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Hezbollah Rocket Attack Kills Three Civilians in Nazareth; Syria Accused of Smuggling Weapons to Hezbollah

Aired July 19, 2006 - 11:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's go back to Carol, who I guess you had some new pictures in from Nazareth in northern Israel.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Daryn. Just in the last about 90 minutes we've been covering this breaking story in Nazareth. A Hezbollah rocket attack there killing a total of three civilians, and we have learned more details about those deaths. Two of those civilians who were killed are children.

Now, these Hezbollah rockets have been hitting Nazareth in recent days, but this is the southernmost point where we are reporting that Israeli civilians have been killed. That attack happened somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Just a little information about that. Very few Jewish people actually live in Nazareth, which is populated by Muslims and Christians. It is revered by Christians a the childhood home of Jesus, where Jesus grew up.

So, Daryn, that is the latest out of there. Two of those casualties children.

KAGAN: Carol, thank you.

Well, from Hezbollah to the north to Hamas to the southwest, we are live from the frontline in this conflict. Gaza is coming up next. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's take a look at what we know right now, the death toll in the conflict continues to climb in the Middle East. Israel says three people were killed just a short time ago in a rocket attack on Nazareth in northern Israel. That includes two children, we're told. Hundreds of Americans are now on their way to Cyprus aboard the cruise ship the Orient Queen. They're among evacuees fleeing Lebanon. Thousands of others Americans still waiting in Lebanon trying to get out.

Our Matthew Chance has the latest. He is in Gaza, where there also has been fighting taking place.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Gaza, guns are blazing. The world may be watching Lebanon, but Israel's other battle is not forgotten, not by those living in its shadow. "They destroyed everything," she screams. "But we'll stay here. We'll hit them with rockets, even stones if we have to."

These are the makeshift rockets Palestinian militants are firing into Israel. They lack the power and accuracy of those used by Hezbollah from Lebanon, but still needle the Jewish state.

Hamas militants still hold Gilad Shalit, a corporal in the Israeli army captured last month. Israel says military pressure like this will continue until the rockets stop and their soldier is released.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my new house.

CHANCE: But Palestinians like Akram Abu Ouda, an English teacher, are being caught in the middle. What the world doesn't seem to understand, he told me, is what happens in Gaza has an impact elsewhere.

(on camera): Do you think if there were peace between the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the Israelis there would be peace with Hezbollah, as well?

AKRAM ABU OUDA: If they make peace with Palestinians (INAUDIBLE) in Gaza, this will spread, and more and more with our other people, even with Hezbollah.

CHANCE (voice-over): But what if the reverse is true? What if violence begets violence as it so often has in this region?

(on camera): Since the soldier's capture, Israeli forces have been pounding the Gaza Strip with ferocity, with airstrikes, with tank barrages and with ground incursions. They've been hitting the infrastructure. Much of the water supply has been taken out. There are very few power lines left. There's no sanitation. And according to the United Nations, more than 100 people have been killed.

(voice-over): The U.N. has stepped up emergency-relief efforts across Gaza.

KAREN KONING ABUZAYD, COMMISSIONER GENERAL UNRWA: But there seems to be a great debate out there in the big wide world on whether this is a crisis, or a catastrophe or a disaster. All I can say is that people are suffering. They're suffering more than I've seen them suffer throughout the intifada.

CHANCE: And there seems little hope of that easing now, not as long as Israel, the Palestinians and now Hezbollah are locked in this terrible conflict.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And our Matthew Chance joins us live now from Gaza.

Matthew, a follow-up question for you. With so much pressure on the Palestinians and things being so difficult, any talk there of giving up this captured soldier?

CHANCE: No, no talk of that at all at the moment. You see, for the Palestinian militants who are holding Corporal Gilad Shalit, he is pretty much the best bargaining chip from their point of view that they've had in year for the -- against the Israelis.

The Israelis hold thousands of Palestinian prisoners in their jails, and the Palestinian militants want to exchange Gilad Shalit for at least for a proportion of those prisoners. And so until Israel is ready to negotiate with the militants to get his release, the militants saying very clearly they'll hold on to him for years, if necessary. One of them even saying to us that if necessary, they'll Israel negotiate for his bones -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Well, I was going to say, if he is this great bargaining chip, isn't he more valuable alive?

