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Hamas Captures Israeli Soldier; Divisions Deepens in Israeli Conflict; U.S. Releases Crucial Flight 17 Intelligence; Shot Down Malaysian 17; Actor James Garner Dead at 86

Aired July 20, 2014 - 20:00   ET

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

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And thank you all for joining us. We are covering two huge news stories tonight from the death toll rising in Israel and Gaza to the latest in the tragic shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. All of the latest on both of those right now in our next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.

Good evening, everyone. 8:00 here on the East Coast. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

HARLOW: We are closely watching two important and fast-developing stories for you this evening. First, the big pressure from the United States on Russia, also from our European allies on Russia. It is about the shoot-down of that Malaysia Airlines passenger jet, Flight 17. Secretary of State John Kerry says -- this is a quote -- "Moment of truth for Russian President Vladimir Putin," drawing a line between Moscow and the rebels in Ukraine suspected of shooting that airliner down.

SCIUTTO: And in another part of the world, Hamas militants in Gaza say they have a prisoner and he is an Israeli soldier. There is no confirmation of that yet from Israel's military, though.

HARLOW: And our viewers just looking at images coming to us from Gaza, where people are cheering that news.

Let's get right to Gaza City, that's where our Karl Penhaul is.

It is the middle of the night there, Karl, and we just saw those people on the streets cheering that news that Hamas has, they say, taken an Israeli member of the Israeli military prisoner. If that claim is verified, let's talk about how that may alter the situation between Hamas and Israel, because we know how dear these soldiers are to Israel. When you think back to 2006, Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured, held in captivity for five years, released in 2011 in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinians.

Does this change the equation?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me just bring you up to date with something else because over the last few moments, Palestinian colleagues here that we work with have been receiving phone messages, text messages like many other Palestinians right now, and that text message from an unidentified sender says -- names a spokesman of the al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas' military wing, and says he, Abu Obeida, is a big liar.

We're supposing that this could be part of an Israeli intelligence effort to again try and denounce these claims by al-Qassam as not true, although all the while, the Israeli military hasn't come out and confirmed or really deny whether this soldier is in fact captured but it does go to the core of what Israel is trying to do here.

It is fighting an urban guerilla war and Hamas and its militants, being a guerilla force, perhaps sending out these messages to civilians after we saw that celebration of the announcement of the capture is an effort to what counterinsurgency experts would say is to try and separate the fish from the water, trying to split the militants off from any civilian support.

But yes, of course, if this proves true, it could be a game changer. We know how hard Israel tries to get either the bodies of its dead soldiers back from the battlefield or to get its live soldiers back and Hamas will undoubtedly try and use this if it does prove true both for political and military leverage.

It will also be a morale booster for a guerilla force like Hamas and in guerilla terms, this is a tremendous coup for them. And I'm sure they'll be trying to look to press those gains on the battlefield. They won't be sitting idly by. They will be trying to press advantages. Israel could go both ways. It could back off some of the offensive operations to try and look for this soldier to see if they can find traces from him and this evening, we have heard drones flying over very low, possibly looking for signs of that soldier, if in fact he is missing, or it could mean that Israel pulls the hammer down even harder on Gaza and tries to take revenge for what has gone on.

Tonight, though, it seems that the action has shifted a little way from the neighborhoods of eastern Gaza about four or five miles away from us, out further towards the border there tonight. We have seen some massive fireballs going up into the sky -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow. We really appreciate the reporting, the update for us there live in Gaza, Karl Penhaul. Thank you for staying up hours and hours reporting for us on this important story. And stay safe. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: We want to turn now to CNN political commentator, Peter Beinart. He's the author of "The Crisis in Zionism." He also writes frequently about the situation in Israel, Gaza and the Palestinian territories.

Peter, just explain to our viewers, I mean, we often portray this or imagine that this is -- Israel -- purely Israel versus Palestinian black and white, but in fact, there are deep divisions within the Israeli community or the American Jewish community about Israeli policy there. And I know you've been a lightning rod for some of that for having criticized the Israeli government for some of its policies.

I want to ask you just about current events. Do you think that this Israeli operation in Gaza is a mistake and why?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think Israel has the right to defend itself against rocket fire. I think -- I loathe Hamas. I think Hamas has been both bad for Israel and also very, very bad for the people who have been living under its control in Gaza.

