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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With IDF's Captain Jacob Dallal

Aired April 14, 2002 - 16:25   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: One of the greatest accusations leveled in this conflict so far has dealt directly with what happened or what did not happen inside that refugee camp in Jenin.

Fifteen thousand Palestinians living there about two-and-a-half weeks ago. The U.N. now says 3,000 are homeless. In addition to that, there are strong allegations from the Palestinian side, that as many as 500 people were killed there. Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli Defense Minister says that number is a lot closer to 70 and he says 95 percent were armed gunmen.

What is the truth? We've been trying to get it ourselves. Some journalists were taken into that camp on Sunday. We've been pushing to get in for several days' time and, once again, we hold out hope that our own crew can get in there on Monday. Captain Jacob Dallal is with the IDF, Israeli Defense Force; he joins me now tonight here in Jerusalem. Good evening to you.

As you well know, these allegations have been fast and furious from a number of different locations. The Israel military has shot a number of them down. How many dead in Jenin?

CAPT. JACOB DALLAL, ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCE: Well, I just came back from the Jenin and indeed Jenin is a battle zone. We had the fiercest fighting in Jenin against hardcore Islamic Jihad terrorists. The number that we have as far as the number of Palestinian killed, which is only an estimate, is around 100, slightly less. We don't know. We know that we have found 26 bodies in the camp and that nearly 15 bodies, in addition, have been given over to the hospital.

What I want to make clear here is the effort that the Israel army has gone to, to minimize the number of civilian casualties and get the terrorists to see surrender. We lost 23 soldiers in Jenin. In the whole operation in all of the West Bank, we've lost 29. We went house-to-house, inch-by-inch, yard-by-yard, to get the people out and to arrest the terrorists. The numbers, given by the Palestinians, are fabrications, lies and libel.

HEMMER: How do we prove it?

DALLAL: How do we prove it? Well, tomorrow morning, the Israel army under the - with Red Cross officials, will begin to take the bodies out and we hope will be able to transfer them to the Palestinian leadership in Jenin. HEMMER: Why hasn't our CNN crew allowed to go into that refugee camp? We've been essentially knocking on the door, as you know, for better than a week.

DALLAL: Well I'm very happy to say that today we were able to allow a large representation of the foreign press into Jenin to show them exactly what happened. We brought them to the site of the fiercest battle within the refugee camp. In other words, that small corner in the northeast of the refugee camp where we lost 13 soldiers in one event and where we had the fiercest fighting, we took them right there to see ...

HEMMER: Will you take a crew in tomorrow?

DALLAL: We'll take your crew in and we're going to take other crews in. The only reason we couldn't ...

HEMMER: Tomorrow?

DALLAL: We'll try. We'll definitely try because we want you to be there and we want you to see.

Until now, the only reason we haven't let the press in is because there was serious, serious fighting. The chance of being shot or being blown up by a bomb was very great. It was simply too great a risk. We could not have even the media as important as it is for us to show our case to the world, we couldn't have journalists being killed right and left in the hostilities. Now the fighting is stopped, now the Israel army is in basic control of the camp and now we're bringing the media in.

HEMMER: We're going to hold you to your word to get in there ASAP.

DALLAL: All right.

HEMMER: I want to move from Jenin quickly to Bethlehem. We had a mediator essentially on our air live an hour ago talking about an absolute standoff and a stalemate between negotiations. Israel on Sunday made an offer that the Palestinians flat out rejected. They said - you said in other words, you can turn yourself over and be arrested or you can go into permanent exile. Completely rejected by the Palestinians. Is there any chance if there is any movement or is this is a situation that is going to drag on for weeks and weeks to come?

DALLAL: Well, we're in negotiations. I would be patient and careful.

HEMMER: What are you offering?

DALLAL: What we're offering is basically that everyone leave peacefully.

Now I just have to explain the situation. We have 230 armed gunmen barging into the church in the middle of the afternoon and holding up the clergy in there. And you're going ask, and I say the clergymen, they're a hostage.

What is it like? It's like if 230 gunmen were to enter a school, and then the police were to surround the school. And the police were to say, please come out. Now the reason that the teachers and the children wouldn't come out is not because they enjoy the company of the gunmen, but perhaps because they're afraid, or perhaps because they're prevented.

That's the situation here, and it's a sacrilege that 230 gunmen holed themselves up in a church, especially in such a sacred site.

HEMMER: Do you see any end there in sight?

DALLAL: We hope. We're very patient. We're delivering food and medicine, and we're going to continue to negotiate. We're still negotiating. We hope it will end soon.

HEMMER: Keep us posted, OK? Captain Jacob Dallal of the IDF here with us this evening.

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