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CNN Live Today

Middle East Conflict Proving Dangerous for Journalists

Aired April 05, 2002 - 13:11   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We are now going to go to the West Bank territory, where it's been a very dangerous, volatile situation both politically, since Anthony Zinni was able to make in to meet with Yasser Arafat, but dangerous for our own correspondent, Michael Holmes, who was witnessing as that meeting was supposed to take place. And, Michael, you were fired upon. Tell us exactly what happened.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn (sic), yes, we have got the window closed behind us because there's a lot of firing around this particular area at the moment too. In fact, more firing than we've heard in the last 24 hours or so.

What happened this morning essentially was we, like any journalist would, we wanted to go and cover the arrival of General Anthony Zinni at the Palestinian Authority headquarters. We headed off in a convoy of five armored vehicles. We got there, we got out. We were standing around. Journalists were talking to each other, waiting for the general to arrive when all of a sudden, two Israeli jeeps arrived. They stopped about 100 meters away.

And then, all of a sudden, they drove, accelerated towards us. Some people at the head of where our group was milling about said they saw the soldiers in the vehicles try to waive them away. But there was certainly no warning for most of us when the first of the stun grenades was thrown. There was about six or seven of them thrown. And as we attempted to get in our vehicles and tried to back out -- you have got to understand, this is five heavy-armored vehicles trying to reverse up a road. And, necessarily, it was a fairly slow affair. We had one Israeli soldier fire a baton round at us. That's a fairly long, about six-inch long, plastic baton round. That a took a chip out of the front windscreen.

And then, as we turned around after we had got to the top of the street, we had two rubber-coated bullets put into the back window of our vehicle. It was a fairly frightening scene initially because nobody knew what that first explosion was. A couple of journalists, myself included, had one go off very, very close to us. In fact, it struck my foot.

Now, Israeli military spokesmen or Israeli government spokesmen are saying that journalists were trying to push their way into the compound somehow. That's simply not the case. There was a tank blocking the entrance of the compound for starters. Secondly, no one had any intention of going in there. We were there to film the arrival of General Zinni and that's all. So, certainly a conflicting view of events there from the journalist side and the Israeli side, but a fairly frightening affair and most journalists were saying afterwards fairly unnecessary.

LIN: Michael, if you can hear me, we're relieved to know that you're OK. Are you suggesting that these troops were aiming at journalists?

HOLMES: There's very little question that I can tell you that they were thrown out of two army jeeps directly into the group of journalists. These were not fired, by the way. They were thrown. They are objects about so long, about 6 inches long, and colored orange, and they were thrown into the crowd of journalists. I don't think they were trying to hit anyone on the head with them, and they weren't fired at speed, but they were certainly lobbed into the middle of the journalists.

And, of course, after the first one went off, everyone scattering. Nobody knew what it was the soldiers wanted us to do when they roared up. We were standing around like media stand around waiting for someone to arrive somewhere. And so when they showed up, and as I say, 90 percent of the journalists there, 95 percent heard no warning before the first stun gun -- stun grenade went off. And once it did, people started to move fairly quickly to get out of there, Daryn.

LIN: All right. Thank you very much, Michael Holmes. We're so glad you're OK. And we thank you a lot for the coverage that you and our entire team in Ramallah has been giving, living in very difficult circumstances.

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