What bothers me about the Israeli military operation is that ultimately you need a political strategy against Hamas. If you want Hamas to lose, you have to have other Palestinians who support nonviolence and who support the two-state solution win, and yet Israel's behavior vis a vis Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, who unlike Hamas accepted Israel's right to exist and supported nonviolent protest, has been to undermine at every turn through a massive subsidizing of settlement growth.

So you -- ultimately a military strategy against Hamas that is not coupled with a political strategy that offers Palestinians the hope that they can have the rights and dignity that come from statehood is ultimately in the long run I fear going to fail.

SCIUTTO: Question, though. Is there political support within Israel for that political solution? These right-wing parties in Israel, they are winning elections based on the policy you described and I might add, on the Palestinian side, Hamas won the most recent elections there as well. But first about the Israeli side, is there political support for a political solution and the sacrifices that would come with that?

BEINART: Polls show that most Israelis and actually for that matter most Palestinians still support the two-state solution even though they have somewhat different visions of what that two-state solution would be. I think the problem on the Israeli side is that, look, think about the American political situation. Ninety percent of Americans wanted gun control legislation passed and couldn't get it through Congress because of a powerful entrenched lobby.

There's a very powerful lobby inside the Israeli government for continued expansion of settlement growth. That which has a lot of influence in Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. And although most Israelis I think would support a two-state solution, they are not as influential and as mobilized on this issue as are a smaller number of people with great influence. And I think that's been at the heart of the problem with Israeli politics.

On the Palestinian side, you have the same rise of Islamist kind of theocratic politics that you're seeing all over the Arab world and in many ways, Hamas gains strength from the feeling of many Palestinians of despair that they see settlement growth, they don't believe that Israel has any intention of giving them a state of their own, and so when Hamas says what good is there for us to accept Israel's right to exist since Israel will never give us a state anyway, that makes Hamas stronger.

SCIUTTO: Each side giving up hope. I wonder if you could talk about the Israeli role. You know, the American role, rather. Secretary of State John Kerry, he invested several months quixotically in trying to engineer a peace process and adding to the list yet one more American presidential administration that tried to do Mideast peace and failed. At this point -- and Secretary of State John Kerry is headed out there tomorrow to Cairo.

At this point, what can the U.S. do to jumpstart a long-term solution to this problem or have we reached the point, as some commentators have said, that the U.S. has to step back and let Israel and Palestine sort it out itself?

BEINART: The problem is that the United States I think will never be able to move very far towards a resolution unless it's willing to have more of a confrontation with this Israeli government. It was different under the previous Israeli government. Under Ehud Olmert, Benjamin Netanyahu's predecessor, you had someone who I think was very, very serious and eager about a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines so the American role was much easier.

Benjamin Netanyahu comes from the political right, is not interested in the creation of that kind of Palestinian state. In fact, last Friday, he said pretty explicitly that he now no longer supports giving up security control over the West Bank at all, which basically rules out a Palestinian state. Under those circumstances, the chances that America is going to be able to achieve a peace plan is very difficult.

Plus on the Palestinian side, you have a very weak Palestinian leadership in Mahmoud Abbas, someone who is committed to I think the two-state solution but is so weak, that there are real questions about whether he can pull it off. So I think when a U.S. administration looks at those circumstances now, especially in the wake of the failure of Kerry's last effort, I think my guess would be that they don't make another serious effort like that.

SCIUTTO: A situation depressingly lacking hope on both sides.

Thanks very much to Peter Beinart. Always good to have you on.

BEINART: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right. All right. Coming up here, also following this story very, very closely, we are going to show you new video that appears to show those critical black boxes and the data recorders being carried from the wreckage of Flight 17. It begs the question, how long will it be before we know more about what happened in the final moments on that flight, or are we ever going to find out? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: We have new information just coming in tonight on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainian government says a second train carrying the remains of those killed in the crash has now arrived in Torez, a city in eastern Ukraine.

