and to establish the facts of what has happened almost immediately speculation began that the jet had been shot down period i said turly because you don't have the actual we don't have all the detail you want to be sure of what i say apparently. had been shot down shot down not an action blown out of the sky by seven pm local time both kiev and the anti-government sides had washed their hands of responsibility the government claimed that they're not carry out any operations while a self defense spokesperson says that they simply did not have the weapons that could reach that high by ten pm ukrainian time fighters in the claim to have found the black box the flight's data recorder promising to hundreds of or to international investigators more again as the. if you asian security expert richard blum told us that while experts are looking into the details of the crash at the end of the day it really shows the danger of flying over

a war zone. i think technical experts may have to adoption is in terms of how big the debris how many pieces what's burning what's not. you can make deductions in terms of whether there was an implosion or an explosion on the part of the aircraft but again i think this really isn't the mystery story it goes back to out frankly flogging what is functionally a war zone and there are political issues and military issues and that's with really key are getting that it's not a mystery it's really a question of what happens how people are affected throughout the world because of what happened in eastern ukraine. now the nationalities of the majority of people on board the crash malaysian airliner have now been identified more than half of the passengers one hundred fifty four of them to be exact were dutch and another thirty eight victims were malaysian including the fifteen crewmembers on board also on the plane were nine britons four germans three filipinos and one canadian so was

to hit has been the netherlands which has lost more than one hundred fifty of its citizens. in our reporting from amsterdam where the relatives of the victims were meeting in shock. that malaysian airlines flight was twinned with a flag carrying airline. and the majority of the passengers as you said were in fact dutch citizens one hundred fifty four passport holders twenty three malaysian citizens as well as passengers from australia and europe the scenes here on saddam's airport where that ill fated plane took off from were just of complete despair desperation from the families that we've seen them trying to get information about what took place and why it's hard to imagine what's going through their minds how they're feeling but of course it's such a sensitive situation that they are being here at the airport for some time whisked

away by police to an undisclosed location on the other side of the airport but we were able to get that and see them gathering there again just completely sold lots of police guarding these people because they're obviously. just in complete and utter despair at the moment but the police keeping press i don't. we were told to move away as quickly as possible and the scene is very much clear of journalists so they're kept well away but relatives bearing the majority of the law says and trying to establish what happened to their loved ones and why or. from amsterdam where the plane took a flight now we also have our correspondents in ukraine as well in fact our spanish correspondent francisco was one of the first international journalists on the scene at the crash site right now. his report. the situation in this kilometer that is

around is that you can see several pieces of the aircraft and also several bodies that the situation is really complicated and it's a tragedy when we talk with the fire man they say that they been implied no one and what they're talking about the numbers it's almost three hundred people who were in this aircraft the last information on that day in my last airline's heart is when they were in the air in an air and they didn't have any more information on their start the government a korean government and the local government to talk and who are accused each other about who was the responsible the militia antique here said that they don't have the capability to shoot an aircraft who is in a distance of ten thousand meters and they were saying that is the ukrainian army

forces who shot down this aircraft of my lashon airlines who are coming from amsterdam to kuala lumpur this situation right now the government open an investigation and is clear that this accident has important political connotations because it is not just an accident of an aircraft because of the bad moreover it's a situation that is very important because here very close to the border in the last days there was a big comeback between the militia and and the granny armed forces harrowing stories of graphic images coming from the scene locals who saw the plane fly over their heads and hit the ground this is how they describe it the moment it all came down. i saw a piece of the plane fall about four hundred meters from my apartment when i went to check it out i saw scattered bodies from

a distance of looked like debris was falling but as it turned out it was people falling out of the aircraft i heard the noise of the planes unfold the bombardment would start soon and i also heard shooting somewhere from above we're used to the sound of shooting here but then there was a loud clap and i looked up and sort of something fooling moving me to pieces the main product while here it exploded of the plane were falling onto the roof of our house i came to help my brother puts out the fire. and earlier in a phone conversation with barack obama vladimir putin stressed the importance of an immediate and unconditional cease fire in ukraine the leaders of the software claim that don yes republican eastern ukraine have already announced a humanitarian truce will be implemented to allow investigators in russia's interfax news agency quoting a source in the russian aviation industry suggesting that president putin splay now could have actually been the target it's claimed the russian leaders jet went over

