Hebron remained under tight curfew today in the aftermath of the murder of a yeshiva student there last Thursday. The victim was identified as Yehoshua Sloma, 23, originally from Denmark. He died of two gunshot wounds in the head and was buried in Jerusalem this afternoon. His identity had been withheld pending notification of his parents who live in England. They were persuaded by the military authorities not to inter–him in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Hebron for fear of further aggravating the tension there.
Mayor Fahed Kawasseme of Hebror, a prominent West Bank leader, expressed “sadness” over the killing. He suggested that personal motives may have been involved. Police investigating the murder report no progress so far.
Scattered incidents of violence erupted over the weekend between local Arabs and residents of Kiryat Arba, the Gush Emunim stronghold adjacent to Hebron where Sloma lived. Most of the clashes in and around Hebron involved stone-throwing, which Arabs and Jews accused each other of starting. Rubber tires were burned in the streets and the Abraham Avinu Synagogue in Hebron was stoned.
Three buses and a taxi carrying local workers back from their jobs in Israel Friday night were hijacked by armed-men who robbed the passengers. One of the buses was totted into a ditch. The hijackers fled before security forces arrived.
MAN ACQUITTED OF MURDER
In another development, a Jerusalem district court acquitted Ilan Tor, a Kiryat Arba resident, of charges of murder and attempted murder in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Arab schoolgirl during a riot on the Hebron-Jerusalem road last March. Tor, 30, and the father of five children, was accused of firing the fatal shot. But the court found that there was no conclusive proof that the girl was killed by bullets fired from his revolver. Other guns were fired during the melee.
Meanwhile the final evacuation of Elon Moreh was delayed by the refusal of the last four families and 10 single men to leave the Gush Emunim settlement declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Officials expressed hope that they would leave peacefully by tomorrow. Most of the Plan Moreh families moved to their new settlement at Djebil Kebir last week.
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