Military

DATE=12/11/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ROBINSON-ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS (L-O)

NUMBER=2-269145

BY-LINE=ROSS DUNN

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICE AT:

INTRO: A convoy carrying U-N Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson through the West Bank has come under gun-fire. Ross Dunn reports from Jerusalem that Mrs. Robinson and members of her entourage who are investigating violence in the territories, escaped unharmed.

TEXT: Mrs. Robinson, the head of the U-N Human Rights Commission, got a first hand look at the violence sweeping through the Palestinian territories when she visited the West Bank town of Hebron.

A bullet hit a car in the three-vehicle convoy transporting Mrs. Robinson and her staff as she toured one of the major flash-points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

No one was hurt in the shooting, but eye-witnesses reported that the U-N Human Rights chief was visibly upset following the incident.

Mrs. Robinson is on a fact-finding mission following complaints by Palestinians that Israeli soldiers have used excessive force in a bid to quell more than six-weeks of rioting in the territories.

The shooting of her convoy followed an exchange of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. Both Israel and the Palestinians blamed each other for the attack.

The Israeli army said that Palestinian gunmen had fired at Mrs. Robinson's car. Palestinian police said that militant Jewish settlers in Hebron had fired at the convoy in an Israeli-controlled part of the town.

Although the town is under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli troops are stationed in the centre of Hebron to protect about 400 Jewish settlers.

The settlers worship at a shrine in the heart of the town, holy to both Muslims and Jews, and say they will never leave Hebron, despite almost daily attacks in the past six-weeks against their homes. (SIGNED)

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