CHANCE: Well, he's valuable in both ways. Certainly, he's most valuable alive, and that's the basis on which the Israeli military officials and the Palestinian militants are working on the moment. They see him as this great bargaining chip.

They want him to be exchanged for these prisoners. They want to do that alive. They said that they won't kill him. But what they are saying is they won't give him back, either. They definitely won't give him back until there is a deal that they accept on the Palestinian prisoners.

KAGAN: Matthew Chance, live from Gaza, thank you.

Still ahead, we're going to head to the Internet. Bombs, bullets and blogs. Internet journalists capture a rare glimpse inside the Middle East war zone. A closer look ahead. This is CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's take a look at what we know right now. Israeli police now say that two people were killed today in a rocket attack on Nazareth in northern Israel. Just a short time ago, they feared that three people had died in that attack.

Hundreds of Americans are now on their way to Cyprus, aboard the cruise ship the Orient Queen. They're among evacuees fleeing Lebanon. Thousands of other Americans are still waiting to get out.

Online and in the line of fire. Civilians caught in the conflict share their views on the Internet. We'll been pulling Web sites for these glimpses.

Our technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg taking a closer look at that. Daniel, hello.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi Daryn.

It's some pretty powerful stuff. And you know, a lot of these cyber storytellers are increasingly using video to illustrate their situation in this conflict. And in this case, we're talking about video that's shared on YouTube. We need to preface all this by saying CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity or the origin of any of this material. Nonetheless, it's pretty compelling stuff.

The first one is one you were just seeing. This is apparently from a 14-year-old who's living in Israel and he's giving you a sample of what happens when the air raid sirens go off and when he's in his house. He's running outside. I'll let it play for a just a -- running downstairs. I'll let it play for just a few seconds as he runs outside here.

So, you can see, he runs outside. He actually goes into the shelter and he posts on his site, "Look what we have to go through just to get into our shelter." So this, again, apparently from a 14- year-old, who's illustrating what he has to go through.

The next one we're going to show you is a rooftop scene. This apparently taken in Haifa. Again, you can hear the air raid sirens going off in the background. The video quality on some of these is not great, and you can see that just by looking at it. It's a bit grainy. And the reason, in this case, the poster, the person who put it up, says that they're 25 years old and that they used a cell phone camera to record it. This really speaks to the ubiquity of this video, the fact that it's so easily recorded and posted on the Internet. And of course, the quality, not so great. But some pretty amazing stuff that's able to be captured pretty easily.

The last one we're going to show you is at night. Tough to see in the right corner of the video screen there. Just the flash of an explosion. I'll pause for a second. You can hear the shockwave from that explosion. Some pretty amazing stuff. And this apparently taken from a rooftop in Beirut, a southern suburb there in Beirut, Daryn. So that's some -- a look at some of the video. And, of course, the blogs are very busy, too.

KAGAN: Right. So once again, this is a site called youtube.com.

SIEBERG: Right.

KAGAN: Less than a year old. How is the company dealing with being the funnel and the filter for this kind of information?

SIEBERG: You know, we have asked them that question, interestingly enough. We did send them an e-mail and asked them how they're dealing with some this video, whether they're filtering it, what they're taking down and where they draw the line in terms of how gruesome some of this video is. They haven't got back to us yet, but they've certainly been dealing with this more and more. They claim on their site that they 30,000 videos uploaded every day. And not just, of course, from this conflict, but some all around the world with all kinds of stuff. And it's an amazing site.

KAGAN: All right, Daniel Sieberg, thank you for that.

We are going in-depth today, learning more about the key players in the Middle East crisis. One of them is Syrian President Bashar al- Assad. He took control of the country when his father, the long-time leader Hafez al-Assad, died in June of 2000.

The U.S. and Israel accuse Syria, along with Iran, of backing Hezbollah, and the U.S. has increased its rhetoric against Syria in recent days. At the G-8 Summit, President Bush said Syria could get Hezbollah to stop the attacks. And at the start of the conflict, Israeli war planes bugged the palace where Assad lived. Mideast analysts said that was a warning to Damascus.

