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American Morning

More Violence in the Middle East

Aired March 05, 2002 - 09:08   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As we have been reporting all morning long, the situation in the Middle East is getting worse.

We have some late developments on the escalating violence in the region now from CNN's Sheila MacVicar who joins us live from Jerusalem.

Sheila, what is the latest? Good morning.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, we've just seen yet more Israeli air strikes over the West Bank. This time Israeli helicopter gunships targeting Palestinian police headquarters in both Ramallah and the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Now these strikes are taking place at a time when both the Israeli Security Cabinet under Prime Minister Sharon is still in session. We still have not heard what that cabinet has decided. And the strikes come after a very emotional morning in Ramallah, the funeral today for the mother and her three children who were killed yesterday in an Israeli attack -- Israeli military strike.

The IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, have apologized for that. They said that they hit the wrong target, that they had not intended to kill the woman and her children. She was the wife, they were the children of a known Hamas political leader. That, however -- that apology, however, has done nothing to, of course, calm tensions in that city.

Now we've had an extraordinary series of events, and even by the standards of this region, Paula, have really indicated just how far out of control the cycle of violence has gotten. And beginning last night with an attack in a Tel Aviv restaurant, all the way through a Palestinian suicide bomber in a central Israeli city, a Palestinian drive-by shooting and even a bomb blast at a Palestinian boy's school in Arab East Jerusalem. Responsibility for that claimed by a previously unknown terror group.

A situation, Paula, that just seems to be really heading right out of control -- Paula.

ZAHN: Sheila, as all this goes on, there is some talk of diplomacy. Egyptian President Mubarak offering an Egyptian site for some peace talks between the two sides. I just had an Israeli official on who said they don't perceive that as a PR move, but they can't imagine the two sides will be sitting down any day soon. Any reaction there to the Mubarak effort?

MACVICAR: Well there just is no sense here that in any way are the two sides ready to sit down, especially the two leaders ready to sit down publicly together in a summit at Sharm El-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort, even with the guidance of American interlocutors, with President Mubarak, with King Abdullah and of Jordan. I mean there just is no way that the timing is right for that. But it is an indication, I think, that there are -- other Arab leaders are beginning to try once again to grapple with the problem.

We've heard of course that the Americans are thinking about sending back General Zinni, the U.S. special envoy to the region, to try one more time to get conditions right to begin to be able to move forward. Every time they try, something just goes disastrously wrong and we begin on this spiral again.

ZAHN: Sheila, back to the spiral for a moment, any new information on the source of what killed those eight Palestinian school children? There was a report, perhaps, that Israeli civilians were involved with the bombing. Can we confirm that? What do we know?

MACVICAR: The children weren't killed, they were -- they were, however, wounded. And it did place at a...

ZAHN: Excuse me, I should have said -- yes, absolutely. You are absolutely right.

MACVICAR: I mean terrible, but they were wounded.

The group claimed responsibility sending a message in Hebrew to the pagers of a number of reporters working here. That's a very common method of communication. It's not yet known who these people are but the implications of both the group name and the language used was that they were, in fact, Israelis -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, thank you for clarifying that.

Sheila MacVicar, appreciate that live update.

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