Israeli Army Criticized in Probe of Girl’s Death

A military investigation into the mysterious death of an Israeli teen-ager in a West Bank village last week became the focus of its own political controversy here Sunday as Jewish settlers accused the army of trying to shift blame off the Arabs, and a right-wing member of Parliament called for the dismissal of the country’s top soldier.

Recriminations flared as young friends who had been in the village of Beita with the teen-age girl gave a sharply different version of events than had previously been reported. They spoke during meetings Sunday with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and fellow Cabinet ministers from his rightist Likud Bloc, then later with the press.

Separately, Cabinet ministers heard an interim report on the incident at their weekly meeting Sunday from Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Shomron. Afterward, Shamir said he will make no statement on the affair until a final report is given to the government later this week.

And Israeli President Chaim Herzog warned during a tour of the north that attempts to drag the army into the political debate surrounding the incident are dangerous for the country.

At issue is a clash last Wednesday involving hundreds of Arab villagers from Beita, 16 teen-age hikers mostly from the West Bank Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh and two Israeli security guards from the same settlement. Two Palestinians were shot to death in the incident, and it was initially reported that 15-year-old Tirza Porat died by stoning.

Later, senior government officials confirmed that a pathological examination showed the girl had been shot in the head. She was the first Israeli civilian killed in the four-month-old Arab uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, during which at least 135 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have also been killed.

Through the end of last week, the Israeli media carried mostly conflicting versions of the cause of the girl’s death and of the circumstances leading up to it. The situation was doubly hard to clarify because government offices were closed in observance of the Jewish feast of Passover. During the week, Shomron gave two controversial interviews apparently designed in part to head off possible retaliatory attacks against Arabs by the settlers.

It has been impossible to get independent, firsthand Palestinian reports of the incident because the village has been sealed off since the killings.

According to the interim report presented to Cabinet ministers by Rabin and Shomron on Sunday, the girl died not from a stone but from the gunshot wound, Cabinet sources confirmed. It is believed, they added, that the fatal bullet was fired from an M-16 assault rifle carried by one of the two Israeli guards accompanying the group. The bullet was never found, they said, but pathological evidence indicates that the fatal wound was caused by an M-16 round.

The Cabinet sources said it is still unclear who fired the fatal shot.

Army Account Challenged

A prominent Jewish settlement leader and a number of Tirza’s fellow hikers challenged the army’s preliminary account Sunday, however, and charged that investigators had yet to take full statements from the teen-agers involved.

“What angers us is how can the army be basing its report on Arab versions without talking to the kids,” settlement leader Benny Katzover, who is also the father of one of the surviving hikers, told journalists.

The teen-agers’ accounts, which were summarized in a document prepared by settlement leaders and also presented to Shamir, differ from statements by army officers on several key points:

-- Two of the hikers claim to have seen a masked Arab youth on the roof of a building in Beita with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. While none claim to have seen the Palestinian actually fire, they said they heard as many as 15 shots, all of which, they claim, could not have been fired by security guard Romam Aldubi, who carried the M-16. Military sources have said there is no evidence of any weapon being fired during the incident except Aldubi’s, and no Kalashnikov was reported discovered during extensive searches in the village.

-- The teen-agers said that Aldubi had shot and wounded only one Palestinian, in a valley east of the village before they entered Beita. The army’s preliminary inquiry concluded that two Palestinians were killed and two wounded, all by shots from the M-16 assault rifle Aldubi carried. However, military sources said Sunday that no autopsies were performed on the dead Arabs.

-- The Israeli youths said the overwhelming mass of Arabs in the village were hostile to them and that only “three or four” tried to save them. Shomron said in a radio interview Saturday that many villagers had tried to help and that if the Arabs had been intent on killing more hikers, they had plenty of time and opportunity to do so before the army arrived.

-- The hikers also said that at one point during the melee in the village, an Arab threw an “explosive device” that injured several of the youths. Army officers have said that all the injuries suffered by the teen-agers except for Tirza were from rocks and other debris with which they were struck by villagers.

Youths Contradict Selves

Sunday’s account by the youths contradicted some of their own earlier statements. Rami Hoffman, 17, had initially told reporters that Tirza was felled by a stone, for example. However, he told journalists that “after hearing the full account, I understand that what I saw was her being hit by a bullet.”

Also, the settlers’ printed account, said to be based on statements by the hikers, stated that Aldubi had killed one Palestinian who tried to take his weapon away outside the village. But on Sunday the youths said the Palestinian had only been wounded.

Aldubi, who was seriously injured during the melee at the village, is reportedly still unconscious and unable to talk to investigators.

Seven Israeli youths were at the press conference, four of them wearing bandages on their heads and one with a bandage on his arm.

Shomron Firing Demanded

Also at the conference was Geula Cohen, a member of Parliament from the right-wing Tehiya Party, who earlier called on Rabin to fire Shomron because of the remarks he made in weekend interviews. She accused the chief of staff of misrepresenting the facts when he said he did not believe that the villagers wanted to kill the hikers, and she also criticized him for speaking out before the army investigation was complete.

In a related development, the Israeli High Court issued a temporary restraining order preventing the army from destroying any more houses in Beita pending an appeal filed by Israel’s Civil Rights Assn.

The army has already destroyed 14 houses in the village that it says belonged to the families of individuals who incited or participated in last week’s attack. Meanwhile, according to the civil rights group, new evidence has cast a much different light on what actually happened in the village.

Leftist politicians accused the army of meting out hasty punishment in a misguided attempt to mollify militant settlers.