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Shot Down Malaysia 17; Crisis in the Middle East

Aired July 20, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. Thank you for joining us for this special coverage of the downing of Flight 17.

RELIABLE SOURCES has been preempted today, but Brian Stelter will join us later in the hour. He's talking to Sara Firth. She is a Russian television reporter who resigned over how her network is covering the deadly crash in Ukraine saying, quote, "We're lying every single day and finding sexier ways to do it." We'll get her take on what Vladimir Putin should do as anger grows over his handling of the downed plane.

But first, a new potentially critical piece of evidence in the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Just this morning, Ukraine's security service release what had they say is an intercepted phone call between two pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine just following the crash.

And in this recording, which CNN cannot authenticate, an alleged rebel commander is heard telling a rebel fighter to find the plane's black boxes quickly because Moscow is very interested in them. Have a listen to this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

O. KHODAKOVSKYI: Do it really quickly. Urgently, Moscow asks where the boxes are. Please, report to me where they are. We need to do it quickly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, OK.

O. KHODAKOVSKYI: Who is there besides you? Are there Strelkov's guys?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. Just now OSCE people came.

O. KHODAKOVSKYI: So, first of all, they are interested in the fate of "black boxes." They must be under control. Please, do this task. OK?

UNIDENTIIFED MALE: OK.

O. KHODAKOVSKYI: I have a request for you. It is not my request. Our friends from high above are very much interested in the fate of the "black boxes". I mean, people from Moscow.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: That just the latest a series of videos released by Ukrainian security services.

Also today, Reuters news agency distributed video of what appears to be one of the flight recorders being recovered by a rescue worker. The video was shot on Friday but it's still unclear where those black boxes are right now.

At the crash site, search teams have now found the remains of some 233 of the 298 people and children on board Flight 17. European observers say many are being loaded on to refrigerated train cars at a place near the site. It is still being controlled by pro-Russian rebels and negotiations over the handling of the victims' bodies are still happening right now.

Our own Phil Black joins us live again now from the crash site.

Phil, so many questions today. The first about the handling of those bodies. It took days, 24, 48 hours before they were even taken from the field. Now, they're being removed.

But to be clear for our viewers, they're being removed by pro- Russian rebels. That's right (ph). And still negotiations about where they go from there.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're being moved to another area that is still very much in the control of pro- Russian rebels, Jim. It appears that that recovery effort, to get the victims' bodies out of the Ukrainian sun, out of the wreckage, out of the fields from where they have been lying for several days, where we've seen them, that effort is being led by Ukrainian emergency service workers.

These are people who answer to the central government in Kiev ultimately. They are being moved to some refrigerated railcars nearby and being kept locally. But those cars, this territory, it is all very much in the control still of those pro-Russian militants.

So, still a question mark over what happens to them now, who gets to see them, and ultimately, how will they be returned to their loved ones around the world, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's amazing. Just that basic question of how the remains are being handled as subject to a negotiation. You would think that would be simple. But one of the many questions still hanging over the crash site.

And another one, of course, Phil, the treatment of those black boxes. You have this new recording out now seeming to show that pro- Russian rebels took them.

What are you hearing on the ground now? What have you seen to corroborate that? BLACK: Well, what we've seen on the ground is very clearly the

fact that the many impact zones across this very wide debris field are still not secure. That they have clearly been accessed, they have clearly been contaminated with -- and they have been changed ultimately.

We know that either emergency workers trying get the bodies out or some of those pro-Russian militants, they have been here everywhere that we have been and altered the landscape.

The question is, have any of the pro-Russian militants been going through this debris, deliberately looking for those crucial voice and data recorders?

And this audio recording, these audio recordings that have been released by the Ukrainian government, they support that claim, that's what the Ukrainian government believes that the pro-Russian rebels have been searching the wreckage and they have removed items, bodies, debris that they believe would support the argument that this was shot down by one of their missiles. They believe that the rebels are trying to engage in a cover-up -- covering their tracks effectively and they're not being completely frank and open in that sense.

