as international experts scour the scene of a malaysian plane disaster in eastern ukraine accusations and counter-accusations are made but the e.u. says it remains unclear what brought the aircraft down. families and communities mourn the victims of the tragedy with people from at least ten countries among the dead most of them citizens with. more questions than answers r.t. talks to aviation experts to find out what's behind many oddities of the fatal route the brutal malaysian over the war zone east ukraine. while the world in shock over the air crash and deadly military strikes on eastern

ukraine continue sixteen civilians have been confirmed dead in the city of. welcome and thanks for joining us this hour my name's the harvey you're watching r.t. international. experts from several countries are joining an international probe into the trench it crash of a malaysian passenger jet the wreckage site in eastern ukraine has spread out over a several kilometer radius white cotton markers have been placed where the victims' bodies have been found two hundred ninety eight people on board were killed among them eighty children. it's believed that the plane was shot down by a missile however the european commission says it has seen no evidence to confirm this so far the russian president and the chancellor of germany have agreed on holding an international investigation into the crash

a team of monitors from europe's main security watchdog arrived at the scene on friday earlier some of them complained that local self-defense forces were limiting their movements to the area but their access has been widened international experts working there say they face a difficult task. linguistic team. but it's not our job of multi investigation because for you also to speculate on it but what you're here for is to see what measures are close look at the very muted security. measures and what measures have been taken to do we've seen a human and most efficient way allegations have emerged of unidentified people arriving at the scene apparently trying to remove the bodies and loot the crash site however o.s.c. monitors say that some bodies have so far only been moved to a road side a non have yet left the site or they've refused to draw any conclusions on whether

there has been any looting self-proclaimed officials in the region claim they're not touching anything at the scene. and some news just in moscow and washington have agreed to use their influence on the warring sides in ukraine to push them to the path of peace that's what the russian foreign minister and the u.s. secretary of state have discussed over the phone they both a thorough and transparent international investigation into the malaysian plane crash. meanwhile our correspondent ramon cost managed to get to the scene of the tragedy while o.s.c. monitors were exploring it and he filed this report. we are now way past that twenty four hour mark that the bodies of the people that died at the crash malaysia airlines flight have been lying around here along with the burning debris you know they always see mission had already come here they spend about an hour talking to

people and scouring the area though it's not just this area that's been affected the debris had and along with the bodies had falling in an area around twelve kilometers here so this is going to be lengthy lengthy process for identification and for investigation as well and right now skewed to take a look at what we have seen here so far and how this tragedy had affected the people that live here in eastern ukraine this woman who was out working in her garden when her son sold her a body had fallen from the sky and broken through the roof of their house the badly mangled victim of the malaysian airlines flight has now been laying in in this kitchen for more than a day. at first i didn't notice anything my son went out and said mom there is a body in the kitchen there was plastic everywhere i thought it was just a pile of rubbish but then i had this too that it was a human body without

a leg and was arms twisted and broken it was a man who fell out of the plane and through the roof it's a murder a real murder my wife and i were having dinner when we heard a strange noise that sounded like clapping as soon as we went out of the house we saw a body lying nearby it must have fallen from a very high altitude the only thing left on the body was a t. shirt it was a man and the legs were broken oh so practically no blood now you can smell the odor or be here there are no words to describe it here's my house and it all happened right here. i was watching t.v. i heard a roar in two explosions i would know and saw a spinning plane without a wing with something falling out of it the area where the plane crashed is near several mines that sustain people economically in the done and screechy and so it comes as no surprise that coal miners or some of the first on hand to help at the scene of the tragedy. i've lived here with my family my whole life here where the

crash happened i've been working in this coal mine for forty years and now i just want to help that's all there are thirty people in our ship and just two of them went to work others came here to help. is thought rudd says of the victims are going to be arriving here shortly and no doubt they will be seeking answers but it seems they could be in for a quite a wait to find out just how their loved ones were taken from them from on cost or of art see donetsk ukraine. the netherlands where the ill fated plane departed from must be me worst hit by the tragedy the majority of the passengers on board flight m h seventeen a total of one hundred ninety two people would citizens and many were heading to southeast asia all holiday visited a school this reeling from the loss of three students. as travelers

