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CNN Live At Daybreak

Three Israeli Soldiers Killed

Aired January 24, 2003 - 05:33   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's turn to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The violence is escalating. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed and the Jewish state is on the attack.
For the latest we go live to CNN's Matthew Chance in Jerusalem -- good morning, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, as well, Fredricka.

And you're right, a flare-up in violence four days before the people of Israel go to the polls in a general election. Let's just give you the latest details we have on that, starting in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where, as you mentioned, three Israeli soldiers have been killed by Palestinian gunmen. The Israeli Army officials say the troops were ambushed at a road junction near the Jewish settlement Beit Hargai (ph). Two Palestinian militant groups have said they carried out the attack, both Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade. That brigade, of course, closely affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

In Gaza, as well, Israeli helicopter gunships striking at suspected militant targets there, saying they were hitting out at places they suspected to be bomb workshops and places that were used to make weapons. That, of course, as Israel, as I mentioned, prepares to go to the polls. An upsurge in violence many security sources here say they were expecting -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, Matthew, how is this violence likely to impact those upcoming elections?

CHANCE: Well, I don't think it's going to impact them in a great way. Remember, for the past few years or so the people of Israel have been enduring quite a high level of violence. Certainly the person who appears to have benefited from that most is Ariel Sharon, the current prime minister, the man who is leading in the polls. This latest violence will, if anything, only bolster his very strong hard- line position on the issue of security -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Matthew Chance from Jerusalem.

Thank you.

Israeli officials are having a tough time finding ways to protect their people from their Palestinian neighbors. One controversial plan is to build fences.

Our Mike Hanna has details on the difficult issue of security at a kibbutz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before dawn on the Kibbutz Metzer, a security guard yells "Halt!" and demands identification. Emerging from the darkness, a furious kibbutz secretary. "What do you mean halt?" shouts Doron Leiber. "You're in my grounds. Don't get scrappy with me. Say thank you that I allow you to be here."

The guard is not protecting the people of the kibbutz, but a fleet of construction vehicles parked here overnight, just one of the many changes that have disturbed Doron Leiber as Israel takes stringent security measures along the nominal border with Palestinian territory.

DORON LEIBER, KIBBUTZ SECRETARY: I'm more afraid now from our own forces when I walk at night. That's why I walk with this T-shirt with Metzer written on it. It's just so they know I'm a Jew.

HANNA: At sunrise, the growl of heavy machinery as the workers fire up their vehicles, beginning a short journey that takes them past the stone monolith marking the 1967 border with Israel and into a valley that used to be Palestinian claimed land. The Israelis on the kibbutz have long maintained a close relationship with the Palestinians in the nearby village of Kafin, a friendship that continued in the wake of a major Palestinian attack on the kibbutz last year that claimed five Israeli lives.

But now as the construction vehicles get to work, the free passage between the kibbutz and village has ended. Being built here is a massive fence defining a new and more impenetrable border between Israelis and Palestinians. Designed, says the Israeli government, as protection against Palestinian attack. MAYOR TAISIR HARASHEH, KAFIN: It's not the security, but they are confiscating the land but justifying the security.

HANNA: The 1967 boundary is represented on the left of this map that the mayor of Kafin shows me. He says Israel has appropriated about 80 percent of his village's farmland. The new fence is represented by the thick line on the right.

HARASHEH: Probably the Kibbutz of Metzer the only Israeli village or city that they are against putting the fence.

LEIBER: All these olive trees have been taken from Kafin and I don't know whose hands they're going to be in. We obviously don't want to take their olives. This is the problem. Instead of peace and quiet here, there's noise and upset.

HANNA: Leiber's Israeli neighbors in the Arab village of Meisar are also angry. The fence dividing Israelis and Palestinians will separate them from Arab friends and family.

MUSTAFA SHADI, MEISAR RESIDENT: The fence becomes a border, but as inhabitants of this land, we don't feel that we need the fence. On the contrary, it is our relatives who live over there and we think it should not be possible to separate the people from each other.

HANNA: But the construction work carrying on each day is irrefutable evidence that division is possible. And among the Israelis on the Kibbutz Metzer, a reluctant acknowledgement that it may even be desirable, that the dream of peace they brought to this region 50 years ago may be crumbling.

DOV AVITAL, KIBBUTZ LEADER: And the only thing we can do in our spot is to prove to be a sample, a small sample, to prove that eventually we can live together like normal people. But it will take a long time of cooling down. I think a separation is necessary.

HANNA: But for one person, at least, the concept of separation, the talk of security is too little too late. Avi O'Hayon shows me a bullet casing he found in the room where his ex-wife and two children were killed on the Kibbutz Metzer. And we look through photographs that he had developed from a role he found left behind in the kibbutz house, images of happy children and a happy mother, images he believes should persuade all to stop the madness.

AVI O'HAYON: So we know how the script goes. So we know that if we don't put an end to it today, we are going to suffer hundreds of thousands of people dead on both sides. And I say why wait? So we already know. We already know how it's going to be. And if you know the end of the story, you don't want to read the book anymore.

HANNA: A few weeks after the killings, a dinner was organized between Palestinians and Israelis, some from the Metzer region. After the film, a performance in mime, a message from artist Saeed Salami (ph).

SAEED SALAMI: The same creation for all the people. It's the same, for Jews, Arabs, we have the same source. We got from the earth and we go back to the earth.

HANNA: The here unspoken truth that despite the anger, despite the division, the knowledge of a common god, a shared humanity, cannot be denied.

