Trying to stop the advance of Islamic State fighters. The government of iraq invited us to assist them. America is coming to help. Nato called russia to withdraw their troops from the border. Russia is trying obully a small country. Step back from the border. Fragile ceasefire has crumbled. Israeli war plean planes are aoverhead. Far greater than what held us together. Are International Public emergency. I am declaring the current outbreak of ebola disease a Public Health emergency of greatest concern. We begin with return of u. S. Combat operations to iraq. Friday for the second time, f18 hornet fighters from the George Zimmerman h. W. Bush struck the kurdish city of erbil. Two fighters dropped bombs on a military could b convoy. Aid and u. S. Humanitarian air drops have dropped more than 5,000 gallons are of water and prepackaged meals to 10,000 yazidi refugees. More air drops have been promised. Iraqi christians and other religious minorities are fleei fleeing. Josh ernest said the help would be limited in scope. President obama hasnt had an end date. We are going to take that approach in which those kinds of decisions are evaluated regularly and are driven by security situation on the ground. For more on americas role in iraq im joined from the state department in washington, d. C, by maria harf, the administrations spokesperson. Maria, good to have you. Has the bombing taken place in iraq just the beginning or could they be the end of the Islamic State fighters dont push further into kurdistan . Well the goals of these actions over the last 24 hours are really twofold, the first is to provide humanitarian assistance as we could. The u. S. Military did a massive drop onto the mountain where the yazidis are at risk as the president says of genocide. And the second is to prevent i. S. I. L. s Movement Towards erbil. Weve made progress here but the president has authorized the u. S. Military to take actions they believe necessary. So i would expect to see more actions in the coming days. But is that policy too limited . Because doesnt it then allow the extremists pretty much to act wherever else they want in iraq without fearing the u. S. Bombing . Not at all. Look i think when youre a terrorist group that has the United States military dropping 500 pound bombs on you that doesnt give you a whole lot of comfort about where you can operate. Lets be clear here. The president said last night this is for discrete purposes. Long term, there is no American Military solution to the challenge of i. S. I. L. What were focused on the long term is to build up iraq forces to give them time and space so they can get back on their own feet and fight on their own. Well be helping them do so. Creating an iraq up to now even one of president obamas form he ambassadors to iraq has asked the question why did the white house wait so long . To be clear when this crisis first began in june, we meld increased our surveillance so we had better eyes on if and when we star decided to take action. They are taking many actions on their own including 24 hours some iraqi hair strikes. We created joint Operations Centers in erbil, to provide rakes there with more information so we steadily increased our support. Weve steadily helped the rakes get better in fighting this threat. But when there was a direct humanitarian challenge that we could help with and direct threat on erbil where we could help the president was confident to provide the action. The president has made a commitment to help rescue the yazidi refugees trapped by the Islamic State fighters up on a mountain side. Does americas commitment go beyond that . What if these trustee extremisto beyond that . Im not going to go beyond that. The principles of protecting our people not only in erbil but in baghdad will drive much of our Decision Making over the coming days and weeks of this issue. We have a wide range of toolts to help tools to help against i. S. I. L. Even though sending help to northern iraq, what does Defense Department plans, what does the Administration Plan to do if anything to help the Christian Refugees who have been driven from their homes by the Islamic State . Well since 2008 weve provided i think 83 million to help the minority populations inside iraq. A lot of our work is with the u. N. In terms of internally displaced persons but what you saw over the past 24 hours is that we will take additional steps to help humanitarian ways, because there is such a crisis. I think we should also remember that i. S. I. L. s brutality isnt just limited to crifnt limited r yazidis, or kurds, then in their way they have committed to kill. We have committed to help iraqis in this fight that has affected all of iraq. Shifting to the israeli crisis you said our hope is that the parties will agree to a ceasefire in the coming hours. Can you elaborate on that . Our team remains on the ground in cairo. We know the other parties left. We want to see a short term ceasefire so we can have an attempt to negotiate a more sustainable ceasefire. Thats in the best interests of the palestinians, it is in the best interest of the israelis. We saw hamas go forward with more rocket strikes, which leads us to where we are now. We need a ceasefire situation where we can get maybe hopefully a longer ceasefire in place. And do you think that will happen soon . Well, we hope it will. But we know this is challenging, there are a lot of actors at play, we are committed to staying on the ground at cairo and working to see if we can get something in place. Maria harf at the state department, thank you. For more on the situation im joined by robert grenier. Mission manager in iraq from 2002 to 2004 and he is an al jazeera contributor. Robert as always good to have you with us. The u. S. Is using air power exclusively. Its clearly been effective to the extent its been used but are you surprised that it is being limited to far to just pinprick