A 21-year-old Israel Army sergeant, Shmuel Rotblatt, was killed yesterday when his Jeep hit a mine south of Sdom, a military spokesman reported today. The Army also announced the deaths of two other Israeli soldiers who succumbed to wounds suffered in earlier engagements. They were Sgt. Zvi Kestler, who was wounded while pursuing Arab saboteurs north of Jericho on Yom Kippur, and Pvt. Shimon Cohen, 18, who was hit in an Egyptian bazooka attack near Ismailia on Sept. 22. Both were buried Friday.
Sgt. Rotblatt was killed while investigating the scene of a shooting after a band of saboteurs had fired on an Israeli patrol. Three mines and a bazooka shell were found in the vicinity. More bazooka shells with self-firing devices were found near the Negev settlement of Ein Yahav and were dismantled.
Two Arab saboteurs were killed and a third escaped in a clash with an Israeli patrol in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border yesterday. The Arabs had opened fire when challenged by the Israeli soldiers. The dead men carried Russian-type Kalatchnikoff assault rifles. A Syrian communique said the men were members of a Syrian patrol who might have strayed across the border. An Israeli Army halftrack hit a mine near Ashdod Yaacov in the Beisan Valley today and its occupants were fired on from Jordanian territory. They returned the fire and suffered no casualties but the vehicle was damaged. Jordanian units fired bazooka shells yesterday at Israeli forces south of the Beisan Valley but inflicted no casualties.
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