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CNN Live At Daybreak

Mr. Bush Hosts Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for Talks on Mideast Peace Process

Aired March 05, 2002 - 05:06   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Bush hosts Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House today for talks on the Middle East peace process. Well, the meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Mubarak comes at a critical time in the Middle East conflict.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel is in Jerusalem with the latest on the escalating violence -- hello, Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a phrase used so often in this 18 month confrontation of a cycle of violence, well, it's much more than that now. It's really a cycle of each side battering the other. And if, in the not too distant past there were talk of one incident following another a day after the other or a half a day, now it's an hour after an hour and perhaps within the hour, and that was very much the case this morning, as lethal incident followed lethal incident. And we've had four Israelis killed in the latest two attacks by Palestinians in the heart of Israeli cities, a Palestinian suicide bomber blowing himself up aboard a bus in the northern Israeli town of Afula, a Palestinian gunman attacking a pre-wedding party at a late night celebration, a dance party and dinner at a restaurant in Tel Aviv at two o'clock in the morning.

The gunman came in, started spraying his automatic fire into the restaurant. Also used a knife on some of the people in the streets, or those who came out to engage him, and killed three Israelis before himself being shot dead.

These the latest incidents which Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says Israel is going to answer with fiercer and fiercer attacks on the Palestinians. And as good as his word, the Israeli military have been engaging in continued attacks primarily geared, it seems, against Palestinian police positions or forces linked directly to the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat.

At palace, down in the town of Hebron, south of Jerusalem on the West Bank, and the neighboring village of Dura, Israeli tanks went in there and one Palestinian policeman was killed, two others seriously hurt. A number of Palestinians hurt in the firing there. The funeral has been held already for that Palestinian policeman killed there. There has been an Israeli air attack down in Gaza, an Israeli motorist killed on the roads of the West Bank and literally, minute after minute, there have been lethal attack following lethal attack, a gloom and doom reality setting in as these two sides embracing each other in a deadly, deadly round of ongoing attacks -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jerrold Kessel live from Jerusalem, thank you.

Well, check our Web site for the latest developments from the region as well as background from our in depth report, "Mideast Struggle For Peace." Go to cnn.com, AOL keyword CNN.

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