The rebels, their public position is that they had nothing to do with it. They have nothing to hide and they have not altered the landscape or the debris field at all because they say they want to leave it untouched for a future investigation.

We know that's not true because we've seen them in the debris field. We've seen them moving things.

So, the truth lies in there somewhere. But it's still not clear, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And I spoke to Ukrainian officials who accuse not just the rebels of trying to engineer a cover-up but also the Russian government.

I want to ask where you are now, Phil, and what's behind you? Is that part of the cockpit? Is that part of the area where maybe those black boxes might have been or might still be?

BLACK: It is or was, I should say the cockpit. It is now a twisted hulk of metal. The damage to it is really quite extraordinary.

We're standing in the middle of a sunflower field. All around us very tall, very beautiful sunflowers and then just this patch of flattened earth here where this chunk of the plane literally must have simply fallen from the sky.

We've seen some emergency workers in here today cutting in to the electronics, cutting into all that very sensitive equipment that no doubt would have formed a very important part of an investigation should it be happening here and, of course, crucially it isn't.

We know the damage has been done to this. The question is how much?

If the emergency workers have been here cutting out bodies, who was here before them? That's a question we can't answer.

And what we do know is that the investigators themselves did not get to look at this in its raw form before any of that took place. We know that it suffered substantial damage and that will no doubt impact any investigations or the possibility of determining with any accuracy really what happened here, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, Phil, thanks very much. Great to have you there. One of the first reporters to get there on the scene.

We just heard from Phil how hard it is to gather information at the crash site. Joining me now, CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo. She's worked for an aviation law firm, but she was also the inspector general of the NTSB.

Mary, you heard that there. Rescue workers cutting into the wreckage, possibly removing the black boxes. You and I have talked about this a couple of times already. But this is far, far removed from an ideal situation in terms of investigating the cause of the crash.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, it was hopeful when we first heard about them that they might be in the hands of responsible persons in Ukraine, but now, it appears there was a search actively for them to get them out of there and get them to Moscow.

I think it's pretty safe to say based on what happened on KLA 007, the Russian shoot-down of the Korean jetliner and others, technically the Soviet Union, that if those black boxes go to Moscow, there are two things you can say for sure. That is, one, it's an admission really by Moscow that they were controlling and interested in this, because otherwise, why do they want the black boxes? And, two, we'll never see the contents. If they go to Moscow, that's it so we just have to hope that they're still in Ukraine and in responsible hands.

SCIUTTO: And there has been a history of this. Bob Baer made the point on the air yesterday that even with Chernobyl, Russia denied the facts early on and impeded an investigation.

I wondered now what can international investigators do? We know there's an NTSB representative now in Kiev. FBI, a team from Holland, they've all been sent there, but they're waiting to get to the crash scene. They're going to come to a crash scene that's been compromised.

What can they do once they get there to alleviate some of the damage that's been done so that they can get their work done and answer some of these hard questions?

SCHIAVO: Well, first and foremost, they're going to make sure that the remains have been removed and have been treated respectfully, to the extent that they can help at this late date, on that front. But then also, they're going to be looking for the key parts. Will they be able to find evidence of the missile entry to the plane or rather the missile explodes very near and shoots shrapnel into the plane or metal pieces? They will be looking for parts of that.

I mean, they only need to get a little bit to prove that's what happened. And the world knows that's what happened, but Moscow will deny it and other countries have done the same thing. And then they'll also, say, we've only seen one black box in the video footage. They'll obviously want to comb the area to see if the other one was there. It looked like the flight data recorder to me, but it's hard to see on the video because the guy is holding it. They'll look for the other one to see if that's there and they will ascertain, they will gather enough to establish those facts.

And they'd also want to know if the plane was -- if the pilot was -- pilots were cognizant that the plane flew for awhile too, but they'll be able to do that with what's left.

SCIUTTO: Mary Schiavo, thanks a lot. You made a great point yesterday in how the Lockerbie crash, it was a thumbnail size piece of evidence that made the difference. We just have to hope here that those pieces, those key pieces of evidence don't get lost in the mix.

