Interview: James Bennet Discusses Today's Israeli Army Raid in Gaza

All Things Considered: March 7, 2004

JOHN YDSTIE, host:

From NPR News in Washington, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm John Ydstie. Steve Inskeep is on assignment.

Israeli forces raided the outskirts of Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza today. What followed was the deadliest gun battle with Palestinian militants in many months. Fourteen Palestinians were killed and 70 wounded. Yesterday Palestinian militants tried to mount an attack on Israeli soldiers at a border crossing but were foiled. The violence comes as Israeli politicians debate evacuating settlements from Gaza without a negotiated agreement. New York Times correspondent James Bennet was in Gaza today, and he joins us now.

Thanks for being with us.

Mr. JAMES BENNET (The New York Times): Glad to be with you.

YDSTIE: What happened in Gaza today?

Mr. BENNET: The armored troops went in very early this morning before dawn. They hit very heavy resistance on the outskirts of two camps, Bureij and Nusseirat, which are in central Gaza. They say they came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades, semiautomatic weapons. The Israelis seized some tall buildings, established sniper posts, and there ensued a very serious gun battle that lasted off and on over the course of several hours before the Israelis withdrew.

YDSTIE: Now it sounds like there was some stone-throwing and homemade bomb-throwing, that sort of thing, as well as some people who were not involved being injured.

Mr. BENNET: Well, there were a very large number of injuries; more than 70 people reported injured, including a large number of children. In the West Bank, the Palestinian resistance, these armed militants who come out and fight, has largely collapsed because they recognize the futility of going up against the Israelis in these situations.

In Gaza, you still have gunmen who come racing out, called out by the loudspeakers of the mosques as soon as the Israelis enter the camps. At the same time hundreds of children--boys, teen-agers and younger--run out to kind of watch the fighting and, also, to throw stones at the Israelis. In this case, there were several children injured and several killed as well. I talked to one mother who lost her son, nine-year-old boy, who she said got up at 6:00 this morning and put on his school uniform and said he wanted to go to school. She assumed that's where he was, until some of his friends came home a couple of hours later and told her that he joined in watching the fighting and he was shot in the head.

YDSTIE: Why is this happening now as the Israelis talk about pulling out of Jewish settlements in Gaza?

Mr. BENNET: There is a connection. The intended pullout is not likely to begin, if it does begin, until the end of the year or possibly next year. But the Israelis do say that in addition to trying to suppress ongoing attacks from Gaza, they're interested in signaling to the Palestinians that though they are talking about a possible withdrawal, they're not going to suspend this sort of operation. And a lot of Palestinians think, in fact, the purpose of this kind of raid is to draw out the gunmen, to make them make targets of themselves, so that they can essentially be eliminated before the Israelis do withdraw.

Palestinians, of course, say that these sorts of raids only create more gunmen. I talked to the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the central Gaza Strip, who sort of swept his arm to gesture to a bunch of boys who were listening to our conversation and said the Israeli operation was just turning them all into bombs.

YDSTIE: You know, I saw some other analysis that suggested the Palestinian attack on the border crossing yesterday was aimed at trying to make it look as if the militants are forcing this Israeli withdrawal from the settlements. What do you make of that analysis?

Mr. BENNET: Well, they feel that they are forcing it. What's interesting is that this attack killed only Palestinians, the people who were involved in the attack, and then two Palestinian policemen who tried to prevent it. Yet different groups are claiming credit for it essentially and boasting of it, even though they succeeded only in killing other Palestinians. It's something of a sign, I think, of the growing chaos inside Gaza right now.

YDSTIE: New York Times correspondent James Bennet, who was in Gaza today, thanks very much.

Mr. BENNET: Thank you.

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