rush to catch their flights these floral tributes are the only visible reminder of the tragedy for victims' families the cool wait to find out who downed flight m.h. seventeen continues but away from the airport the heartbreaking stories are starting to emerge in the town of borden a school rocked by grief graduates of men kemah college robin hamill rick robot young van's it failed and his sister freda to wreak were about to start the next chapter of their lives while two of the three students from this school that sadly perished on name age seventeen were in fact a brother and a sister who were flying out to kuala lumpur with their grandparents who had gifted them a holiday to southeast asia for graduating from this school just several days ago everybody's together there's lots of crying everybody supporting one another you don't see something like this coming i knew he was going on holiday to malaysia but

you never expect something like this to happen instead of enjoying the first days of their summer holiday pupils and teachers a grieving it's unbelievable seeing something on the news is one thing but when a to your own school it hits you i still don't understand it were shell shocked the loss is terrible we've opened up the school so that the kids can come in and mourn together and so that the students that needs extra help can get professional trauma counseling. over in amsterdam outside one of the city's bars we saw young men and women crying they were mourning the loss of their friends laurence van de graff and his girlfriend collin kaiser who had planned to travel across malaysia. five. i got a text and i woke up. and i saw it was gone you have this roller coaster going romans different emotions disbelieves shock in their lives.

and. if you were amsterdam has a population of just around eight hundred thousand people everyone we've spoken to is in shock but because that list of dutch casualties was so high on m.h. seventeen most of the people we've spoken to say they know someone or know someone who knows someone who died on that plane well what i read earlier today it's the same ratio as mine and over we've compared. to the population so i think it's pretty impactful and while relatives and friends of victims digest the news of what's happened the flags are flying at half mast a symbol of a nation in mourning. for a t. . by the tragedy ukraine's army is continuing its offensive in the country's east the latest attack resulted in sixteen civilian deaths will be

bringing you more on that stay with us. but next speaking out the white house on friday the u.s. president claimed that there was firm evidence that the malaysian plane was downed by a surface to air missile fired from territory controlled by forces he also lashed out at russia for supporting them going to church counter closer look at those allegations president obama said the missile was shot from the territory controlled by separatists in eastern ukraine evidence indicates that. the plane was shot down by a surface to air missile that was launched from an area that is controlled by russian backed separatists inside of ukraine moreover we know that these separatists received a steady flow of support from russia having said that he also added we don't know exactly what happened so i think it's very important for us to make sure that. we don't get out ahead of the facts. at this point in terms of identifying specifically what individual or group of individuals or

a. personnel order that the strike. came about the u.s. president called for a credible international investigation and that is something all members of the u.n. security council are calling for including russia because nobody at this point knows who shot that missile the blame game is about who created the ground for this tragedy to happen and here we see a clash of different views the u.s. says russia is responsible because it supported the rebels russia says key if it's responsible because it launched this military operation in eastern ukraine and the u.s. supported it at this point we had this vicious back and forth between everyone involved and not involved these are some of the media headlines appearing in the wake of the tragedy directly blaming putin speculation has been piling up over who is to blame and ukraine's government has issued what it claims to be a leaked phone call between local militia fighters admitting to downing

a civilian plane and there's an unverified video circulating online and here it purports to show a missile launcher being smuggled out of ukraine and after thursday's crash intelligence expert shall shew bridge says the claims are lacking solid evidence. one could say from the outset with some investigation the area of ground from which it was launched and of course that would give an indication even though it's accepted i think that is to put it much of eastern ukraine is in a fluid situation in terms of who controls what any given time the ukraine government has released what it claims are a number of evidence should lead for example it is said that. intercepted communications it says between people on the ground that suggested that we were firing or had fired or weapons and also ukraine government has in the past said that the rebels have these weapon systems i should point out that of course the

