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CNN Live Sunday

Israeli Authorities Make Arrests in Connection With Recent Terrorist Bombings

Aired December 02, 2001 - 16:03   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the crisis in the Middle East, and reports of the first arrests in connection with the terrorist bombing attacks in Israel. The most recent blast erupted on a bus in a port city of Haifa this morning. At least 16 people were killed. Earlier, two suicide bombings and a car bomb killed at least 12 people and wounded nearly 200 others at a mall in Jerusalem. CNN's Jerrold Kessel has more.

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JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There have been warnings, but few expected it to be this horrific. Before even the dead have been buried from Saturday night's double suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Israel's agony shifted to its northern port city of Haifa.

The target here, something everyone uses: The city bus. A man was seen boarding number 16 at a regular stop. Coolly, he paid his fare, and second later detonated himself. The bus, now a fireball, careened down the road, striking other vehicles and leaving a trail of devastation and death.

The chilling account of one eyewitness, who said afterward such was the force of the blast that the victims didn't utter a word. "Not even a cry for help," he said, "it was complete silence. All that was left to do was to cover some of them and evacuate the rest."

Just as the mayhem erupted in Haifa, back in Jerusalem the special U.S. envoy, the man who President Bush had sent to make sure this sort of thing didn't happen anymore, laid a wreath at the scene of Saturday night's mall attack. Some Israelis jeered, yelling to the U.S. envoy, "Zinni, go home." Stone-faced former Marine general said he was sticking to his task.

ANTHONY ZINNI, SPECIAL U.S. ENVOY: This is the deepest evil that one can imagine, to attack young people and children, to attack rescue and emergency vehicles that are trying to come in. This is the lowest form of inhumanity that can be imagined. And I think it's important that we stay together to fight us, that we don't let it us deter us from our goal of peace, and that we stand together and make the world see that we will not tolerate this.

KESSEL: Pulling no punches, General Zinni said Yasser Arafat must act and act now. Palestinian leaders insist they are doing that, and that the only way out of this the ever-escalating violence cycle was to begin talking peace right away.

SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: People can be angry. People must realize, irrespective of the level of their anger, that violence will breed violence, bullets will breed bullets and escalation will breed escalations, and it's time to revive hope in the minds of Palestinians and Israelis, and it's time to get back to the negotiating table.

AVI PAZNER, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: I think this is the height of hypocrisy, what the Palestinians just said. First, they kill our children and then they say, "now, let's negotiate."

KESSEL (on camera): The Palestinian Authority has proclaimed a state of emergency, declared that it will not tolerate independent action by any group, and that its security force will detain all those that have backed the three suicide bombings. The big question, will that be enough for Israel and the United States, and will Israel wait for Yasser Arafat to act, or act itself?

Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Jerusalem.

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