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U.S. To Resupply Israel Military; Explosions Rock Gaza City; Land Mines Near MH17 Crash Site; Russians Push Cold War Talk; U.S. Condemns Shelling; Hackers Hit Firms that Built Iron Dome

Aired July 30, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Great to be with you all on this Wednesday. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's get to some news just into us here at CNN. CNN has just learned that the United States has agreed to resupply Israel's military with multiple types of ammunition. What types of ammunition? Why specifically? Let's go to the Pentagon, to our correspondent there, Barbara Starr, who has this reporting.

Tell me what exactly this resupplying of the Israeli defense forces really means, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

U.S. officials are telling me they have agreed to resupply Israel with ammunition at its request. Now, clearly, this is part of the U.S. commitment to the defense of Israel, according to administration officials. They say Israel is not running out of ammunition, it is not an emergency. But Israel has made a request for resupply of several types of ammunition, and the U.S. has now agreed to it.

There are two types that we know about. One is 120 millimeter mortar ammunition. The other is 40 millimeter ammunition for grenade launchers. What's so interesting is those two types of ammunition are going to be transferred to the Israelis very quickly from an existing stockpile of U.S. equipment and ammunition already in Israel. That is (INAUDIBLE) made public. But there's a number of other categories of ammunition. They will now go to U.S. companies, U.S. defense manufacturers, and finalize the deal with them to get resupplied in all of that.

Is Israel running out of ammunition? There's nothing that indicates that. But as one defense official said to me, look, clearly, over the last three weeks of operations in southern Israel and Gaza, they have been using up an awful lot, and clearly they do need to get this resupply.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Here we are in week four. Barbara Starr, thank you so much.

And let's stay on this conflict specifically. We know explosions have rocked Gaza, shattering this already short humanitarian cease-fire announced by Israel. Civilians given four hours to scramble just to find safer ground, but they didn't actually get that long. Let me show you the exact moment it came to a thunderous end.

But first, for the second time in a month, a school in Gaza has been hit. It was run by the United Nations and used to shelter civilians. The Palestinian health ministry says at least 20 people were killed when this school was hit today. You're looking at the aftermath.

The United Nations blames Israel. Israel says it was responding to militants in the area who fired upon Israeli soldiers. In previous attacks on U.N. facilities, Israel has blamed errant Hamas rockets.

But back to that attempt to stop this fighting -- remember, they thought it would be a four-hour break, stop the fighting long enough for people to get supplies, get out of harm's way. Again, supposed to last four hours. Didn't even make it to three. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, let's start with that unilateral -

(EXPLOSIONS)

VAUSE: It's over, as you can tell. What we have right now is smoke, which is coming from an earlier air strike in downtown Gaza City. That's a gas station, a petrol station, which was hit according to Palestinian officials. What that other target was hit, at this point, we don't know. They are now responding to that - to those Hamas rockets which, to be fair, Panula (ph), have continued to fire from Gaza.

(EXPLOSIONS)

VAUSE: Just over here, David (ph). This building just over here, which has just been hit. OK. People are now scattering beneath in the streets below.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you need to go -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that was earlier today. And now clearly night has fallen over Gaza City and John Vause joins me live.

And so, John, we saw the smoke, we heard the explosions, we saw you moving about. Quiet now?

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Quiet is a relative term here, Brooke. There is the constant sound of artillery and tank fire coming from the south. That hasn't let up for the last few hours. But it seems that the air activity has. We had a quick succession of air strikes when that four-hour humanitarian window came to an end about two-and-a-half hours into it. But right now it seems relatively quiet.

But let me show you this. This is the view out the window here.

BALDWIN: OK. VAUSE: And look, this is Gaza City at night. This is home to hundreds of thousands of people and it is pitch-black. Apart from a few homes that have lights on, they maybe have generators. But pretty much everyone here has no electricity. And this is the second night it is like this. And that is a direct result of Gaza's only power station, which is now out of operation.

Now, the Palestinians say it was hit by an Israeli tank shell. The Israel's say, we don't know, we're looking into that, we're not too sure. It wasn't on our target list. Whatever happened, right now there is virtually no electricity out here. And it's going to be like this for a while.

