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CNN Sunday Morning

Israelis Attack Palestinian Weapons Facility

Aired March 03, 2002 - 07:01   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: Well, let's get right to this weekend. An upheaval and violence in the Middle East. Israeli forces have attacked several Palestinian targets, including what is called a Palestinian Weapons Factory in Bethlehem. CNN's Jerrold Kessel is in Jerusalem with the latest.

Hi, Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Kyra and deadly attack after deadly attack. This morning, the most deadly of the morning has been in a remote road of the West Bank at a military checkpoint there where a Palestinian gunman, possibly only one gunman with a sniper rifle attacked the soldiers at the - manning that checkpoint and also, a convoy of civilian cars were traveling through that checkpoint and 10 Israelis are killed in that attack. And the gunman made a way back to the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Another four Israelis were wounded there. Most of the casualties were the soldiers manning that checkpoint, but also some civilians among the fatalities and the wounded there.

And there was another attack at a military checkpoint, on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Another Israeli killed there and four wounded. And all this coming just 12 hours after a deadly suicide bombing in the heart of Jerusalem. A young Palestinian, a 19-year-old Palestinian from a refugee camp near Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem blew himself up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem as people were exiting from a synagogue at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, marking a bar mitzvah of two boys there. And among the nine Israelis killed, several were small children, including a couple of toddlers and a mother and her three-year-old son among the fatalities. Also, of the 50 or so people who were wounded in that suicide bombing, more than 20 remain in hospitals and several reported still in critical condition.

Well, within hours of this attack, this morning, Israeli helicopters and tanks have been attacking Palestinian posts on the West Bank just like helicopters attacked last night after that suicide bombing in the town of Bethlehem, a major Palestinian police post struck there and also, what the Israelis described as a bomb factory. No casualties reported there, but in this morning's Israeli attack, one Palestinian was being reported killed and some 15 wounded in Ramallah.

The Palestinian Authority had condemned that suicide bombing in Jerusalem, but while the Palestinian Authority took that position, many Palestinians were exulting because Palestinians had been outraged and Palestinian troops had been vowing revenge before an Israeli military incursion into two refugee camps in the West Bank. The - more than 20 Palestinians were killed during days of fighting there as Israelis troops engaged a gunman in those camps. The Israelis said they've gone into the camps because the Palestinian militants had - being able to operate out there at will. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed in that three-day operation.

Since then, the troops have come out of the two refugee camps and the Israeli cabinet of Prime Minister Sharon now pondering what to do next. And Mr. Sharon will be convening his security cabinet at 8:30 this evening local time. Miles, it's now 2, so about six hours from now here in Jerusalem with two very serious questions to ponder - whether, as some of the critics said Mr. Sharon and of the military challenge that those operations into the West Bank camps have only provoked further Palestinian retaliation, whether there is in fact an indelible link between Israeli military incursions and these Palestinian attacks today and beyond that, perhaps even a bigger question - whether Israel should change its strategy towards Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.

Big questions on the agenda for the Sharon government now in the wake of these deadly attacks - Miles, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jerrold Kessel live in Jerusalem. Thank you so much.

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