Hebron Under Curfew After Arabs Fatally Stab Yeshiva Student

The army clamped a curfew on Hebron today following the fatal stabbing of a 19-year-old yeshiva student by Arab assailants. The victim was identified as Aharon Gross of Kiryat Arba, the Orthodox township adjacent to Hebron.

The killing added to the tension growing between Jews and Arabs in Hebron during the past week and triggered a wave of recriminations by Jewish militants and their political supporters against the army for allegedly being “too soft” on the Arab population.

Gross was reportedly waiting for a lift to Kiryat Arba when he was assaulted by three Arabs who jumped from a passing car, stabbed him in the stomach and seized the Uzi submachinegun he was carrying. Israel Radio said security forces opened fire on the fleeing car whose occupants returned the fire.

According to the radio report, local Arabs rushed the wounded youth to a Hebron hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was transferred later to a Jewish clinic where doctors said they detected a heart beat but could not save him.

Gross was a student at a yeshiva established at the Romano House, a former Arab girls school seized by the Israeli authorities some time ago and turned over to Jewish settlers from Kiryat Arba. The building had belonged to Jews who fled Hebron during the Arab riots in 1929.

YESHIVA WAS ATTACKED LAST WEEK

An explosive was hurled at the Romano House last week and last Friday an explosive was thrown at an Israeli military vehicle on Hebron’s main street. The army ordered the street closed but lifted the orde yesterday despite angry protests from Jewish militants that the security of Jews in Hebron was in jeopardy.

Rabbi Moshe Levinger and Yehoyakim Haetzni, Gush Emunim leaders from Kiryat Arba, have been on a sit-down strike for several weeks at the local military headquarters in Hebron demanding harsher measures against the Arab population.

Their demand was echoed today by Minister of Science Yuval Neeman of the ultra-nationalist Tehiy party. He blamed a crackdown on soldiers who shoot indiscriminately on the West Bank for emboldening Arabs to attack Jews. According to Neeman, soldier are now afraid to use their weapons and assailants know this and exploit it.

Gen. Orri Orr, commander of the central region, promptly denied that the army’s policy was responsible for today’s attack. He said the stabbing was a classic act of terrorism which had to be expected in a situation in which two nations were fighting over the some land.

The Peace Now movement condemned the attack and urged the government not to allow rightwing elements to exploit it so that West Bank settlers become “trigger-happy.” The army and only the army must keep order in the administered territories, Peace Now said. Both Neeman and Interior Minister Yosef Burg said they would raise today’s incident in the Cabinet.