BALDWIN: Barely any lights twinkling behind you, John Vause. So we talked about the power station. We showed those pictures yesterday. Let's talk a little bit more about the school that was hit. It's a school. It's supposed to be a safe place, supposed to serve as a shelter. But then we have this video.

So what you're looking at, this is a building in Gaza City. We'll show you in a second. And so Reuters, it was reporting that it was hit today by Israeli shelling and one person was killed. And in these pictures, you can see the smoke, right? So we see the smoke here. And people are trying to put out this fire. They have like tiny jars of water to put this out. So, John, my question to you is, where can people go? I mean is there such a place -- is - as a safe place in Gaza City where you are?

VAUSE: Not really. I mean, look, this is the middle of a war zone. There are constant Israeli air strikes. The Israelis say they're taking the utmost care not to hit civilians, but we know that more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, most of them are, in fact, civilians. And they do warn people to leave. But as you say, there really isn't anywhere to go. They go to those U.N. shelters, those schools, and as we saw this morning, those schools then get hit either by Israeli fire or by Hamas rocket fire, depending on, you know, which version of events you choose to believe at this point in the conflict.

So, right now, people are - they're staying with relatives, they're staying in parking lots. Some have set up a makeshift camp outside the Shiba (ph) hospital here. They believe that maybe, because it's a hospital, it will be a lot safer. But according to the U.N., we're now looking at about 200,000 people out of 1.7 million who have had to leave their home. And a lot of those people really don't have anywhere to go.

BALDWIN: John Vause, thank you so much.

Let's stay on this. Let me bring in CNN international anchor Jim Clancy.

You've done extensive reporting on this part of the world. So I want to get to John's point in a minute as far as they really don't have anywhere to go. They're stuck right there in Gaza by land and by water. But first, as far as the cease-fire is concerned, supposed to last four hours, barely lasted three. What do you think is going on? JIM CLANCY, ANCHOR, CNN INTERNATIONAL: Well, Hamas would never

subscribe to it. The Israelis saw, you know, the shock over that attack, the killing of all of those people, what, more than 20 dead, more than -- well over 100 wounded at that U.N. shelter.

BALDWIN: Yes.

CLANCY: They called an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, calm things down a little bit. Hamas sees itself as winning there. And so Hamas says --

BALDWIN: Winning what?

CLANCY: A propaganda war.

BALDWIN: Winning a propaganda war.

CLANCY: Winning a propaganda war. So Hamas says, no cease-fire. They kept firing rockets.

The humanitarian cease-fire didn't affect the entire Gaza Strip. Israel quickly reengaged. We are now in a situation where I think getting a cease-fire is going to be more difficult, not less difficult. Hamas sees an opportunity here. It has no choice. Its back is against the wall. It wants to salvage something out of all of this, and that means lifting the restrictions on Gaza, but I don't think Israel is ready to do that in any way, shape or form.

BALDWIN: Listening to Sara Sidner, one of our other correspondents, she was on the ground talking to Wolf a little while ago and saying a lot of Israelis don't want this cease-fire. And to further the point about - I don't want to say tensions, but between Netanyahu and Obama, much, much -- much ado about this, really it's a hoax, it's not true, this transcript that was leaked among Israeli media. Ben Rhodes from the White House said it was crazy.

CLANCY: But the Israeli media picked it right up -

BALDWIN: They bought it. They believed it.

CLANCY: Right away because they understand just how seriously damaged U.S.-Israeli relations are.

BALDWIN: That's my point, yes.

CLANCY: John Kerry was really sabotaged, sand bagged, if you will, by Israeli authorities. President Obama was very upset by it. The U.S. reaching --

BALDWIN: They're our friend. We're resupplying their ammunition, according to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

CLANCY: Well, that will - that will continue to go on. But it's not helping Israel, really. It's not helping the United States at this juncture because, if you're looking for a cease-fire - I mean one that will really work -- BALDWIN: What?

CLANCY: You have to have a strategy. This is not a militant problem. This is a political problem. Only politics can solve it. It takes those kinds of talks that are going to recognize the needs of both sides. You're not getting it with a cease-fire here. Both sides, the Israelis and Hamas, have plenty of tactics. What they lack is a strategy. All this is going to do - a cease-fire now is get us right back here in two years' time.

BALDWIN: We can talk about strategy. At the end of the day, don't Israelis ultimately want to decapitate Hamas? Isn't that what they want?