This follows earlier word that pro-Russian rebels had moved at least 192 victims' bodies to refrigerated cars on a different train. HARLOW: Also, this statement from Ukrainian's cabinet officials from

their Web site says that 251 of those bodies have now been recovered from the crash site. You will recall, of course, 298 passengers and crew on board Flight 17 perished on Thursday.

Separately, this statement says that 23 Russian militants were captured in an attempt to advance into the Luhansk region, the militants reportedly were all Russian citizens, including some Chechens.

I want to talk about all this with our experts who are here to talk about Flight 17. 777 captain and aviation expert, Les Abend, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien and former Transportation Department inspector Mary Schiavo.

Thank you to you both -- to all three of you, rather.

I want to also give our viewers, Mary, as I guess to you, some other news. We're also being told from this statement coming from the Ukrainian government, they are saying that the Ukrainian government is, quote, "negotiating with militants for the bodies to be transported to another city."

When you think about this, one government having to negotiate with they say the pro-Russian rebels about where the bodies go. This is unprecedented in an investigation.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That is unprecedented. The closest I can come to that is of course the former Soviet Union shoot- down of Korean Airlines 707 and in that case they did thwart the search for that plane, although it was in the water and the search for the wreckage and the search for the black boxes, they did all they could to thwart U.S., Korea and others who are in the water searching for it.

And then claimed there were no bodies ever found. There were all sorts of things there. But it just wasn't this massive, this disgusting, shocking desecration and disrespect. It's just shocking.

HARLOW: When you talk about what information we need now, Mary, you know, at least -- the least we can do for these victims' loved ones is give them the dignity to inform them of everything that can be known from this tragic situation. In terms of the black boxes, you are pretty concerned that you don't know that we'll ever find out exactly what's on them, if anything significant.

SCHIAVO: I'm really worried about the black boxes because we've had conflicting reports. At first, Ukraine officials said they didn't know where they were but hinted that they knew they were in Ukraine. Then we learned that the immediate responders, the local rescue workers, had found at least one. We saw the picture of one. That looked like the flight data recorder to me rather than the cockpit voice recorder.

And then they said they were going to turn them over to investigators and now, they said, you know, now the rumor is they're -- they have been demanded by Moscow if that's true. If that's true, that tells us two things. One, that's an admission. If Moscow wants those black boxes, they are behind this crash because the black boxes will reveal whether or not the people died instantly or it was in a horrific spiral to the earth.

And it says that they're involved and two, if they go to Moscow, we won't get them. Remember on 007 it took Boris Yeltsin 10 years later to release the fact that they had them and the evidence on them.

HARLOW: Wow. And of course that was back in 1983.

Jim, as you well know, of course, you know, this suspicion that perhaps Moscow wants the black boxes is coming from this audio recording released by the Ukrainian government saying that they intercepted calls saying as much but, of course, we can't verify the authenticity of those.

SCIUTTO: No, we can't, although the calls that have been released so far have later been confirmed by U.S. intelligence officials or at least they say they have no reason to challenge them.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: But again, this is an information war which is relevant for our viewers to keep in mind. The other bit of new information today that struck me, and I want to go to Les Abend with this question, because, Les, 007, Boeing 007 pilot. The statement saying that Russian -- pro-Russian rebels had shot down, before this plane went down, 12 aircraft in the weeks leading up to it which is three times as many as U.S. officials had told us before. Twelve aircraft in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. had knowledge of surface-to-air missiles.

You as a pilot, would you have flown through that area knowing that information? Would you consider it safe to fly through that area had you and other pilots and other airlines known that?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: No. There would be absolutely no way I'd fly through that area without any sort of concrete intelligence information, and if I was aware of this, you know, these missiles were available, I mean, really, Jim, the short answer would have been no.

SCIUTTO: I mean, it's just remarkable to imagine, we know that Malaysia Airlines, you know, didn't make this decision willy-nilly, Poppy. You know, this is what regulators had said was safe at the altitude that they flew in, they did not tell them not to. Really raises questions about why that information wasn't shared more widely and why it didn't change protocol and standards for who is able to fly through that area and when and at what altitude.

HARLOW: Yes, no question about it. So let's let Miles come in and answer that question. Miles is an aviation analyst, an expert and also a pilot.

