Israel Launches Massive Hunt for Paratrooper Believed Kidnaped by Palestinians

More than 1,000 Israelis hunted Sunday for a paratrooper believed kidnaped by Palestinian nationalists, while the army buried an off-duty soldier stabbed to death Saturday in Jerusalem.

In the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians closed their shops and stayed away from work at the start of a three-day protest strike called by underground leaders of the 14-month-old uprising against Israeli rule.

The shutdown, called to assert Palestinian self-determination under the Palestine Liberation Organization’s leadership, was only the second three-day strike of the revolt.

Police, soldiers and civilian volunteers backed by helicopters and tracker dogs searched southern Israel and the Gaza Strip for paratroop Sgt. Avi Sasportas, 21, who disappeared Thursday after leaving his army base.

Police Commissioner David Kraus said Sasportas was almost certainly abducted by Arab guerrillas. “There is no other apparent reason . . . for his disappearance,” he said.

At a Jerusalem military cemetery, troops fired a salute before burying Sgt. Shlomo Cohen, 21, a former seminary student stabbed to death near Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

Shouting “Death to the Arabs!” followers of anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane scuffled with some of the 1,000 mourners in a graveside brawl that erupted when chanting protesters ignored requests for silence.

‘Speak With Knives’

“We see that the people of the PLO and their supporters speak with knives,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told mourners.

Cohen was the 14th Israeli Jew killed since the uprising began in December, 1987.

Prominent pro-PLO Palestinian Faisal Husseini voiced regret at Cohen’s death and for all those killed in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

After the Cabinet meeting, leftist Labor ministers defended talks held between dovish politicians and Husseini.

“Right now, we don’t have any other possible partner,” Police Minister Chaim Bar-Lev said. “Jordan has disengaged, the PLO is out of the question . . . so we are left with the people who live in the area.”

But Transport Minister Moshe Katzav of the rightist Likud Party said Israel cannot speak to Palestinians who openly identify with the PLO. “I am against it. He (Husseini) represents the PLO, and their purpose is a Palestinian state, which for us would be a big disaster,” he said.

Palestinian sources said troops shot and wounded at least eight Arab protesters, including a 14-year-old boy and 70-year-old woman, in widespread demonstrations throughout the occupied territories.