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CNN Live Today
Profile of Victims of Terror
Aired June 26, 2002 - 14:37 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right for second time in three days President Bush stopped just short today of telling Palestinians to dump Yasser Arafat.
Speaking to reporters at the G-8 summit in Canada, Mr. Bush said, "Upcoming Palestinian elections are their own business." However...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I meant what I said. That there needs to be change. If people are interested in peace, something else has got to happen. We're mired in a situation now where there is terror on the one hand and hopelessness on the other, and that's unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Palestinians today affirmed an earlier decision to hold national elections in January, local elections in March, but first they say, Israel will have to pull out of the West Bank where troops control seven of the eight major cities.
In Hebron a violent standoff continues in the compound housing the Palestinian security apparatus. Israelis say about 200 Palestinians have surrendered since yesterday, a few others still remain.
The West Bank incursions and occasional attacks in Gaza are reprisals for a series of suicide bombings that have made Israelis cringe before going out in public. Many of those bombings have targeted buses.
But as CNN's John Vause reports in our series "Victims of Terror." Buses still roll because the drivers still drive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): A suicide bomber set off an explosion near a bus stop in a Jerusalem neighborhood, French Hill neighborhood. For the Israeli police are confirming that said there at least seven dead as a result of this deadly attack in the northern part of Jerusalem, 37 more have been wounded. At least five of those are known to be in critical condition. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): According to the police, what happened was that there was a suspicious looking person, the border police approached this person who then detonated the explosives near a bus stop in that area.
ELI BENSHUSHAN, BUS DRIVER: I feel like I am a bus driver, a security guard, a soldier.
Yes, I guess. We are in a fight for our country.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Do you ever wake up in the morning and you hear on the news there has been another attack on a bus. Another one of your colleagues has been injured, and you think, this isn't worth it. This job is too dangerous, it's not worth it.
BENSHUSHAN: I don't think so. I am here to serve the people. And if I don't do this work, somebody else will. And anyway, I can get hurt elsewhere, it doesn't matter where -- if you are on a bus, in a restaurant or walking down the street, you can get hurt.
VAUSE (voice-over): Eli Benshushan has been driving public buses in Israel for three years. Last week he buried a friend and colleague. Rocamend (ph) says he's Yahu (ph), the driver of bus number 32-A, killed alongside 18 others.
Rocamend (ph) was only behind the wheel that day because he volunteered to fill in for a colleague. Running late for work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A nice guy. Very lovely. He likes to party. He invites all his friends over and they do barbecues and -- he's a nice fellow. God bless his soul.
VAUSE: Eli has been specially trained to spot suicide bombers. How to react, what to do. He can refuse to pick up passengers, but rarely does.
BENSHUSHAN: When I get close to a bus stop, I scan the people ahead of time. I look at everyone with a big bag, with a jacket in the summertime. In the wintertime it's difficult, everybody wears jackets. But we look for somebody that's nervous, that's a bit sweating, and doesn't know if to get on or not. And I ask him questions, if he doesn't know where he's going, something is...
VAUSE (on camera): You look for Arabs?
BENSHUSHAN: I look for anybody that's suspicious.
VAUSE (voice-over): The same precautions taken by more than 4,000 drivers employed by Egan (ph) the main public bus service in Israel. But that didn't save his friend, Rocamend (ph). The bomber ran on to his bus, detonating the explosive before anyone had time to react, and then just a week before at Magido (ph) the blast came from a car packed full of explosives driving alongside the bus, 17 people killed; 13 of them soldiers.
(on camera): How do you deal with that? How do you stop that kind of thing?
BENSHUSHAN: Well, we don't know how to stop it. Whatever you do, they find a different way to get blown-up. And nowadays you just pray. There isn't much you can do.
(voice-over): The buses here have been on the front lines since before Israel was a state. The first attack in 1936, since then, 200 more countless lives lost.
JONATHAN FIGHEL, COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT: Within this wave of suicide bombings in buses, they are trying also to launch a psychological warfare, which is well understood as terrorism is psychological warfare. And by hitting buses it means disrupting the ongoing lives in Israel. The civilian live, the routine. Going to school, going to work, going to malls, or shops or other things.
VAUSE (on camera): Public transport is essential for many Israelis. Cars are expensive to own and run. Many can't afford taxis, so every day here more than a million people take a bus, and in some ways they take their chances. Since the intifada began almost two years ago, 90 people have been killed, more than 500 injured in bus attacks alone.
(voice-over): Little wonder it's a quiet anxious ride, few people talk. There is obvious relief when passengers reach their stop. This says Eli, is the real terrorism: living in fear.
BENSHUSHAN: I'm worried. Of course, I'm worried. It's not easy to live in such a situation. No one likes to live under terror. You have to worry when you leave home, you are not sure if you are coming back again. So, would you like to live like that?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And be sure to tune in all this week to our special reports on "Victims of Terror" coming up tonight at 5:00 Eastern.
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