Mike Hanna, CNN, on the Kibbutz Metzer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 24, 2003 - 05:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's turn to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The violence is escalating. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed and the Jewish state is on the attack.
For the latest we go live to CNN's Matthew Chance in Jerusalem -- good morning, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, as well, Fredricka.

And you're right, a flare-up in violence four days before the people of Israel go to the polls in a general election. Let's just give you the latest details we have on that, starting in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where, as you mentioned, three Israeli soldiers have been killed by Palestinian gunmen. The Israeli Army officials say the troops were ambushed at a road junction near the Jewish settlement Beit Hargai (ph). Two Palestinian militant groups have said they carried out the attack, both Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade. That brigade, of course, closely affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

In Gaza, as well, Israeli helicopter gunships striking at suspected militant targets there, saying they were hitting out at places they suspected to be bomb workshops and places that were used to make weapons. That, of course, as Israel, as I mentioned, prepares to go to the polls. An upsurge in violence many security sources here say they were expecting -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, Matthew, how is this violence likely to impact those upcoming elections?

CHANCE: Well, I don't think it's going to impact them in a great way. Remember, for the past few years or so the people of Israel have been enduring quite a high level of violence. Certainly the person who appears to have benefited from that most is Ariel Sharon, the current prime minister, the man who is leading in the polls. This latest violence will, if anything, only bolster his very strong hard- line position on the issue of security -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Matthew Chance from Jerusalem.

Thank you.

Israeli officials are having a tough time finding ways to protect their people from their Palestinian neighbors. One controversial plan is to build fences.

Our Mike Hanna has details on the difficult issue of security at a kibbutz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before dawn on the Kibbutz Metzer, a security guard yells "Halt!" and demands identification. Emerging from the darkness, a furious kibbutz secretary. "What do you mean halt?" shouts Doron Leiber. "You're in my grounds. Don't get scrappy with me. Say thank you that I allow you to be here."

The guard is not protecting the people of the kibbutz, but a fleet of construction vehicles parked here overnight, just one of the many changes that have disturbed Doron Leiber as Israel takes stringent security measures along the nominal border with Palestinian territory.

DORON LEIBER, KIBBUTZ SECRETARY: I'm more afraid now from our own forces when I walk at night. That's why I walk with this T-shirt with Metzer written on it. It's just so they know I'm a Jew.

HANNA: At sunrise, the growl of heavy machinery as the workers fire up their vehicles, beginning a short journey that takes them past the stone monolith marking the 1967 border with Israel and into a valley that used to be Palestinian claimed land. The Israelis on the kibbutz have long maintained a close relationship with the Palestinians in the nearby village of Kafin, a friendship that continued in the wake of a major Palestinian attack on the kibbutz last year that claimed five Israeli lives.

But now as the construction vehicles get to work, the free passage between the kibbutz and village has ended. Being built here is a massive fence defining a new and more impenetrable border between Israelis and Palestinians. Designed, says the Israeli government, as protection against Palestinian attack. MAYOR TAISIR HARASHEH, KAFIN: It's not the security, but they are confiscating the land but justifying the security.

HANNA: The 1967 boundary is represented on the left of this map that the mayor of Kafin shows me. He says Israel has appropriated about 80 percent of his village's farmland. The new fence is represented by the thick line on the right.

HARASHEH: Probably the Kibbutz of Metzer the only Israeli village or city that they are against putting the fence.

LEIBER: All these olive trees have been taken from Kafin and I don't know whose hands they're going to be in. We obviously don't want to take their olives. This is the problem. Instead of peace and quiet here, there's noise and upset.

HANNA: Leiber's Israeli neighbors in the Arab village of Meisar are also angry. The fence dividing Israelis and Palestinians will separate them from Arab friends and family.

MUSTAFA SHADI, MEISAR RESIDENT: The fence becomes a border, but as inhabitants of this land, we don't feel that we need the fence. On the contrary, it is our relatives who live over there and we think it should not be possible to separate the people from each other.

HANNA: But the construction work carrying on each day is irrefutable evidence that division is possible. And among the Israelis on the Kibbutz Metzer, a reluctant acknowledgement that it may even be desirable, that the dream of peace they brought to this region 50 years ago may be crumbling.

DOV AVITAL, KIBBUTZ LEADER: And the only thing we can do in our spot is to prove to be a sample, a small sample, to prove that eventually we can live together like normal people. But it will take a long time of cooling down. I think a separation is necessary.

HANNA: But for one person, at least, the concept of separation, the talk of security is too little too late. Avi O'Hayon shows me a bullet casing he found in the room where his ex-wife and two children were killed on the Kibbutz Metzer. And we look through photographs that he had developed from a role he found left behind in the kibbutz house, images of happy children and a happy mother, images he believes should persuade all to stop the madness.

AVI O'HAYON: So we know how the script goes. So we know that if we don't put an end to it today, we are going to suffer hundreds of thousands of people dead on both sides. And I say why wait? So we already know. We already know how it's going to be. And if you know the end of the story, you don't want to read the book anymore.

HANNA: A few weeks after the killings, a dinner was organized between Palestinians and Israelis, some from the Metzer region. After the film, a performance in mime, a message from artist Saeed Salami (ph).

SAEED SALAMI: The same creation for all the people. It's the same, for Jews, Arabs, we have the same source. We got from the earth and we go back to the earth.

HANNA: The here unspoken truth that despite the anger, despite the division, the knowledge of a common god, a shared humanity, cannot be denied.

Mike Hanna, CNN, on the Kibbutz Metzer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com