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CNN Live At Daybreak

Israeli Military Expanding and Contracting Operation in West Bank

Aired April 11, 2002 - 06:30   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: The Israeli military is expanding and contracting its operation in the West Bank. Israeli forces entered two large towns early today after withdrawing from two dozen small villages overnight.

And with more on the Israeli military operation and other developments out of the Middle East, we go live to CNN's Jerrold Kessel, who is in Jerusalem -- good morning, Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. And interesting moves there by the Israeli army as they do pull out of 24 villages or so. They announced it. We have heard much about those sweeps in those villages with all of the attention focused on the big Palestinian towns in the West Bank. But alongside what they say is the wrapping up those operations, they have gone into these two other large villages or small towns, one, Bir Zeit near Ramallah, and the other in the southern part of the West Bank, Daharyeh, continuing, they say, the search for terrorist suspects.

And this seems to be the pattern (ph) that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formulating that he will operate his forces. The Israeli military will continue in this search to root, as they call it, the source of Palestinian terror as they need to do so. And that this operation will only end, despite the international pressure, despite the insistence that it be wound up from the United States, the insistence that it be wound up right way, when, as Mr. Sharon put it, the operation was over.

Now, it is over in one sense that the Israeli army saying in one place that they have controlled. That's the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the West Bank, where the Israelis say they have now full control. The fighting is over. That was the scene of the fiercest fighting over the last week and some of the stiffest Palestinian resistance, many, many casualties, much damage left there. There are bound to be ramifications on that.

But it does seem with the surrender of some 39 Palestinians --- 29, I beg your pardon, this morning, both gunmen and some families from one of the last pockets of resistance that the fighting in the Jenin refugee camp is over.

But I think the interesting thing coming out of what Secretary of State Powell had to say earlier in Madrid was that the United States no longer, at least publicly, making the demand that Mr. Sharon end the operation right away. That seems to be not the focus of what he is having to say with Mr. Sharon, but really the fact that he is going to demand a political dimension to any efforts to get a cease-fire, and that may spell some trouble for the U.S.-Israeli relationship -- for now, back to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jerrold Kessel reporting live for us from Jerusalem this morning -- thank you.

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