warsaw at exactly the same height as the doomed boeing just forty minutes later a spokesperson for russia's federal transport agency refused to comment saying it never discusses details of the routes taken by the president and other top officials and data from the flight tracking it service flight radar twenty four suggests that the plane it deviated from its route the route passenger planes normally take over ukraine is this one that we can see on the map right now from. to bed younes but the malaysian plane actually went over a larger part of the troubled country and the reason for the change is still unknown at this time. sergey from the interstate aviation committee says that an international commission must now be allowed to investigate. flaws in lists understanding the difficulty of the situation in the area of the incident we

consider it necessary to create an international investigation commission which could be established under the authority of the international civil aviation organization and to pass on to it all the flight recorders one after another major air carriers are diverting their planes around ukrainian airspace among them the likes of air france. europe's transport agency euro control has advised all the e.u. carriers to avoid ukraine's airspace let's get more now and join our teams peter all of us live in. good morning to you peter international reaction so swift coming off a lot more sort of areas what can you tell us. but i can tell you from right here in germany where it seems that at least four of their citizens were on board this doomed flight we heard from anglo-american the chancellor very short statement she just said she was completely shocked we are expecting a more extensive statement from the chancellor

a little later on this morning there was already a scheduled press conference from uncle americal that was obviously now going to be completely dominated by this the from the foreign minister here in germany as well frank while. he said he was calling for an international investigation and he was basically shocked beyond words by this but it's the dutch prime minister mr who has some of the worst. his name his country suffered the worst it seems from this horrific tragedy one hundred fifty four at least citizens it seems were on board that flight many people are calling for for answers they want to know what happened to their their loved ones and they want to know what happened to their own their own fellow countrymen so we are expecting another statement from him later on in just a few hours time in fact but he did come out on on thursday and say that there was

so little known and they needed to concentrate on finding out what caused. this this terrible tragedy in the u.k. david cameron the prime minister held a meeting of top level government officials on thursday as they try to work out what they knew for sure where they could move on with regards to how they were going to deal with this it seems around nine people from the united kingdom were on board that flight. and also the u.k. then went to the u.n. security council and and asked for an emergency session to discuss this situation not session will take place in new york. on friday. but you know we've seen a outpouring of condo lence from from leaders here in europe as well as leaders around the world of course for what is a tragedy that touched not just the. not just the netherlands where the flight originated from all the all malaysia where the flight was headed to or ukraine

indeed where the flight medic it's tragic end but everybody people from all over the world were on board this plane and they are it's now a global sharing of grief this terrible tragedy but with regards to airlines and flights that are currently schedule or scheduled to fly over ukraine many airlines have said that they will be rerouting. their planes to make sure that they don't even go over any ukrainian airspace but it's far is a euro controlled they're the the body that's in charge of air safety they overlook a safety in europe they've said no no. jets no flights no commercial planes we should fly over eastern ukraine that area is now a no fly zone following this terrible tragedy this is of course we've heard reacted touched many people here in europe because of amsterdam being such the the international air hub here in europe one of the major ones along signing up paris

and frankfurt here in germany but it is one of the major global. travel hubs many people from all around the world been touched by this tragedy peter and you can gauge your reaction as you were saying from germany and europe but also from the u.k. the dutch as well who have lost would appear to be the majority of people on this flight and here from moscow are the russian president vladimir putin calling for an open and transparent international investigation so as the world comes together we'll continue to follow this breaking news story here on r.t. international peter all of a thank you. let's now take a look at the flight path of m.h. seventeen it took off from. schiphol airport at ten fifteen g.m.t. heading for kuala lumpur it flew over the netherlands germany and poland then it entered ukrainian airspace passing over volatile eastern ukraine now the boeing seven hundred seven was fifty kilometers from the russia ukraine border when it

