Military

DATE=05/29/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ISRAEL / PALESTINIANS (L)

NUMBER=2-290307

BYLINE=MEREDITH BUEL

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICE AT:

INTRO: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened top ministers in his cabinet today (Wednesday) to discuss a possible response to recent Palestinian shooting attacks and suicide bombings. Correspondent Meredith Buel has details from Jerusalem.

TEXT: Prime Minister Sharon met with senior government ministers following a Palestinian shooting attack that killed three Israeli teenagers at a religious school in a Jewish settlement.

A Palestinian gunman killed two students while they were playing basketball in the settlement of Itamar near the West Bank city of Nablus. A third student was killed inside the school.

A security guard shot and killed the gunman.

Earlier, in a separate incident, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed an Israeli motorist and wounded another in an attack on a road near the Jewish settlement of Ofra, north of Jerusalem.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for both attacks.

The same group said it was responsible for a suicide bombing earlier this week near Tel Aviv that killed an 18-month-old Israeli girl and her grandmother.

Prime Minister Sharon says since the terror attacks on the United States last September there is a better international understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

/// SHARON ACT ///

Suicide bombers - that is a danger not only for Israel because that can spread like fire, everywhere, because it is very simple. Since the 11th of September last year the world understands it better. There are no borders for terror. There are no limits. Terror is terror, there is no good terror or bad terror.

/// END ACT ///

The Israeli army carried out new raids in West Bank towns and villages after the latest bloodshed.

Israeli soldiers conducted house-to-house searches for suspected militants involved in the 20-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation.

Palestinian witnesses say the raids occurred in and around the West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Hebron.

Meanwhile, two U-S envoys, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C-I-A) George Tenet are expected to meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials in the coming days.

Mr. Burns is expected to discuss reforms within the Palestinian Authority, while Mr. Tenet will try to re-establish counter-terrorism cooperation between senior Israel and Palestinian security officials. (Signed)

NEB/MB/KL