the table. let's get to reaction on capitol

hill. congressman peter welch, democrat from vermont is joining us now. >> great to be with you. >> you serve on national security and foreign operations. congressman, angry yeah mitchell had senator john mccain on earlier. if it's a result of separatists or russian actions, i think there's going to be hell to pay. what is your response and what is the need and the long-term goals that we have and it's pretty straightforward. it's stability and self-determination in ukraine. in putin, where there's a lot of suspicion, has been a very bad actor in this. first of all, seizing crimea. he's gone beyond that with the

southeast ukraine and that's a volatile factor and he's behind that, as the previous commentator is suggesting. so the two people who are really critical now, our number one, president poroshenko. my view, he's doing a very good job. he's calling for restraint. he's investigating before proposing actions. the second person who is critical is putin. what putin needs to do -- he's got to back off in southeast ukraine because he's unleashing chaos there. when you've got the separatists in there and they are using violence to get their way in that region and the third actor is in the european community. already racking up sanctions. if it turns out that this was

the russian military which could be even worse. and it's going to create an immense uncoordinated sanctions against russia. >> and, of course, congressman, when you're dealing with a global super power like russia, everything interrelates with everything else. we've been working with iran to deal with their nuclear program. russia has been cooperated with us and helping us work with iran on that. it becomes nearly impossible to talk to them about anything, if indeed they had any part of this like they did. >> that's right. a lot of issues would be compromising, including the efforts to get a deal on nukes in iran. but the bottom line here is that putin has to back off. you have a volatile region in

southeastern ukraine. folks have a russian orientation. folks have kiev orientation. that has to be resolved critically, not privately. some of the folks that are separatists are pretty out there. they want to go back to russia. you can't encourage them. if putin thinks he can micromanage those folks, he's going to figure out that he has an isis on his hands. putin has to sober up and take some responsibility because he has the best chance of rolling back the encouragement for the separatists and that is a volatile situation no matter what the outcome of the investigation is on the cause of this. >> all right. congressman peter welsh, thank you so much. let's turn now to an msnbc exclusive. u.s. staff sergeant michael boyd is at the u.s. embassy in ukraine and says that he saw a missile in the air hit the

plane. please tell us what you saw there on the ground in ukraine. >> i was being looking out the window and saw a projectile flying through the sky and it would appear that it was shot down by a blast of wind by howard stern's -- >> can you tell us anything more about military training that may have been coming from. >> well, you're a dumb -- >> i'm sorry, sir? all right. we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with all of the latest, next. if i can impart one lesson to a

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back now with the latest on flight 17 yor listening prior to the break, we thought we had an eyewitness on the scene.

that individual was not tall leanne eyewitness. let's get back to how this is playing out at the white house. we have nbc's kirsten well customer. we heard from the president on this briefly. any word on when we may hear a bit more from him? >> well, i anticipate that he will come back out and address the nation when he has more information. those remarkses that he made earlier today from delaware, krystal, as you know, were incredibly brief. president obama also saying that the u.s.' top priority is to determine if u.s. citizens were on board that flight and also that the u.s. would offer assistance in terms of getting to the bottom of what happened. we learned a short time ago that vice president biden, traveling on a previously scheduled trip in detroit spoke with ukraine's president poroshenk owe offered u.s. assistance.

i asked what that will look like and it will be focused on determining the cause of the crash and black box analysis. we also know that president obama spoke with vladimir putin before he left for his trip to delaware and then new york today. that conversation focused on the sanctions levied yesterday against the u.s. on russia. and we know that the bulk of that conversation focused on the sanctions but at the very end, russian president vladimir putin did note that reports have come in of the malaysian airlines flight that has gone down. the backdrop to this tragedy today is the increasingly fraught tensions between the united states and russia. again, the stiffest round of sanctions against russia. those sanctions are because russia has only escalated the crisis in ukraine by enhancing

the military incursion there, enhancing its support of the rebel forces there. so undoubtedly this plane is only adding to the tensions in the region, the tensions between the united states and russia. president obama also directing his national security team to be in direct contact with senior ukrainian officials. so those are some of the conversations going on behind the scenes here at the white house today as this administration continues to monitor the tragedy unfolding there in ukraine. back to you guys. >> kristen welker, thank you for joining us. joining us now is general barry mccaffrey. ukraine has not provided much evidence yet but under that theory and those allegations, this would only be the fourth time that a commercial airline has been shot down. the last one being about 25 years ago. walk us through how the u.s.

