History. How long before somebody brings it to the United States . And for many, russias alleged role in shooting down flight 17 has cemented Vladimir Putin as a bond super villain. But not so long ago, putin and the u. S. Where is pretty chummy. So what changed . Good afternoon, everyone. Im jake tapper. Welcome to the lead. We begin with the world lead. Youve probably by now lost count of the number of times a ceasefire has been proposed, rejected, broken, accepted for a limited time discarded and the conflict between israel and hamas and gaza. Its been difficult to get these parties to stop firing at each other. Israel is prepared for a ceasefire, but theres no agreement a spokesman for israels Prime Minister will only say the ball is in hamas court, the militant Palestinian Organization that crows gaza by which has been labeled a terrorist group by the u. S. Government in addition to israel. Today the Palestinian Authority in the west bank announced a 24hour ceasefire but hamas rejected saying they never agreed to it. Just to be clear, thats palestinians rejecting other palestinians though an Israeli Government official also dismissed the offer as one not serious. Theres been so much spin and grievance and willful blindness to anything that anyone from either side has ever done to the other, it could be easy to conclude that this conflict will truly never end. So israels relentless military assault on gaza continues and hamas continues to fire rockets and try to send fighters through tunnels into israel. 56 israelis have been killed as of now. Almost all of them soldiers. Nearly 1,200 palestinians have been killed. And according to the u. N. , most of them have been civilians. Meanwhile, secretary of state john kerry came out today to defend his negotiations on the ceasefire and says talks in the middle east need to continue. We owe it to everybody to try to see if tuck find that way. If after you get to a table it problems that there is absolute reluctance to honor basic defensive needs of israel to deal with the rockets, to deal with the tunnels, to deal with other things, then at least you know youve made that effort to try to spare lives and to find a legitimate way forward. Im joined now by the spokesman for israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu mark regev. Mark, the u. S. israel relationship seems to be in a not great place right now and breaking right now in israeli media on channel 1 in your country and then the times of israel is what is purported to be a transcript of a conversation between Prime Minister netanyahu and president obama in which president obama is pushing israel to agree to a unilateral ceasefire. The report says that the document, if its authentic and it has been disputed we should say by the white house as being authentic, the report says that it came from an american official. Im wondering what can you tell us, is it true that president obama pushed netanyahu for a unilateral ceasefire . Look, the document i learned it like you from the media. I cannot confirm its authenticity. Ive got to idea. I wasnt on that conversation. I can say the following, since this crisis started, president obama, secretary kerry have been unequivocal in condemning ha has for its rocketing of israeli cities it, its condemned hamas for refusing to accept the egyptian ceasefire and other ceasefires and behind israels right to defend itself. On these crucial issues were seeing america and israel working hand in hand. Thats the most important thing. Has president obama asked netanyahu for a unilateral ceasefire . Is that accurate . Well, its clear that we all want this to end. And we want it to end in a way that it doesnt start up again in six months or a year. We want to find aid way to bring longterm stability and security both to the israeli people and to the people of gaza. To have this end in a way we just revisit this a year from now does no one any good. Youre not answering the question. But isle accept that youre not going to answer it. I have to ask you about these heart breaking scenes that were seeing from gaza. Now, mark, if my calculations are right, israel has in the last three weeks killed more palestinian children, more than 200, than the total number of Israeli Soldiers killed in military operations since 2006, which includes the second lebanon war, operation cast led, operation pillar of defense and now operation protective edge. That is a lot of dead children especially relative to the number of soldiers that have been killed in israel in Israeli Military operations in the last eight years. At what point does the Israeli Government say, enough, were killing too many innocent children . You know, we had a special press conference in tel aviv last night, and the chief of staff of the israeli mirt, their most highest israeli official in uniform he said it in openly to the israeli public. It wasnt something for foreign consumption. He said every innocent victim in gaza pains us. And i think he was saying something very genuine, something very real that israelis feel. We dont want to see innocent civilians caught up in the crossfire between us and hamas. But i think the question that you raise. Its not just the crossfire though. It is. The question has to be raised, more than two weeks ago, israel unequivocally and unconditionally accepted an egyptian ceasefire proposal that was supported by the United States, by