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CNN Sunday Morning

Fighting Escalates in Middle East

Aired August 05, 2001 - 09:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
REA BLAKEY, CNN ANCHOR: Another flash of violence this morning in the Middle East as a Palestinian gunman opens fire on Israeli soldiers. CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief Mike Hanna joins us now with the latest -- Mike?

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, at least nine Israelis were wounded when a Palestinian gunman opened fire in downtown Tel Aviv. The gunman then attempted to drive away in his car, which had Israeli license plates, and he was stopped by a traffic police officer, reportedly, who shot the gunman. The gunman reported to be in serious condition.

The attack took place just outside the headquarters of the Israeli defense force in the heart of Tel Aviv. The gunman, according to eye witnesses, opened fire on soldiers as well as civilians. Nine people, as I said, at the latest count were wounded in that attack, plus the gunman himself wounded by fire by a traffic police officer.

This the latest incident in a series of incidents of violence in the past few days. Overnight, there was severe fighting in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Israeli defense force says they were responding to gunfire directed from the Palestinian village of Beit Jala towards the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, which is built on land occupied by Israel in 1967.

Also on Saturday there was an Israeli missile attack in the heart of Ramallah, a West Bank city. There nobody was killed, but a man that Israel says was a known activist was wounded in the attack and also the attack took place right outside the offices of the Fata movement, Yasser Arafat's political party, raising renewed appeals from Palestinians for international condemnation of what Palestinians call a state sponsored policy of assassination.

Israeli, for its part, maintains that it reserves the right to what it calls self defense, to prevent attacks being planned or being executed against Israeli civilian targets. But, an intensification in this conflict, the spiral of violence appears to be growing more and more intense. Any sings of the purported cease fire are clearly not there and both sides, it does appear from the evidence on the ground, have abandoned such a cease fire.

BLAKEY: Mike, you mentioned the escalation in violence. Is there any call there on the ground, specifically for U.S. diplomatic intervention? HANNA: Well, from the Palestinian side, there have been renewed calls for the U.S. to take concrete measures to end this ongoing conflict. The U.S. State Department has in recent days severely criticized the Israeli targeting of individual Palestinians. However, Palestinian leaders say that this is not enough. The situation, as it stands at present, is that the U.S. State Department has agreed and all parties agreed to having a seven day violence free period before proper negotiations can be contemplated.

Now, the Palestinians say this achievement clearly is unattainable and they say they need the U.S. now to take concrete measures to get the Israelis to agree to international observers to attempt to make sure that the cease fire works. Israel says it will not allow international observers into the region under any circumstances, so the sides remained blocked on this particular elements.

Palestinians saying, though, that the U.S. must take more concrete measures on the ground itself to help bring about an end to this ongoing and seemingly endless conflict.

BLAKEY: CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief Mike Hanna, thank you.

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