Raid Proof of PLO Terrorism, Rabin Says

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Wednesday that an abortive guerrilla attack on Israel’s northern frontier earlier in the day shows that the Palestine Liberation Organization has not renounced the use of violence against Israel.

“Anyone who thinks the PLO has given up the use of terror is making a big mistake,” he said.

Three Palestinians were shot and killed in a clash with an Israeli army patrol not long after midnight. They had cut through the border fence near the Kibbutz Menara in northernmost Israel. One Israeli soldier was wounded.

Later in the day, the Fatah faction of the PLO issued a statement in Lebanon claiming responsibility for the attack, which it said was ordered by PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers continued their effort to end the commercial strike by Palestinians on the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Some store owners in East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza City were forced to open for business.

Seven of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip remained under curfew, but Rabin denied that the government had embarked on a policy of starving Palestinians into submission. U.N. officials have reported food shortages in the camps, some of which have been closed for as long as 12 days.

While Rabin said Israel was not shutting off normal food supplies, he acknowledged that troops were barring foreign agencies from sending foodstuffs into the Gaza Strip camps.

Rabin, in remarks appeared to be aimed at undercutting recent suggestions by Arafat that the PLO might be ready to negotiate with Israel at an international conference on Mideast peace, said:

“No doubt that PLO-affiliated terror groups whose slogans and actions have always focused on terror are not content only with violent riots in the (occupied) territories.

Says Terror Central for PLO

“They are not giving up,” he added. “There’s no chance that they will give up terror as the central element in achieving their political aims.”

Israeli authorities were investigating how the three guerrillas had managed to cut through the security fence on the Lebanese border, which is patrolled on both sides by Israeli troops.

The last guerrilla penetration of the Israeli border occurred Dec. 25. Three Palestinians managed to cross into Israel from Jordan but were quickly captured by soldiers.

In the occupied territories, several incidents were reported. In the Arab East Jerusalem suburb of Issawiya, Palestinian youths stoned a passing Israeli police jeep, and one of the rock-throwers was run over by the jeep. The jeep then hit a utility pole and overturned, injuring two police officers.

In Ramallah and Al Birah, 16 miles north of the capital, soldiers dispersed demonstrating Arabs with tear gas and rubber bullets, according to the Palestine Press Service.

The news service also reported that demonstrations took place in eight villages near Ramallah.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s chief of staff, Yosif Ben-Aharon, said he was “not sure” the government has a “clear answer” about settling the unrest.

Speaking to foreign reporters, he suggested that the U.S. government might help by arranging a conference with Israel, some acceptable Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt to discuss some sort of settlement. But he firmly rejected the idea of a more general conference that would involve the United States and perhaps the Soviet Union.

The U.S. government’s role, he said, should be restricted to that of honest broker. “We do not need the U.S. to help Israel in spite of itself,” Ben-Aharon said.

He insisted that there will be “no Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan.”

“We are going to fight this terror until we break it and have Palestinians that will talk to us,” he said.