Arabs Hijack Israeli Bus, 6 Dead, 9 Hurt in Shootout : Terrorists Infiltrated From Egypt

Arab guerrillas in southern Israel hijacked a passenger bus today and held it three hours before Israeli troops stormed it, killing three gunmen. Three Israeli civilians also were killed and nine wounded.

Israel’s state-run radio said the terrorists infiltrated from Egypt and were armed with fragmentation grenades, assault rifles and a submachine gun.

A man claiming to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Force 17 phoned a Western news agency in Jerusalem and claimed responsibility for the hijacking.

Israel radio said a PLO spokesman in Tunis said the group was not responsible for the attack. But a survivor from the bus said she heard the Arab gunmen say they were from Fatah, the PLO faction headed by Yasser Arafat.

A special anti-terrorist unit and border police stormed the bus, which was loaded with nuclear plant workers and hijacked near the Aroer junction eight miles from the top-secret Dimona nuclear facility.

‘The Same People’

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir linked the attack to the rioting in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“These are the same people who incite violence in the (occupied) territories. We shall not tire from fighting them,” Shamir said.

Israel radio and officials said the terrorists came across the lightly guarded border from Egypt at night near Ramat Nafha and commandeered an Israeli military vehicle at about 7 a.m.

The Arab guerrillas drove the Renault-4 toward the Beersheba-Dimona highway, throwing a hand grenade at an Israeli semitrailer but causing no injuries.

The army and witnesses said that a Volvo bus with the nuclear workers was coming from the opposite direction and that the gunmen fired at the bus and threw grenades until it stopped.

Firing From Bus

Most of the passengers and the driver escaped but a man and at least 10 women remained, the radio said.

Police forced the bus to stop after the terrorists fired from the bus at passing people and cars. Police closed the area, and army officers entered into negotiations with the terrorists.

The Arab gunmen demanded to speak with representatives of the International Red Cross and also asked for a loudspeaker. They demanded the release of all Palestinians arrested since the outbreak of anti-Israeli unrest in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip territories since Dec. 8.

Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, commander of Israel’s southern region, decided to storm the bus rather than negotiate further after the gunmen opened fire.

“We made every effort to both relax them and to promise them that negotiations may bring results,” Mordechai told reporters at the scene.

Lasted About a Minute

“(But) they fired at us twice and afterward they fired and killed one of the hostages and fired at women who were inside the bus,” he said.

In all, he said, the storming operation lasted about a minute.

Mordechai said the man was killed by Arab gunmen during negotiations. He said shots fired by the terrorists when the bus was stormed killed one of the two women victims on the scene.

Officials at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba said that nine women were admitted for treatment of gunshot wounds and that another died in the hospital.

The last bus hijacking inside Israel occurred April 12, 1984, when four bomb-wielding Palestinians hijacked an Israeli bus near the Mediterranean coastal city of Ashdod. A soldier was killed on the bus when Israeli troops stormed the vehicle and captured the hijackers.