lost contact with air traffic control and it crashed near the village of. the russia ukraine border before we get to her reports only further warn you of the report does contain some very graphic images judging by the pictures that it's a miracle that it hasn't hit any of the houses any of the residential houses located in that area at least we do not have any confirmation as to that regard representatives from self-proclaimed donetsk people's republic are said to have recovered the black boxes the flight data recorders now be handing them over to law school as initial reports suggested or. we cannot say with certainty however the prime minister of the self-proclaimed people's republic did say they're going to declare a truce for several days in order to make it easier for the investigations take place and indeed ukrainian officials have said that they're launching as well as a criminal case into this incident. international assistance have also come

in to ukraine russia was among the first ones to offer assistance that came from the ministry of emergencies the u.s. has also said that they're willing to help out and they are already voices being heard from the e.u. officials for saying that an international investigation into this tragedy is needed. on the boeing triple seven is the world's largest twin jet airliner it was launched in one thousand nine hundred five and has a capacity of up to four hundred forty passengers this particular plane's a very first flight was on july the seventh one thousand nine hundred seven and its last exactly seventeen years later on july seventeenth two thousand and fourteen. u.s. intelligence officials claim that the plane was downed by a surface to air missile but have not specifically blamed either side in this case vice president joe biden said a team of specialists will be sent to assist ukrainian authorities with the

investigation or he's going to you can is in washington following the american reaction for us. u.s. officials believe it was a surface to air missile that shot down the malaysian plane over ukraine the u.s. is not pointing the blame thing there just yet president obama spoke with the ukrainian leader shameka we can be sure that the blame game in the coming days and weeks is going to be vicious there are questions as to who had the capability to do this the ukrainian military certainly has the capability a launch like that would require a team of specialists as we hear from many experts and there is another question why was this malaysian airliner flying over the conflict zone we know that u.s. airlines had been avoiding the area for some time to size me because it was deemed unsafe what kind of instructions that this plane would see from the ukrainian air traffic control and what exactly was happening inside the cockpit just moments before the tragedy hopefully we'll get more answers when investigators get hold of

the black box of course one of the main questions at this point is who is going to investigate this the u.n. secretary general spoke out calling for an international investigation one of the concerns moving forward is that the investigation could eventually be politicized the blame game is full on in the media even before any facts have been established are going to their force in washington d.c. following american reaction now our correspondent marina porter takes us through some of the wild speculation of it is already making its way into the media. shocking tragedy claiming the lives of nearly three hundred victims before any investigation even begins the lack of credible facts hasn't prevented many in the west from jumping to conclusions according to the sun newspaper the russian president is personally responsible for downing the malaysia airlines plane in ukraine and accusation some u.s. officials are doing their best to feel if it is

a result of either separatist or russian reaction mistakingly believing there was a ukrainian war plane i think there's going to be hell to pay and there should be there does seem to be a growing awareness that it probably had to be russian insurgents know how we determine that will require some forensics but then if there is evidence pointing in that direction the equipment had to come from russia either the missile came from it's a missile that came from russia or it was from the separatists and it's a buccal style vessel i mean this came from russia russia has their fingerprints all over it either way why stop it fingers according to the daily mail russia's hands are soaked in blood some journalists conveniently camouflaged their blame with a question mark headline after headline asking if russia is to blame very few bothering to enquire about ukraine's possible role in the plane crash the new york times on

the other hand reported ukraine's accusations leaving no room in this article for russia's position the u.s. nato and russia have all called for an investigation to be launched to establish the facts many media outlets have already created their narrative even if it means bypassing the truth marina port ny r.t. new york. and charlie mcgrath of the founder of wide awake news he believes that the western media has already decided who's to blame for this in light of the fact that the nearly three hundred people just died i hate to jump into bashing but since you asked the question i will this is a western backed regime inside a key appear chico is absolutely put there by the united states by the e.u. by the international monetary fund they say you know like i said the ukraine is not in the forefront of the people's mind in the west it's going to be now and when i was monitoring coverage on this earlier today they give you two options for what is