I mean, what's your take? What should have been different here in terms of policy? MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think there are parallels here

to our mindset in advance of 9/11. A little bit of this is a failure of imagination. We assume that the risk was at lower altitude off of shoulder-fired missiles. And so the assumption that you're at 32,000 feet, you're out of range of that, so you're fine. And the other thing is, we know that the U.S. assets in the region which have been heavily focused on this part of the world for a long time right now, every time there's a rocket launch, they see that. With an infrared signature.

They know it's there. So somewhere in the intelligence community, there was a lot of data that probably should have been shared with these airline security departments. Why wasn't that data shared? Was it all stove-piped off? Are we right back to the mindset we had before 9/11, I wondered.

HARLOW: So many questions still to be answered. Miles O'Brian, Les Abend and also Mary Schiavo, thank you for your expertise throughout this.

Well, since the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels have traded accusations over who is to blame.

Just ahead, the U.S. intelligence. What we know, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The world is demanding answers about how a large commercial aircraft carrying nearly 300 people could be shot out of the sky over Ukraine, and now a few pieces of crucial evidence have been obtained by the U.S.

Here's CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Unknown to the world, pro-Russian rebels secretly moved a heavy arsenal of weapons into place days ago. Weapons that would lead to the shoot- down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, according to a U.S. intelligence analysis.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: There was a convoy several weeks ago, about 150 vehicles with armed personnel carrier, multiple rocket launchers, tanks, artillery, all of which crossed over from Russia into the eastern part of Ukraine, and was turned over to the separatists.

STARR: On Thursday, within hours of the plane dropping off radar, the U.S. suspected a shoot-down. The dossier to prove it was assembled by U.S. military and intelligence analysts scouring highly classified data from spy satellites, radars and phone intercepts. They narrowed in on two pieces of critical information detected by U.S. satellite and radar feeds. First, a surface-to-air missile system had been turned on in a

separatist-controlled area in eastern Ukraine. A moment later, a U.S. satellite captured the heat signature of a midair explosion.

KERRY: We know that within hours of this event, this particular system passed through two towns right in the vicinity of the shoot- down. We know because we observed it by imagery that at the moment of the shoot-down, we detected a launch from that area and our trajectory shows that it went to the aircraft.

STARR: The conclusion, a Russian-supplied Buk surface-to-air missile launcher shot down the flight. The evidence? According to the analysis posted by the State Department, intercepts of separatist communications posted on YouTube by the Ukrainian government indicate the separatists were in possession of an SA-11 system as early as Monday, July 14th. The SA-11, the western name for the Buk.

U.S. intelligence matched those voices to other separatist recordings. The rebels claim to have shot down a military transport plane. When it became clear it was a passenger jet, social media posts were quickly deleted.

Then there was this. A quick shot of what is believed to be the Buk missile launcher on its way back to Russia. Further evidence of a Russian connection? U.S. intelligence has identified a facility in southwest Russia where rebel fighters have been trained on surface-to- air missile systems.

(On camera): The U.S. also says more than a dozen aircraft were shot down over eastern Ukraine in recent months, more than previously acknowledged.

Could the Ukrainians have shot down Flight 17? The U.S. says no, Ukraine has the same weapons but none of those weapons were in the region at the time.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: The full picture of how and why Flight 17 came down over eastern Ukraine is far from clear. That much is very clear. But how long until we have conclusive answers beginning to emerge?

I want to bring in our panel again. CNN military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, he's a former intelligence officer and former CIA operative and CNN national security analyst Bob Baer.

Bob, I wonder if you can just help me with this question. Let's accept that we're not going to get, the investigators are not going to get the help that they want and need from pro-Russian rebels or, indeed, from Russia on this access to the site, the black boxes, et cetera, at least not quickly. So how far can this investigation go in terms of building the case of Russian involvement here without Russian support, in fact, probably with Russian stonewalling? How far can they go? ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Jim, I think we've gone

about as far as we're going to get right now. The Russians are never going to confess to this, that they gave this weapons system, the SA- 11 to Ukrainian dissidents but this satellite photography, once you see this stuff, is really convincing. You can see where it originated, when it crossed the border. You know, there's been pretty good coverage on the eastern Ukraine, all of the timing, you know, the intercepts, the Ukrainian intercepts are helpful but it's really the overhead where you can see this, the chain of events.