ukraine government claims are as yet uncorroborated in respect of these intercepted transmissions and also of course. the prosecutor general himself denied that rebels have this system so it's fair to say there's a lot of confusion at the moment and really this really points the way to the importance of a thoroughly independent. investigation to uncover all of the leads in this case or there are many unexplained details surrounding the tragedy let's take a closer look at some of the first data from the flight radar service suggests that the plane done late verted from its original route here's the map of the courses taken by other lines earlier this week and as we can see here the doomed flight went further north than liners flying over ukraine it's not clear why it took that . secondly it's also unclear why the boeing entered the zone of heavy fighting in the combat between ukrainian forces and local militia has been ongoing in this area for months now since kiev launched what it calls an anti terror operation in the

country's east. and finally creating controllers asked the crew to fly lower than the height which was originally requested that's according to a statement issued by a malaysia airlines is the boeing seven seven seven was supposed to fly at thirty five thousand feet but was instructed to descend to thirty three thousand we can now get some insight on this from captain mark weiss head of the civil aviation team at the spectrum great mark thanks so much for joining us is there any good reason just starting first of all about the altitude any good reason why air traffic controllers would ask the plane to fly lower. that's not uncommon for nominal it could be due to a variety of reasons and primarily what you find is when you're asked for a different. altitude. that you're currently occupying is going to be used by some other aircraft in a little while so you need certain levels of separation so very common with air

traffic control will ask you to change out into it's ok let's move on to the issue of the fact that it was flowing flying over what is recognized as being a calm button so do you think that the pilots were aware of this. well i'm sure they've been aware of it amiss is you know from from worldwide news coverage i think you have to move in in a cave not to know what is in the combat zone for a while but you know if there were some airlines around the globe who have chosen to not fly over that area and obviously the malaysian airlines has chosen to fly over that route but let's keep something you're not on that route from what i'm understanding was still authorized as a safe zone by kayo the international civil aviation organization so it's hard to point

a finger at either the pilots or the airline or air traffic control for requesting an aircraft to fly over what has been considered. an open and safe air corridor just just to expound on not when making that kind of decision what are they the factors that come into the equation at that looking at the possible dangers against what what's the alternative about potential costs of taking a different route. well you mentioned there an interesting work potential costs. that really had been flown by other aircraft that really the same day so it was probably still a week to be a safe route it may have been a shorter route perhaps diverted to another may have cost more time time it's fuel and few wants money and we certainly know that airlines now operate on a very thin margin especially malaysia airlines after what happened with m.h.

three seventy so certainly and i'm not saying that this is the case it's speculative but you know financial constraints and a reason but it is another very important reason and that could be for whether. you know there may have been weather on the original route of flight and the aircraft may have been given another airway to fly because that would take it around weather so at this point we really don't know i think a lot of the information and certainly you have traffic control tapes would be valuable clues as well the cockpit voice recorder the flight data recorder all of that will play a very key role in trying to answer some of these questions ok luminati stuff thanks so much for giving us your thoughts as captain mogwai said the civil aviation team at the spectrum great thank you thank you. i do stay with us here on our team to national still to come the people of gaza facing the

bloody consequences of israel's dramatic escalation hospitals over playing with civilian victims one in five of those is a child who report on the tragic conflict after the break where the death toll is now weeks three hundred twenty. i'm abby martin the stories we cover here we're not going to hear any rights at our back story at the same time there's a reason they don't want you to know that i want to raise that we should. now let's

break the set. dramas that can't be ignored. stories others refuse to notice. places changing the world right now. so picture. from around the globe. welcome back you're watching r.t. now as the world's attention remains focused of course on thursday's horrific plane tragedy in ukraine the latest deadly army shelling of the eastern city of the gown says gun laws leader notice is the case he just sixty kilometers away from where

