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CNN Sunday Morning

Sharon Offensive Continues Despite Pledge to Wrap Up

Aired April 07, 2002 - 10:09   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: Despite Ariel Sharon's pledge to wrap up Israel's anti-terrorist offensive as quickly as possible, the operation expanded overnight. CNN's Jerrold Kessel is live in Jerusalem with more -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, even as the Israelis intensified their operation in the West Bank, there's also been this intensifying of the pressure, if you like, or the international resistance protests about the Israeli action and complaints about that the United States has not been moving in swiftly enough to curb the Israeli action here, one of the biggest of the day in the Arab world and beyond in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, where tens of thousands of people massing, to protest against the ongoing Israeli incursions into Palestinian towns on the West Bank.

But while the Israelis are watching this international protest, of course, their concern is what the United States thinks and where the United States believes how far they can go and how quickly they have to get out. And just as Kelly was reporting thereabout the president's position, there is a lot of assessment of what the president had to say in that phone call last night to Prime Minister Sharon, and when he spoke of without delaying, his public statement, and underlying that in that conversation with Prime Minister Sharon.

Now the big question is when Prime Minister Sharon says expedite, what does he mean by expedite? Does he mean he'll expedite the mission or expedite the beginning or the end of that -- of that campaign? he gave no indication of a timeframe today when at the regular Israeli Cabinet meeting he read out a prepared statement in Hebrew about the campaign, calling it a very faithful one for the security and for Israel's existence into the future, which he said was a key ingredient -- the ingredient, he said of any peace hopes in the area, Israel being secure, but he gave no timeframe at all for when he meant to begin that pullback or when it would be completed.

And indeed, there has been an intensification of the fighting, both as you heard earlier in the northern towns of Jenin, one of the real hot spots as far as the Israelis are concerned, with regard to the militants, with the terrorist presence in that -- in the northern town. But also in the town of Nablus, the biggest Palestinian town, where the fighting has intensified through today. after last night, Israel again using Apache helicopters to aid their ground troops. they've encountered a good deal of resistance, especially in the Kasbar (ph), that's the old part of town, the narrow alleyways and a warren (ph) of small streets, into which it's very difficult to send armor and so forth, in which there have been some very heavy fighting.

One of the leading Israeli commanders in the area estimated that at least 30 Palestinians, gunmen, he said, have been killed in the fighting over the last day just in Nablus there. Well the fighting has been continuing there. also, that standoff down in Bethlehem to the south of here, in the West Bank, the standoff outside the Church of the Nativity, curfewing (ph) place in Bethlehem and that standoff with more than 200 Palestinians, many of them militants with guns, and others on Israeli's wanted list have refused the demand of the Israeli Army, which is besieging that holy place for the Christian world, insisting that they come out and give themselves up.

They've refused to do so, going now into the fifth and onto the sixth day of that siege around the Church of the Nativity -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jerrold Kessel, live from Jerusalem, thank you.

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