12 Arabs Slain in Worst Unrest Yet : Killing of PLO’s No. 2 Leader Cited; Israel Leaves Its Role, if Any, in Doubt

At least 12 Arabs were shot to death by Israeli troops and more than 40 were wounded Saturday as the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip erupted in violence after the assassination in Tunis of a prominent leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Palestinian and hospital sources put the death toll at 14, including two women, and well over 100 wounded in what was by far the bloodiest single day since unrest in the occupied territories began early last December. Previously, the worst day was April 2, when six people were killed.

West Bank and Gaza Strip residents took to the streets after learning through radio news reports that Khalil Wazir, 52, the chief deputy to Yasser Arafat in the PLO’s dominant Fatah wing, had been gunned down in his home outside Tunis early Saturday morning by a squad of assassins.

‘Father of Holy War’

More commonly known here by his nom de guerre of Abu Jihad (Father of Holy War), Wazir was felled by a hail of bullets while one member of the death squad, a woman, filmed the execution with a video camera, according to the reports.

PLO officials immediately blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency for the killing and called for revenge. They linked the killing to what they described as Wazir’s central role in coordinating PLO support for the 18-week-old Palestinian uprising on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials appeared anxious to leave in doubt the issue of responsibility.

“I would just like to say generally, without referring specifically to (the assassination), that the charges of the PLO are irrelevant as far as Israel is concerned,” commented Avi Pazner, spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. “Whenever something happens, they always blame Israel,” he added in a telephone interview.

“We’re not making any references to the event at this stage,” said a senior military source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s not a ‘no comment’ response, but a ‘no reference.’ The difference is that perhaps at a later stage we will make some comments regarding the killing of Abu Jihad, but at this stage . . . let everyone decide and speculate. I have no urge to give any official statement.”

Neutral Terminology

In their reports of the incident Saturday, Israel state radio and television used uncharacteristically neutral terminology that increased suspicions among some analysts that the attack was carried out at Israel’s behest. The broadcast reports referred to the assassins as “commandos” and their mission as a “raid.” The slide projected as a backdrop for the Israel Television report contained the Hebrew word meaning “elimination.”

Israeli agents have assassinated alleged Palestinian terrorists in the past, and in one famous 1973 case of mistaken identity, shot to death an innocent waiter at a Norwegian tourist resort.

Wire service reports from Tunis, citing PLO officials, said Wazir was killed by an assassination team that riddled him with about 70 bullets. The commandos escaped, and Tunisian police said three vehicles believed used in the attack--two Volkswagen minibuses and a Peugeot 305--were found on a beach about 25 miles north of the Tunisian capital, which is also the headquarters of the PLO.

The PLO officials said Wazir was in the study of his house reading when the attackers drove up, killed a Tunisian bodyguard in a car outside, then burst into the house and killed two Palestinian bodyguards.

Wazir’s wife, Intisar, also a PLO leader; his daughter, Hanan, 14, and son, Nidal, 2, the youngest of his five children, were in the house at the time but were unhurt, the wire services said.

Palestinian officials said Wazir’s wife told Tunisian authorities that the attackers were masked, dressed in military fatigues and armed with silencer-equipped weapons.

In its report of Wazir’s assassination, Israel Radio said he had been “responsible for the planning of many of the most infamous terrorist outrages against civilian targets in Israel and abroad.”

“It is impossible to exaggerate his importance,” said Ariel Merari, an expert on international terrorism at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. “He was one of the founding fathers of Fatah.”

Merari suggested that Abu Jihad’s death might have resulted from a power struggle already under way. He told Israel Radio that the slain PLO leader had been at odds with Arafat for some time and added that “my guess would be that Arafat is the most likely perpetrator” of the assassination.

Reaction to Wazir’s death was particularly strong in the Gaza Strip, which was his boyhood home. His parents moved to Damascus in 1979, but he still has a number of relatives in Gaza, including two cousins who co-hosted a wake attended by hundreds of residents Saturday.

The army confirmed reports of seven residents killed in the Gaza Strip after what a spokesman described as “widespread” and “spontaneous” disturbances. Arab youths hurled stones, firebombs and at least one hand grenade at troops, who responded with live fire under a recent policy of more aggressive reaction against protesters.

Palestinian sources put the death toll here at eight.

Thick, black smoke from burning tire barricades hung over much of Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, and youths with checkered kaffiyeh headdresses stopped vehicles to check motorists’ identities. Shops were shuttered, and patrols of Israeli soldiers were outfitted in full riot gear.

Palestinian Flags Appear

Near the home of Haj Akhmed Wazir, 58, cousin of the slain PLO leader, streets were blocked and outlawed Palestinian flags hung from houses, fences and telephone poles.

About 300 mostly young men milled around a large canvas awning erected temporarily to shelter mourners as they listened to the recorded voice of a Muslim prayer reader recite passages from the Koran.

Haj Akhmed Wazir received special guests in one small reception room of his home while women in black sat listening to radio reports of the assassination in a neighboring parlor. The retired schoolteacher said he felt “deep sorrow” at his cousin’s death, but added, “Thanks to God that he was martyred, and he was willing to be martyred.”

Fayez abu Rahme, a prominent local lawyer and another cousin of the dead man, added, “The march of the intifada (uprising) was always with the number of martyrs we’re suffering.”