military responds to these kind of allegations and this kind of security situation. >> well, first of all, my assumption is that we've already got our ir satellites, infrared heat signature satellites would have told us probably whether there was a missile launched or not and from where it came. that's number one. number two, these targets are acquired by radar. our radar signals are like a flash flight in the dark. it's almost impossible not to see it. we should have radar information and the national security administration, it was monitoring the chatter on the ground. my assumption is, this was not russian military on the other side of the border. it would be a level of incompetence to shoot down a commercial airliner, known

flight path, known altitude, identification, friend or foe, tells you immediately it's a civilian aircraft. it sounds like sophisticated equipment across the border in the hands of somebody who barely understands what he's doing. but once you fire that missile, there's a greater than 90% chance it's going to get a target, never mind a straight and level civilian aircraft. >> general, what you're referring to, though, in the u.s. planning process, are you saying that it's likely that the u.s. government has a very clear of what happened, they are just not ready to go public yet? >> yeah, absolutely. i would assume within an hour we pulled together mostly what happened and for a variety of reasons they are trying to sort out what to do about it. to be fair, the ukrainian government has buk missile launchers. it's in the hands of the separatists and ukrainian

national forces. i'm sure they are going to want to cross their sources and make sure they got it right. this looks like undoubted lealy incompetent mistake and putin and his efforts to influence ukraine, is pushing military equipment across that border and, now, on the other hand, this is a localized conflict. it's hard to imagine the u.s. or european union in any way taking military action over this. it's hard to imagine the russians following this up with direct on-the-ground intervention. they are fighting through proxies. putin is an okay kgb guy. he's using proxies to carry out a war against the ukraine. >> even if we characterize this as an incompetent mistake by russian separatists not directly ordered by putin or anything like that but still almost

certainly weapons that putin gave to the separatists so he does maintain some or a lot of responsibility in this situation. so does this, in your mind, change putin's global standing? >> well, he ought to feel horrendously embarrassed by the aggressive hand-fisted blatant actions against a legal separate state, no question about it. and russia is a poor, screwed up country, except it's got oil. they are very vulnerable to economic retaliation, as is europe. i think we're going to find our european allies very keen of not going escalatory over this incident. this is a regional war between the russians and ukrainians and

we have few tools to effectively influence. i was very happy to see the president be very brief and noncomittal. he's going to be under pressure from congress to do something and we need to throttle back and think carefully about what that something is. >> you brought up president obama obviously under a lot of pressure here. you know, the relationship between russia and the united states you can describe as frosty, probably the frostiest it's been since the cold war. what would you like to hear from president obama? we're expected likely to hear from him before the end of the day. what would you like to hear him say? >> first of all, we've got to get the facts and i think the pentagon and national security agency and cia are going to know what the facts are. we'll find out if american citizens were on board, what nationalities were involved. they've got to get on the ground and investigate. some lun will try to conceal, which is not going to be possible, their complicity in

this act. that means the fbi, national transportation board. this is not the time to start signaling with u.s. military power our willingness to get engaged. we shouldn't be willing to get engaged on the ground in eastern ukraine in any way. >> general, you're saying something that is strategically understandable but will probably be difficult as congress weighs in in the coming days and as we look at this tremendous loss of life, including americans. take a listen to what senator mccain said on msnbc earlier today. >> if it's true, this is a horrible, tragic event which was certainly unanticipated by anybody, no matter who they are and there will be incredible repercussions if this were the case. exactly what those would be will

have to be determined how we find out who was responsible. it has the earmarks of a tragic mistake made by someone who had the capability to just shoot down an aircraft and we know that at least from the last few couple of weeks that that could be russian or separatists, russian capability. >> being careful about what we don't know and how this ties back to putin, he says there should be consequences for that. >> the real problem is not in russia. the real problem is ukraine as a nation, where the eastern part of it is largely russian historically, russian-speaking people. they don't want to be a part of the ukraine. there's a giant battle on the horizon over the city of donetsk where the russians have given artillery to the separatists.

