The soldiers came on
to the roof of your house here
from the roof of this Janine apartment.
Mohammed Abu Alhaja shows me
where Israeli troops
fought a three hour battle
with Palestinian gunmen
just a few feet away
for the whole house.
Here was surrounded by Israeli troops
It was Thursday last week.
The raid killed ten people, seven of them
Palestinians gunmen.
One of the deadly assault
West Bank operations in years.
Mohammed
thought he and his family might die, too,
because Israeli troops
took over his apartment
to fight the gunman.
Well, you can guess you find them.
He shows where he says two
soldiers shot from his window
to see all the bullet holes
along the along
the wall that have spent bullet casings.
He says
testimony to the ferocity of
the firefight.
He says
the soldiers
tied his hands behind his back,
ordered him and his wife
to get on the floor, cover
their two daughters ears.
This is one of the bullets
that came into your room right here.
The gunmen began firing
back at the Israeli soldiers
hitting the wall and the door while he
his wife
and his two year old
and one year old daughters
late, terrified on the floor.
He thinks at least one soldier was hit,
so they cut They cut this out.
Yes.
And they're they're
looking right over the house.
This is the house, the target.
In his bedroom,
he shows where he says
the soldiers
cut the bars of his window
and they fired the rocket from here.
And that's the glass back here.
The whole place shook, he says.
There were three rockets.
It was so loud.
We were terrified to call him.
The Israeli military say
it was an urgent mission,
that when they arrived here,
their troops came under heavy fire.
They returned fire.
They say the suspects
barricaded themselves in the house here.
So they fired a shoulder
launch and tank missile at them.
The building's so damaged,
local officials had it bulldozed
using apartments like Mohammed's
to give covering
fire is standard operating procedure.
An Israeli military spokesman told CNN
so that the action can be more precise
U.N.
officials say the incident breaches
international law.
Volunteers have all eyes on them
as up
in the ground
floor apartment beneath Mohammed's
Ziyad says he saw the firefight,
saw an Israeli soldier
hide behind his car,
shoot one of the gunmen
This is the worst I've
seen it
much worse than the 2002 raids, he says.
There are
lots more gunmen on the streets now.
It's a younger generation.
They were born into it
upstairs.
Mohammed is close to tears
when I ask him how safe he feels
I live here.
We're not safe.
Not safe for a moment
after what happened, he says.
If they had killed me,
no one would hold them accountable.
You have to be very cautious.
For us.
Despite the battle scars,
it might look as if
some kind of normality is returning.
But in people's hearts here,
there is fear.
The worst is yet to come.
You can make.
Robertson joins me now from Jerusalem.
Nic, thank you so much for that report.
It shows us a glimpse
of what the cycle of violence
is doing to people on the ground
and the impact.
Is there anything that signals
a way out of this?
We've had so many
diplomatic conversations and visits
that have occurred
over the past week
that have frankly coincided
with increased tensions
You know what was really interesting,
talking to the older gentleman there,
Ziad, he's a carpenter.
63 years old.
His parents moved into that,
which was a tented refugee camp.
That's a refugee camp
that we were in the back in 1948.
So the family's been displaced
since then.
He's grown up there.
His children have grown up there.
His grandchildren were growing up there.
And that point that he makes, that
there are more gunmen walking the streets
of Janine these days
and inside
that refugee
camp is a reflection that that that
the situation has become more extreme,
more polarized,
Israelis live in fear
of Palestinians, Palestinians
live in fear of Israelis.
The polarization is growing
greater
and a sense that with a really right
wing government of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, this is this could be
one of the things
that helps make this situation
given the more gunmen as well,
even more prone to,
if you will, sort of go off the rails
before you could before
you could begin
to get into meaningful talks.
But because the talks aren't happening,
because that process is
essentially stalled,
this is what raises
that level of concern.
And Ziad comments about
this is just so much worse than he's
seen before.
So many people feel
that it's generational on all sides here.
Yeah, it's a fascinating insight
because it gives you a sense of what
people are thinking and feeling.
And, as you say, the conversations
between the two sides not happening.
Anthony Blinken, though, saying,
you know, a two-State solution
conversation
should be happening on the other.
And you had McCone
saying,
and I
quote, the continuation of colonization
that undermines the prospect
of a future Palestinian state.
His opposition to this and
it's interesting,
the conversations are happening
on sort of the macro
diplomatic front,
but not between the two sides.
Yeah.
And that's partly because Prime Minister
Netanyahu doesn't feel
that he has a good partner
in the Palestinian Authority leadership,
Mahmoud Abbas.
And there's a real sense
among Palestinians
that Abbas and his leadership
and the leaderships before him
have not taken opportunities
that have arisen
before, opportunities for peace.
But there's
you know, a sense
from Prime Minister Netanyahu
that it's no good
talking with the Palestinians
that far, rather talk
with the regional powers and through them
make peace with the with the Arab region.
And he says that will find a way
to making peace with Palestinians.
And that's not what Secretary
Blinken thinks.
And Israel sort of has a choice now.
And this was essentially the choice
likely
the French president will be putting.
But it was a
it was a contrast
that Secretary Blinken spoke
about when he when he was here,
that Israel has a choice.
You know,
if it believes that
the one the two-State solution is dead,
that you can't have two
states side by side
that leads a one state solution,
but you cannot have a one state solution
where Palestinians have
less rights than Israelis
because that would be apartheid.
So what's the option here?
Israel would have to absorb
into a single state
that would lose its Jewish identity.
And have a marginalized population
that it would need to give rights,
voting rights.
And those voting rights
would not allow for a government
that that exists in Israel today.
These these are conundrums
and they're massive.
And the issues that have gone into them
have been running for generations.