And I think it's enough to pretty well determine this is a Russian- originated weapons and it was the dissidents who launched it. You know, the black box I'm sure would be helpful in a certain sense, fragments are missing they'll be able to collect out of the airplane will help as well but nothing like the overhead.

SCIUTTO: Rick, I wonder if I can ask you, because you see in Barbara's piece, the intelligence the U.S. has on the crash which strikes me that a lot of this intelligence preceded the crash. They had some signs of the weapons systems moving across the border before the plane went down. We learned today that those pro-Russian rebels took down 12 aircraft in recent weeks, not just three or four as U.S. officials had said.

I just wonder if this is not an intelligence failure, because they had the intelligence, I suppose it's how did you use it. Is this a policy failure that something wasn't done before to warn airlines to try to target some of these weapons systems, to prevent this from happening?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. There's a lot to this. Now, a lot of the aircraft that were shot down were done with shoulder-fired rockets and we know they have had those. And that's why the safe flight area was above 30,000 feet because the shoulder- fired tops out 15,000 to 17,000 feet.

It was the downing of the Antonov 26 at 21,000 feet that should have shot off alarm bells because the only way to reach 21,000 feet is with one of these large surface-to-air missile systems, radar guided. And yet there was no warning issued. So yes, I think there was a little bit of -- I don't think it was an intelligence failure so much as maybe a systemic failure in the air traffic control system.

SCIUTTO: Yes. How to react --

FRANCONA: But --

SCIUTTO: How to react to it and make sure those flights are safe.

FRANCONA: Yes, I would have immediately stopped the flights over that area as soon as I saw that 21,000 feet.

SCIUTTO: Bob, I wonder, a lot of the most interesting evidence has come from these intercepted phone calls by Ukrainian intelligence and today, you have another one. It's almost I think as I said earlier, almost as if you and I had written a script to prove that the Russians had hidden the black boxes, this is how we would have written this phone call. Yes, the Russians want it, let's get it to Russia as quickly as we can, that kind of thing.

I mean, as you listened to these calls. You analyzed a lot of intelligence in your career. Do they seem authentic to you? Are you concerned that the timing and the content is almost too convenient?

BAER: Well, you know, the Russian sounds convincing but I have never seen intercepts this good. I listened to a lot of them around -- you know, concerning Pan Am 103, all sorts of attacks. I have never seen anything this clear or this damning or you know, implicating a country like Russia like this.

So, I approach this very skeptically.

FRANCONA: If I could --

SCIUTTO: Please, please?

FRANCONA: -- it comes at the exact right time when you need it.

SCIUTTO: Yes, exactly. Timing is suspect.

Rick, we have talked a lot about next steps with Russia, with our various panelists, about economic penalties, what's going to get Vladimir Putin to move, change behavior, stop supporting these rebels. What about military steps?

To this point, those military steps have been very measured. You have a couple deployments of airborne troops to countries neighboring Ukraine, 173rd airborne. You have a couple over-flights, a ship in the Black Sea, that kind of thing. What would you see as a reasonable and effective military step in response to this? And keep in mind, I'm not talking about boots on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

FRANCONA: Well, we can beef up our presence and use the NATO framework to let our friends and allies know we are still there. But I really don't see a whole military facet to this because we're not going to get boots on the ground in Ukraine and we are not going to go to war over this with Russia.

SCIUTTO: All right. Well, that's a relief, I'm sure, for many of our viewers to hear. Still questions about how to respond.

Thanks very much, Rick Francona and Bob Baer. Appreciate your insight as always.

HARLOW: Yes, fascinating, the discussion.

And still to come, the latest on the deadly conflict in Gaza and Israel and Hamas' claim this evening that it has captured an Israeli soldier. The militant group says that his fate rests with what Israel says and does next.

So, how will officials around the globe react? We'll talk about it straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SCIUTTO: New reports today that an Israeli soldier has been captured by Hamas has sent shock waves through the region. I asked former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren how Israel would likely react.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL OREN, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Well, this has already been a very tragic day in Israel, the death of 13 soldiers in one night last night, and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ayalon gave a public press conference tonight to address that tragic loss and to sort of buffet up the Israeli public opinion as this ground incursion of Operation Protective Edge moves forward.

