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CNN Live At Daybreak
Bomber, Israeli Policeman Die in Blast
Aired April 02, 2002 - 05:02 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 COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: For the sixth time in six days, another suicide bombing. A car bomb went off at a checkpoint in West Jerusalem yesterday, killing the bomber. An Israeli policeman injured in the blast later died.
The Israeli Defense Forces say more than 700 Palestinian suspects, including a relatively large number wanted by the government, have been arrested now in Ramallah. And we want to go live there now to Jerusalem for more on all of this military activity.
Our Rula Amin is there -- good morning, Rula.
RULA AMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
As you said, Israeli tanks are the move. So far, four major Palestinian cities in the West Bank are under full Israeli control -- Ramallah, Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Tulkarem. Two are in the north. Ramallah and Bethlehem are just to the south and north of Jerusalem.
In Ramallah, a very tense stand-off around the headquarters of the Palestinian security force, the preventive security. There, since midnight local time, very intense fire. Helicopter gunships, tanks, shells, Israeli tank shells have been firing on that compound.
Palestinians say there are about 400 people in that compound. Some of them are women and there's one child. They say some of these people are civilian civil servants who thought that this compound was immune and that they were taking shelter there. The reason they thought it was immune is that the preventive security force who had been spearheading efforts not only in the last 18 months, but throughout the years since the Oslo peace agreement, in trying to fight Palestinian militants who are planning attacks against Israel.
In that compound, there is a prison. In that prison, many Palestinian militants were jailed, tortured. Actually at some point we even had Palestinian people going through that gate of that compound to protest the Palestinian security measures against the Palestinian militants.
On this day it's a totally different picture. There's a stand- off. Israel says there is about 50 Palestinian militants, hard core terrorists, as Israel would say, who are in that compound. The Israeli Army is determined they have to surrender, they need to capture them and there's no let up on the fire there. In Bethlehem, also a very tense situation. Israeli tanks moved in there overnight. We have been talking to residents there and Palestinian security officials who have been telling us that also in Bethlehem, helicopter gunships, tank shells have been firing on different parts of town. The Israeli Army has taken over the University of Bethlehem. We spoke to the president of the university there who was terrified.
We are hearing reports that we cannot verify or confirm yet because we are not there that the Israeli Army has been shelling the Church of Santa Maria and that the Father, Father Jack, of that church, was killed. Ambulances cannot get there. We cannot get any kind of confirmation or verification on this report yet. The Israeli Army is not giving much details. They say they are confirming there are activities going on there, but they won't give any specifics because the operation is still underway -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Rula, why would they attack a church?
AMIN: We still don't know the details of that incident. We have been hearing from Israeli officials before that there is no place that is immune anymore. Anywhere where Israel thinks there are Palestinian militants or anything that has to do with their structure is going to be targeted, including the preventive security headquarters, which had been getting a lot of credit from Israel and the U.S. in the latest months and years even that they've been trying to prevent Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
And this is an argument that the Palestinians are -- that Palestinian officials we've been talking to have been making, that how can they try to prevent attacks against Israel while the Israeli Army is destroying their infrastructure and their security forces.
Now, despite all these measures that Israel has taken to try to bring security to its citizens as the Israeli prime minister has made it clear, there have been six suicide attacks in the last week in Israel and in Jerusalem. Yesterday, only yesterday here in Jerusalem, police, just at the last minute they were able to prevent a car with explosives from actually being, exploding in somewhere where there's a lot of people. A policeman saw the car. He stopped the car at a major intersection which was not crowded. There was not a lot of pedestrians there. When the policeman approached the car, the driver detonated his explosives, killing himself. The policeman was wounded. Later on he died of his wounds.
It's still a very tense situation. It looks like war here -- Carol.
COSTELLO: It certainly does.
Thank you.
Rula Amin reporting live for us from Jerusalem this morning.
Our Michael Holmes has been in Ramallah on the front lines for several days now following the Israeli military moves on the compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and elsewhere in Ramallah.
