PLO Warns Israel It May Retaliate for Bombings

The Palestine Liberation Organization on Tuesday warned it may retaliate against Israel for the killing of three officials of the guerrilla organization and the bombing of a PLO-chartered vessel on this Mediterranean island.

The Cypriot government denounced the two attacks as “unacceptable and impermissible.”

The vessel that was attacked, the ferryboat Sol Phryne, had been acquired by the PLO as its much-publicized “ship of return.” The PLO plans to transport about 130 Palestinians, who were deported by Israel in recent years, to Haifa. Israel has said it will not allow the ship to land.

The undisguised aim of the voyage, complete with foreign dignitaries and about 200 journalists, is to capitalize on the current uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip by evoking the image of the ship Exodus, which attempted to carry Jewish refugees to Palestine after World War II but was turned back by the British.

The PLO officials killed in a car bombing Saturday in the Cypriot port of Limassol are believed to have arranged the ferryboat purchase by a PLO affiliate.

The PLO has accused Israel of carrying out the attacks. Israeli officials would not comment.

Anonymous telephone callers saying they spoke for the Jewish Defense League and for Kach, a militant Israeli organization, claimed responsibility for the ferryboat bombing, but official spokesmen for both groups would not acknowledge the attack.

“Israel knows that the PLO is not handcuffed,” the PLO said in a statement. “The blood of our martyrs will not go unavenged.”

In Kuwait, PLO leader Yasser Arafat warned Israel that it is pushing the PLO toward revoking its pledge in the so-called Cairo Declaration to halt guerrilla operations outside Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories.

The Cairo Declaration came after the 1985 hijacking of the Italian ocean liner Achille Lauro by a radical PLO faction. An American Jew, 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, was killed during the hijacking.

Blaming the deaths of the PLO aides on the Israeli security service, Arafat said: “If Mossad thinks it can at any moment assassinate some of our heroes, they should not think our hand is short. They know more than others that we can get them in any place or at any time.”

Arafat maintained that the “ship of return” will sail despite the bombing, which rendered the vessel unseaworthy for several months. Ironically, the closest dry-dock for repairs is in Haifa, the ferry’s intended destination.