Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Sunday Morning
Israeli Tanks Enter Another West Bank Town
Aired June 23, 2002 - 08:16 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In the Mideast crisis once again Israel is expanding its latest operation to crack down on terrorists. The government is calling up reservists and Israeli tanks have entered yet another West Bank town.
Our Jerrold Kessel joining us live from Jerusalem with the latest on all of this -- hello, Jerrold.
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Miles.
Well, the Israeli troops are, indeed, inside Palestinian towns and entrenching, it seems, in at least four West Bank cities. This is the latest moves that Israel is taking to offset, to try to forestall, to try to hamper the activities of the Palestinian suicide bombers who have wreaked such death and destruction of, in the latest round of the Palestinian bombing campaign inside Israeli cities and inside the West Bank.
The Israeli troops went into another town, Tulkarem, this morning, and are taking up positions there. They've been making arrests. They've been imposing curfews. They've also been in Bethlehem, where tanks and armed personnel carriers were seen outside in Manger Square, outside the Church of the Nativity, recalling that month and five week long siege that Israel imposed on the Church of the Nativity. But this time no such siege because there are no militants who have taken refuge in the church.
But the Israeli forces are inside Bethlehem, as inside the other towns. And as the Israeli cabinet met this morning, there are also discussions going on, we understand, from Israeli security sources, of the possibility of Israel extending this campaign to try to thwart the bombers, possibly by imposing deportation orders or expulsion of leading Palestinians believed to be heads of militant organizations, either from the whole region or from the West Bank into Gaza, where Israel has a security fence around Gaza and believes it can contain the militants more effectively.
The Israelis say all this action, as Prime Minister Sharon discussed it with his cabinet this morning, has become inevitable because of the spate of suicide bombings, which have not been stemmed as a result of that month long Israeli offensive into the West Bank during April and into May. The suicide bombers have been coming back with a vengeance. Palestinians seeing it entirely differently. They say that this Israeli reoccupation of their towns is really aimed at something that was on the Sharon government's agenda all along. The Israeli government and Ariel Sharon, say Palestinians, want simply to reimpose a total occupation of the West Bank and to do away with the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.
All now looking to the United States, even as the situation continues to escalate or to deteriorate -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jerrold, the Sharon government denies that all of this effort is an attempt to redraw the political boundaries. They say they're security boundaries. Is that a difference without a distinction, though?
KESSEL: Well, it's a difficult one to call on this because the Israelis do have the evidence of the suicide bombings that have kept on coming, the suicide bombers who have kept on coming, and which they've been hard put to stop. And all that five month offensive, they said at the time, the Israeli military said well, at least for several months they believed they would have the terror organizations on the hop and they wouldn't be able to send the bombers out.
Well, it's just six weeks or so since the end of that defensive shield, as it was called, the operation, and the bombers have come back and the Israelis are now of the opinion all along the line, even on the left-wing of the Israeli political spectrum of the Labor Party, that the only way, perhaps, to curb the bombers is to take up some kind of permanent presence in the Palestinian towns.
How long it will last, whether it will be effective, those are open questions, and very difficult ones at this time. And they certainly put a cloud on any kind of initiative that the United States might be thinking of taking with that declaration by President Bush to try to map the way out of this ongoing, and, as I say, seemingly deteriorating conflict -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Jerrold Kessel in Jerusalem. Thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