the ukrainian armed forces are about to seize the city. we're going to see a significant high-intensity war in eastern ukraine. so the russians are complicit in fueling this, their own people they view in eastern ukraine and there's a giant civil war going on and they are hand-fisted in the way he goes about it. because he's harming himself in the actions that he's taking. >> general mccafferty, thank you for your time and your services. let's bring in hostage investigator jim cavanaugh. great to have you back. you're experienced with investigations, with explosions. as krystal mentioned earlier,

somebody on the scene before anybody else, many of the bodies were in tact indicating that the plane had made a controlled landing. as an investigator, what does that say to you? >> i would say they are wrong. there's no controlled landing going on here. the plane, from the reports, is spread up over a debris field of nine-miles long. that's not a controlled landing. a blast and explosion can leave people in tact. this aircraft is large. it's a 777 and it's a huge aircraft. if it was one of these missiles that you've been discussing, like a buk missile, the payload, maybe 75 kilograms of explosives, it doesn't hit a plane that size and like totally disintegrate it. it's designed to take it out of the sky. no, it's not going to be blown into small bits. you see on the video, there's large pieces of wheels and air

frames and tail sections and so forth. that could all be consistent with a missile launch. and, you know, i think general mccaffrey gave such a cogent view on it. six miles is extremely high. who has the capability to do it? once you get there, if it's a missile, it's not in yet. there's been two planes shot down recently. and this is a very unusual situation so if regular troops, russian insurgents are not trained, that are fanatics that have a system like this, they can't operate very well, maybe they can just rudimentary use it, it could very well have been believing it was cargo aircraft from ukraine and they would take it down.

could very well be. we don't know all of the facts but i think the government -- i think our government has many more facts than we have and usually they are leadiving a fe hours before it's public and they travel in a pack of vehicles and who has it, i'm sure we know, i think the answers will come in this case. they will come quicker than we think. i don't know if they will come in the next hours but certainly in the next days. >> jim, there are reports that separatists are in possession of the black boxes that we talk about in these airplane crashes. how much of the investigation will be hampered because of the location and the fact that it crashed in is separatist-controlled area? >> that's a great question. i think if the black box is in the hands of the russian insurgents, we'll never see it

again, if in fact it was a missile fired by them. so we'll never see it. if it was indeed an accident and there was no motive or accident fired from the ground, you could very well see it but i doubt we'll see the black books. nobody is going to get to look at it. if they are responsible for it. >> do we need information from the black boxes in order to determine what fully happened here? >> no, i don't think so. i think we can try to get every last piece of information like we would in a forensic, prosecutable case but i don't think that's necessarily needed. we can eliminate and hit the aircraft by the satellite image

of the explosion, we can eliminate the accidental causes and eliminate a terrorist on board and we don't necessarily need all of those and a pilot to be aware that his aircraft was struck. it wouldn't necessarily be of great value. you know, who is responsible, what is going to be done about it, is the russian government going to remove the weapons from the insurgents or not. a whole different set of logistics for the white house and the military. >> and you said this investigation may not take as long as people might imagine. give us a clearer sense of what that timeline looks like. how long before we get answers here as to who is to blame? >> i think the united states is

sitting on more answers than we have. publicly. they have answers and they have satellite information and photographic information. they can very well be looking at a vehicle if a missile was launched from it and watching it. so i think they have more information. they are trying to deal with it. they are trying to deal with the ukrainian government, the russian government and the political situation if no missile was fired and we can determine that, then that is also a thing that moves the investigation a step forward because the intelligence agency can say, no, there's no evidence of a missile being fired. it's not there. that takes the investigation to another point and maybe the black box would be obtainable from the russians through their proxies over there and the investigation could move forward.

you know, is it accidental, is it terrorists on board, you know, in another direction. we don't have the answer but we certainly have a lot of things. i would call it a major league category. the two planes recently shot down, the missile launcher seen moving by the associated press, some comments, other reporting certainly looks like this is a strong, major league category if this was shot down by a missile. >> jim cavanaugh, thank you for your expertise. let's turn to a friend of the show, ambassador mark ginsburg. ambassador, we don't know everything yet but obviously the ukrainian government is blaming separatists saying that they shot down this plane with a buk missile system likely coming from russia. what is your reaction to all of this? >> well, based on everything that i've heard so far from our guests, it sounds very much that there was indeed this type of attack.

