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CNN Live At Daybreak
Funeral in Gaza City for Slain Hamas Leader
Aired August 22, 2003 - 06:07 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: Still in the Middle East, where Palestinians are mourning the death of senior Hamas leader, Ismail Abu Shanab. Right now, big crowds are gathered for the funeral. We're talking about 30,000 people.
Hamas says the attack ends the cease-fire. It issued a joint statement with Islamic Jihad. Israel says the cease-fire ended with the Tuesday bus attack in Jerusalem, which killed 20 people. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are claiming responsibility for that attack.
That angry -- that outpouring of angry emotion at the funeral today, though, will make things tougher for the Palestinian prime minister to control the militants there, maybe make it impossible.
Live by phone to Gaza City and Michael Holmes.
Good morning -- Michael.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, I'm having trouble hearing you. It's very noisy here, so forgive me.
This funeral is very much under way. It's been going for over two hours now. There's probably another two hours left in it, and the crowd continues to swell. It's probably around the 30,000 mark now, and many more militants are arriving.
A group of masked men carrying guns dressed in military fatigues from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade walked past just minutes ago. And just before them, there were groups of Hamas would-be suicide bombers, dressed in green silk, which is their way of saying they are willing to be, in their words, "martyrs."
Now, this funeral for Ismail Abu Shanab is a very emotional scene, a very at times angry scene. There are loudspeakers on vans calling for the end of the road map, the end of the cease-fire, the end of talks and calling on Palestinians to shed their blood for the Palestinian cause.
The rhetoric is to be expected, it has to be said. But one thing that is different is that Ismail Abu Shanab is a professor, an American-educated man, and despite being a senior member of what the U.S. calls a terrorist organization, Hamas, he was considered within that context to be a moderate. He was the man who did hold talks with the Palestinian Authority on the cease-fire, and there's a great deal of shock and sadness here that he was the individual chosen as a target for the Israeli missile attack on his vehicle yesterday. This funeral is currently at the city's main mosque in Gaza City, and there is some more gunfire in the background, again, a tradition at funerals in Palestinian areas firing gunshots into the air. The funeral will then go to the cemetery. He will be buried and it will be over.
Meanwhile, overnight, there was mortar fire into a settlement block area called Gush Katif (ph) south of Gaza City. The Israeli military responded by setting up a roadblock that they had taken down a month or two back at the beginning of July. They took it down when the road map was showing promise. After these mortar attacks, it's back up, and that's prevented many people from actually getting to this funeral from the south of Gaza -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Michael Holmes reporting live by phone from Gaza City.
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 August 22, 2003 - 06:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Still in the Middle East, where Palestinians are mourning the death of senior Hamas leader, Ismail Abu Shanab. Right now, big crowds are gathered for the funeral. We're talking about 30,000 people.
Hamas says the attack ends the cease-fire. It issued a joint statement with Islamic Jihad. Israel says the cease-fire ended with the Tuesday bus attack in Jerusalem, which killed 20 people. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are claiming responsibility for that attack.
That angry -- that outpouring of angry emotion at the funeral today, though, will make things tougher for the Palestinian prime minister to control the militants there, maybe make it impossible.
Live by phone to Gaza City and Michael Holmes.
Good morning -- Michael.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, I'm having trouble hearing you. It's very noisy here, so forgive me.
This funeral is very much under way. It's been going for over two hours now. There's probably another two hours left in it, and the crowd continues to swell. It's probably around the 30,000 mark now, and many more militants are arriving.
A group of masked men carrying guns dressed in military fatigues from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade walked past just minutes ago. And just before them, there were groups of Hamas would-be suicide bombers, dressed in green silk, which is their way of saying they are willing to be, in their words, "martyrs."
Now, this funeral for Ismail Abu Shanab is a very emotional scene, a very at times angry scene. There are loudspeakers on vans calling for the end of the road map, the end of the cease-fire, the end of talks and calling on Palestinians to shed their blood for the Palestinian cause.
The rhetoric is to be expected, it has to be said. But one thing that is different is that Ismail Abu Shanab is a professor, an American-educated man, and despite being a senior member of what the U.S. calls a terrorist organization, Hamas, he was considered within that context to be a moderate. He was the man who did hold talks with the Palestinian Authority on the cease-fire, and there's a great deal of shock and sadness here that he was the individual chosen as a target for the Israeli missile attack on his vehicle yesterday. This funeral is currently at the city's main mosque in Gaza City, and there is some more gunfire in the background, again, a tradition at funerals in Palestinian areas firing gunshots into the air. The funeral will then go to the cemetery. He will be buried and it will be over.
Meanwhile, overnight, there was mortar fire into a settlement block area called Gush Katif (ph) south of Gaza City. The Israeli military responded by setting up a roadblock that they had taken down a month or two back at the beginning of July. They took it down when the road map was showing promise. After these mortar attacks, it's back up, and that's prevented many people from actually getting to this funeral from the south of Gaza -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Michael Holmes reporting live by phone from Gaza City.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