There is another big story this morning. Israel has just extended its cease-fire for a couple of hours so people in one Gaza town can get humanitarian aid or get out. Israel's prime minister says his country has to take military action in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: There are very few examples in history of countries that have been rocketed on this scale. If you hook at our response, it's actually very measured and trying to be as pinpointed as we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Coming up, we'll have more of Wolf Blitzer's interview with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is talking about the need to demilitarize Gaza. That's after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

And we're learning that Israel has just extended its cease-fire for a couple of hours so people in one Gaza town can get humanitarian aid or indeed get out.

Both sides blamed each other for an earlier cease-fire coming to a very quick end. More than 410 Palestinians have died so far in the conflict, along with five Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians.

In Israel, our Wolf Blitzer talked to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He says the Israeli people deserve, quote, "a sustainable quiet" and they are doing what they have to do to get it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Quick question. Your exit strategy from Gaza, what is it?

NETANYAHU: Sustainable quiet. I mean, we didn't seek this escalation. Hamas forced it on us. They started rocketing our cities, steadily increasing the fire.

I called for de-escalation. They refused.

I accepted an Egyptian cease-fire proposal backed up by the Arab League and the U.N., they refused.

I accepted a humanitarian law proposed by the United Nations. They refused.

We'll stop our operations when we can bring back quiet to our people.

BLITZER: Some of your cabinet ministers think the only way to do that is to reoccupy Gaza, which you evacuated from and gave it up back in 2005.

Do you support reoccupying Gaza?

BLITZER: Well, I support taking whatever action is necessary to stop this insane situation. Just imagine -- I mean, imagine what Israel is going through. Imagine that 75 percent of the U.S. population is under rocket fire and they have to be in bomb shelters within 60 to 90 seconds. So, I'm not just talking about New York -- New York, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, you name it. That's impossible. You can't live like that.

So I think we have to bring back, restore reasonable sustained quiet and security, and we'll take whatever action is necessary to achieve that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Wolf is joining me live from Tel Aviv. We also have Karl Penhaul in Gaza.

Wolf, I wonder if I can ask you first, because we're just getting reports across the line of dozens of Israeli soldiers seen wounded in a hospital just outside of Gaza. What are you hearing there?

BLITZER: The Israeli defense forces, the IDF has not yet made any formal announcements, but we're being told by reliable sources that there have been a significant number of Israeli casualties and clashes with Hamas over the past several hours in Gaza, of course, and a significant number of Israeli soldiers have, in fact, been killed. The IDF will only announce how many after all of the families are formally notified they have not yet all been normally notified. But for Israel, a relatively small country, significant number

and a lot more have been injured, and those injured soldiers have been brought to various hospitals in Israeli along the border not far away from Gaza.

This potentially, Jim, could be a major, major game changer one way or another, as bad as it has been certainly been awful, horrible for the Palestinians and Gaza. Israel suffers significant number of military troops, casualties killed and wounded, that will either among the left in Israel they'll say get out of there. Get out of Gaza. It's a disaster, it's a quagmire. Israel should leave.

And the right will say it only will intensify the need to go in there. Reoccupy the place and if you will, do away with Hamas and its military infrastructure. It's going to put a lot of pressure on the prime minister to make some major decisions over the next few hours, but it's a very significant development.

They haven't released the number yet. But for a relatively small country, it's a significant number and there's a lot of concern among Israeli military planners that that number is going to grow as these clashes between Israel and Hamas and very populated parts of Gaza will escalate presumably over the next several hours and day.

SCIUTTO: You know, Wolf, listening to your interview with the prime minister, he did not seem -- I mean, he seemed 100 percent steadfast, did not seem like he was leaning backward but very much leaning forward.

Is it your sense that an attack like this with heavy Israeli casualties, which way would Israel go, push forward harder or pull back in light of the increased costs on the Israeli side?

