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At This Hour

Shells Slam Gaza Market; Shimon Peres on the Fighting; As Many as 80 Bodies Could Still Be at Flight 17 Crash Site; WHO: Ebola Outbreak Deaths Top 1,300

Aired July 31, 2014 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Shells slam into a market in Gaza, ripping human beings to pieces, a look at the carnage in this unrelenting crisis between Israel and Hamas.

Outbreak, the Ebola death toll tops 700 today, and it's not showing any signs of slowing, officials from around the world on high alert as this disease threatens to spread.

And then a shocking claim that raises all kind of red flags about the Flight 17 investigation, one official tells CNN as many as 80 bodies could still be at the crash site. So if that's true, what else does that say about this investigation?

Hello. Everyone. Great to see you. I'm John Berman. Michaela Pereira is off. We'll have those stories and more, right now, @THISHOUR.

And we do begin with the latest bloodbath in Gaza, deeply troubling footage of shells slamming into marketplace. And we do warn you that some of these images, very tough to watch.

A photographer was rolling on the aftermath of one Israeli strike, and as ambulances rushed to evacuate victims, more shells hit.

You can hear the shrieks, the prayers of the wounded. The photographer himself suffered a hit. He dropped his camera, but his assistant grabbed it. He kept on rolling amid the incoming fire, and then, when the dust settled, 17 people were dead, bodies simply torn apart.

Our Karl Penhaul is in Gaza right now. Karl, this is just the latest of several strikes we've seen that have hit civilians in Gaza. A lot of criticism for Israel on this.

What's the latest on the ground where you are?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, as you say, just looking at those pictures, you can't imagine the thoughts and the fear that would have been going through people's minds there.

It has to be said as well that those street markets are essential. That is what is keeping the people of Gaza going. We've even seen some of the farmers, when there is fighting around their plot of land or around their greenhouse, they will race out and harvest what they can, come back and put it out there on the market stalls so people do have something to eat, even though now as we know, things like electricity and water are running low because of the situation.

The blame on Israel, well, the United Nations investigators were down there at the United Nations school that got hit yesterday. They've done their crater analysis, their shrapnel analysis and they say very firmly that they believe that they have hard evidence now to conclude that Israeli artillery shells were behind that.

As far as what's going on in the battlefield today, well, just a few moments before coming to air, south of our position where we are now, we saw four, militant rockets fired high into the sky after toward Israel, and then that was followed a little while later by another single outgoing rocket, and then pounding of artillery.

And I'm hearing, I believe, F-16 fighter bombers overhead now as well. Maybe they're headed toward those rocket-launching sites. That's really what Israel wants to shut down and so far hasn't succeeded fully in that task, John.

BERMAN: Any more warnings for the people in Gaza, particularly in certain regions, to move, to leave their homes and get to what the Israelis say might be safer areas?

PENHAUL: It's almost impossible now to keep track of that, given that the whole of Gaza has a fluid situation, that the dynamic of this battle is shifting from one location to another location very quickly.

I do understand that down in the south of Gaza, the people of (inaudible) were told to evacuate and come to a safer place, but what the United Nations Relief Agency is saying -- that's the organization that is running -- turning their schools into shelters for the displaced -- is that there is now no longer anyplace for these people to go

There are more than 221,000 Palestinians sleeping in these schools, but as we've seen, they are, too, coming under attack and the United Nations simply says that if this gets any worse, the Israeli military will have to take responsibility for protecting and feeding those displaced people.

BERMAN: The United Nations says it is simply overwhelming at this point.

Karl Penhaul for us in Gaza, thank you so much.

Former Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a deal with the Palestinians in 1993 says that Israel must get rid of the tunnels from Gaza to Israel before there is any hope that this fighting will stop

The 90-year-old former leader told our Wolf Blitzer that nothing can stop this fighting until all Israeli mothers can be sure that someone isn't trying to kill them and their children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: When you see the pictures of what's happening in Gaza right now, the enormous number of civilians, children, elderly, women who have been killed over the past -- this is now week four of this war, the criticism of Israel is that its reacted disproportionately. You say?

SHIMON PERES, FORMER ISRAELI PRESIDENT: I don't know in that case what is a proportion.

Imagine that you sit, a child on your knees on the terrace, and somebody is shooting at your child and yourself. What is a proportion? Not to shoot back?

I mean, they put before us an impossible question. But we cannot escape it. We wish we wouldn't have to do it. We have nothing against the people. We don't like to see any people being killed. It's not our purpose

But if they put it in the homes with the children and there they plant the rockets and the different weapons they collected, what can we do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's Israeli -- former Israeli president, Shimon Peres.

Wolf will have more on this interview with the Israeli leader at 1:00 Eastern time. We should say that current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke earlier today. He said this is just phase one in the demilitarization of Gaza. We'll find out what that means, coming up.

