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CNN Live Today

Eight Killed in Bus Attack in Northern Israel

Aired March 20, 2002 - 11:08   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire are scheduled to go on today as planned, despite the latest violence. At least eight people, including a suicide bomber, were killed this morning in a bus attack in northern Israel.

CNN Jerusalem bureau chief Mike Hanna has this reports on the bloodshed, and the efforts to end it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More Israeli dead in yet another Palestinian suicide bomb attack. Some 30 people were injured, a number seriously, when a man detonated an explosive device on a bus travelling the route between Tel Aviv and Nazareth to the north. Survivors say the man had boarded the bus near the town of Afula.

In calls to several news agencies, the radical Islamic Jihad organization has claimed responsibility for the terror attack, identifying the suicide bomber as a 20-year-old from a village near the West Bank City of Jenin. Islamic Jihad, along with the equally militant Hamas movement, has expressed total opposition to any form of peace process with Israel.

The attack came amidst a series of cease-fire talks between Israelis and Palestinians, brokered by special U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, the talks aimed at implementing a cease-fire plan drawn up last year by CIA director George Tenet.

It also comes the day after U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney held talks in Jerusalem with the Israeli prime minister, during which a renewed commitment was made to achieving a cease-fire agreement. Cheney said he would be willing to meet Yasser Arafat in coming days if the cease-fire was successfully implemented. And, on the same condition, Ariel Sharon said travel restrictions on the Palestinian leader would be lifted to enable him to attend the Arab League Summit in Beirut.

(on camera): Much depends then on these successful cease-fire negotiations, and despite the latest terror attack, a meeting between Palestinian and Israeli security chiefs is going ahead as scheduled, the apparent acknowledgement by all parties that extremist elements should not be allowed to disrupt a process aimed at ending all acts of terror. Mike Hanna, CNN, Jerusalem.

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