Arab Admits Violence Spree, Israel Says

An Arab construction hand, beaten and hospitalized after stabbing a bus driver, confessed Sunday to a three-day trail of violence, including the murder of a Jewish co-worker, government officials said.

The 26-year-old Palestinian, still unidentified, admitted the killing as he was being questioned by police for the Saturday night bus assault, according to the government statement. Taken from his hospital bed here, he led officers to coastal Tel Aviv and showed them where he had buried the man he killed last Thursday.

The victim was identified as Michael Ashtamker, a 38-year-old divorced father of three. The body was identified by an identity card found in the clothing, the official reports said.

Explains Motive

The assailant, who lives in a village outside Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, told police that he killed the man for “nationalist reasons,” the government statement said. The two men had worked together at a construction site in Tel Aviv.

The reported murder confession closed another weekend of violence in Israel and the occupied territories, as the casualties of the 21-month uprising against Israeli rule mounted.

The bus attack stirred up memories of a fatal assault two months ago. It was the same line, the government Egged bus company, No. 405, on the busy route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and it took place at nearly the same spot on the winding, rising road.

In the incident in early July, an Arab yelling “God is great!” grabbed the wheel and steered the bus over an embankment. Sixteen people were killed. At least one copycat attempt took place in subsequent weeks.

Driver Knifed

In the Saturday night attack, the Arab knifed the driver, Shlomo Assor, in the chest, but the man was able to fight back and bring the bus to a halt. Passengers grabbed the assailant and pummeled him until police arrived. No passengers were hurt, and the driver was reported Sunday to be in stable condition.

After the July incident, the government ordered increased security on its big fleet of red-and-white Egged buses. Seats near the driver were required to be kept clear for traveling soldiers, and security men were reportedly assigned to some routes. It was not immediately known what security was in place on Bus 405 Saturday night.

Nablus Curfew Lifted

In the occupied territories, meanwhile, military authorities Sunday morning lifted a weeklong curfew on the city of Nablus, the largest in the West Bank.

Trouble started immediately. Israel Radio reported that an army patrol shot and killed a 19-year-old Arab as he held a firebomb, preparing to hurl it at the troops.

Two others were killed and six were wounded in the running clashes, including an infant Arab girl hit in the head by a police bullet, according to press reports. The curfew was reimposed on the city.

In the Gaza Strip, soldiers clashed with Arabs in Rafah, killing a 20-year-old Palestinian, the army said.

In a separate incident in the town of Khan Yunis, also in the Gaza Strip, a hotbed of resistance to Israeli authority, soldiers killed a 17-year-old Palestinian. By unofficial count, more than 550 Palestinians and nearly 100 Jews have been killed in the uprising.

Overnight, a lone Palestinian assailant reportedly stabbed to death Abdullkah Hajeh, 27, near his home in Tal village outside Nablus, hours after his house was hit with a firebomb.

Hajeh had been accused of collaborating with the Israeli authorities in helping to raze olive groves and recruiting Palestinians for Israeli intelligence, sources in Nablus said.