BLITZER: I think if they could come up with some sort of reasonable cease-fire that would -- I think the prime minister would accept that if the Egyptians I know are working aggressively. Everyone anticipates the Secretary of State John Kerry will be here in the region within a matter of a few days, probably coming to not only Israel going to Egypt maybe some other country, as well.

The Israelis have developed a pretty good behind-the-scenes relationship with the new government in Cairo, the government led by the new Egyptian president, al-Sisi.

So, the Israelis want to see the cease-fire work. Let's see if Hamas is ready to see a cease-fire. The Israelis, as you know, accepted it earlier on, a few days. Hamas didn't and what we're seeing is the aftermath of that.

But it's going to put a lot of pressure on the prime minister, one way or another. They say they have made extensive progress from their perspective, the Israelis in destroying some of those tunnels if not all of the tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel.

They've destroyed a lot of the missiles and rockets and some of the other military infrastructure. But if you listen to the prime minister, what he told me at the

defense ministry in Tel Aviv and I'm now back here in Jerusalem, he said he wants to see a demilitarized Gaza. Well, you could either demilitarize it through military action or diplomatic action. I think he would prefer to diplomatic action.

SCIUTTO: Karl, I want to go to you now. You're in the middle there in the casualty certainly extremely high on the Palestinian side. I wonder if you get a sense that that has sapped support for Hamas, or if, in fact, the people thaw encounter there are pushing back for a more robust response from Hamas' side, more rockets, et cetera?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't think we can understate the impact on the civilians of this war now going on. This was always going to be an asymmetrical war. The Israel troops were always going to have to meet Hamas in a guerrilla-style war. We know Gaza is a built-up area.

Those are the facts that the Israeli military had to plan with. Those are the facts that Hamas fighters are also planning with. But that doesn't mean, according to the Geneva Conventions and the rules of war, that civilians should suffer because of the actions of either of these warring sides.

But what we have seen this morning is precisely that. We need to give a voice to the civilians, they are talking to us. At first light today, across there in eastern Gaza where you see that plume of smoke going on, that neighborhood is partly on fire as we speak. It was pounded overnight by Israeli artillery, by tanks, by air strikes. Civilians could not get out.

So, first light comes, and what we are met with coming down the streets, walking for four, five and six miles is a human tide, a human tide trying to cling to life. Few of them brought any possessions -- all they were wearing was the clothes on their backs.

Those were the lucky ones because behind in those neighborhoods, people still buried under the rubble, some dead, some wounded. It was only during that brief cease-fire window that paramedics and ambulance crews could get in there and start to pull them out.

The figures -- well, they speak for themselves. A few hours ago the head of Gaza's main hospital told me that 60 people, 60 civilians were killed in bombardments overnight and this morning, more than 400 wounded and now, according to the United Nations, 81,000 Gazans have been displaced into U.N. operated schools. Many more of the Gazans simply being absorbed into their families, people are speaking of one of the worst humanitarian crises here in Gaza for at least the last 14 year, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Karl, listen, we know you're in the middle of it yourself as well. Please stay safe.

Wolf Blitzer on the other side, with rockets coming down, please stay safe as well. There will be a lot more of Wolf's interview with the Israeli

prime minister throughout the day airing on CNN.

And when we return, here more of our special coverage of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, including the impact it is having on relations between the U.S. and Russia. A chilly relationship getting even chillier.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

SCIUTTO: We have this breaking news just coming out of Gaza, confirmed by the Israeli Defense Forces and that is that overnight, 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in an operation inside Gaza.

Our own Wolf Blitzer was telling us a short time ago that CNN had witnessed as well dozens of Israeli soldiers wounded in an overnight attack. We're just repeating now -- we have just got confirmation from the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, of a major deadly operation in Gaza, 13 Israeli soldiers killed. We're going to have more on that later in this broadcast.

Moving now to Secretary of State John Kerry. He says there is an enormous evidence that points to a clear finger at Russian separatists as being involved in the downing of Flight MH17. Earlier this morning, on our own "STATE OF THE UNION" with our own Candy Crowley, Kerry ran down a laundry list of supporting facts, saying they underline why President Obama is demanding a full-fledged investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Today, we have reports of drunken separatists piling the remains of people into trucks in an unceremonious fashion, actually removing them from the location. They are interfering with the evidence in the location. They have removed, we understand, some airplane parts.