Also, ahead for us @THISHOUR, investigators finally arrive at the Flight 17 crash site after Ukraine announces a one-day cease-fire, but will rebels cooperate?

Then, concerns about Ebola growing, could it sneak out of Africa and come to U.S. shores?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Just in a short while ago, some shocking news about the flight 17 investigation, Australia's foreign minister tells CNN there could be as many as 80 bodies still at the crash site. That is far more than most previous counts

And this news comes on the first day that a team of international experts arrived a at the scene. They did find a safe route today after ramped-up fighting between Ukrainian forces and the Russian-backed rebels forced them to turn back in preceding days.

Meantime, Ukraine's military called a one-day cease-fire to let those inspectors get their full access and the Ukrainian government voting to let the government in Netherlands and Australia sending more teams to the site to let hundreds of the people also carry weapons

Steven Pifer is a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. He's now with the Brookings Institution. Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us. First, I have to ask about this alarming report out of Australia that as many as 80 bodies still might be at this crash site some two weeks after this plane went down. What do you make of that?

STEVEN PIFER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, I think we don't really know. While the separatists who control the area where the crash came down, while they made some efforts, they haven't apparently made the sorts of dedicated efforts, the sort of search that you would make and that hopefully now will begin with the arrival of the Australian and the Dutch teams.

BERMAN: I have to say, if those numbers are true, it's simply appalling which leads to my next question.

Does the United States need to be putting more pressure on Ukraine itself and the Ukrainian military to back off, to maybe make this more than a 24-hour cease-fire so this site can get the calm it needs to be fully inspected even if it takes two days, three days, one week, two weeks? Does the U.S. need to get more involved here?

PIFER: Well, I think it's a tough question. I mean first of all it seems that the problem for the inspection team was actually getting to the site.

And the problem here is that they're coming from Donetsk, which is west of the site, but between the crash site and Donetsk there have been ongoing military operations as the Ukrainian army tries to tighten the noose around the separatists' in Donetsk.

So I think it's a good step that there's been this one-day cease-fire. The question is, can the Ukrainians now structure military operations so they need to do what they need to do militarily, but also allow the OSCE monitors and the investigation can continue to do what they have to do with the crash site?

BERMAN: Some of these Ukrainian military efforts involve short-range ballistic missiles, our Barbara Starr at the Pentagon reporting that the Ukrainian military using the short-range ballistic weapons against the rebels These are fairly blunt instruments that can have a very adverse effect on a civilian population.

Are you concerned at all this could turn people in that region in eastern Ukraine who might have pro-Russian leanings to begin, that this could turn them even more against the Ukrainian government?

PIFER: I think that this is an issue that the Ukrainian government has to be mindful of, not just with the use of these sorts of missiles but in general in terms of the conduct of the military operations, is polls showed several months ago that while there was concern in eastern Ukraine, places like Donetsk and Luhansk, about the legitimacy of the government that had come to power back in February in Ukraine, that most of the those people still wanted to remain in Ukraine.

And so you're conducting military operations against the separatists. Unfortunately the separatists have chosen to operate in populated areas, so it's really incumbent on the Ukrainian military to conduct its operations in a way that alienate a populate that I think would actually be sympathetic toward them.

BERMAN: Based on what you know from your time in the region, what do you think Vladimir Putin will do over the next week. Not what do you hope he will do, what do you think he will do?

PIFER: Well, unfortunately what we've seen over the last several weeks is that the Russians appear to be pouring more heavy weapons in to support the separatists and there have even been these reports, I think, with some fairly good evidence that Russian artillery and Russian rockets have been fired across the border from Russia into Ukraine in support of the separatists. And it looks like Mr. Putin is doubling down.

Now, the new issue here is, of course, the sanctions that were adopted by the European Union and by the United States earlier this week and what impact they will have on the Russia economy, which I think can be quite significant and does concern about what may happen may happen to his economic cause Mr. Putin to draw back and rethink his course.

BERMAN: We will have to wait and see on that. Ambassador Steven Pifer, great to have you with us. Really appreciate it.

PIFER: Thanks you for having me.

BERMAN: Coming up for us, as the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever grows, the peace corps pulls out of danger zones in West Africa. Should we now be concerned in the U.S. that this outbreak could come here?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Fears over the worst Ebola outbreak in history hitting closer to home today. The two Americans infected with the disease in Liberia, Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly both remain in serious conditions, but officials do say they have shown slight improvement over the last 24 hours. A State Department source tells CNN U.S. officials are in ongoing talks about medevacing these Americans out of Africa.

