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CNN Live At Daybreak

Israel Moves Into Tulkarem

Aired January 21, 2002 - 06:04   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: OK, let's talk some more about the Middle East. As I told you, Israeli troops seized a city in the northern West Bank.

For more on the situation from the West Bank, we're joined by CNN's Jerrold Kessel who is in Jerusalem -- Jerrold, tell us the latest.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, we could be heading into a new and perhaps potentially more violent phase than ever in this 16-month Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as the large amount of Israeli armor backed by helicopters went into the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem in the night.

The declared Israeli reason for the operation was that this comes in the aftermath of the killing by Palestinian militant of six Israelis who were celebrating a coming of age party of a 12-year Israeli girl in the northern town of Hadera on Thursday night.

There were immediate eruption of gunfire in the Palestinian town. The Israeli armor went in there, at least one Palestinian, a 19-year old youth have been killed. Seven other people wounded, one of them in critical condition.

Now the Israelis are saying that their operation is limited in time, limited to what the Israeli army says will be a search and root- out operation of terrorists in Tulkarem. But in another Palestinian town, the town of Ramallah where Yasser Arafat had his headquarters, the Israeli armor seems to be digging in for a long and protracted stay right opposite Yasser Arafat's headquarters, as the Israelis pile on the pressure on the Palestinian leader to do more to crack down on militants.

And while this Israeli operation underway, in Tel Aviv support for the Israeli position that Yasser Arafat must bear responsibility for the -- for the slide into violence and for the breakdown of the U.S. efforts to get a cease-fire, to get a peace agreement that is, a year and a half ago under the Clinton administration. Former President Bill Clinton in Tel Aviv, and he coming down squarely on the Israeli version of events of why the peace efforts then a year and a half ago broke down, and there has been the slide into open confrontation.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last year I believe Chairman Arafat missed a golden opportunity to make that agreement. I think the violence and terrorism, which followed were not inevitable and had been a terrible mistake.

And I think the Palestinians have to move against their terrorist organizations and have to have the ability to do so, and I hope that many of the miseries that the Palestinian people have can be alleviated if their leaders will do what is possible against the terror.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

KESSEL: While Mr. Clinton has been meeting with the Israeli leaders, many of whom, by the way, were opposed to the peace overtures that he tried to get in place, he has pointedly not been meeting with Palestinian officials.

But Yasser Arafat is meeting with European and the U.N. mediators in his headquarters in Ramallah as he seeks to alleviate this growing isolation on him. He calls this Israeli operation into Tulkarem a crossing of all red lines and a very dangerous development.

So the battles on what Yasser Arafat should or should not do, on what the Israelis are doing in the West Bank, continuing with their ever-graying threat that this could escalate still further -- Carol.

COSTELLO: You're right about that. Thank you. Jerrold Kessel reporting live for us from Jerusalem this morning. We've got correspondents everywhere in the world this morning.

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