They did not mention the kidnapping of a soldier, though that would be one of Hamas' primary objectives. One of the reasons they have dug so many tunnels so deeply from the Gaza Strip under the border into Israeli territory has been with the express purpose of capturing Israelis, soldiers or civilians, bringing them back to Gaza, holding them hostage and exchanging them later for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, in the case of Corporal Gilad Shalit who was held for five years and eventually exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The Palestinian government have come out of this tunnels, who have been killed by Israeli Defense Forces were found to be carrying handcuffs as well as a sleep-inducing drug which presumably would be used to put to sleep Israeli hostages so that they could be dragged handcuffed back through the tunnels.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, one argument that the prime minister made in his interview with Wolf Blitzer earlier today was that the end game here for Israel is in the prime minister's words, sustainable quiet. I just wonder, having myself covered these conflicts in Gaza before in 2009, 2012, similar military operations, similar objectives, similar death tolls, frankly, but that quiet was not sustainable.

How is this operation going to be different from those?

OREN: Well, the prime minister mentioned tonight several times that the goal of the operation would be the demilitarization of Gaza. I have spoken and written about it on CNN and CNN.com. Demilitarization would mean that the status quo that existed before after each round of fighting where there's a cease-fire and then Hamas could use the cease-fire to expand its arsenal of missiles, build more long-range missiles, that would not be restored and that some type of international mechanism would be created which would enable the effective demilitarization of the Gaza Strip -- similar to what happened with the Syrian chemical weapons. They were taken out of the arsenal of Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad by the international community.

So, Hamas would remain in Gaza and maybe would even get some incentives in terms of economic support, but it would no longer have the rockets capable of hitting Israeli cities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Just heard from the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.

I want to get perspective from the Palestinian side now and joining me is Yousef Munayyer. He's the executive director of the Palestine Center here in Washington.

Yousef, I wonder if we could start first with this claim that Hamas has captured an Israeli soldier. Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., told me a primary objective of this would be to take Israelis hostage as a bartering tool down the road, as they did with Gilad Shalit.

How do you respond to that?

YOUSEF MUNAYYER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PALESTINE CENTER: Well, I think first of all, let's keep in mind that this is not, if the claim is, in fact, true, none of this has been confirmed yet, but it has been claimed. But this is not as the Israeli ambassador just mentioned a kidnapping at all. These were Israeli soldiers that were operating as military inside the Gaza Strip and if one of them has been captured, they have been captured, not kidnapped in any way.

But I think it's important to note here that there is a strange sort of focus on this one potentially captured Israeli soldier, when there have been approximately 100 Palestinians killed today in the bloodiest day that we have seen by this massive Israeli military bombardment, particularly on the eastern side of Gaza City, in the Shujaiyeh neighborhood.

So, I think that you know, the focus right now needs to be on this horrible bombardment on a civilian population.

SCIUTTO: And as you say, 100 dead today, the deadliest day of this conflict so far. Israeli officials have described this as, in their words, a pinpoint operation. You probably heard Secretary of State John Kerry caught unintentionally questioning this as a pinpoint operation and rushing out to the region in part to try to engineer a cease-fire.

Is this -- and Israeli officials will say they do everything to avoid civilian casualties. Do you believe that's true?

MUNAYYER: Well, look, we just have to look at what's happening on the ground. They can say all that they want, that they don't intend to target civilians. But at the end of the day, they are targeting civilian targets and they're killing civilians throughout the Gaza Strip, on top of already having besieged this territory for years on end and collectively punish the civilian population in very indiscriminate fashion.

So, no, I don't buy this claim at all. Look at what's actually happening on the ground. In fact, your correspondents there, Karl Penhaul and Ben Wedeman, have done a fantastic job of covering the reality on the ground that is this massively disproportionate death toll in which the vast majority of those killed are civilians. So, I don't think there's any defense for the Israeli military

operation.

SCIUTTO: Yousef, to be fair, it is painful to watch for sure, and speaking to Karl and Ben today, but to be clear, Hamas does fire rockets from urban areas. They have been found to hide weapons in mosques and schools, et cetera -- taking advantage, in effect, of the civilian population there.

