Military

DATE=11/14/00

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=GILO UNDER FIRE

NUMBER=2-47380

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE=GILO

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The Israeli-Palestinian violence has claimed more than 200 lives in the past six weeks. It has brought terror to civilians on both sides caught in the crossfire. The Jewish enclave of Gilo and the Palestinian town of Beit Jala are separated by a narrow valley, which has become like a war zone. V-O-A Correspondent Laurie Kassman reports from Gilo.

TEXT: During the day, Gilo looks like any normal neighborhood. About 20-thousand residents live comfortably in white stone apartment buildings that line neatly paved streets. But, follow the road around the curve and the wide sidewalk is suddenly lined with knee-high cement blocks. Apartment windows and balconies now are piled with protective sandbags.

Gilo residents look out across a narrow valley at the Palestinian town of Beit Jala, once considered a friendly neighbor. For the past six weeks it has been used as a launching pad by Palestinian snipers harassing the Jewish settlement.

Israeli soldiers dug into the hillside of Gilo, and backed by tanks and combat helicopters, respond to the attacks almost every night.

One Gilo resident - a former Israeli soldier in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war who refuses to give his name - says he comes every day to the edge of the cement blockade to watch the action.

/// MAN ACT 1 - IN HEBREW - FADE UNDER ///

I'm watching to see what our army is doing, he says. But whatever it is, he adds, it is not enough.

The 18-year resident of Gilo says he is fed up. He is angry and points to bullet holes in some building walls.

/// MAN ACT 2 - IN HEBREW - FADE UNDER ///

Either the Palestinians go back to the peace table, he says, or the Israeli army has to do something to end this violence once and for all. Even, he adds, if it means sending the army in to occupy Beit Jala.

Melanie Rosenberg is less belligerent. But she is shocked by the violence that has invaded her life after 20 years of relative calm in Gilo. She talks of the shooting and shelling that starts after dark and the fear of walking the streets of her own neighborhood.

/// ROSENBERG ACT 1 ///

I never thought I would be in a war zone and I seem to have found it right in my backyard.

/// END ACT ///

Mrs. Rosenberg also worries about the long-term emotional and psychological impact on Gilo residents.

/// ROSENBERG ACT 2 ///

My friends all across the area are sleeping in the kitchen and staying in rooms which are not facing Beit Jala. There are sandbags all over the place. The kindergarten now has little flowerpots coming out of the huge concrete barrels that have been placed in front.

/// END ACT ///

Still, Mrs. Rosenberg questions the heavy Israeli firepower that has destroyed many homes in the Palestinian town she used to visit often before the latest uprising.

Mrs. Rosenberg and other residents describe Gilo as a neighborhood of Jerusalem. But residents of Beit Jala say Gilo is a Jewish settlement built on occupied Palestinian land.

Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations were supposed to resolve the issues of land and occupation. A peace dialogue seems remote these days as the violence escalates. Each side blames the other for the bloodshed and the failure to end it.

Israeli Foreign Minister and Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben Ami visited Gilo on Tuesday to boost morale. He was met by angry residents demanding tougher security measures in Gilo.

/// BEN AMI ACT ///

We cannot open an all-out war against the Palestinian Authority. We need to be prudent and cautious and choose carefully our tools. What I did tell them, however, is that you need in such difficult situations to reflect a capacity of resistance.

/// END ACT ///

So, the angry and frustrated residents of Gilo remain huddled in their homes, feeling under siege and waiting for the violence to stop. (Signed)

NEB/LMK/GE/JWH