CLANCY: Well, some have suggested that. What they want is a little peace and quiet. And some of them say the only way to get that is to --

BALDWIN: I'm sure Gaza wants that as well.

CLANCY: Demilitarize.

BALDWIN: Right.

CLANCY: Certainly. They want - they want the freedom of movement. That's from the Palestinian side. They want recognition. You know, Israel is demanding that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist and Hamas is shooting right back saying, recognize us first. So you're at this -- the same old place that we've been for so long. The military cannot solve that problem. A propaganda war is something else.

BALDWIN: We've seen the movie before, as Fareed Zakaria has told me.

Jim Clancy, appreciate it very much.

CLANCY: All right, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Just ahead, the Iron Dome. The defense system that protects Israelis from those rockets is at risk of being hacked. We'll explain how that's possible.

Plus, in the worst Ebola outbreak ever, here's a frightening thought, crews cannot really know for sure whether someone is infected with Ebola before he or she gets on a plane. So we'll talk live with someone who just returned from West Africa, treating, counseling some of the victims and their families.

And a Russian lawmaker says President Obama will go down in history as the man who started the new cold war. Strong words. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's take you to eastern Ukraine. Bodies still left behind. Investigators pushed back by the fierce fighting. And now the situation just got worse at the MH17 crash site. Land mines? These are exclusive pictures, thanks to our CNN crew, from the wreckage from today. A Ukrainian official saying pro-Russian rebels are placing these land mines near the wreckage of this passenger plane while the rebels accuse the Ukrainian military of putting its tanks on part of the debris field.

And carrying on battles there. Thirteen days after that Boeing 777 carrying those 298 people was blown out of the sky, the situation appears to be worsening on the ground. So to Nick Paton Walsh we go, live in Donetsk, Ukraine.

And, Nick, still these international investigators can't get through. You and your crew managed to get to this crash site, sharing these new images with us. First let me ask you, did you see evidence, with your own eyes, of these land mines?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, not really. And if you actually examine the Ukrainian security council's statement, they're suggesting more that separatists are putting up firing positions and mining the areas around the crash site. They're trying to suggest that they're blocking access for inspectors. But if you look at the reality, this whole area, and it's a vast area where the wreckage is scattered, this whole area is being fought over in a brutal civil war.

When we were at the crash site, there were plenty of black plumes of smoke on the horizon. As we left, intense shelling of one town called Shaktos (ph), which is blocking access for inspectors from Donetsk, where I'm standing, to that crash site. So I think it's hard on the ground to actually see specific evidence of mines being put in to block access. And the separatist militants we came across, well, they checked our documents, asked questions. But comparatively, they were on the friendly side.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: So why were they on the friendlier side with you all and this caravan of 30 to 40 vehicles of these international investigators can't get through? Why?

WALSH: Well, it's easy for us, in many ways. We're one car there for just over an hour. We can wind our way through many roads and people not quite sure who we are and we're gone before they try and work it out. But the convoy of inspectors, that's 30 to 40 of them. They travel very conspicuously. A lot of negotiation beforehand to ensure cease-fires. A lot of mistrust between the sides and the fighting here, so you have to play that in mind too if you're the convoy of inspectors trying to navigate your way through. Is someone going to shoot at you and blame it on the other side.

And bear in mind too, when the inspectors get there, they have to be there for hours, weeks possibly, even months. Some suggest that painful forensic work going through that often terrifying, horrifying wreckage, debris still in the fields there, scattered over many kilometers, square miles, Brooke.

So I think that's the problem they're facing. We're on day four now though that the Dutch and Australian police have been here in Donetsk, talking to the monitors from the OSCE about getting there but simply not able to make the journey because of the fighting and it's getting worse, Brooke.

BALDWIN: You saw debris. Did you see remains?

WALSH: No. But sad to say, Brooke, we could smell a sort of rather acrid smell in the air of decay that's still there. We saw a lot of possessions still there. I saw a wallet that had clearly been emptied. Two of those. You see the books that people were reading when the missile struck the jet, as many people say. And we saw also what must have been shrapnel holes in the cockpit, too.

