Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday the investigation into the crash and likely shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 has already been “seriously compromised.” 
 
 “On Friday, the monitors and the people trying to get in there to secure the site were given 75 minutes. Yesterday, they were given three hours,” Kerry said on “Fox News Sunday.” 
 
 Kerry went on to describe “drunken separatist soldiers” taking bodies from the crash site and airline parts being removed from the area. 
 
 “Anything that has been removed compromises the investigation,” Kerry said. 
 
 “We need full access” to the site, Kerry said. “This is a moment of truth for Russia.” 
 
 The Kuala Lumpur-bound flight was apparently shot down over separatist-controlled Ukraine on Thursday. 
 
 Read more about: John Kerry, Ukraine Plane Crash ||||| Secretary of State John Kerry was caught on an open mic just before his interview with “Fox News Sunday” candidly speaking about the conflict in Gaza. 
 
 “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry said to an aide on the phone, with some measure of frustration. 
 
 His comments seemed to be criticizing the Israeli government’s assurances about the limited scope of its attack and ground invasion of Gaza. 
 
 Kerry, speaking by phone to one of his top aides, then added: “We’ve got to get over there. Thank you John. I think John, we ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Kerry asserts American authority) 
 
 
 
 Kerry was confronted on air by host Chris Wallace, who asked if Kerry was implying that the Israeli government had gone too far in its Gaza operations. 
 
 “While you were on camera and while you were on microphone, you just talked to one of your top aides about the situation in Israel and the fact that 14 Israelis have apparently been shot and killed in an operation,” Wallace said. 
 
 Kerry stood by his comments, while defending Israel’s right to defend itself. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Kerry: Crash investigation has been compromised) 
 
 “It’s tough to have these kind of operations. I reacted, obviously, in a way that anybody does with respect to young children and civilians,” Kerry said, 
 
 “War is tough. I’ve said that publicly and I've said it again. We defend Israeli’s right to do what it is doing,” Kerry said. 
 
 “We support Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets that are continuing to come in. Hamas has started its process of rocketing after Israel was trying to find the people who killed three young [people] — one American kid, three young Israelis,” Kerry said. 
 
 Read more about: John Kerry, Israel, Chris Wallace, Gaza, Middle East ||||| Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday it's now "pretty clear" that separatists were responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine and most likely received help from Russian forces. 
 
 "It's pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia into the hands of separatists," Kerry said on CNN's "State of the Union." "We know with confidence, with confidence, that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point and time so it obviously points a very clear finger t the separatists." 
 
 On Thursday, Malaysian airliner was likely shot down over Eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people and sparking international controversy. After days of investigations, Kerry reported new intelligence on Sunday. 
 
 Kerry said he knows "for certain" that within the last month a convoy of armored personnel carriers, rocket launchers, tanks and artillery crossed over the Russian border into Eastern Ukraine and was turned over to separatists. He also described separatists receiving training from Russians and evidence that shows the particular system used to shoot down the plane passing through two towns in the vicinity of where the missile was launched within hours of the tragedy. Other instances, such as separatists tampering with evidence and stealing pieces of the plane, also point towards the group's involvement. 
 
 "Now we have a video showing a launcher moving back through a particular area out into Russia with at least one missing missile on it, so we have enormous input about this, which points fingers," Kerry said. 
 
 Read more about: Ukraine Plane Crash ||||| Kiev says pro-Russia rebels have removed bodies from crash site with help from Moscow, and are trying to destroy evidence 
 
 Ukraine's government accused pro-Russia rebels on Saturday of removing corpses from the MH17 crash site and destroying evidence. 
 
 "Terrorists brought 38 bodies to the mortuary in Donetsk," the government statement read, adding that Russian experts would presumably perform autopsies. "The terrorists are seeking for the heavy load trucks to carry the plane wreckage to Russia," the statement added. 
 
 A rebel, who identified himself as "Grumpy", neither confirmed nor denied the claims that bodies had been moved to Donetsk. "Maybe they did it, maybe not," he said. "I personally didn't do that." 
 
 On Saturday the rebels fired several shots in the air to prevent journalists from approaching to bodies at the crash site. They also fired the warning shots at OSCE monitors on Friday to prevent them from approaching the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines flight. 
 
 The security of the crash site, outside the village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, is crucial to preserving evidence that will determine who and what brought the airliner down, but talks between Kiev and rebels who are in control of it have so far failed to establish a buffer zone where international investigators can work, or to give them access. 
 