the malaysian bowing down and here are images from the streets of against shortly after an artillery attack this resulted in the death of at least sixteen people including three women dozens more wounded local officials say sixty people have now being killed in the city in the ongoing crackdown with more details on that is auntie's every nickel or sca. one of the major developments is that the airport has been taken over by the ukrainian army now this was one of the most highly contested area near this city and they have entered but not before inflicting heavy damage on its we're talking about shelling from the air shelling with missiles and artillery fire in one instance eight people were killed ten years three when a shell has exploded in the middle of a cross. basically the city has been left without electricity without running water a gas also has been hit leaving a lot of people without axes to heat for cooking purposes for example there was

already talk about humanitarian catastrophe in the city of lugansk bud's that is happening basically right on the heels of statements made by ukrainian officials before when they were saying that residential areas are not their primary targets what's happening in the seems to be pointing in exactly the opposite direction. in the past number of hours moscow issued a list of u.s. citizens who are barred from entering russia twelve americans are targeted two of them for their involvement in torture of going tandem obey and ten others for the abuse of detainees at abu ghraib prison in iraq moscow's blacklist was released two days after the u.s. imposed a new set of sanctions against russian companies and we have more details on the tit for tat measures on our website as well as background on how the ukraine crisis sparked the dispute had tea party dot com for all the updates.

on. elsewhere an israeli man was killed in the south of the country on saturday by a rocket fired from gaza he's the third israeli fatal since the start of the current conflict which has claimed the lives of three hundred thirty palestinians meanwhile there was tank and machine gun fire on the border this morning says the israeli army stepped up its ground operation gazan hospitals are struggling to cope with the influx of injured civilians. through. the clerk of the. little. oh. oh oh. oh.

oh oh oh. israel's ground offensive is now into its second day targeting cross border smuggling tunnels used by hamas all the stated goal is to destroy militant capability it's palestinian civilians who seem to be paying the price at least twenty. more people were killed on saturday is the i.d.f. unleashed an intense artillery bombardment u.s. president barack obama has warned israel against further loss of innocent lives of the palestinians killed since the campaign started last week one in five has been a child kerry fear this report from gaza. thousands of troops and tanks stormed into garter in the early hours of friday morning as israel began its so-called anti terror campaign this is the. school in central gaza city we understand that over the last few days hundreds of families have come here to seek

refuge from the ongoing escalation they're living in very very difficult conditions but that conditions better than being in a stream the dangerous neighborhoods. or is among fifty from the to monny family who sought refuge here. but. then again. the u.n. says twenty two thousand people have been internally displaced and sought refuge in its facilities since this latest bout of violence began last tuesday have consistently slammed into the homes of palestinians over the last two weeks yet israel maintains it's only targeting hamas infrastructure mahmoud's home was one of those hit they've attacked your home you remember.

it's less than a kilometer away from the israeli border and near a hospital that was being targeted here in the north of the strip these refugee camps some of the most densely populated places on earth and when the shooting starts people here suffer more than most despite the danger not all the heating israel's warnings to evacuate i understand that you were told to evacuate by israel why have you not evacuated. because of the. homes are not the only targets damaged in this escalation on friday morning strikes hit an office high up in a commercial building in one of the most developed dairies of the city and i had.

to develop a little about the. enemy of. homicide i said i thought i would if he is it possible that people are firing missiles from your office this morning you know. about i've. got a good look michael here. say here how did your mom get. well wish filming in the center of the city for rockets fired just behind us from a well known local military site the israeli prime minister has given orders to the israeli army to escalate its ground operations in the gaza strip palestinians here remember all too well the ness of the winter two thousand and nine innovation off the gaza strip this a month of ramadan a time that is meant to be peaceful palestinian most aims simply try to gods to protect them and their families. latest headlines at the top of the hour stay with us that after the break

a special report on the civilians of eastern ukraine who are fleeing military strikes. this is about making the business survive. corporations don't love parishioners hate corporations have no feeling. corporations don't care about you or me corporations when we care about. people come to untouched forests and leave massively in the sea come on. we're not going to quit we will not stop until it is done what is more precious

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