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CNN Sunday Morning

Ramallah Shows Signs of Warfare

Aired April 07, 2002 - 11:32   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The city of Ramallah has taken a pounding in Israel's military offensive. Not only has the Palestinian Authority's headquarters been demolished, the whole city shows signs of warfare. CNN's Michael Holmes takes us on a tour of the destruction..

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Welcome to the wreckage of Ramallah. This, the Palestinian Authority compound the world knows so well, perimeter walls and buildings around Yasser Arafat's office. Also, the (inaudible) security headquarters blackened, shattered, rendered useless.

But the damage to this city goes much deeper, much wider, and will cost much more to repair than those two very public facilities. Armed Palestinians were in this building when Israeli forces engaged them with force, but when the fighting is over, it's no longer a target, just another apartment building that will need repair.

Here, the remains of a downtown office building, scene of a ferocious battle, but the owners of this place will foot the bill. There's no insurance in war zones. The small things add up, broken windows, bullet holes in public and private buildings, a retaining wall outside someone's house, windows at the Ramallah Municipal Building, all of it comes with a price.

Tour around this city when the tanks allow you, and you'll see cars, dozens of them, makes and models impossible to tell, again uninsured. Light poles crushed by tanks, roads that will need complete rebuilding, even trees knocked to the ground. Tanks are difficult to maneuver and are not selective.

The damage of war, the searches for suspects, difficult to tell at times from acts of vandalism. Nadia Taha says her home is an example of the latter.

"We were scared to open the door for the soldiers" she tells us, "so they blew it open with explosives. The children were terrified." Ten people were here, all of them women and children she says, when Israeli troops came in and, in her words, went on a rampage. "The television, look at it" she says. "Do we have terrorism here?"

ELLEN MAYS: Four years I am living here and I cried because everything was damaged.

HOLMES: A mile or so away form Nadia Taha, United States citizen Ellen Mays (ph). Soldiers came here too she said and stayed two days, damaged the upstairs apartments and her pride and joy, her garden.

MAYS: And you know people don't earn much money. They make their home slowly step-by-step, and now everything is damaged. It's a pity.

HOLMES: Electricity supplies are patchy, water to much of the city cut off. United Nations agencies believe the water problems threaten the health of the population here. In the words of one U.N. agency, "cross contamination of the fresh water supply is a real risk."

One reason is the accumulating garbage. Some people here too frightened to even take it to the street. Those who have done so, merely adding to growing piles.

(on camera): Another reason, scenes like this one. Israeli heavy equipment has torn up several roads like this in order to prevent local and media access to various parts of the city. Now in the process, some sewer lines have been severed.

(voice over): Adding to the water woes, some Palestinians say pot shots are taken at reserve water tanks, which then quickly empty. As Yasser Arafat remains besieged in his Ramallah headquarters, short on food, water, and medicine, tens of thousands of Ramallah residents know the feeling. Michael Holmes, CNN, Ramallah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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