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American Morning

Israeli Military Continues to Seize and Hold Palestinian Land

Aired June 20, 2002 - 07:04   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's bring in our Christiane Amanpour who is standing by, I believe she is in Jerusalem, with the latest on what is happening in the Middle East, the latest suicide bombing and the latest reaction from Israelis.

Christiane, hello.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, good morning. The Israeli government, the Israeli military continues its new policy of trying to pacify by seizing and holding Palestinian land in response to these suicide bombings. The latest military incursion has been into Tulkarem, a town on the West Bank. Overnight and in the early-morning hours, Israeli troops and armor went into cities and towns, like Bethlehem, Nablus, the edge of Ramallah as well.

This after Israel sent in helicopters and warplanes to the Gaza area and targeted about four areas there. They hit what they said, amongst other targets, were metalworking factories. These have long been considered by Israel as fronts for weapons-building factories. We are told that the targets were Islamic Jihad targets, Hamas targets and some targets associated with the Palestinian Authority as well.

This all came in response to the second suicide bombing in two days here in Jerusalem. The latest came on Wednesday evening at a place called the French Hill in northeastern Jerusalem. A suicide bomber detonated his explosive near a bus stop and killed seven people, injured more than 40 people, 20 of those injured are still in hospital. Amongst the wounded and the dead were very young children as well.

The Palestinian Authority Chairman Arafat -- Yasser Arafat issued a statement condemning not only the attacks, but also calling for an immediate halt to suicide bombings, saying that these do not constitute legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Christiane, also on the issue of trying to negotiate some kind of settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis, I understand CNN has learned that the Palestinians are willing to give up at least two key concessions, and that is including the right of return for refugees.

AMANPOUR: Well, yes. This story has been bubbling over the last couple of days. Basically, one of the senior Palestinian negotiators, who is in the United States right now, handed a document, a position paper over to the American authorities, to the State Department and others, in which they outlined their proposal for any kind of future peace.

And they did make concessions on language, specifically concerning the refugee issue. They dropped the wording that is called the "right of return," and they included wording that called for a just and agreed solution to the refugee problem. This is a big breakthrough if it's true, because this whole issue of refugees is what caused the Camp David peace talks to collapse -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Christiane Amanpour in Jerusalem. Christiane, thank you so much.

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