So a lot still there. Much less that you can see in terms of the remains of individuals. The stretchers that carried them away, they're still there too. But it's bizarre how eerily silent that whole area is, like it's cut off from the war around it.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much, in Ukraine.

If you are old enough, this growing disdain between the United States and Russia, might recall the Cold War years, the years and years of all-consuming rivalry between Washington and Moscow. President Obama took on a question about the Cold War just yesterday. Did you catch this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this a new cold war, sir?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. It's not a new cold war. What it is, is a very specific issue related to Russia's unwillingness to recognize that Ukraine can chart its own path.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Not a new cold war, so says the president. But some Russians beg to differ. I want to show you this one tweet. The quote is, "Barack Obama will make history, not as a peace maker, everyone forgot about his Noble Prize, but rather as the statesman who started a new cold war." That tweet is from the head of the foreign affairs committee of Russia's parliament.

Also worth noting here, a remark last May, not widely reported. Quote, "we are slowly but surely approaching a second cold war." That is Russia's prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev. So, new cold war? Obviously it depends on whom you ask.

Let's ask Kimberly Dozier. She's our CNN global affairs analyst and joins me from Washington, D.C.

Kimberly, straight up, are we or are we not approaching another cold war between Moscow and Washington?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Not yet, but we're definitely in an ideological war that you could say Russia has been conducting for some time. And only this Ukraine crisis has really made the U.S. engage full on. They have a sophisticated messaging system where if Vladimir Putin dictates it from on high, it quickly gets passed on by lawmakers, by state television. They also have tweet monitors, that the moment someone who is Russian opposition member or someone who is a critic of Russia says something, they have trolls instantly responding. Everything from something factual to, you know, "yeah, so says your mother."

BALDWIN: Hillary Clinton, she sat down with Fareed Zakaria very recently and she told him that Vladimir Putin acted dismissively of her when she was U.S. secretary of state. Do we know anything as to Barack Obama's relationship with Vladimir Putin? I mean just personal chemistry, what do we know?

DOZIER: We know that they have a cordial but matter-of-fact relationship. This is two smart, calculating minds circling each other. But a lot of the engagement happens instead through the public media. Russia has seen itself for some time, the inner narrative inside the country is that it's really suffered from the fall of the Soviet Union and that it deserves a greater, stronger place in the world. So each of these moves, like taking back the Crimea and some of the ways that they have repositioned troops that possibly could menace other areas, this is all about Putin telling his people, we won't be pushed around.

Unfortunately, it's kind of backfired in that European nations watching this, watching this messaging, watching Russian-state television tell its own people that Ukrainian troops shot that Malaysian airliner down, that has helped fuel the move toward sanctions. And those tougher sanctions are something that could make the Russian people feel the pain from their president's actions.

BALDWIN: That's what President Obama's hoping for. We saw him yesterday addressing those additional sectorial sanctions from the South Lawn saying they're already feeling the pain and hoping they feel it much worse.

Kimberly Dozier, thank you so much, in Washington.

Coming up next, Israel's Iron Dome has been incredibly successful in deflecting those rockets coming in from Hamas. But the question we're asking today, could the Iron Dome defense system be hacked? One security worker says absolutely, and that three firms that helped build it have been hacked in the past. We'll explore that. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Just into us here from the White House, the White House now condemning the shelling on a United Nations school in Gaza. It was a school that was sheltering a number of Palestinians. Here is the State Department spokeswoman, the deputy spokeswoman, just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIE HARF, STATE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SPOKESWOMAN: While we do condemn the shelling of an UNRWA school in Gaza, which reportedly killed and injured innocent Palestinians, including children and U.N. humanitarian workers, of course we would also condemn those responsible for hiding weapons in the United Nations facilities in Gaza, as well. All of these actions and similar ones earlier in the conflict are inconsistent with the U.N.'s neutrality, which we have spoken about in the past.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So let's go to the White House to our correspondent there, Michelle Kosinski. And very -- let's be specific on her wording, condemning the shelling of the school, did not say condemning the, if it is, Israeli strike.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean they went so far as to spell it out further because it was originally tweeted out that the White House was condemning the Israeli shelling of this school.

BALDWIN: Oh.

KOSINSKI: But they quickly said, wait, wait, that tweet is incorrect. We did not assign any blame here. We just condemned the shelling of that school. So -- and they went further than that.

