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CNN Sunday Morning
Three Israelis Killed in a Suicide Bombing
Aired September 09, 2001 - 09:12 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to tensions in the Middle East, it has been another bloody day in Israel. Three Israelis were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a train station in Northern Israel.
CNN's Jerrold Kessel joins us live now from Jerusalem -- Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin, good morning. It's been a bloody morning, a bloody Sunday, with a series of Palestinian attacks in the West Bank inside Israel. Israeli counter-strikes, helicopter strikes in response to those attacks, the variegated Palestinian attacks killing five Israelis and wounding dozens of others and leaving two of the Palestinian attackers dead.
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KESSEL (voice-over): Last stop on the line, and a bloody start to a busy Sunday morning, beginning of Israel's work week. The train from Tel Aviv had just arrived in the northern Israel town. As passengers disembarked, eyewitnesses say a man carrying a box stepped out of a small cafe along side the platform and blew himself up.
Radical Islamic groups have carried out many similar such suicide attacks in Israeli cities and in calls to Arab television stations, the attack was attributed to the Hamas group.
The station bomb was sandwiched between other Sunday morning attacks on the Israelis. Another organization, Islamic Jihad, says it's men carried out the drive-by shooting earlier in the day in the Jordan valley. Two people were killed and the four injured were taken by helicopter to hospitals inside Israel. The target, a minibus driving teachers to a regional school in a West Bank settlement.
A third explosion at a busy intersection in central Israel was a car bomb, Israeli police said. Apparently, only the driver of the car was killed. Three Israelis were lightly hurt when several cars caught fire.
As the bombs were going off around the country, Israeli helicopters struck, hitting a string of Palestinian security targets in the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Jericho. Palestinian security forces had evacuated all major buildings and police posts in anticipation of the Israeli counter-strikes. Three Palestinians were lightly hurt. Whoever is claiming responsibility for the Palestinian attacks, the Israeli government is holding the Palestinian authority of Yasser Arafat responsible. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had already a pre- scheduled meeting of his security cabinet later in the day to consider the Israeli Army's plans to introduce fresh restrictions on Palestinian movement in so-called security zones along the West Bank Israel border.
After a weekend meeting of his cabinet, the Palestinian leader repealed urgently for the intervention of the international community to stop the Israeli government going ahead with the planned buffer zones policy. Mr. Arafat called it a racist separation plan.
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KESSEL: And, amidst these escalating confrontations, Martin, there are a good deal of people in the leaderships on both sides who are now questioning the wisdom of a series of meetings that are scheduled to get underway in the coming days between Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres. The Israeli foreign minister, backed strongly by Western European intermediaries, is pushing hard for those meetings, arguing that the only way to even think of hoping that there will be a cease fire put in place is to begin talking about that cease fire.
SAVIDGE: Jerrold, that was exactly my question I was going to ask you. What is the impact? What is Israel saying? Does this mean that those negotiations, those talks, are not going to take place?
KESSEL: Well, there are two schools of thought. Mr. Peres is absolutely adamant. He says the only way you'll get a cease fire is to start talking about it. You're not going to get that period of quiet, which is a precondition prior to that, on, for the talks to be held. He says you've got to talk and get a cease fire in place.
Now, Mr. Sharon, Israel's prime minister, has been saying yes, go ahead and try and do that. He tells Mr. Peres he can do that. The problem is that the Palestinians have a different view of those talks with Mr. Peres. They want a political dividend agreed upon down the road before they say they will agree to any kinds of talks about a cease fire. So, they are very different and a discrepancy in the two sides views, even between Mr. Peres and the Palestinian side on what might come out of those talks.
So, even if the talks are held, certainly no guarantee, and in fact, probably the opposite, that anything really positive will come out of it towards a cease fire. But, in the meantime, there is no other alternative, it seems.
SAVIDGE: CNN's Jerrold Kessel, reporting to us live from Jerusalem, where it was another deadly day in Israel. Thank you.
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