attacks . It certainly seems that theres no shock and awe this time around. Well, no im not surprised. This administration as we know has very much wanted to avoid military engagement wherever they could and they are very cherry in drawn into an open military commitment. They are clear to state what the guidelines are what the policies are that they are trying to support and theyre stating very clearly that any use of military force will be only in support of those objectives. Number one to protect u. S. Facilities and personnel and secondly to avoid a catastrophic humanitarian situation in northern iraq. In that context the white house says its determined to keep the white house from being dragged into a long military conflict in iraq but isnt this the same issue were facing in afghanistan lettings the enemy letting the enemy know just how far we will go in iraq and theyll let the u. S. Forces go away . I think you can make that argument. We are demonstrating already that the only way that the Islamic State in iraq is going to attract u. S. Military attention is if it launches direct attacks on Peshmerga Forces or threaten populations who fled their rule in northern iraq. As long as they stay away from that it would appear thus far they have no problem with the u. S. Military. Former u. S. Air force colonel Cedric Layton told al jazeera this about the precision strikes. Intelligence has to be key in this, you have to have absolute understanding of where people are at every second of the day. Do we have those sorts of assets in place or can we do all the targeting from the air or by satellite . Well, of course there are drone assets that can be employed. There are things that can be done with satellites, quite a lot that can be done with satellites but the u. S. Doesnt have military in iraq at this point but our military objectives are very limited but its only those i. S. I. S. Forces that are geangd in hostilities in engaged in hostilities that we are committed to defend. For instance as we saw earlier today if there is a battery which is firing on kurdish positions theyve pretty well identified themselves and theyre open to attack. For us to go further would require greater intelligence capabilities on the ground but were not there yet. Now even in a limited engagement situation and with the Islamic State not having ground to air missiles that could bring american planes down they do have issues and sometimes those jets have mechanical problems that could come down, even if the Islamic State captain. Are we in a position cant. Are we in a poks t position to a pilot if a plane goes down . The u. S. Has very strict protocols on that and i dont believe if they could avoid it the u. S. Military would be going into harms way if we didnt have the capability to rescue pilots. In the persian gulfs we have turkey nsulit air base, and seasar capabilities to rescue them. These Islamic State have proved to be incede incredibly brutal. In order for the kurds to be able to mount more of a resistance . In my view absolutely. We ought to be aiding the kurds militarily in a much more serious way. We should be providing them with advisors, we should be provided them with sophisticated equipment. They are running low on ammunition. They dont have the weapons to match the i. S. I. S. Fighters. So absolutely we should be providing them with assistance. One of the problems and one of the equations that the administration is trying very carefully to balance though is they dont want to get between the government in baghdad and the kurdish authorities in the north. In fact theyve insisted thus far that anything we provide to the curd kurds should be done th baghdad since they are in political dispute right now. Thats the problem, the Iraqi Government has been reluctant to provide the kurds with the armament keeping most of it for the iraqi army itself. The Islamic States leader threatened the u. S. On friday calling us the holder of the cross and calling for a direct confrontation with his fighters. Is there any doubt at this point that the Islamic State has replaced the world with the biggest threat the u. S. Has when we could conceivably bomb them to oblivion. Well you know all politics is local. And yes, absolutely they do see themselves as being in the vanguard of the global jihadist movement. Thats what they wanted it all along. They very much want to be in the leadership position of the Global Movement and in order to do that, they have to threaten the major enemy which is the United States. And so yes im not at all surprised to hear him challenging the United States. And they think that they are in a very, very strong position. When you see what theyve gone through in syria, the americans have certainly not been active in trying to counter them there. I think that they feel that the u. S. Is a threat that they can manage at this point. Robert renee, thank you for your insights and your time. Ambassador hill from 2009 to 2010, ambassador to iraq, currently dean of the joseph cor belcorebel institute. I want to play something john kerry said on friday. The stakes for iraqs future could also be not more clear. And todays stakes underscore them significantly. For anyone who wanted a wake up call this is it. We have seen this Islamic State group on the offense itch in iraq seizing offensive killing sunnies for months. Did the United States need this wakeup call from kurdistan to take action . Youre absolutely right. This has been going on for months. But i think it also speaks to the fact that we are now seeing attacks not just against malikis forces but against kurds as well against religious minorities up in nineoa. Its clear this i. S. I. S. Group has bigger ambitions than just unseating mr. Maliki. When the secretary speaks of a wakeup call he speaks of the fact that there is a movement there not just to a politician in baghdad but to the broader region as well. Dont you