And the fact that the separatists are controlling this in a way that is preventing people from getting there, even as the site is tampered with, makes its own statement about culpability and responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: In the meantime, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the intelligence committee, piggy-backed on Kerry's sentiment and responded whether U.S./Russian relationships are at Cold War levels now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA), CHAIR, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I would say -- Putin, you have to man up. You should talk to the world and say if this was a mistake -- which I hope it was -- say it. CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you

believe that U.S.-Russian relations are now at Cold War levels?

FEINSTEIN: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Back to Cold War level.

While Russia's president denies any involvement in the MH17 disaster, some in Moscow apparently feel very differently.

That's where we find CNN's Diana Magnay.

Diana, everyone pointing the finger at Russia, but it's a very different story being told in Russia on Russian media and from Russian officials, isn't it?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

The view from the Kremlin and from Russian state media, which the majority of people here believe, is that it's Kiev and the U.S. who are to blame for all of this. The line here is that Kiev has been waging war against its own people, and that it's the one who needs to take the initiative and sit down and try to negotiate peace with the pro-Russian separatists in the east.

What John Kerry said then was very interesting about the fact that it is the rebels, though, who are stopping people from getting into the site, because the argument here, that Ukraine must have shot down that claim, then, you know, the Ukrainian military don't have any control over access to this site. So the question of culpability falls once again in Russia's -- in the pro-Russian separatists' hands, and, thus, by default, into Russia's, because we do know that Russia has been supporting to a greater or lesser extent, depending on whether you believe the Western or the Russian line, those separatists.

I was just down at the Dutch Embassy here in Moscow, though, and there are many, many flowers lying there, people who have come to pay their condolences. And what I thought was striking from being there was the fact that many of the notes said, forgive us, we are sorry. We hope that you can forgive us.

So there is an element within Russian society that does feel somehow responsible for Russia's involvement in the conflict in the Eastern Ukraine, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Incredible. Well, it's great to hear of sympathy on that side of the border as well. Thanks very much to Diana Magnay in Moscow.

And a reminder: We will have Secretary of State Kerry's full interview from "STATE OF THE UNION" at the top of the hour.

And coming up, we also have Wolf Blitzer. He's going to be giving us details on breaking news. We have just confirmed 13 Israeli soldiers killed in an operation in Gaza, the deadliest operation so far, certainly from the Israeli side. When we come back, we will have much more details on that from the scene.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

SCIUTTO: If you're just joining us now, CNN has just confirmed 13 Israeli soldiers killed in an ambush in Gaza, these soldiers from the Golani Brigade, one of the most highly decorated Israeli brigades.

We're also hearing of dozens of other soldiers wounded in this operation, so far, Israeli forces not confirming details.

But we have our own Wolf Blitzer on the ground in Tel Aviv.

Wolf, what are you hearing about what led to these deaths of Israeli soldiers?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we just did -- I just did speak with the chief spokesman for the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner. And he did confirm 13 Israeli soldiers confirmed dead. The families have now been notified.

That's why they have released this number, and he also confirms that dozens of Israeli soldiers have been injured, have been wounded in the most recent clashes.

And as -- you're right. This is an elite Israeli, the Golani Brigade, going into Gaza. It's very close quarters. They're not releasing yet the specific details of what happened, other than it was some sort of clash, some sort of ambush, they're suggesting, but it will create an incentive here in Israel. At least, on the right, the Israelis will say you have got to go in there in bigger numbers and just get the job done.

On the left, they will say this is a quagmire. This was never going to happen, Israel should not get thrust into this kind of, you know, arm-to-arm conflict, if you will. They will encourage the Israelis to start pulling out. Thirteen may not sound like a huge number, but in a relatively small country like Israel, this is a significant number of Israeli military deaths.

