Soldier Slain; First Israeli Unrest Fatality

An unidentified assailant shot and killed an Israeli soldier who was standing guard outside a government office here Sunday in what army Chief of Staff Dan Shomron described as a “very serious” development that may foretell a violent turn in nearly 15 weeks of Palestinian unrest.

The attack marked only the third reported use of firearms against Israeli soldiers or civilians in the occupied territories since the uprising began Dec. 9, and it was the first time that an Israeli was killed.

Three Israeli civilians were slain in a March 7 bus hijacking carried out in the name of the uprising, but the terrorists involved, who were also killed in the incident, are believed to have been outsiders who had infiltrated from Egypt.

28-Year-Old Sergeant

The army identified Sunday’s victim as Moshe Katz, 28, a reserve sergeant from Haifa.

Military sources said that Katz was one of three soldiers standing guard near the entrance to the Bethlehem office of the Israeli Interior Ministry, just off the main street leading from Jerusalem to Manger Square. The square is the site of the Church of the Nativity, built over the cave where Jesus is said to have been born.

The sources said that the sentries heard shots at about 11 a.m. and that two of them ran toward the firing, leaving Katz behind. A single assailant approached him and shot him twice in the head at close range with a pistol before escaping into the maze of stores and residences that line both sides of the street.

The wounded man was taken to Jerusalem’s main Hadassah Hospital, where he died shortly after arrival.

A witness, who said she ran from her nearby home to the main street in search of her sons when gunfire erupted, said she saw Katz’s body lying in the alley leading to the Interior Ministry building. She said she heard many shots and that soldiers appeared to be firing in the general direction of the Aida Palestinian refugee camp, located behind stores almost directly across the street from the alleyway.

“We heard bullets,” the woman said. “We thought it was in the (Aida) camp. We sometimes hear shooting when there is trouble there. But only a few shots. This time the shooting went on and on.”

The witness said she was ordered by soldiers to return to her home and that some time later troops searched the house. She said she saw scores of young men from the Aida camp and a nearby building-stone factory taken away for questioning.

Police barricades blocked the road near the shooting site Sunday evening. Shops were shuttered, and there was no one on the cold, wind-swept street.

‘Very Serious,’ Shomron Says

Arriving at the scene soon after the shooting, Shomron told reporters that he considers the murder “very serious.” He added that “as long as we can succeed in stopping the big, violent demonstrations, and this is what we are doing, naturally there will be more attempts to make use of firearms.”

However, he added that it is still too soon to describe the situation as having turned into an “armed struggle.”

The self-styled Unified National Leadership for the Uprising in the Occupied Territories, which identifies with the political line of the Palestine Liberation Organization, had previously spread the word through underground leaflets and radio broadcasts that no firearms should be used in order to retain world sympathy and to avoid potentially massive army retaliation.

Speaking to newly arrived volunteer workers in Israel, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Sunday night that the attack will “no doubt aggravate the situation. Let’s hope that this was an exception that won’t be repeated. Otherwise, tougher measures will be used” both against popular unrest in the territories and against terrorism.

Meanwhile, the army confirmed Sunday that a Palestinian who was wounded in a clash last Tuesday had died in an Israeli hospital, becoming at least the 98th fatal Arab victim of the unrest. A spokesman identified the dead man has Khaled Hamed, 30, from Baqa al Sharqiya.

2 Palestinians Wounded

Scattered disturbances continued Sunday, with the army reporting that two Palestinians were lightly wounded by troops who opened fire to break up a demonstration in Rafah, near the Egyptian border in the Gaza Strip.

The pro-nationalist Palestine Press Service said three more Arabs were wounded in the legs during a similar clash at the Fara refugee camp near Nablus.

Meanwhile, the army continued a new wave of arrests aimed at forestalling disturbances called for today and next week.

The underground nationalist leadership has called for a day of “fierce confrontation” to mark today’s 20th anniversary of a battle between PLO guerrillas and Israeli troops at Al Karameh, just inside Jordan. It is feted by Palestinians as an inspirational clash in which the PLO, for the first time, held its ground in head-to-head combat with the Israeli army.

Major demonstrations are also expected March 30, the anniversary of violent 1976 protests against Israeli land confiscations in which six Arab citizens of Israel were killed.

Israeli Arab leaders meeting in Shefaram, east of Haifa, voted Sunday to call a general strike on that date in solidarity with the Palestinian uprising on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were captured by Israeli troops in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The decision came despite strong warnings by the Israeli authorities that such a move would only exacerbate the situation and risk spreading the violence across the so-called Green Line marking Israel’s pre-1967 borders.