Do you deny that? I mean, will you grant that Hamas, as a result of that, has -- shares some of the responsibility for the civilian deaths?

MUNAYYER: Unfortunately, this is a claim that is made in a blanket fashion for every single target which the Israeli military is targeting in the Gaza Strip. We have not seen independent confirmation in any of these instances where that is proven to be correct. What we do know, though, is that time and again, civilians are being massacred in their own homes. You know, entire families are being eliminated. Again, there is simply no justification for this in any way.

SCIUTTO: Yousef, just very quickly before I let you go, do you see any end to this? Because Israeli officials have now talked about demilitarizing Hamas. That would seem to signal a long-term operation inside Gaza territory.

MUNAYYER: I think the only way that you are going to see an end to this and the Israelis have attacked Gaza in several instances in 2008, 2009, 2012 and now, it's clear that there's no military solution to this. There has to be a serious attempt to address the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. This is a population that should not be collectively punished under siege.

And, unfortunately, if, you know, anyone thinks that there can be sustainable quiet as the Israeli prime minister says, while the civilian population is treated this way under a heinous siege, I think they are very much mistaken.

SCIUTTO: Well, the question now then is there public support, political support on either side for a political solution going forward.

Thank you very much, Yousef Munayyer. Great to have your point of view.

MUNAYYER: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: All right. We turn now back to the tragedy of Malaysia Flight 17, still so many questions remain as the investigation there has really barely gotten under way. What barriers stand in the way of giving the victims the dignity they deserve and getting the answers that everyone needs? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARLOW: All right. We are now looking at some of the youngest victims of Flight 17. We will show you three young Australian children, just ages 12, 10 and 8 years old. They were flying home to Malaysia with their grandfather. Their parents had decided to stay in Amsterdam for a few more days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATALIA GEMMELL, VICTIMS' AUNT: Beautiful. Beautiful kids. Just gentle, clever, beautiful kids. My heart is with my sister.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: A picture of innocence. Those young victims among the 298 people aboard Flight 17. Outside of the Dutch embassy in Moscow, notes of condolences are attached to flowers and mementos for the victims of this horrific crash with a very simple message, as our Diana Magnay reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside the Dutch embassy in Moscow, flowers and cuddly toys for the lives lost in a conflict-scarred corner of eastern Ukraine -- a plane broken in midair, drawn by a child. "Children should not die" is written.

(on camera): We are afraid, we are ashamed, we are mourning. What is striking when you read these notes is how many of them use the phrase "forgive us". Even though the official Russian line is that it has no responsibility for this terrible tragedy, you do get the impression from so many of these notes that people do feel that somehow, Russia has an element of responsibility in what is being playing out in eastern Ukraine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it does not matter who launched that rocket. Just because we are supporting the terrorists (INAUDIBLE)

MAGNAY (on camera): Do you feel Russia has a role to play in this tragedy?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I am sure that Russia is not involved in the tragedy. However, I would also say forgive me and feeling the same.

MAGNAY (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) is Dutch but lives in Moscow. He believes the West paints the wrong picture of Moscow's president but that still, Mr. Putin must now step up to the plate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to take responsibility there and to bring peace in this region. He should take his responsibilities as well on what is happening right now due to the plane crash as well.

MAGNAY (on camera): Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has said that Russia can stop this war and Russia must stop this war. The question now is whether, given this terrible tragedy, Mr. Putin will be persuaded to try.

Diana Magnay, CNN, Moscow.

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HARLOW: Our thanks to Diana for that perspective there from Moscow.

We also have new information just coming in on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainian government saying a second train carrying the remnants of those killed in the crash has arrived in Torez. That is a city in eastern Ukraine. This follows earlier word that pro- Russian rebels had moved close to 200 bodies on to refrigerated car trains on a different train. Still so many questions about where they will end up.

A statement on Ukraine's cabinet's official website says the total of 251 bodies have been recovered from the crash site so far. Of course, there were 298 souls on board that plane.

Let's talk more about the investigation, what is happening at this moment, with former Transportation Department inspector, Mary Schiavo.