Syria is accused of smuggling weapons to Hezbollah and Lebanon. The Syrians deny that charge, but the current conflict does present them an opportunity.

Our Lisa Sylvester has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A Hezbollah rocket smashed into this three-story residential building in Haifa, Israel. This woman cries out, "My son, Hayal (ph)! In Lebanon's similar pictures, rubble and wreckage in the wake of an Israeli strike.

As each side prepares for a new volley of attacks, attention is focusing on Syria. Syria has been a defender of Hezbollah. Israel says Hezbollah's rockets are being smuggled into Lebanon from Syria.

DANIEL AYALON, ISRAELI AMB. TO U.S.: The Syrians are now -- directly are responsible for continuing -- continuation of terror, from Hezbollah, from Hamas.

SYLVESTER: President Bush made it clear Syria is not doing enough to diffuse the crisis.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we recognize is that the root cause of the problem is Hezbollah. And that problem must be addressed. And it can be addressed through -- internationally by making it clear to Syria that they've got to stop their support to Hezbollah.

SYLVESTER: Syria and the United States have had a rocky relationship over Syria's support of radical Islamist organizations and over allegations it's been a gateway for insurgents into Iraq.

But the current conflict has opened a potential window for diplomacy with Syria.

JOE CIRINCIONE, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I would guess that its leaders see this crisis as an opportunity for Syria to reassert itself in Middle East diplomacy.

SYLVESTER: But so far, there are no plans for U.S. and Syrian officials to meet at the negotiating table.

(on camera): What the White House does not want is for Syria to use the ongoing conflict as an excuse to return to Southern Lebanon. The Syrian military had a presence there for 29 years. It was finally forced out April of last year.

Lisa Sylvester, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And you can see more of Lisa's stories on "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT." Watch weeknights at 6:00 Eastern here on CNN.

Now, with all this difficult news, we are well aware that you need a break, you need something to feel good about. We're going to have that for you. Buck O'Neil, well into his 90s, we'll have his story just ahead.

You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Horror on the high seas. Almost 100 passengers aboard a Princess Cruise Line Ship are injured, two of them critically.

Our Susan Candiotti has more from Port Canaveral, Florida -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATL. CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Daryn.

In fact, updated numbers now, more than 240 passengers were treated onboard the ship. Those are the latest numbers. More than half of the 3,300 people aboard the ship have now gotten off it. One woman, a passenger from California compared it to an earthquake. You'll be looking at some home video shot by Pat O'Shay (ph), a passenger aboard the ship. An unforgettable scare, as they describe it. The ship suddenly tilting as it left port about 11 miles out yesterday of Port Canaveral after a port call, people rolling down hallways, staircases, tumbling out of the swimming pool, "holding on to the railings for dear life," as they describe it.

Two people critically injured of all the passengers aboard the ship. And we talked with some of them about what the experience was like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went out in the hall, and I noticed that it was tilting, and then it started tilting more and people started screaming, and there were people falling down the stairs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw the ship like go up a little bit, and then I saw it, like, stop and then I was, like, OK. And then it started tilting more, and then so I got up and ran for the door, and then I like jumped on the bed, and then I came up, hit the wall head first, and then I slid down and hit my knee, and yes, it was really pretty scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CANDIOTTI: Some people describe the ship lifting or titling to the starboard, or the right side of the ship as much as 38 degrees, according to one passenger who talked to someone she described as an officer aboard the ship. Of course, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard are onboard at this hour investigating all of this. It could take until tomorrow to get everyone off the ship. Princess Cruise Line says everyone will get a full refund after this trip -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Susan Candiotti, thank you for that.

Just a few seconds left. We want to get this in, because there's so much difficult news. A change of pace for you, a 94-year-old man who took two walks last night and made history. Buck O'Neil, with this, becoming the oldest person to play in a professional baseball game. The former Negro League star signed a one-day contract with a minor league team. He led off the game with a walk, and then traded to the other team, walked again in the bottom of the first, making history, and hopefully that will help him get into Baseball's Hall of Fame. That's what it is all about. Congratulations, Buck.

I'm Daryn Kagan. Keep watching CNN for all the developments in the Middle East.

"YOUR WORLD TODAY" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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