Israelis Kill 3 More Arabs, Injure 95 : Violence Rages in Wake of Massacre of 7 Palestinians

Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians and wounded as many as 95 today in violence sparked by the massacre of seven Palestinians by an Israeli civilian a day earlier.

Smoke from burning tires rose above towns and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, home to the seven men gunned down Sunday while waiting for day laborers’ jobs in a Tel Aviv suburb.

Youths on rooftops hurled stones at army patrols. Women in traditional Palestinian dress screamed and chanted as wounded victims were brought to the U.N. clinic in this refugee camp.

Arab reports listed 95 wounded by plastic bullets or live ammunition.

The army confirmed the three deaths but said it knew of only 14 injuries.

The suspect in Sunday’s killings of the laborers was identified as Ami Popper, a 21-year-old Israeli discharged from the army as unfit. Police remanded him to custody, and a judge ordered psychiatric tests.

Authorities characterized Popper as “deranged” and upset by an unhappy love affair. But Arab leaders said the slayings were the result of an anti-Arab atmosphere encouraged by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s hard-line policies.

The killings touched off riots in which seven more Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers.

At least eight soldiers or police and two Israeli civilians were reported injured by stones today in Gaza and Israel, where protests by Arab citizens erupted in half a dozen towns.

In the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Haifa, swastikas were painted on walls. In the northern town of Nazareth, a group of American tourists was stranded briefly inside a hotel as youths threw firebombs and burned tires.

In Amman, Jordan, a 20-year-old Palestinian wounded 10 people aboard a tour bus. Police were overheard saying the man claimed he was avenging Sunday’s Palestinian deaths.

In Jerusalem’s Ein Karem neighborhood, 40-year-old Jewish restaurant owner Yaacov Shalom was slain Sunday night, reportedly by Arabs.

Police said it was unclear if the motive was political, but the fundamentalist Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility in an anonymous phone call in Nicosia, Cyprus, and said it was revenge for the Sunday slayings.

Today’s deaths raised to 705 the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis during the 29-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Forty-three Israelis have been slain in the revolt, and 216 Palestinians have been killed by fellow Arabs as suspected collaborators.

Dan Naveh, the spokesman for Foreign Minister Moshe Arens, said Palestinian and other Arab leaders were trying to exploit Sunday’s killings by “a crazed gunman.”

“We call on them to be restrained and not cynically use the tragic incident to fan the flames of violence,” he said in a statement.

Survivors told reporters the gunman ordered a group of 50 workers to sit in a line and then opened fire with an assault rifle.