Mary, to you first -- it is really clear that very few official investigators have been able to reach the scene. Once they do, it will be at least three, four days after this incident. What is the most important thing they can do at this point in time given what we know, and that is that this site has been corrupted, people have been going through it and moving things, moving bodies, cutting through parts of the plane?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, the other thing that we know now is most likely the black boxes, the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, have been removed. That would have been my first priority and that's not possible anymore since they have been taken.

So, they need to look at the plane, concentrate on the plane, look at the evidence left by the missile impacts, the metal shrapnel, they need to get samples of the explosive. They need to map where the debris fell so they can tell if the plane, how much of it broke apart in midair. They have to work very quickly.

So, you're right, they have to prioritize but that would be the order of business and also making sure there aren't any more remains there.

HARLOW: And, of course, all the officials we have spoken with said they do not know where the black boxes are. There is some video that appears to show at least one of the data recorders being taken by what seems to be pro-Russian rebel forces but we do not know at this hour.

Given what you have seen, Mary, do you think that a thorough investigation can be done here in the end?

SCHIAVO: Well, not at the crash site. But I do have hopes that all the guilty can be brought to justice. It took us 11 years in 9/11 to work through the whole case. And in Lockerbie and Pan Am 103, it took 20 years. But so much evidence can be gathered offside through intelligence,

through interviews. There were 15,000 interviews done in Pan Am 103. So, I think they can bring people to justice. It's going to take a long time.

HARLOW: You know, as long as it takes, the family members, the loved ones of these 298 people, they deserve those answers. Everyone deserves those answers.

Mary Schiavo for us -- thank you so much, Mary.

SCHIAVO: Absolutely.

HARLOW: Well, coming up next in THE NEWSROOM, he was an original, the original maverick and a star that almost any generation can recognize. James Garner has died. His incredible career, that's next.

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HARLOW: Actor James Garner has died at the age of 86. The star of "The Rockford Files" and the original "Maverick" died at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes and as our Nischelle Turner notes, Garner always thought he was too shy to get into acting.

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NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Acting never came easy for James Garner. Born James Bumgarner, the actor described himself as a painfully shy introvert, masking the condition only with effort.

JAMES GARNER, ACTOR: Mind over matter. I literally had to do it saying, you know, if you can't have this attitude and be an actor and I had to change.

TURNER: Garner pursued acting after dropping out of school to join the merchant marine. Later in the Army, he earned two Purple Hearts, fighting in the Korean War.

He got his big acting break in 1957 as the lead in the offbeat western series, "Maverick."

GARNER: At that time, there were like 16 Westerns on television and we stuck our tongue in our cheeks and made them laugh a little bit and smile, and I think that was the difference.

TURNER: Garner moved easily between television and film roles, even before that became the rule for actors. The 1966 film "Grand Prix" provided a glimpse into one of Garner's long-time fascinations, auto racing.

The versatile actor landed the role of Jim Rockford in the detective series "The Rockford Files" in 1974. He won an Emmy award in 1977 for his iconic role and continued to work after the show ended its six- year run. He shined in films like "Victor Victoria" and "Murphy's Romance", which brought Garner a nomination for best actor Oscar. GARNER: I don't put up bail and I'm not your damn Dutch uncle.

TURNER: His career came full circle in the early '90s when he took a supporting role in a movie based on "Maverick", playing the father of his original character. And in an HBO production of the satirical barbarians at the gate. In 2000, Garner was back on the big screen in the action film "Space Cowboy."

The easygoing actor returned to television in the comedy "Eight Simple Rules" in 2003. The following year, he co-starred in "The Notebook". The romantic drama was an instant hit and endeared Garner to a new audience.

GARNER: I read to her and she remembers.

TURNER: Garner's ability to excel in both television and film made him an easy choice to be honored by the Screen Actors Guild with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. The father of two who remained married to his wife Lois for nearly 60 years won't soon be forgotten.

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SCIUTTO: Coming up tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Don Lemon will have the latest from the investigation into what happened to Flight 17 and Israel's reaction to Hamas' claim it has captured one of the soldiers. Again, that's tonight at 10:00 Eastern.

HARLOW: I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Thanks so much for being with us this evening.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

"THE HUNT WITH JOHN WALSH" begins right now.