Remember, it follows five earlier deaths of Israeli soldiers, so in terms of the military deaths in Israel, it's up to 18 right now. And as I say, if you watch Israel television, if you see the Israeli media, they immediately put the names, the hometowns, the ages, the pictures of these young Israeli soldiers who are killed.

And that puts enormous pressure one way or another on the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to make some major decisions. The effort is under way, we know, behind the scenes to try to revive that cease-fire, Jim. The Egyptians are working hard at it. Turkey is involved. Qatar is involved. The U.S. is involved. Everyone anticipates the secretary of state, John Kerry, will be here in the region within the next few days, probably going to Egypt first, then heading over to Israel, some of the other countries as well.

But it's a brutal, brutal situation. And as painful as it may be for the Israelis right now, you take a look at what's going on for the Palestinians in Gaza, it's a whole lot worse. So many Palestinians civilians, whether young people, children, elderly, have died already.

Many more have been injured. The Israelis say they're going after the military targets, the leadership, the terrorists, if you will, but inevitably, given that concentration of people, a lot of civilians are going to die in the process as well.

So this is a very ugly situation that is developing, by all accounts, Jim, right now.

SCIUTTO: And just to remind our viewers, in Israel, virtually everyone serves at a time in the armed forces. So when something like this happens, people are connected to the sacrifice that the soilers make.

Hamas is claiming -- and, again, you always have to take this with a grain of salt, but Hamas is claiming that they lured Israeli tanks into a field where there were IEDs. And I want -- I just remember covering the 2006 war against Lebanon, that Israeli tanks took a heavy toll there in urban combat.

And I just wonder, you know, the risk that this must have been to bring tanks again into a very urban situation in Gaza.

BLITZER: Yes, it's a real risk.

And the Israelis have said to me, the Israel military planners have said to me over the past few days -- and I have been here now for 11 days -- they have said they're fully aware that Hamas has been bracing for this kind of Israeli ground assault for a long time and they prepared all sorts of ways to try to deal with it.

So they were pretty aware that the Hamas has some pretty sophisticated capabilities. They went in with their eyes open. But at the same time, you can see the Israeli military suffering some significant casualties right now. And it is going to have an impact on the political situation.

I'm already hearing some suggestions, by the way, some reports -- people are sad, obviously, in Israel. Weddings are already being canceled. All sorts of other activities are being canceled today. Earlier, there was supposed to be a concert in the next few days. Backstreet Boys were coming here to Israel. That's now been canceled.

So this country is at a real, real sensitive moment right now and a lot of pressure on the government, the Cabinet, the prime minister to do what -- some people say get even tougher. Other people say get out of there. It's a tenuous situation. I will put it like that.

SCIUTTO: And one they have been through before, '06, the Lebanon war, 2009 in Gaza, 2012, now 2014.

It is great to have Wolf Blitzer there.

And just reminding our viewers, if you missed it, CNN just confirming that 13 Israeli soldiers killed in an operation overnight in Gaza, dozens more wounded. We will have more details on that story.

And, of course, the other story we're following closely, the latest in the investigation on the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine.

Please stay with us. We will be right back after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Good morning. And thank you for joining us for our special coverage of Flight 17, as well as frequent updates from the situation in Gaza.

I want to bring in "RELIABLE SOURCES"' Brian Stelter now.

Good morning, Brian.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim.

I was watching you on air yesterday, and you used the phrase information war. And that's exactly what we're seeing in both of these big international news stories.

And I want to turn to Ukraine and Russia in a moment, but first to Gaza. We're hearing the breaking news from Israel right now. I think reporters in the Middle East from Israel and especially in Gaza today, they are working in such dangerous conditions to try to tell the world what's going on.

But, interestingly, one veteran reporter was absent for much of this week. People at home might have heard about this. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin is a famed correspondent in the region. But one of his bosses told him to Gaza on the very same day he witnessed the deaths of four children on the beach there.

This was a sensitive decision, partly because Mohyeldin is NBC's only Arab-American correspondent. Some observers say his early reports from Gaza showed sympathy, maybe too much sympathy, for the people he was covering. There were accusations of bias.

