Six Dead After Gun Battle in Gaza
COSTELLO: There is so much going on this morning. Before we get to the latest developments in Afghanistan, we want to bring you the latest violence from the Middle East. Four Israeli soldiers and two Palestinians are dead, killed in a fire fight earlier today at an army post near the borders of Israel, Gaza and Egypt. Our Jerrold Kessel is live in Jerusalem with the latest from there. Jerrold, take it away.</s>JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. And this incident coming right along that border inside Israel at an army post on that -- on that Gaza-Israel border at this time. The Israeli security cabinet, it had been scheduled to convene for this irregular session, but it's now, we're told, being devoted to the implications of this attack by two Palestinian gunmen on the Israel army position. And we expect to hear what response the Israelis might be contemplating in the wake of this attack by the Palestinian militants. One government spokesman saying in advance of that meeting that this was so serious and incident that it simply could not be allowed to pass by.</s>ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The Fatah is the party (ph) of Arafat, and under full control. And the Tanzim (ph), that's the military arm of the Fatah, they should be declared as terrorist organization, and the same should be done when it comes to the Presidential Guard, 417, which is the liaison with the Hezbollah.</s>KESSEL: The Palestinian leadership under pressure from international leaders to explain. Here the European's top foreign policy man, Javier Solana, strenuously denies it was behind the arms smuggling attempt. Charging Israel is trying to derail the U.S. mediation efforts, the Palestinian leadership has promised a full scale investigation and welcomes, it says, international scrutiny.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want these four parties, the EU, the United States, Russia and the U.N., to participate in the investigation concerning this ship incident. We don't have anything to hide.</s>KESSEL (on camera): With no let up -- no sign of a let up in the harsh war of words between Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian leadership, the Israelis are sending -- have sent a top ranking delegation of their intelligence officers to Washington to put the case to the United States that they have ironclad evidence of Palestinian authority implication in the boat -- arms boat affair. And now it's expected that there'll be more war of words over this latest attack across the Gaza-Israel border -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: No doubt about that. Jerrold Kessel reporting live for us from Jerusalem this morning. Thank you very much. We'll let you get out of the rain. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com