the arab league, by the United Nations. Hamas said no to that ceasefire. Now, hamas is responsible for all deaths on their side and on our side because they were the ones that kept this conflict going. Mark, netanyahu said no to the ceasefire draft that the kerry proposed. Not true. Not true. Not true. Lets be clear here. People are fighting, people are dying because hamas has repeatedly said no to a ceasefire. And unfortunately, civilian casualties in gaza are made there, are there because hamas has adopted a deliberate policy of endangering ga zag civilians using them as human shields. Just now theres breaking news out of a reuters correspondent, a third unwra school, a school by the United Nations group thats supposed to give palestinian support to palestinians, a third school was discovered now with weapons being stored, missiles hamas rockets. Mark, i agree with you. Thats horrific. Thats horrific. A systemic pattern of behavior by hamas. Thats horrific, i agree with you. To use civilian infrastructure. Mark, just recently, the idf attacked the home of a family in gaza, the abu jama family, the israeli human rights group. The target was likely a member of hamas military wing. He was killed in the operation, targeted and killed and so were 25 members of this family including 18 children. So you say youre not targeting civilians. Youre targeting bad guys. Youre targeting hamas militants but the civilians are being killed. Lets be clear here. And lets look at the real options that exist in the real world. As you said, and you agreed with me, hamas is shooting out of civilian infrastructure out of homes, out of urban neighborhoods, out of mosques, out of schools. Their rockets are raining down on israel. I think weve had some 2,600 rocks on israeli cities over the last three weeks. What are our options to say no, we cant shoot back . We cant shoot back because we might inadvertently hit a civilianle . Of course, well make a maximum effort to avoid sitting civilians. Our targets are the Hamas Terrorists trying to kill us. I dont think anyone is suggesting that you shouldnt fire back, mark. I think the question is, is what israels doing, a, is it commensurate with the attacks coming at israel, and b, is it actually going to be good for israel in the long run . I think there are a lot of serious questions about that, especially these people 1. 8 million of them living in what has been described as an open air prison. Now theyre not going to have power for another year or so because the only power plant in gaza was bombed probably by israel last night. I think the question is, be is this the best course. No one knows that. No one knows who hit the power plant. Weve done our own investigation and we dont know that it was israel at all. It could have been 10 of hamas munitions fired at israel short and they hit in gaza. Thats what happened yesterday at the hospital where the Shifa Hospital was hit by a rocket that malfunctioned. That could be the case today. But to blame it on israel automatically is incorrect. Could i answer a larger question that you raise . Please do. Look, israel has to strike back against those who are shooing at us those rockets. Now, on one hand, you cant give the terrorists immunity. You cant allow them to shoot because of the possibility of collateral damage. On the other hand, you have to be as surgical as is humanly possible in a very, very difficult combat situation. Think of it this way. If terrorists had found a Winning Strategy that by shooting at a civilian neighborhoods they had got immunity, what does that mean for terrorists around the world . Theyve found the winning way to win the war against the democracies. They have found by using civilians as human shields, they can target innocent civilians with impunity. Is that good for america . Good for canada, good for any democracy if terrorists finally found that winning combination . The only way to fight them is to be aspin pointed as possible in a difficult situation. I say it again, hamas is unquickly responsible for this tragedy first of all by rejecting the ceasefires and secondly by adopting tactics that deliberately endanger ga zag civilians and deliberately leads to their deaths. Were about to lose the satellite, mark regev spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu, thanks for coming on. My pleasure. Since i asked regev about the authenticity of the transcript at the beginning of the interview, both the white house and Prime Minister netanyahus office have issued statements saying that the transcript is completely false. Coming up on the lead, well go straight to where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place for our own reporter in gaza who had to take cover just hours ago as a rocket came a little too close. Plus, well ask a representative from hamas why hamas rejected a palestinian proposal to stop the blood shed. 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Only at a sleep number store, mattresses with sleepiq start at just 999. 