Back here at home, prayer services were held for Dr. Brantly yesterday in Ft. Worth, Texas, and dozens attended a prayer vigil for Nancy Writebol in her hometown in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her son Jeremy spoke to CNN earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY WRITEBOL, NANY WRITEBOL'S SON: It's hard. It's very difficult, and we feel the emotion of that. I can communicate with mom from time to time for a few minutes once a day. That's helping it but it's a very difficult emotional process for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This historical outbreak has claimed 729 lives, the World Health Organization raised the death toll today. The total number of likely Ebola cases tops 1, 300. We're also getting word that the peace corps is temporarily removing 340 volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The announcement comes as two peace corps volunteers were isolated after coming in contact with someone who ended up dying from Ebola. A spokesman from the group says these two Americans are not symptomatic. Let's hope that stays the case.

Joining me to discuss this chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And Sanjay is this getting worse and what will it take for health officials to get out in front of it?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think this is getting worse, and as you know now, John, officially the worst Ebola outbreak in history. If you take all of the Ebola infections in history, more than a third of them have no occurred during this outbreak alone.

As far as what makes it better, you know, it is interesting, when we were in guinea, there are very obvious specific things that are need. Health care workers need to have protective gowns to take care of the patients, you need to have enough of the iv fluids and even blood- clotting factors to help people stop bleeding.

But part of being a doctor and a journalist this is one of the areas where they really intersect. As doctors, you want to treat the root cause of something and that's the same thing here.

The root cause is really in these smaller remote villages where despite a lot of what we're talking about on television, they don't hear these messages. They continue to touch the bodies of people who were sick with Ebola and get infect themselves, then infect their children and other members of the villages, which is why you have these awful stories of entire families and entire communities getting infected. Unless that is really addressed, it's not going to stop. And you have that going on in simultaneous places now across West Africa. In the past it was usually one place and you'd usually target that one place hard.

BERMAN: And it requires health workers perhaps putting themselves at risk which is a problem as well. What about here? The CDC now talking about quarantine stations at airports across the United States. Are officials looking for people with symptoms at Airports? How would this work?

GUPTA: Not yet. You may remember during SARS, they had heat scanners, you may have even walked through one yourself John. Basically they are checking to see if your body temperature is elevated. It's not happened right now at U.S. airports. It is happening at airports in West Africa.

When you leave -- when I left, for example, they took a temperature with the little heat sensor on my forehead and I had to fill out questionnaires about where I was and who I was interacting with and they make a decision. But as we know, It's a helpful process to have that screening process but it's not perfect. There was a man who got on a plane in Liberia and by the time he arrived in Nigeria he collapsed and died shortly thereafter. So that is going to be put in place in these West African airports but it's not going to solve the problem. BERMAN: I know you're confident of the measures the U.S. is taking,

or will take as this goes on, but what about the rest of the world? I mean take a look at the map of the flights out of West Africa. There's a lot of travel from there. Do you think that other nations around the world are as prepared as they need to be?

GUPTA: No, I don't think so. In the United States I think, and several other countries, they have enough resources to take care of infectious diseases, whatever they may be. Bluntly you need to basically isolate someone who has an infectious disease like Ebola, or Marburg, or lots of other diseases out there. And you isolate, you provide the support of therapy.

That can happen in just about any hospital in the United States. That could have happened before this Ebola outbreak and can continue to happen. There are a lot of other countries out there that don't have those same resources. And even when you think about evacuating these two Americans out of Liberia, one of the questions coming up, where do they go? Where do you send them to place that's actually going to provide more than what they have right now. Obviously, there are some countries that can provide that, but certainly not all of them on the flight pattern you showed.

BERMAN: Part of this is getting the word out, part of it is education, which is why your voice is so key in this. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

GUPTA: Thank you John, appreciate it.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, after being kept away for days, investigators finally reach the flight 17 crash site where one official says there are still dozens of bodies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So on this, the first day that an international investigation team finally arrived at the crash site of flight 17, there's a stunning claim. Australia's foreign minister tells CNN that as many as 80 bodies could still be among the wreckage. Ukrainian and Malaysian authorities believed only 16 were still there.

Now our Nick Paton Walsh was at this site within the last 24 hours. Nick, I have to say that's a shocking claim if true. 80 bodies, does that seem plausible to you?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Very plausible. There's never been any clarity at all on what that train contained. There was a hugely complex and distressing for the relatives, numbers game, I am afraid to say, of trying to work it out quite the different numbers were offered by the Melanesian security officials, separatists and Ukrainian officials actually were at the start. We later learned that 227 coffins were shipped back to the Netherlands but within that were many body bags perhaps representing more than that number in bodies or less, not really clear.

But this is an enormous crash site area. The damage done to a plane when it is hit by a missile at that height is extraordinary as we saw on the ground. And certainly given that damage and the extent and the disruption caused on the grounds, too, the wreckage, it is entirely plausible there's a great deal of numbers on bodies there. I'm sure some many relatives hope that number will be smaller rather than larger. But you get the feeling that the Australian foreign minister is making that suggestion because the slow work of forensic scientists in the Netherlands has got underway and they are beginning to get towards more concrete data, John.