Palestinian Slashes Self to Keep Awake, Kills Hostage

A Palestinian guerrilla, who kept awake during an 18-hour hostage drama by cutting his arm with a bayonet and pouring salt in the wound, killed a Lebanese captive Sunday before being overpowered by U.N. soldiers.

The gunman, who U.N. officials said was high on drugs or alcohol, belonged to a five-member Palestinian squad that seized a U.N. observation post in south Lebanon.

The guerrillas took the victim, a Lebanese technician, and five Finnish soldiers hostage after their plans to launch an attack in Israel failed, security sources in south Lebanon said.

Timur Goksel, spokesman for the 5,700-member U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said U.N. negotiators refused to meet the guerrillas’ demands for a helicopter or an escort to take them to the port city of Sidon. After nightlong negotiations, four Palestinian guerrillas surrendered Sunday morning.

But one man in his 20s refused to lay down his automatic rifle and grenades.

Shot Hostage in Head

“He got nervous at one point and pumped three bullets into the head of a Lebanese hostage,” Goksel said.

“Finnish soldiers immediately jumped on him and subdued him,” Goksel said in a telephone interview from UNIFIL headquarters in south Lebanon.

U.N. officials said the Palestinians told them they belonged to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction.

Reports from Beirut said the gunmen were turned over to the Shia Muslim militia Amal and that Amal planned to release them to Fatah officials today.

“We have no police powers,” Goksel said. “We are an international force without sovereign powers in the country. It is not our function to punish or imprison the guerrillas.”

In a separate incident, Israeli troops caught three heavily armed Palestinian guerrillas after wounding them in a chase, the army said.

The guerrillas belonged to the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and were planning to attack an Israeli settlement, an Israeli army spokesman said. They were caught near Talousa, a village about a mile from the U.N. post.

An army spokesman said there was no indication the two guerrilla groups had planned a coordinated attack.

Goksel said the Palestinian guerrillas overpowered a single sentry at the U.N. outpost and later seized the Lebanese technician.

After four of the guerrillas surrendered, 18 Finnish soldiers entered the outpost, joining the five Finnish soldiers and the hostage.

The soldiers stacked their weapons and surrounded the gunman, trying to talk him into surrendering or to wear him down to the point of exhaustion, U.N. aides said.

Goksel said the man kept himself awake by cutting himself with a knife.

“He sliced long lines on his arm with his bayonet and then put salt in the cuts to stay awake,” Goksel said.