6 Israelis Seized, Terrorists Claim : Hostages Taken on Boat as ‘Slap’ at Hussein, Abu Nidal Group Says

In an apparent attempt to influence an Arab summit meeting in Jordan, the Abu Nidal Palestinian terrorist group announced in Beirut on Sunday that it has seized a French-registered yacht in the Mediterranean and is holding as hostages its eight passengers, six of whom they claimed are Israelis. The other two are Hebrew-speaking children not further identified by the group.

Walid Khaled, identified as one of the leaders of the infamous guerrilla faction, announced the action at a hastily called news conference in the Muslim half of the divided Lebanese capital and warned that if Israel retaliates, the captives’ “lives will be in danger.”

He called the hijacking a “slap” at Jordan’s King Hussein and warned Arab leaders meeting in Amman to make no decisions that would give the monarch the right to represent the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel.

Khaled said the hostages, captured off the coast of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, include six adults and two children. Five of the adults hold Belgian as well as Israeli passports, and one is a French-Israeli dual national, the Palestinian said. From the names read by Khaled, it appeared that there were three men and three women.

Khaled identified the five Belgian-Israeli hostages as Fernand Houtekins, 40; Emmanuel Houtekins, 42; Godlieve Kets; Valerie Emmanuel Houtekins, 16, and Laurent Emmanuel Houtekins, 17. He identified the French-Israeli woman as Jacqueline Valente, 30. He did not give the children’s names or nationalities but said they spoke Hebrew.

Khaled identified the hijacked yacht as the Silco, a 17-ton, 40-footer, and said the group will provide more information “once we are through with the investigation.”

The Jerusalem Post reported this morning that authoritative government sources said there was no sign that the people captured are Israeli. It said that a computerized search of all persons holding Israeli identity cards did not turn up any of the names the Abu Nidal organization mentioned. The Post story also quoted the sources as saying no Israeli vessel is missing and no vessel sailing under the name Silco had either left Israel recently or was due here.

Israel Army Radio on Monday quoted unnamed Foreign Ministry officials as speculating that the hostages are Jewish but not Israeli citizens.

An Israeli army spokesman said the military was investigating the report. The French Foreign Ministry in Paris had no comment on it, and a Belgian spokesman said his government was seeking confirmation through its embassies in Lebanon, Israel and France.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official, requiring anonymity, told the Associated Press, “We estimate that a boat was indeed seized, but we don’t have any confirmation.”

Ministry Checking

An Israeli army radio broadcast said the Interior Ministry was checking its lists of citizens holding dual Israeli-Belgian citizenship to determine if any were aboard the vessel that was reported seized.

The Abu Nidal group, known more formally as the Revolutionary Council of Fatah, is believed responsible for some 100 terrorist actions since its founding in 1974 as a breakaway offshoot of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction. The group is led by Sabri Banna, now a sworn enemy of Arafat who, under his nom de guerre Abu Nidal (Father of the Struggle), is perhaps the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Among the group’s actions were the simultaneous grenade and rifle attacks near the Israeli national airline’s check-in counters at the Rome and Vienna airports on Dec. 27, 1985. Twenty civilians, including five Americans and an Israeli, died in those attacks, and dozens of people were wounded.

According to press reports from Lebanon, Khaled appeared at the seaside Carlton Hotel in Syrian-controlled West Beirut and read a brief statement. He refused to answer questions and disappeared immediately after the news conference.

United Press International quoted “a source inside Fatah” as saying that Khaled left immediately for Chtoura, a town in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

Captives ‘Being Interrogated’

“One of our naval units, while it was withdrawing from the beach of the city of Gaza after accomplishing some missions aboard one of our boats, confronted a ship flying the Israeli and Belgian flags,” the statement said. “Our forces seized the ship and towed it to one of our naval bases.”

It was unclear from the statement when the reported hijacking occurred or what “missions” the statement might have referred to.

The group said the hostages would be transferred “to a secure and proper place” where delegates from the International Red Cross would be allowed to visit them. It added that the captives “are being interrogated after they received required humanitarian and medical treatment.”

Michelle Marcier, a Geneva-based spokeswoman for the International Red Cross, was quoted by Israel army radio as saying the organization had no information on the reported hostage-taking.

Seizure Called a ‘Gift’

Khaled specifically warned that any Israeli reprisal attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon would “put the hostages’ lives in danger.”

Israeli warplanes have struck 22 times so far this year at Palestinian camps in Lebanon, reportedly killing more than 100 people and wounding 250.

The Abu Nidal group is believed to have moved its headquarters to the southern Lebanese port of Sidon after the Syrians closed down its offices in Damascus earlier this year.

In his statement, Khaled called the action “a gift to the struggling Palestinian people.”

About 1.3 million Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation on the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip. The areas were captured by Israel during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. Another 700,000 Palestinian Arabs live as Israeli citizens within the country’s pre-1967 borders, while the remaining 2.5 million are scattered throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

Peace Conference at Issue

Although this week’s emergency Arab League conference in Amman, the Jordanian capital, is expected to concentrate on the Iran-Iraq War, another item on the agenda is the Arab-Israeli conflict.