Today's Headlines and Commentary

The bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas continues. The Washington Post reports that Hamas has announced that it has captured an Israeli soldier, after a long battle on Sunday in an East Gaza neighborhood. But it is unclear whether or not this claim is true; the Israeli army is still investigating. Meanwhile, the New York Times explains that, if Israel indeed continues its mission of targeting tunnels allegedly used by Palestinian militants, then the lopsided death toll likely will continue to rise. Some politicians within Israel are reluctant to agree to any cease-fire without finishing what they see as a key mission. Others reportedly prefer to leave a job “half-finished” for the sake of ending the violence. The high number of civilian casualties in Gaza is, naturally, raising questions about Israeli military tactics and who is to blame: Israel, for targeting areas known to be inhabited by civilians; or Hamas, for giving Israel no choice but to attack such places. The Times looks at the reality on the ground in Gaza and how Palestinians are answering these questions. The Times reports that a piece of wreckage from flight MH 17, the passenger jet shot down while flying over Ukraine on Thursday, was found two miles outside of the main area of debris.  The newly found item indicates that “the destruction of the aircraft was caused by a supersonic missile that apparently exploded near the jet as it flew 33,000 feet above the ground.” The damage was analyzed by a private defense consultancy, and is apparently consistent “with the effects of a fragmenting warhead carried by an SA-11 missile, known in Russian as a Buk.” Apropos of forensics: separatist rebels today handed over MH 17's black boxes; the Post provides further details, and profiles the separatists' leader in Donetsk, a Russian named Alexander Borodai, here. The bodies of passengers of the doomed flight have finally left the crash site. The Times informs us that a train carrying the bodies arrived in Khariv, where it was met by police, forensics experts and representatives from the victims' home countries.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the Netherlands now will take the lead in the MH 17 investigation. Although the missile shot happened over Ukraine, the Ukrainian government passed responsibility for the inquiry on to the Dutch. Most of flight 17's passengers hailed from the Netherlands. The Times Editorial Board insists that Ukrainian rebels (and, by extension, the Russians) have handled the aftermath of MH 17's destruction with shocking callousness. The piece calls those responsible for the missile launch “war criminal[s]" and casts doubt on Russian President Putin’s stated commitment to finding the culprits.  Also on the subject of punishment, Reuters reports that the EU has threatened Russia with more sanctions over Ukraine---but the apparent consensus is that the threat is rather hollow. In the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf highlights the work of, as he puts it, the "latest NSA surveillance whistleblower:" John Napier Tye.  The latter once served in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and last week penned an opinion piece for the Post. There Tye argued that illegal spying is taking place abroad, contrary to the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens and under the auspices of Executive Order 12333. The Hill reports that Germany and the United States are taking steps to slowly build back mutual trust. Diplomatic tensions have been at a high, after the revelation that the NSA had tapped into a phone belonging to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. President Obama's Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor met Tuesday with officials in Berlin, in an attempt to smooth things over. More spy news: last week, there was some discussion about Russia helping to reopen a Cuban spy base, a claim that, as Tara noted, the Kremlin quickly denied. While the fate of the base in Lourdes, Cuba remains unclear, Business Insider offers us a primer on "Everything We Know" about the base, and what it would mean if it were to reopen.  Meanwhile, the U.K. will investigate the mysterious death, eight years ago, of Alexander Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. officer who was fatally poisoned in London with some sort of radioactive material.  The Times reports. Yesterday, Jane highlighted a recent Al Jazeera film, Informants.  It follows undercover FBI informants who are often themselves convicted felons. Ryan Reilly, of the Huffington Post, argues that the movie, and a recent report by Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, together have brought the FBI under particularly intense public scrutiny. NPR discusses a big, and recent, FBI policy shift: the Bureau, along with other federal enforcement agencies, will begin to record all interrogations that they conduct. 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