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CNN Live Today

Israelis in West Bank Coping With Fear

Aired April 02, 2002 - 14:10   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Back here in Jerusalem, and speaking last hour with the U.N. envoy to the Middle East, he painted a very dim picture right now, presently throughout the region, saying simply the breaks are not on in any sense, in terms of the Israeli military movement.

He expressed a great deal of concern for the Palestinians. Five- hundred thousand, he says, living in Ramallah, saying indeed they may need a lot of help sometime very soon if that siege continues in that part of the West Bank.

Also here in Israel proper. For some time now, Israelis living here have lived essentially in fear, with so much random violence hitting essentially at any point. And if you look back over the past six days, six separate bombings, it emphasizes that point even more.

John Vause, here in Jerusalem, talked with some Israelis about how they deal with living in fear.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At home and under siege, the Lewitt family, typical of so many in Israel.

NANCY LEWITT, JERUSALEM RESIDENT: There's no safe any more.

VAUSE: Because now the suicide bombings are so random, so unpredictable, when going out at night, they eat at restaurants that are off the street and up a flight of stairs.

LEWITT: The thinking in the head is, OK, well, if a terrorist comes, well, it's not right on the street. And they probably are not going to think about going up a flight of stairs.

VAUSE: Her husband, Ron, a salesman, used to have many clients in the Palestinian village of Beit Jalla, but no more. He says it's now too dangerous to drive there. When he does take his family out, there is an ever-present fear of attack.

RON LEWITT, JERUSALEM RESIDENT: To tell the truth, I don't know what I'm looking for, but we're looking. Do you know what something suspicious is? You don't know until you see it.

VAUSE: They have two teenage boys, who now spend most their free time at home with friends.

YONATAN LEWITT, JERUSALEM RESIDENT: You go out now and there is no one. I feel like Jerusalem is a ghost city.

VAUSE: Nancy carefully chooses her supermarket based on the level of security, especially after a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem shopping center last week. She goes to a market that has two or three private security guards, instead of only one.

N. LEWITT: Looking around all the time and looking over your shoulder, looking around at the people, seeing if anybody looks suspicious. Before going somewhere, just looking out and seeing if there is enough security.

VAUSE: Dr. Aryeh Shalev is in charge of psychiatry at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital. In December, he says, they treated 1,000 people for post-traumatic stress. He believes that number has more than doubled in recent months.

DR. ARYEH SHALEV, HADASSAH HOSPITAL: Israeli society is a society of denial. We have been denying threats for decades, but at this point in time, it's not working very well for us.

VAUSE: Like many others, the Lewitts say they try to live normal lives, because to give in to fear, they say, is to give in to terror.

(on camera): But what's normal? Just hours after we spoke with the Lewitt family came this: a car bomb in downtown Jerusalem. A familiar scene of police, ambulance crews and emergency workers. In so many ways, this is the new normality in Israel.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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