Return to Transcripts main page

Breaking News

Conflict in the Middle East: Israeli Gunships Target Gaza City

Aired July 30, 2001 - 09:30   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: Middle East violence leads our top stories. There was action over the weekend and also some new action to talk about today.

Our Jerrold Kessel is in Jerusalem to bring us up to date -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donna, good morning.

And nerves a jangle on both sides after a weekend of serious escalation between Palestinians and Israel and both sides bracing for more and, indeed, within the last few minutes, Israeli helicopter gunships have been attacking targets in Gaza City itself. The reports coming in the last few minutes from there that the helicopters fired at least three missiles at targets in Gaza, one at the Palestinian political headquarters, another at the headquarters of the Fatah movement. That's the movement affiliated to Yasser Arafat.

The police headquarters very close to Yasser Arafat's office compound and his own personal home, the Palestinian leader not in Gaza, having traveled to neighboring countries. The initial reports, and these are very initial, speaking of three people, at least three people hurt in this Israeli helicopter attack. It's the first in some time but it has been -- has come as a result, in the wake of, not knowing exactly what motivated the Israeli action, in the wake of a serious escalation over the weekend, a slew of incidents, perhaps the most serious in the northern West Bank area where six Palestinians were killed in an explosion, still a mysterious explosion. Palestinians charging that Israel was behind the explosion just outside a refugee camp in the northern part of the West Bank. Seven were hurt. All of those people were on a wanted list that Israel had submitted to the Palestinian Authority, asking that they be put behind bars by Yasser Arafat as Israel demands that Palestinian militants be reigned in as part of the efforts to control the intifada uprising.

Israel, however, denying emphatically that it had anything to do with that explosion in that refugee camp, al-Farah, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Here in Jerusalem, tension is enormous. Israeli police on high alert, worrying that there will be more Palestinian attacks. There was a small bomb in a supermarket. No one hurt there. There have been a slew of reports of other bombs. They have proved to have been false alarms, but the police on high alert and now this latest attack in Gaza and not clear exactly what occasioned it, but certainly tensions continuing to rise between the Israelis and Palestinians -- Donna.

KELLEY: In Jerusalem, our Jerrold Kessel. Thanks for the information.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com