as i was looking at -- before coming on the show, looking at the radar of all of the flight paths and planes that have been over ukraine, what is shocking is that, first of all, it's quite evident that the plane disappeared over a particular place in eastern ukraine. you don't have to be an aviation expert to look at where these planes have been flying. secondly, what is even more disturbing and it's going to take an investigation by what is going to be done. >> we have a statement from the prime minister of israel's office saying that a large israeli defense force has just launched a ground operation in the gaza strip. again, quoting from israel's spokesperson here, a new phase of operation protective edge has

begun. this, of course, follows ten days of back and forth attacks between hamas and israel by land, air, and sea and, of course, as you have discussed and covered several attempts to reach some kind of sustainable cease-fire. so again, we can report israel launching this ground invasion. what should we expect to see in this kind of operation? >> well, this is, first of all, indicative of the cease-fire negotiations that broke down. both proposals rejected by hamas and clearly they have lobbed them in and they are going to

try to cleanse it of missile-launching capability and to encounter the onslaught of the missiles. they went in and the enormous havoc and destruction to hamas and had to vacate gaza. this time it remains to be scene. what is president netanyahu's military perspective? is he going to try to rid gaza of hamas troops as well as its leadership? i can tell you one thing, if the israelis go in and this time do not stop the missile launching, mr. netanyahu and his government

are going to face a lot of questions from the public. >> ambassador, as you're speaking, we're looking at live shots there in explosions. so this announcement here from the idf simultaneous with the operation, obviously, the ministry of strategic affairs minister spoke earlier today talking about the fact that if there were to be an operation they know what it it tatakes, t know how to do it and it could be months. a statement that drew a lot of notice. walk us through your understanding and prior incursions given this escalation, what the idf is doing here and how long they might proceed on what they're calling this serious ground operation in gaza? >> it sounds very chilly if, indeed, it's accurate that the israeli minister referred to an operation as taking months because that's probably an indication that the israelis at least are considering

re-occupying vast portions of the gaza strip and in effect to demilitarize the strip rather than to engage in the incursion which resulted in a great deal of fighting, but ultimately did not rid the gaza strip of hamas and its military wing and so based -- ever since the israelis vacated the gaza strip unilaterally and hamas took over in 2006 from the plo in a minor civil war, this has been an ongoing problem, as you know, for the israelis. i don't know whether or not in the end the international community, much less the israeli public opinion is going to stomach a long-term fight for re-annexing or taking back control over gaza completely and how the egyptians and the international community will react so the israelis are treading on very thin ice on both domestically and internationally and it all depends how quickly netanyahu and his military can accomplish what has to be a declared

objective once and for all by the israeli government because you can't expect israelis to go in there because there's been a huge call-had up of reservists. >> 40,000 and they cannot keep these people deployed in gaza without the israeli government placing a significant amount of its current standing military to re-occupy gaza in an environment which is going to be extraordinarily hostile. >> some of the thin ice that you're referring to here has been criticism for the israelis for civilian casualtieses already incurred in gaza. what sort of precautions will be taken in a ground invasion to minimize those sorts of casualties? >> they've dropped an enormous number of leafs and sent telephone warnings north of gaza city, that is approximately ten miles into the gaza strip to ask, in effect, order the occupants of both the refugee camps and the villages to vacate

and indeed, many of those people have already fled. but when you start talking about occupying gaza city and the area south of gaza city, we're talking an area of 1.8 million people, many of whom were already bitter and angry over what they've endured over the last ten days from israeli shelling and from air attacks. so the israelis aren't walking in as liberators and they're walking into an environment that is putting them in harm's way because, indeed, they have a hostile population as well as a very vigilant and determined terrorist group and they'll booby trap virtually every house. >> that goes to the other dimension of this which is increasing reports of civilian casualties and casualties of minors, of children in gaza and that's before as we're reporting right now this breaking news of this new ground invasion. how does israel in pursuing this deal with the international human rights concerns and the

international scrutiny albeit on a day of a lot of international news here, but the international scrutiny of the treatment and -- and impacts on civilians and minors and a lot of people in gaza territory who say they have nothing to do with hamas' attacks on israel? >> the israeli govern am has consistently said that its adversary is not the palestinian people, but indeed hamas. however, that's really small potatoes for people who have nothing to do with this conflict like the young boys who were killed on the beach, the civilians caught in the middle of this. i've been to gaza enough times, and i just came back from the middle east a few days ago and while it is perfectly understandable how israelis feel about hamas missile attacks, there's no doubt, there's no way that the israeli defense forces can go into gaza and cleanse gaza of hamas without inflicting inadvertently, and i'll use the

