14 Killed in Israel Crash; Arab Blamed : 7 U.S. Tourists on Bus Among 27 Injured in Plunge Into Ravine

A Palestinian yelling “God is Great” killed 14 Israelis today when he grabbed the steering wheel of a bus and sent it plunging off a highway into a ravine, police said. Twenty-seven other people were injured, including seven U.S. tourists.

The crash toll was the highest in a Palestinian attack since seaborne gunmen hijacked a bus on Israel’s coastal highway in 1978 and killed 33 people in a shoot-out with security forces.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir blamed the latest bloodshed on the uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and vowed: “We must do everything to uproot these murderers and those who sent them.”

2 Missing

National Police Chief David Krauss said all 43 people on the bus were either killed or injured but two were missing, believed trapped under debris in a ravine near the Arab village of Abu Ghosh, nine miles from Jerusalem.

U.S. consular officials said seven American tourists were among the injured, including a woman who was visiting Israel to watch her daughter compete in the Maccabiah Games for Jewish athletes. Another of the injured was identifed as Canadian.

The bus driver, interviewed from his hospital bed on army radio, said a bearded Arab man of about 25 approached him suddenly and grabbed the wheel.

“I thought he wanted to ask me something, like everybody does on the way. But he jumped on the steering wheel, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and pulled it with all his strength to the right,” said the driver, Moshe Elul.

Elul said he tried with all his strength to turn the wheel back to the left “but he simply sat down and put his legs on the front dashboard to give him support, and that’s how he dragged us down.”

The bus plummeted 100 feet, overturned and burst into flames, trapping many passengers in the burning wreckage.

Witnesses said rescue workers clambered down rope ladders to reach the burned-out bus, and the steep hillside was strewn with stretchers.

Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev said the injured Arab was being questioned and authorities had not yet determined if he acted alone.

The disaster united Israelis in shock and anger. Radio stations suspended regular broadcasts to carry nonstop news of the crash.