Territories Erupt in Rioting After Shooting of Arab Workers

An explosion of rioting erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday, after a young Jewish man wearing a soldier’s uniform opened fire on a group of Palestinian laborers from the territories, killing seven and wounding 10.

The incident took place Sunday morning near Rishon le-Zion, on Israel’s coastal plain. Although a suspect was promptly taken into custody and Israel’s top leaders, including those on the far right, condemned the atrocity, the explosive reaction was not long in coming.

Palestinians in the territories confronted security forces with rocks and gasoline bombs. By evening, at least six Arabs had been reported killed and 652 wounded in clashes during the day, which included about 15 firebomb attacks.

A reported 112 wounded were hospitalized.

Leaders of the intifada immediately called a three-day mourning strike in the territories.

The entire Gaza Strip was placed under curfew and closed to the news media. The same applied to Nablus, Hebron and several refugee camps in the West Bank. Schools were closed and the students sent home.

Security officials warned Jewish settlers in the territories to exercise extreme caution against possible retaliatory acts.

Arab leaders within pre-1967 Israel met in emergency session to consider calling a general strike among Israel’s Arab citizens.

President Chaim Herzog and acting Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir both denounced the mass killings as an “act of lunacy,” and offered condolences to the bereaved families.

DRIVERS REFUSED TO STOP

Five of the dead were from the Gaza Strip. The other two fatalities and most of the wounded were from the West Bank.

The shootings occurred shortly after 6 a.m, local time in a field on the outskirts of Rishon le-Zion, where day laborers from the territories gather to hire themselves out to Israeli employers.

Rishon le-Zion is a city on Israel’s coastal plan south of Tel Aviv. The hiring field has become known as the “slave market.”

According to witnesses, a man described as a 21-year-old resident of Rishon le-Zion, wearing an Israel Defense Force uniform and carrying a Galil automatic rifle, started checking identities.

He suddenly opened fire on a Peugeot automobile with license plates from the territories, killing the driver. He then fired into the crowd of workers at point-blank range. At least three of the wounded were reported critically hurt.

Magen David Adom ambulances and a few passing motorists took the wounded to hospitals. But most drivers reportedly refused to stop.

As news of the shootings spread, angry Arabs gathered at road crossings to stone passing cars with Israeli plates.

The assailant escaped the scene in the Peugeot, tossing the body of the slain driver from the vehicle. He sped off in the vehicle toward Rishon le-Zion.

Police arrested him about two hours later at the home of a girlfriend, after allegedly receiving a telephone call tipping them off.

The killer, whose name was not released, reportedly confessed, claiming he was motivated by “unrequited love.” He used his brother’s army rifle and wore his brother’s uniform.

According to the IDF, the suspect served briefly in the army, but was discharged for mental instability after serving a short term in a military prison for infractions of discipline.

ARABS QUESTION MOTIVES

Police described him as “emotionally deranged.” He has been sent for psychiatric examination.

Police sources said they believed the suspect acted on his own and that the shooting was premeditated, possibly for “personal reasons involving an Arab.”

But Arab public figures, at a news conference Sunday in East Jerusalem, blamed the government for the attack because of “its hostile attitude toward the Palestinians.”

Dr. Azmi Bishara of Nazareth, who used to lecture in philosophy at the presently shuttered Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, observed Sunday, “It’s funny how all the attackers are described as lunatics.”

Bishara noted that “the person who vandalized the graves in Haifa to provoke against the Arabs was described as a lunatic, and now this murderer, too.”

Two Jews are in custody for spray-painting anti-Jewish slogans at two Haifa cemeteries and a third was arrested for doing the same at a cemetery near Lod. All have been described as “deranged.”

Many feel the latest atrocity will give new impetus to the 29-month-old intifada, at a time when its leaders have been seeking ways to reinvigorate a waning revolt.

IDF Chief of Staff Dan Shomron warned in a television interview that the army would “on no account allow the intifada to spill out into the streets again” in large numbers, a phenomenon that was just reported on the decline.

Shomron cautioned both Arabs and Jews to refrain from rash acts.

DENUNCIATIONS FROM THE RIGHT

The killings have evoked strong denunciations from Israel’s political leaders, from the mainstream to the right wing.

President. Herzog, who was about to leave on a state visit to Finland and Sweden, released a statement Sunday condemning “the abominable and criminal act in which seven Arabs lost their lives, through no fault of their own.”

He said that “every person and the entire nation shudder and are abhorred by acts of lunacy such as these.”

Shamir’s statement, released at the weekly Cabinet meeting, said, “The criminal murder in Rishon le-Zion this morning is a shocking act of lunacy.”

Among the right wing, the denunciations were equally sharp.

Rehavam Ze’evi, leader of the extreme rightwing Moledet party, expressed “disgust and abomination” at the act. Rafael Eitan, head of Tsomet, called for harsh punishment of the perpetrator. Such acts, he said, “can bring down disaster upon all of us.”

Elyakim Haetzni, West Bank leader and a member of Knesset from Tehiya, urged the government to provide “immediate financial compensation” to the families of the dead and injured.

(Contributing to this report were JTA correspondents Hugh Orgel in Tel Aviv, and Gil Sedan and David Landau in Jerusalem.)