Student Stabbed in Old City, but 2 Other Tragedies Averted

A Jerusalem yeshiva student was stabbed badly in the neck Sunday by an 18-year- old Arab woman.

But a terrorist incident of far greater scale was averted in the Tel Aviv metropolitan region when an alert patrol led police to the detection and destruction of a powerful car bomb.

Another bombing was averted when a bus conductor found a booby-trapped parcel, which was safely defused.

The Jerusalem stabbing occurred as Yaron Shefi was walking from his apartment to the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Moslem Quarter of the Old City. The teen- age assailant came up from behind Shefi and plunged a knife deep into his neck.

Shefi had no time to reach for the handgun he was carrying, but a fellow student pulled a pistol and shot the attacker in the leg.

Paramedics from the yeshiva then proceeded to treat both the victim and the assailant until police and ambulances arrived.

Shefi was undergoing examination to determine whether he would need surgery. Doctors said they were hoping no vital organ had been hurt.

In the Tel Aviv area, meanwhile, a dramatic sequence of events began about 2:30 in the morning, when a civilian patrol noticed a van without rear lights traveling with three Arab occupants on a road in Or Yehuda, about four miles southeast of Tel Aviv.

Policeman Aharon Bin-Nun and his partner, Civil Guard volunteer Leon Cahalon, a 42-year-old building worker, flagged the car down, but it sped off. The patrol set off in pursuit, radioing for reinforcements.

The chase led them several miles northward to the upscale suburb of Ramat Efal, where the van hit a dead end street and was blocked by a police car.

Its three occupants jumped out. One was captured almost immediately.

A second was seized outside a private home, the door of which he had knocked down, begging for admission. The only occupants of the house at the time were a 14-year-old girl and her Labrador retriever.

Sharon Guzman, alarmed by police sirens and hearing knocking at the door, accompanied by what she later described as "cries and sobs," phoned her parents, who were visiting friends out of town. They told her to take refuge in the family shelter until they got home.

A third man, believed to be the leader of the group, got away and was still being sought Sunday.

One of the captured men told police the van was booby-trapped. Police sappers discovered it contained five 25-pound cylinders of cooking gas, attached to explosive charges with a timing device.

The van had been stolen Nov. 19 from the Shikun Dan suburb of Tel Aviv. Its owner had left two full gas cylinders in the vehicle, together with a licensed pistol that he left under the seat.

The terrorists added three more large gas cylinders and explosive charges, to convert the van into a major car bomb. Police believe the missing terrorist is in possession of the stolen weapon.

The car owner was detained and released on bail pending questioning about the careless handling of a firearm.

A police anti-bomb robot, operating by remote control, blew up the explosive charges as Ramat Efal residents took shelter in bomb blast rooms prepared at the outset of the Persian Gulf War nearly two years ago.

But the blast, which damaged nearby cars and broke windows over a wide area, left the gas cylinders intact.

Police then towed the booby-trapped car to an empty field on the outskirts of the residential quarter and destroyed it by explosives.

Experts said the detonators had been timed to go off two hours after the occupants had fled, allowing them sufficient time to set the car bomb in a crowded area, such as a Saturday soccer match.

The Or Yehuda team were on Sunday awarded police force certificates of commendation for averting what might have been a major disaster in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

Police said the three suspects are members of the Moslem fundamentalist Hamas organization from the West Bank village of Salfit, near Tulkarm, about 10 miles east of Netanya.

The police minister awoke Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin early Sunday morning to tell him "we had a miracle last night."

As Moshe Shahal spoke to the prime minister, another vehicle bomb was setting out on its way from Tel Aviv to Kiryat Shmona.

The 6:30 a.m. local bus from Tel Aviv reached its northern terminus at about noon. The conductor, carrying out a routine inspection, found an unclaimed parcel on the overhead rack just behind his seat.

Police investigators found four smaller packages inside, each containing an explosive charge and a delayed-action firing mechanism. They were removed and defused without causing casualties or damage.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, the yeshiva in which the stabbed pupil studied responded Sunday by moving its entire study hall to the narrow street in the Moslem Quarter where the incident took place.

Ateret Cohanim said it would conduct its studies there until further notice.

The head of Ateret Cohanim, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, said the decision to study in the street, thus effectively blocking the narrow thoroughfare, had been taken in consultation with the police.

"We want security!" yeshiva students chanted when television and still photographers came to record their novel form of protest.

Ateret Cohanim is the largest Jewish institution in the Moslem Quarter. It is involved in often-controversial purchases of real estate elsewhere in the quarter.