working to determine if any americans were on board. stay with abc news all morning long, as we cover the plane crash investigation. and later this half hour, what we can learn from past incidents like this one and safety in the skies. the other major story we re following this morning, the crisis in the middle east. israel now says that one of its soldiers has died in the ground operation against hamas. thousands of israeli tanks have rolled into gaza. on a mission to destroy hamas rocket firing operations. and to take out tunnels used by militants. here s abc s hamish macdonald. reporter: the blazing night sky above gaza was the giveaway. after hours of heavy shelling, confirmation. israel has begun the ground phase of its operations in gaza. this strip of land is being bombarded from the air, sea and land. artillery units, infantry, the armored corps, all being deployed. another 18,000 reservists are being called up. a total now of more than 60,000. for the past week, we ve seen
fire. the malaysian airline colors visible, clothing, passports, a vacationer s travel guide. a sign that these are the parts of the plane blown up in the sky. flight 17 took off from amsterdam just after noon local time. just over four hours into the flight to kuala lumpur, malaysia, cruising at 33,000 feet, it crosses ukraine near russia s border. that s when something goes terribly wrong. the u.s. says it believes the plane was shot down by a single surface-to-air missile. shot down. not an accident. blown out of the sky. reporter: the government of ukraine has been locked in a battle with pro-russian separatists, who want to break parts of the country off to join russia. ukraine accused those separatists of shooting the flight down over a rebel-controlled area. ukraine releasing what they say
figure out what happened to flight 370, another 777, which vanished back in march. the troubled airline is now facing a double crisis. here s abc s david kerley. reporter: this is the scene malaysian officials confronted four months ago, when its flight 370 disappeared. angry family members of those lost. for the second time, in just 131 days, malaysia airlines is once again in the headlines. two disasters, two different flights, one airline. on march 8 of this year, it was flight 370 that disappeared somewhere over the south indian ocean. not a single piece of debris found so far. but it appears that flight 17 was shot down near the russian/ukrainian border. and the key piece of evidence, the black boxes, reportedly recovered already. both doomed flights were boeing 777s. an aircraft with one of the best safety records in aviation. both carried more than 200 souls
even though nato s top commander, american general philip breedlove, said recently, that russia has been providing air defense training to the pro-russian rebels. why this malaysian flight did not file to go left or right and not over the combat zone is still a mystery tonight. reporter: on the ground, photographer and abc news prelance producer, john wendle, was one of the first journalists to arrive at the horrific crash scene. he was touring the wreckage with russian separatist leaders, now in control of the region, narrating the gruesome scene to abc s george stephanopoulos. who was talking to you there? sorry. it s a rebel with a weapon. he just pointed out with a flashlight on the ground that there s there s blood splattered everywhere. and pieces of pieces of remains. oh, man.
a tourist guide to bali, unscathed. at the scene was john wendle, a freelance reporter for abc news. there s blood splattered everywhere. and pieces of pieces of remains. oh. reporter: the rebels claim they have recovered the plane s critical black box data and voice recorders and will send it to moscow. u.s. officials say there is evidence the plane was shot down. shot down. not an accident. blown out of the sky. reporter: hours after the crash, the ukrainian government posted what were described as audio intercepts of the rebels. first reporting that a military plane had been shot down. then a short while later, one of the purported militants said, it was a civilian plane, spouting profanity, as he describes the bodies and belongings, saying there was no sign at all that it was a military plane. u.s. officials say the working theory is that an older-model russian-made surface-to-air missile, was fired at the jet by