 The head of Ukraine's security service, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, said in televised remarks on Saturday that talks had agreed a 20km security zone around the site "so that Ukraine could fulfil the most important thing – identify the bodies hand them over to relatives". A senior official of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, however, said no agreement had been reached. 
 
 A spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Bociurkiw, also said he was not aware of any agreement, and reports from the scene said there was no security zone. 
 
 A team of nearly 30 OSCE observers attempted for second time to gain access to the crash site on Saturday after meeting resistance from armed rebels on Friday. The monitors were allowed to view one part of the site under escort. 
 
 Aleksander Borodai, prime minister of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, denied rebels had touched the crash site but said it would move the bodies for "humanitarian" reasons and called on Russia to help. "Bodies of innocent people are lying out in the heat. We reserve the right, if the delay continues ... to begin the process of taking away the bodies. We ask the Russian Federation to help us with this problem and send their experts," he said. 
 
 Workers at the scene have recovered more than 180 bodies, which have begun to decompose under the summer sun. All 298 on board the plane were killed in the crash. 
 
 Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai, called on the UN on Saturday to assist with a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and ensure that investigators have safe access to the crash site so they can remove bodies as quickly as possible. Anything less would be inhumane, he said. 
 
 Investigators from the Netherlands, home to 192 of the victims, arrived in Kiev overnight. A team from Malaysia, home to 44, is also in Ukraine. The Malaysian transport minster is to join the team and attempt to gain access to the site. 
 
 Six investigators from the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch are also to join the growing international investigation. The UK Foreign Office has sent extra consular staff to Ukraine and the Metropolitan police are liaising with international partners to send specialist officers to assist with the recovery, identification and repatriation of those killed. The dead include 10 British nationals. 
 
 There is growing international condemnation of pro-Russian separatists over the incident, with Washington pointing the finger of blame at the militias. The Pentagon confirmed a surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by separatists brought down the plane, but stopped short of accusing Russia of supplying the weapon. 
 
 In the UK, Downing Street said it appeared increasingly likely that the catastrophe was the result of a surface-to-air missile fired from near rebel-held Torez. 
 
 The Australian prime minster, Tony Abbott, repeated his assertion on Saturday that all evidence suggests that the missile came from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists, using equipment likely supplied by Russia. 
 
 At a charged UN security council meeting on Friday the US ambassador, Samantha Power, said the US "cannot rule out technical assistance from Russia" while the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said Moscow "places all blame on Kiev". 
 
 Barack Obama on Friday said the circumstances of the crash, which came at the end of a week in which pro-Russian separatists claimed to have shot down Ukrainian military aircraft, suggested some Russian assistance to the rebel forces. 
 
 "We don't yet know exactly what happened with respect to Malaysia Airlines, although obviously we are beginning to draw some conclusions given the nature of the shot that was fired. There are only certain types of anti-aircraft missiles that can reach up 30,000ft and shoot down a passenger jet. 
 
 "Set aside what's happened with respect to the Malaysian airliner, a group of separatists cannot shoot down military transport planes or, they claim, shoot down fighter jets without sophisticated equipment and sophisticated training and that's coming from Russia." 
 
 The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who has avoided discussing the issue of responsibility, said on Saturday that he hoped "a fair and objective probe will be carried out to establish the truth as early as possible".
– John Kerry is off and running on the media blitz known as appearing on all five Sunday talk shows, and—with developments breaking this morning from Israel to the Malaysia Airlines plane crash—he has no shortage of things to discuss. Highlights, as per Politico: On the crash site: "It's been seriously compromised. On Friday, the monitors and the people trying to get in there to secure the site were given 75 minutes. Yesterday, they were given three hours. Drunken soldiers are piling bodies into trucks unceremoniously and disturbing the evidence. Anything that has been removed compromises the investigation. We need full access. This is a moment of truth for Russia." Further, "What's happening is really grotesque." On the Ukraine rebels involvement in the crash: "It's pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia into the hands of separatists. We know with confidence, with confidence, that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point and time so it obviously points a very clear finger to the separatists." His hot mic moment: While talking to an aide ahead of his appearance on Fox News Sunday, Kerry was caught discussing Israel. "It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation," he said. "We’ve got to get over there. Thank you John. I think John, we ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around." On a ceasefire in Gaza: "We're hopeful, very hopeful, that we could quickly to try to find a way forward to put a cease fire in place so that the underlying issues, so that we can get to the questions. But you cannot reward terrorism. There can't be a set of preconditioned demands that are going to be met."