98. Know better sleep with sleep number. Kcnn has the resources like no one else to cover account israeli gaza conflict and in our commitment to bring you the story are reporters such as karl penhaul can find themselves in harms way. Watch what happened when he was reporting from gaza just a few hours ago. You would have seen the same [ explosion ] that was not the only close call for karl and his crew in the last 24 hours. Karl penhaul joins us now live from gaza city. Karl, youre seeing f16ss flying overhead right now . Absolutely. We have seen a number of f16s flying overhead and the reason i can tell is because as they go, theyre pumping out decoy flares on either side of the plane. That is because they clearly fear that gaza militants on the ground may have some kind of surfacetoair missile that could potentially bring them down and trying to avoid that. They are taking relatively low runs over the city. We havent heard any close quarters bombing so far but in the course of the afternoon, we saw them in action over across the eastern border. They were dropping massive 2,000pound bunker buster bombs down there. I would guess, although we have no confirmation that they were trying to destroy some kind of tunnel complex across there, jake. Israel has been claiming that some of the strikes in gaza are actually botched hamas rocket launches. Were going to hold on one second. Are you okay there . Yeah, just listen. Sorry i stopped you there, but again, that was one of those f16 fighter bombers on a pretty low run over the skies of gaza city. Across here they go again. Are they dropping ordinants, karl . There were two strikes. I heard two strikes across there in the distance. It wasnt close enough to see the flare up and possibly over our small necktie microphone, you couldnt have heard it, but yes a couple of impacts there, an f16 coming over pretty low. Sometimes theyll swoop over low as a show of force to frighten any militantstant fighters on the ground. Generally what theyve been doing in the evening is firing off decoy flares as they go because had he clearly fear militant factions may have the sam surface to air missiles. Earlier in the evening when one did fly over, we did see some kind of rocket fire going out. It didnt appear to be the longrange abhamas rockets. It could have been fire from the ground to try to take those aircraft down. Youd need a lot of technology to bring that down. Because the israelis have been claiming that some of the killed and wounded in gaza have been individuals killed by hamass own rockets either misfiring or the launch was botched. Have you seen any evidence one way or another . In terms of them causing casualties by rocket misfires, no. We havent seen that even in the cases where the israeli mirt says this may have been a hamas rocket fire such as the School Incident the other day. We specifically went to the school to see if we could find any debris for any particular munitions. We didnt find any tail finns or debris from rockets. That said, we have seen misfires from hamas and other militant rockets. Remember although the Technology May have come from iran, syria, possibly even russia, that a lot of these rockets are home built and so there is a failure factor there. We have seen some of these rockets kind of implode as they head into the air. Weve seen some of the rockets fizzle out and break up on the ground. So there are pest fires. Somebody suggested are they getting to the bottom of their barrel, are they running out of an estimated arsenal of 10,000 rockets or they still seem to be firing them off regularly toward israel. Something in the inbullet technology sometimes and generally these rockets have been working in their terms very well, but we have seen misfires but we havent seen casualties caused by that with my own eyes. So i cant tell new terms of eyes and ears on that it would seem logical if there are misfires, the debris is going to fall somewhere. If you have debris falling out of the sky from a height, thats going to cause some damage. Of course. Stay where where you are. Karl penhaul, thank you so much. Meanwhile, hamas rejected a 24hour ceasefire put forward earlier today by the Palestinian Authority in the west bank. The head of the hamas military wing says theres no middle ground when it comes to a ceasefire. What exactly does that mean . Joining on the phone is a senior official with hamas. Mr. Ahmaad, i want to ask you, since hamas first rejected the first ceasefire proposal from egypt, hundreds of palestinians, hundreds have been killed. Israel says you could have ended the blood shed weeks ago. Why are you quibsed that rejecting that ceasefire was the better option for your people . Do you think that we are happy of killing of our people, our children, our babies and our women . I know the situation is very difficult. Just before three minutes, i lost my cousin. Just ten minutes ago, i lost my cousin. I was inform by family that my cousin is about 80 years old and the israeli air strike, they hit his neighbor and he was killed now. Look, we are doing the best in order tore but and many times i can confirm and you can ask that human for United Nations i am in touch with them. We proposed many times in order to stop and to make but we were shocked that israel said no. Imtimes times they said no. Today they proposed to news order to make a general pause from one side but israel said the representative of mr. Ban kimoon no. We will not comply with this. We will not agree for this. So sir, you keep saying the ceasefire is done. You keep saying that. Right . You keep saying no to the ceasefire. We have no problem really. For 24 hours we are ready to be committed fur this agreement. But israel want the palestinians only to stop and they want to continue their military operation in the pa