A 67-year-old Israeli was fatally stabbed by Arab assailants Thursday near Moshav Kadima, in the Sharon coastal plain. Police called it a politically motivated attack.
The body of Shlomo Yeshayahu, an employee of the moshav, was found near the irrigation pool, on the outskirts of the farm settlement, with his throat slashed.
Documents of the Islamic extremist Hamas organization were found nearby.
Police believe the crime was part of an effort by Palestinian radicals and religious fundamentalists to sabotage the regional peace conference the United States and Soviet Union hope to convene next month.
They believe there was more than one killer and that they came to the moshav from the northern region of the West Bank. Inspector Assaf Hafetz, commander of the Central Area Police Division, warned the public to expect an escalation of attempted assaults by elements opposed to peace talks, even if Palestinian participation in the conference is sanctioned by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat.
A stabbing spree of a different kind occurred Wednesday in Tel Aviv, where a former mental patient inflicted light wounds on five passersby in the center of the city before being subdued and held for the police.
Two of the injured were hospitalized. The others were given first aid and sent home.
The assailant was described as a 54-year-old resident of Hadera. He was released from a mental hospital in May after psychiatrists decided he needed no further treatment.
According to witnesses, the man had just finished lunch at a small restaurant near the central bus station. He was paying the bill when he seized a knife and stabbed the restaurant owner in the throat. He then ran into the street, where he stabbed three passersby, one of them a recent immigrant from the Soviet Union, and fled.
He was chased by Shlomo Tal, 28, a carpet shop employee, who caught up with him at a tobacco shop and was himself stabbed. The shopowner, Ezra Bibi, knocked the man down and sat on him until the police arrived.
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