But, on the other hand, a lot of Middle East correspondents say he's one of the best in the business and that NBC made a big mistake. Well, on Friday, NBC came pretty close to admitting that mistake. The network it has reconsidered its deployments. And, today, Mohyeldin is back in Gaza covering all this breaking news.

I come away from all of this wondering, is it possible for any correspondent, any correspondent covering the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to avoid controversy, to avoid accusations of unfairness?

And I want to put that question to a famed CNN correspondent and anchor here, someone with decades of experience covering the region, CNN international anchor Jim Clancy. He's in Atlanta this morning.

Jim, you know Ayman Mohyeldin. You have met him before. What is your impression of what happened in this case?

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, I know Ayman.

And here's a passionate, passionate journalist that is always there on the front line. I worked with him in the Lebanon war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

But, you know, here's a decision that is made by executives, and it's immediately question. Why? Because he is an Arab. And an Arab reporting on these sensitive kinds of stories is often blamed for being, you know, pro-Palestinian on this front. Jews don't escape this either as correspondents. And there are many of them that are working the Middle East story.

It's one of the hazards that goes with it. I think it was Tom Friedman who once said, for myself, I'm always suspected by the Palestinian side, by the Arab side in all of this, and among my own people, I'm seen as a self-hating Jew, the ones who want to be critical.

It's very difficult territory on that front. A journalist can only expect that, if he's really doing a good job, both sides are criticizing his reporting.

STELTER: Let's broaden this out. Let me put up a Twitter message on screen that I saw over the weekend. This is Damien Cave, a "New York Times" correspondent.

And he wrote: "What's interesting about the Ayman case is the debate over the role of a journalist expressing sympathy, empathy."

I agree with that. And, Jim, I wonder what you think. Is it appropriate for a journalist in these situations to express empathy, to express sympathy about the people they're covering?

CLANCY: I think that it is a normal human reaction.

You have got to understand that, yes, you try to balance things. You try to put in the facts that really matter, but at the same time you can't stand before a mother who has lost two of her young children, who regrets that they ever went out to play football on the beach, seeing them, you know, blown into pieces -- in this kind of a situation, it's very difficult not to have empathy, not to have a human -- the human emotion.

That is part of the story. And, unfortunately, both sides try to dehumanize the other's. And that's what reporters have to do. They have to bring some of the humanity back. And it becomes an unavoidable situation where you can look sympathetic, instead of being empathetic.

STELTER: Well, you know all too well every word a reporter utters about this conflict is scrutinized by all sides. And I want to show one example from this morning's paper. This

is "The Washington Post" headline on the front page: "Two Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Clash." And then the subheadline says: "Death Toll Tops 330 as Hamas Militants Step Up Attacks."

Now, a Palestinian would look at this headline and say it's implying that the 330 dead are Israeli, not Palestinian.

So, as a reporter who was in the region for so many years, how did you handle that pressure about how every word matters?

CLANCY: Every word does matter.

Everybody is watching you. They're going to weigh it to ensure that their point of view gets across, that their side of the story comes across. This is an information war, and more today than ever, with social media, everything that is being handled there.

The Palestinians are today calling for the international community, stand up, take a stand against war crimes that are committed by the Israelis. And they're pointing up now that more than 400 people, about 75 percent of them, according to the U.N., who are civilians have been killed in this conflict.

There's a lot of women. There's a lot of children. Israel is trying to balance all of this. And they're doing so by issuing warnings, telling people to get out, move away, stay clear. This is going to be a deadly zone. But the Palestinians will come back and ask you, where do we go? There's no place safe.

STELTER: Well, that headline, 330, is now outdated. The new number is 425.

But in past conflicts, Hamas claims of civilian deaths have been inflated. If you listen to pro-Israel groups, they would say highly inflated. So, how does the press deal with these death toll reports?

CLANCY: We have to go with the officials that are on the ground that have proven themselves to be reliable.