happening inside ukraine it's either russia's fault or pro russian separatists fault you know they're forgetting the fact that ukraine right now the ukrainian government is showing civilians is showing in urban areas and hundreds and hundreds of civilians have already been killed and it killed at the hands of the ukrainian government so you know the fact that the media is not reporting the truth on the ground is not surprising at all because this is the western media who is toeing the western propaganda line so it seems ukraine's army does have some history of shooting down civilian planes went in a cauldron of a looks back at a fatal mistake during military exercises back in two thousand and one. the case has similarities to the incident indeed it happened thirteen years ago two thousand and one and the two were a russian plane was carrying sixty six passengers as well as twelve crew members and was flying from tel of base in israel to novosibirsk now somewhere at about the

black sea it happened that the russian ground control center reported that its last contact with the chance to ask the plane disappeared from the reader and very shortly after it was revealed the plane went down into the sea of course of the investigation was launched and there were conflicting reports and i do remember there was one when the pilot. the. plane that was flying above pretty much the same area said that he actually saw the russian jab before crashing into the sea and his so how the jet exploded it's the number one reason behind the incident was a possible terrorist attack that's what the investigators first thought but then it turned out that the crash happened due to ukrainian a missile that broad down the plane and that happened accidentally viewer ng military exercises military drills happening at the same time in well basically

this seems area now i have to mention that ukrainian military forces really didn't know i had quite heated the that they were at fault however international. investigation was carried out in international society acknowledged that was the fact that there was a ukrainian ukrainian mist that brought down that russian plane and that happened back in two thousand and one. earlier we spoke to antiwar coalition activist eugena puryear he told my colleague you know neal and the international investigation is a complicated task when it's in a war zone. we have a lot of issues meanwhile this is a war zone second who should handle the black box and which way it went where will it be done and who will be able to take it will be considered a neutral arbiter so i think this could it even though it is a land crash drag out in a in a very long bashing the same way we saw the malaysian airliner that went down over

the sea did because there are so many questions at stake regarding who exactly can be considered neutral in the arbiter to really examine this situation and that i think is going to be highly up in the air as we move forward well that's that's another talking point of course and another one is that the wreckage is i spread over what is effectively a conflict so may need all of ukraine and how difficult is that going to make any investigation which starts by any investigating group. i think it's going to make it very difficult because certainly in the context of a battlefield with the changing and fluid. all of the various interested parties and in fact just the difficulty of moving people who are neutral in and out in large numbers bringing specialists in how are you going to fly them in are you going to drive the man how are they going to come what will both sides demand in terms of making sure that people are who they say they are may think there are a lot of logistical difficulties here which i think really will deep in the blame game and i don't know every away because what's going to happen is because of these

different difficulties the rumors will be much more right i think because it'll be very difficult for us to get a clear picture and it could take some time to really develop a true investigative team so put the facts together in your work with the anti-war coalition what can you say how can you see this playing out in this is if this turns out to be a tragic case of war or conflict crossing over into civilian lives really from regions that have nothing to do with the situation happening in ukraine what type of a reaction is the public going to give i think certainly from my perspective and from our perspective there is the actions of the kiev government are certainly quite provocative and there's been any number of reports of significant workarounds there and certainly they're very exhaustive big offensive here as deep in the conflict i think in ukraine and around the world this is again another example of how these relentless drives and pushes to war and in this case one that was heavily

motivated by the united states in the west pushing the ukraine to the brink because of their their clash or their differences with russia it should show us yet again that these militaristic postures lead to tragedies that war inherently breach tragedies and we don't really internalize that we'll continue to face situations in both like this and in other words. now the instability and conflict in eastern ukraine certainly makes it difficult to confirm some of the claims and details that are just swirling in here using what we do know however we've put together an event in chronological order over the past twenty four hours. at twelve fifteen pm local time flight m h seventeen with two hundred ninety eight passengers and crew on board to call from amsterdam airport on a scheduled trans continental flight to kuala lumpur. and for twenty one pm local time radio contact with the pilots of the malaysia airlines boeing seven hundred seven stop and the jet disappeared from radar there was no warning or distress

