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CNN Sunday Morning

Israel Retaliates for Earlier Palestinian Attacks

Aired August 26, 2001 - 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In the Middle East earlier today there were bombs bursting in the air and on the ground, as a weekend filled with deadly violence goes on.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports from Jerusalem as Israel retaliates for earlier Palestinian attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Israelis and Palestinians counting the costs and gains of two deadly Palestinian attacks and the fierce Israeli military response. The rubble to which the four story main Gaza police headquarters was reduced by Israeli warplanes. Among a number of security installations targeted by Israel in response to the Palestinian attacks.

The buildings had been evacuated and there were no serious casualties. Palestinian commanders undaunted by the Israeli strikes.

"They dropped two of these 2,000 pound bombs," says the Palestinian police chief. "Even if we have to work in tents, we will stand our ground. They can destroy all these buildings."

The Israeli army is licking its wounds as it seeks to establish how a Palestinian commando unit succeeded in penetrating one of its fortified positions. Despite casualties, officials insist Israel won't crumble either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are no quick solutions. This is not armored warfare in Sinai, where you encircle divisions of the other side and bring it to an end in six days. But with determination, correct strategy and perseverance, Israel will win this struggle.

KESSEL: But Israeli patience is being tested. In light also of this attack on a trunk road on the West Bank that links Jerusalem to the coast. A Jewish settler couple was killed, their two infant children hurt in the Palestinian ambush.

Israelis speak increasingly of the conflict being Lebanon-ized, a reference to the 20-year counter-guerrilla campaign they fought in South Lebanon.

Palestinian comparisons with events in Lebanon are different. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly as it happened in Beirut '82,'82, Sharon invaded Lebanon, wanted to crush it and finish the PLO in order to impose his own thesis of security and stability for Israel, and not too long before the Palestinians. We are facing the very same scenario.

KESSEL: In Israeli eyes, Mr. Sharon is now seen to be pursuing not a strategic end game vis-a-vis Yasser Arafat, only a containment policy as he seeks not to be drawn into a broadened confrontation. What the Israeli prime minister fears, say Israeli analysts, is that Yasser Arafat may spoil that strategy by refusing to answer a containment policy in kind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Arafat doesn't know to push the brake. Our fear is that he will not be able to push the brake at the right moment now and later on he may force Israel to take military measures that Israel does not want to take and is trying to avoid.

KESSEL: Only a few days ago, there was much anticipation of a meeting mediated by Western European leaders between Yasser Arafat and Israel's foreign minister Shimon Peres.

Now the very value of such a meeting again appears in doubt. The latest escalation has reinforced the one thing on which Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat seem to agree, that such talks are unlikely to help secure an effective cease fire and to end the violence.

Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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