I mean they're not just focused on Israel here. They did expand it a little bit in that direction, though, by saying that they're also deeply concerned about thousands of Palestinians who have been told by Israel to evacuate their homes and then are not safe, in the U.S.'s view, in U.N. facilities. So that's taking it even further there. Again, though, without naming Israel.

But the second part of this statement says that they also condemn those who hide weapons within schools and other U.N. facilities. So that then is condemning the Palestinians, again, without naming anyone. They don't want to assign anything here, but they kind of want to issue this blanket condemnation on the actions that have been happening there by both sides.

I think one reason that they might not want to name Israel at this point, specifically, even though it seems like they're doing it without doing it, is because remember over the last couple of days we've seen incidents where a facility like this was shelled. We saw it at a hospital, a refugee camp, the Palestinians immediately blame the Israelis, but then it turned out the Israelis said no, no, we have proof, we even have pictures showing that these were errant Palestinian bombs. So it may just be too early that nobody wants to name anyone at this point, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Right. Hamas. Hamas. Michelle Kosinski at the White House, thank you so much.

And there are several reports circulating of these Chinese hackers breaking into defense contractor computers, stealing schematics for Israel's Iron Dome defense system. We have video. It shows the Iron Dome in action, intercepting a rocket over Tel Aviv. This is an expensive system, funded in part by hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States. And CNN Money correspondent, Laurie Segall, she talked to one of these cyber analysts who was accusing China of the theft.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke.

Well, as the Israel-Gaza conflict wages on, alarming new research shows the makers of Israel's main missile defense system was hacked in the past. I actually spoke to the man who discovered it. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL (voice-over): A hack illustrated by security researcher Joe Drissel.

JOSEPH DRISSEL, CEO, CYBER ENGINEERING SERVICES, INC.: I'll put the malware up on the hot point and that hot point there could potentially deliver a piece of e-mail that is infected down to the victim company.

SEGALL: At the heart of the breach, one of Israel's main defense mechanisms, the Iron Dome.

DRISSEL: It's a very elegant attack, and it's - it's almost like the flu for the Internet. There's no good way to stop it.

SEGALL: According to Drissel, a group of Chinese hackers from a group called the Comment (ph) Crew (ph) gained access to sensitive data from three Israeli defense contractors from 2011 to 2012. Here's what they got.

DRISSEL: There's details about the aero missile system, which is the missile that is shot out of the launcher itself. And what we're talking about are the actual schematics, the engineering, the auto cad diagrams of how you would build and reconstruct this particular missile system.

SEGALL (on camera): You've got these defense contractors that are holding all this sensitive data. Something as simple as a phishing attack could breach it?

DRISSEL: You may think that it's easy to stop somebody from clicking on an e-mail attachment or a link, but human nature drives us to do that.

SEGALL (voice-over): A phishing attack that could crack the dome, or recreate it.

DRISSEL: If you wanted to identify weaknesses and particular technologies, you would want to know the underpinnings of it. This is a great way to look for a way to maneuver around the Iron Dome. You could also, if you wanted to, recreate it.

SEGALL: Israel's Aerospace Space Industries and Rafael Advance Defense Systems deny sensitive info was stolen. IAI say it "cyber security systems operate in accordance with the most rigorous requirements and also, in this case, they were proven to be effective."

Drissel says he came forward with the report to raise awareness.

DRISSEL: We actually reached out on several occasions to not only the victims in this situation, but we also provided the information to the authorities here in the United States.

SEGALL (on camera): Do you feel confident the Iron Dome is safe now and can't be hacked?

DRISSEL: At the end of the day, I don't believe at any point that any company is safe. It's important moving forward that we realize that these are serious bits of information that we cannot allow to be released.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: And, Brooke, as we face the threat of cyber warfare, now more than ever, Drissel says it's so important to put money towards building out these security systems when it comes to this type of critical infrastructure -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Laurie Segall, thank you so much.

Next, it is the deadliest outbreak of Ebola ever. And now experts say it may come to the United States.

We're going to talk to someone who was on the ground in West Africa. She was counseling, offering support to these Ebola victims, their families, even to doctors. What did she tell them? Why was she over there? Did she realize the risks? And how did she help them try to deal with this potentially deadly virus? We'll talk to her, live, next.

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