think we should have seen that before because certainly they dominate a whole section of syria and theyve taken over much of northwestern iraq. Should we have learned from bill clinton who has said his greatest regret was not acting sooner during the rwandan genocide. Weve seen more than a Million People displaced in iraq. We are looking this from the optics of whether the maliki government has done enough in terms of sunni outreach and other political gestures. But i think whats come clear in recent days is that this group has had much broader ambitions. There have been interviews with members of this group, where they not talk about stopping in baghdad or erbil but stopping at mecca. I think as this group has articulated its broader effort or broader ambitions i think it was necessary for our secretary of state to kind of issue that wakeup call. I dont think hes referring to himself. I think hes referral to many people who saw this as just another annoying political problem in the meld of the middle east. To your point, the groups leader, Abu Bakr Albaghdadi threatened the United States directly. He said soon enough you will find yourself in confrontation with the sobs of islam who have prepared themselves well with the day we fight you. Can we, in syria and iraq, possibly train thousands of would be fighters . Some have said this is far worse than days before 9 11. This is getting very bad and of course the issue starts in syria. We had quite a free for all in syria and the real problem has been there has been no political or diplomatic way forward. Even if bashar alassad, the focus of much of the ire in the western world . Even if he were run over by a bus today, you have a serious question about how syria will be ruled in the future. Will it be simply majority rule or some kind of federal structure some kind of canton system and yet nothing has been done and meanwhile there has been talk of arming some groups yet that hasnt been done either. I think we have a syria whose problems have been met as at a. What the administration has got to do is look at this as a broader regionwide issue involving shia, sunni and other divisions within the region. We have seen an unpresprecedentd weakening of the structures in the middle east and we have seen people taking refuge in sectarian and even tribal structures. This is shaping up as you suggest as a really big league problem that needs to be addressed comprehensively and by the way not just by the United States. I think other countries need to be not only looking at this but playing a part and finding a solution. In the context of those sectarian and tribal divisions many kurds are said to be ecstatic that the u. S. Has intervened however modestly so far but certainly not all iraqis disagree. An iraqi shia says, that, someone else who was close to the shiite leader muqtada al sad r, said they were looking out for their own interests not for ours. Do they have a point . The president has said, the humanitarian crisis of the yazidis . In terms of humanitarian protecting the minority leaders. Some of the shia can be forgiven by saying if they protect the kurds why havent they protect us . One subtext is the kurds would have declared an independent state sometime ago were it not for the fact that the United States has made it very clear the United States opposes that type of breakup of iraq and therefore opposes the formation of an independent kurdish state. Not helping the kurds that equation could change for the kurdish leadership. The president ial has to face the big question of course just how the u. S. Can get involved all over the world with so many problems that were seeing now. Ambassador christopher hill, a pleasure having you with us. Thanks. Coming up israeli air strikes intensifies. And w. H. O. Designates ebola an International Health emergency. 15 stories, 1 incredible journey edge of eighteen coming september only on Al Jazeera America rockets and missiles are flying between israel and gaza again. Five palestinians were reportedly killed including a tenyearold boy and several israelis were injured. Attempts by negotiators to salvage peace continued in cairo with little help for a break through. Israeli delegation left egypt after rejecting palestinian proposals calling for a lifting of the israeli blockade on gaza. They broke the promise of the talk and there will not be negotiations under fire. For the latest were joined in jerusalem by al jazeera correspondent jane ferguson. Good to see you again. Is there hope for a break through now with the palestinians staying in cairo and the israelis leaving . Well, hope seems to be fading of course as you said. That ceasefire expired and now were back to similar violence we have seen over rocket fire being exchanged. The israeli delegation have left so officially theyre not partaking in talks. Unofficially however they are making contact because of course dont forget that these have all been indirect talks. They are not sitting down at the table with the palestinians. We have had egyptians shuttling between the two sides. It is possible there is some communication ongoing even though israelis arent in cairo itself. The likelihood of a break through, in terms of the lifting of this blook blockade on gaza r or not the palestinians will accept a partial lifting or slight easing whether they will stick by what their demands are a near total lifting of the brookd ball twblockade and whete israelis feel like theyre in a position to need to give any concessions is unclear at this point. What about the fighting . We have new video exclusive to al jazeera of hamas fighters inside a tunnel that apparently was not destroyed. Hamas broke the truce, israel fired back but so far no issue whether israeli troops are goog back to gaza . Israelis didnt want to extend it because they didnt see their terms being met. In terms of tunnels, israelis say they largely destroyed th