Michael and his crew watched earlier today as the Israeli forces went about their work in Ramallah. His report includes some dramatic video.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The day began with house to house searches in downtown Ramallah. At a city apartment block, men, some in police uniforms, ordered out, searched, blindfolded, handcuffed and led away. Pro-Palestinian activists from two international groups are in Ramallah and elsewhere, dozens of them, perhaps more. In this city, they're defying an Israeli imposed curfew, here, some trying unsuccessfully to intervene in the detentions.
Israel says operations like this have netted several known terrorists. But it's a wide net, innocent men often swept up with suspect ones. Soldiers prevented us getting any closer. Later, those soldiers removed a number of weapons from the building and invited us to film them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a picture of this.
HOLMES: Take a picture, the soldier said. Activists, saying the men were policemen, countered.
LUISA MORGANTINI, PEACE ACTIVIST: This weapon it's the police. You know that there is the Oslo agreement. The police can have weapons.
HOLMES: Then just 20 steps away, gunshots. Israeli troops at first confused about where it was coming from. It appeared to be a gunfight in a nearby building, but which building? Bullets flew towards the Israeli troops. Watch this soldier. He appears to be hit in the hand. An armored vehicle moves in to protect him. Seconds later, Israeli soldiers ran out of the building. More shooting. Then a vehicle mounted anti-aircraft gun opens up on the building.
A wounded Palestinian man lays on the ground, calls for help as the firefight intensifies. We notice Israeli troops using our armored car for cover. Tank rounds hit the building. When the shooting died down, the injured Palestinian man became the subject of a tug of war. Those international activists appear wanting to take him to the hospital. Israeli soldiers yelling they would get medical care, not wanting to lose custody of a suspect. The man is taken away on a makeshift stretcher by the Israeli soldiers.
(on camera): Here where we're based, a storekeeper agreed to come from his home tonight, open up his store and give us some food, but only if an armored car would come and pick him up. Such is life in Ramallah at the moment. As he left, his parting words to us were, "If only all of this would end."
Michael Holmes, CNN, Ramallah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: A lot of people thinking the same thing. Of course, Israel's military actions have drawn the Bush administration further into this ancient conflict in the Holy Land.
Our State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel looks at some of the steps the White House has taken to handle a very difficult situation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Faced with the worst violence in 18 months of bloodshed, the Bush administration finds itself caught between a desire to achieve a cease-fire and its own policy of zero tolerance for terrorism. President Bush made clear while he holds Yasser Arafat responsible for stopping Palestinian terrorism, the U.S. does not believe Arafat is himself a terrorist.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Chairman Arafat has agreed to a peace process. He's agreed to the Tenet Plan. He's agreed to the Mitchell Plan. He has negotiated with parties as to how to achieve peace.
KOPPEL: Over the weekend, President Bush justified Israel's military actions as necessary for its homeland defense and showed no sympathy for Palestinians trapped in Ramallah. But after angry demonstrations in the Arab world and angry phone calls from Arab leaders, the Bush administration clarified its message.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The situation in the Middle East is, indeed, different.
KOPPEL: That's a distinction U.S. officials draw between terrorism by Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis and groups like al Qaeda. And administration officials tell CNN there are four guiding principles that represent the bottom line for the U.S. in the Mideast -- Israel cannot remove Arafat from power, Israel must end military occupation of Ramallah, Arafat must be seen to take steps to end Palestinian incitement and violence, and special Middle East envoy General Anthony Zinni must remain in the region as a reminder of the need to reach a cease-fire.
But one former adviser to President Clinton warns the Bush team needs to rethink its strategy.
ROBERT MALLEY, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: The thought about well, we can now achieve a cease-fire and that the security steps that have been asked from the Palestinians for several months are even remotely achievable under current conditions is completely detached from reality.
KOPPEL: Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And a member of the Bush team, Secretary of State Colin Powell, will be appearing on network shows this morning, talking about the U.S. role in the Middle East crisis.
Last night on CNN's "Larry King Live," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright scolded the Bush administration for not being more involved and she is urging Powell to travel to the region.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I understand that Secretary Powell is going to be on the morning shows tomorrow and I hope very much that he's going to tell us that he's going to the region because ultimately I think as hard as it is for any secretary of state to get fully involved in this because it sucks up all the time, I just think it's very, very important for the secretary to be a part of the discussions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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