signal of any kind the jet was last recorded as an altitude of ten kilometers of eastern ukraine a region racked by civil conflict and fighting within the hour the fate of m.h. seventeen had become clear as little as look someone had to do i heard the noise of the planes and thought the bombardment would start soon i also heard shooting somewhere from above we're used to the sound of shooting here but then there was a loud clap i looked up and saw something falling over me it broke into pieces the main part fell here and exploded parts of the plane were falling onto the roof of our house i came to help my brother puts out the fire the jet had disintegrated in the air they breathe from it forming a very wide area anti-government forces arrived and secured the crash site within the hour confirming that there were no survivors global reaction was immediate we

have to do everything in our capability to make sure an objective picture of what happened is made public and known to people in our country as well as the people of ukraine and the whole world our. thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers wherever they call at davis deepest condolences to everyone connected with people on that flight this must be resolved by an international investigation to establish the facts of what has happened almost immediately speculation began that the jet had been shot down. i said turly because they don't actual have the. we don't have all the detail you want to be sure of what i say apparently. had been shot down shot down not an action blown out of the sky by seven pm local time both kiev and the anti-government sides had washed their hands of responsibility the government claimed that they're not carry out any operation while

a self defense spokesperson says that they simply did not have the weapons that could reach that high by ten pm ukrainian time fighters in the claim to have found the black box the flight states a record promising to hundreds of it to international investigators more again as they have. now aviation security expert richard blum it told us that while experts are looking in to the details of the crash it really shows actually the dangers of flying over a warzone. i think technical experts need to documents in terms of how big the degree how many pieces. you can make deductions in terms of whether there was an implosion or an explosion on what i'm. going to do and i think this really isn't the mystery story it goes to frankly given what is functionally. and their political issues and military issues and that's where through. it's not a mystery it's really

a question of what happens how people are affected throughout the world because of what happened in the eastern ukraine. well while the malaysian plane crash continues to dominate world headlines events have taken a turn for the worse in gaza israel's defense forces have started a ground military offensive against hamas fighters that there have been heavy bombardments across gaza this was early friday and local reports that a number of times have been crossing the border the i.d.f. saying ground troops are accompanied by air and naval forces the u.n. has called for an immediate end to the violence from both sides but the israeli government says it needs to destroy tunnels being used by hamas militants to infiltrate israel. and the ground campaign has already led to casualties these images you're looking at right now show the bodies of at least three children who were reportedly hit by artillery fire there among some twenty palestinians who have died since this ground offensive began reporter harry fear has more in the

situation. we understand that one of the primary objectives of the operation is to destroy the tunnel infrastructure which is used by the fighters here israel sees this as a counterterrorism operation i spoke to one of the hamas. spokespersons and they said that israel's operation will also massively result in large number of civilian casualties and he described israel's intent towards gaza. deliberately going off to gaza's civilian population it's not at the moment exactly to what scale this ground invasion or. is going to materialize but we do know that there have been into the northern area of the strip specifically at least at the beit area we've also received unconfirmed reports that as a result of those incursions there have been specific casualties as a result of those ground troops moving in and. now the israeli operation follows

days of shelling with hamas launching rockets in return and two hundred and fifty palestinians have been killed many of them children. dozens of infants as well among the civilians and there was a short humanitarian truce on thursday but the exchange of fire resumed as soon as it. well thank you for joining us here on our team international we've been doing breaking news now of a quite some time the malaysian airlines crash i rory sushi and my colleague sean thomas you've been here through the overnight hours indeed but you know the truth is the entire news team has been working in the gallery as well to make sure that we have the latest information so that we can get that right to the viewers and we'll continue to do so in about a half minute or a minute or so. live from. dramas

the. stories others refuse to. face is changing the world. through pictures. from around the globe. play. the a. basic needs of economic ups and downs in the final months day the longer the new york and the rest because it's going to take you believe everything we can all say the i'm kidding.