Protesters Dispersed

At about 2:20 p.m., an Israeli army patrol approached the house, triggering a rock-throwing melee. The troops responded with tear gas and, after dispersing the protesters, demanded that mourners remove the stone barricades from the streets and take down the Palestinian flags.

“My orders are that the people have to clean the street,” an Israeli major told Abu Rahme. “There will be no PLO flag here,” he added. “There will be no Israeli flag; there will be no PLO flag.”

Troops withdrew a discreet distance from the house about 45 minutes later, after young men removed two Palestinian flags from the Wazir home, others cleared stones from the street and Abu Rahme promised there would be no further trouble.

“I’m not in any position but to agree to what’s going on,” the attorney said.

6 Areas Under Curfew

The army said Saturday night that six Gaza locations had been put under curfew, meaning that their residents were prohibited from leaving their homes.

On the West Bank, the trouble Saturday appeared concentrated mostly in the north. The army reported violent clashes in at least six locations and said it was checking the circumstances surrounding the deaths of five Palestinian residents of those trouble spots. Palestinian sources said six West Bank inhabitants were killed.

As many as 15,000 residents of Nablus, the largest city on the West Bank, were reported to have marched Saturday in a mock funeral for Wazir. The army dispersed the demonstrators and declared the city a closed military zone.

There was a similar march in Al Birah, just north of Jerusalem, and in the nearby Al Amari refugee camp.

Death Toll Climbs to 152

Saturday’s toll brought to at least 152 the number of Palestinians killed since the beginning of the uprising.

Security sources said they expect the violent reaction to Wazir’s death to continue for at least the next few days.

The Supreme Muslim Council and nationalist groups proclaimed three days of mourning and a general strike to mark the death of Wazir.

Only last week, army officials said they saw signs of fatigue setting in among the population of the territories and voiced hope that the violence is winding down. But as the Jerusalem Post editorialized this morning, “Abu Jihad’s death has overturned all those assessments, setting off a new cycle of violence.”

Palestinian sources identified the dead from the Gaza Strip as Jamal Shihadeh, 18; Ayman abu Ammar, 20; Jamal Jamal, 35; Tahsin Buge, 17; Yasser Buge, 18; Atwa abu Arar, 17; Mahmoud abu Jazra and Faker Dugmeh.

In the West Bank, they said, the victims were Basam Hariri, 25; Hilmi Ibrahim Abdallah, 23; Sadah Abdallah Karawi, 40; Mohyee Kameel, 20; Maher Isa Khotbeh, 17, and Hala Awad Amireh, 20.

Hanna Siniora, editor of the pro-PLO Arabic-language newspaper Al Fajr, called Saturday’s assassination of Wazir “an exact replica of the April, 1973, attack in Beirut”--a reference to the killing of three senior PLO leaders by Israeli commandos in the Lebanese capital. The killings followed the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists.

Israeli ‘Hit Squad’

Another Israeli “hit squad” used a car bomb in Beirut in January, 1979, to kill the leader of the Black September group that claimed responsibility for the Munich massacre.

As recently as January, 1986, a top national security adviser to the Israeli government described assassination as “the best way, or let’s say the successful way, to combat terrorism.” The adviser--the late Brig. Gen. Gideon Machanaimi--made his comments in an Israel Radio interview in the wake of simultaneous attacks that killed 15 civilians at the Rome and Vienna airports in December, 1985.

Terrorism expert Merari said Saturday that Abu Jihad was “the most important single brain behind” such operations as the March, 1978, “coastal road massacre,” in which 35 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinian terrorists who landed from Lebanon and hijacked a bus on the main highway between Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Abu Jihad was also said to be responsible for a March, 1975, attack on a Tel Aviv hotel in which 12 Israeli civilians, six foreign tourists and three Israeli soldiers died.

Scramble for Power

Israeli intelligence sources said they expect Abu Jihad’s death to trigger a scramble for influence inside the PLO.

“His death might give a big shake to the inside structure and to the balance of power inside the PLO,” said one. “It might open an inside war about his position, because his position is very important. He holds a lot of money in his hands. He holds a lot of authority. And it’s going to leave a big void.”

Asked if a shake-up would be good or bad for Israel, the source commented: “I don’t like to prophesy. Let’s wait and see.”

Talk of Split Rejected

The dead man’s cousin, Haj Akhmed Wazir, dismissed talk of a split with Arafat as “not true.”

Born in Ramle, now in Israel, Khalil Ibrahim Wazir was the son of a bakery owner. He left the area after the 1948 Middle East War, moving with his family to Gaza.

Wazir, who had escaped three assassination attempts since 1978, became involved early in the struggle against Israel. In 1963, he joined up with Arafat, and together they founded the PLO’s mainstream Fatah guerrilla faction. He became Arafat’s right-hand man and main diplomatic trouble-shooter in 1967.

Abu Rahme, meanwhile, recalled that their common grandmother used to tell the young Khalil Wazir that “I hope to see you as Fayez is.” Fayez abu Rahme, the lawyer, who was six years older than the slain man, was tops in his school classes.

“They wanted him (Abu Jihad) to follow my model,” Abu Rahme told a reporter here Saturday. “But he chose another model. And now he’s suffering for this model.”