word inadvertently, not intentionally, but inadvertently enormous humanitarian suffering on a population that just cannot escape what essentially is the parasitic control that hamas has on every corner of every street where these people live. >> you talk about israel not having enough iron dome interceptors. just this week they approved a defense spending bill that would double funding for israeli defense including $351 million for more iron dome interceptors. is that going to make a difference and help change this conflict and make israel defensive enough that they can slow down this conflict? >> the iron dome system costs approximately $10,000 each time one of those missiles is fired to intercept a hamas missile and its had about a 90% success rate. however, that being said, it's not 100% effective, number one. number two, the amount of iron

dome batteries that israel have does not, in effect, cover anything that represents the entire country of israel and it only protects the area south of tel aviv and that's where most of these missiles have fallen. obviously, israel is grateful, i'm sure for the support of the american people and the taxpayer are providing, but let's be real here. one of the decisions why the israeli government took to go into the the northern gaza is because they know that there's an endless supply of missiles that hamas has continuing to receive them through smuggling tunnels in the sinai peninsula and as long as the sinai peninsula remains an open cesspool for missile infiltration from iran. the israelis are caught between a rock and a hard place and even with iron dome, every time those air raid sirens go off, hundreds of thousands of israelis have to run for cover and leave their jobs and run for air raid shelters and that's not a way to

run a country. >> israel has gone in with a ground invasion. we've seen a few explosions take place. you've brought up the fact that this has been a conflict for years and years. every president over the past 60 years, every administration has been faced with this, john kerry has tried to push for peace talks. it seems as if there's very little we can do at this point. what do you think is going on right now at the state department with john kerry behind closed doors? how much leverage do we actually have? >> the israeli government and prime minister netanyahu made it clear he's not going to listen to either his strongest ally or to the international community when it comes to stopping these missile attacks by hamas and other terrorist organizations, but i suspect that the israelis if anything will listen closely to what their new allies and the president of egypt will say to them about this incursion. hamas is on the ropes so to speak and the egyptians will have an enormous amount of leverage over what the israelis will be able to do and get away

with. >> there is one thing that i think the prime minister of israel does not want to do is to convert the new president of egypt from an ally into adversary because of the outcry about israeli incurrings into gaza militarily. i think that in the end the americans will probably be consulting not only with our allies and not only with netanyahu, but also with the new president of egypt which has not been, by the way, a very good relationship with mr. kerry and the new egyptian president. the bilateral ties between egypt and the united states have been severely strained over the the last year since mr. morsi was overthrown. so it will require mr. kerry to get on a plane again and see what he can do to try to get the egyptians to exercise some constraints on israeli actions and by the way, most likely for mr. netanyahu to get a call from mr. kerry to basically find exactly what his mission is and get out as requesticly as possible. >> you can see the explosions

going on in gaza. ambassador mark ginsburg on a very busy news day across the globe. our coverage on the israeli ground invasion and the plane crash continues right now with alex wagner. >> we are awaiting a press conference from malaysia airlines on breaking news. a malaysia airlines passenger plane with 295 people onboard has gone down near the border with russia. there are unconfirmed reports that it was shot down. let us start with what we know. just before noon on the east coast, malaysia airlines announced it had lost contact with the boeing 777 malaysia airlines mh17 to kuala lumpur. we have new, dramatic video, unconfirmed from nbc, but reportedly from the crash scene showing a sprawling field of debris, some of which appears to have the malaysia airlines logo. evidence of scattered pass books and guide books litters a

smoking field. more video shows billowing black smoke in the sky with streaks of what appears to be white hot material falling to the ground. unconfirm unconfirmed, they reportedly show the wreckage from the crash which left no survivors. amid the images of destruction there are many questions and few answers about just what caused this tragedy. a ukrainian military adviser claims the plane was shot down by pro-russian separatists, hit by a missile fired from the ground. those separatists deny responsibility and a separatist leader andre bergen told the a.p. he was certain it was ukrainian troops who brought the plane down. that is a claim the ukrainian government denies. right now both the state department and the pentagon there is yet no indication as to what caused this crash. white house officials say president obama and russian president vladimir putin spoke about the incident by phone earlier today. this afternoon speaking at