You can bet that the political bureaus and uninformed politicians are going to get some of the numbers wrong. It's happened in the past. It's happened while I have been reporting. You have to stick with the numbers that you know. They may be out of date, but you have to wait until they catch up. There's just no other way to do it.

You know, this whole process of, you know, the blame game and trying to win sympathy and who has the most casualties, there's something very dehumanizing about that as well. And it's specific not just to this conflict, but over the years, I have just watched as it really became unbearable to see how people were expecting a death toll to come forward and how it would benefit them.

STELTER: And now we're hearing from Wolf Blitzer this appears to be the deadliest day for the Israeli military in many years, with this number 13 that we have seen reported. As we wrap up here, Jim, I wonder what you see when you look at

the coverage. Some people see a pro-Israel bias. Some see a pro- Palestinian bias. Do you see either of those? What do you see?

CLANCY: I see -- it depends on the report, it depends on the situation how it could be interpreted.

But I see overall some fairly balanced coverage. You know, this conflict has so many dimensions. And those dimensions are changing. These high casualties are going to be used by Hamas. You know, whatever doesn't kill this organization is only going to make it stronger. And Hamas, many believe, will come out of this a much stronger entity for Israel to have to deal with.

How far is Israel willing to go? We will have to wait and see on that one, too -- Brian.

STELTER: Jim Clancy, thank you for joining me.

Online later today on CNN.com, I will post a story about my new reporting about Ayman Mohyeldin and what really happened at NBC. I think it was bureaucratic infighting more than anything else.

We will be right back in a moment and turn to Russia and Ukraine. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STELTER: We will be back to our breaking news coverage in just a moment.

But, first, let me tell you about Sara Firth. She's a reporter who resigned on Friday from the Russian government-owned news channel Russia Today. It's also known as R.T. And you might have it on your cable lineup. I have it at home in New York. And I was watching this week to see how they spun the shoot-down of the Malaysia Airlines flight.

This channel, R.T., it was on the defensive, sowing doubt about whether Russia and pro-Russian forces really had a role in the attack. Some of the reporters and commentators hinted that Ukraine should be blamed instead.

And Sara Firth says that was the last straw. She wrote this on Twitter: "Rule number one at Russia today, always blame Ukraine."

Remember, she's the second person to publicly resign from R.T. this year. And I don't think she will be the last.

So, why did she resign? Well, I spoke with her yesterday in London, and here's a bit of what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA FIRTH, FORMER RUSSIA TODAY REPORTER: And that moment, the way that we handled that breaking news story, was -- was just a clarifying moment for me, really. I have had many times over the five years I have been at R.T. where I have had a similar struggle.

And you have watched a story handled in that way, and you have felt very strongly that, right away, the narrative is being pitched, a very specific narrative, to the detriment to the facts and accuracy in reporting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: Firth told me that she tried to do good reporting there and she feels a lot of her colleagues still do, but that they're so constrained by the pressure they're under from Moscow.

So, Jim, tossing it back to you, it seems to me what's so complicating about Russia Today is that it's both a news channel, but also a tool of Russian foreign policy.

SCIUTTO: No question.

And Russia has systematically shut down independent news outlets, whether by television or in print, over the last several years, which makes it a lot easier for Russian propaganda outfits to push a pro- Russia line on this story and so many of the other stories that we dealt with, Brian. It's a great interview. Really glad you did it with her.

STELTER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: If you're just joining us now, I just want to reiterate breaking news out of Gaza, 13 Israeli troops killed in an operation overnight, the Israeli Defense Forces now confirming dozens of others injured.

These troops were from the Golani Brigade, one of the most decorated outfits in the Israeli military. Hamas is claiming that it lured Israeli tanks into a Gaza field where it had hidden improvised explosive devices. In the words of Hamas, it then, it says, destroys the force completely, but certainly, overnight, a very deadly operation for Israeli forces, by far the deadliest of this operation in Gaza, and even the deadliest of previous operations in Gaza in 2009 and 2012.

We're going to have more throughout the day on that story, as well as the latest on the crash in Eastern Ukraine of MH17.

Thanks so much for joining us this morning.