4 Israelis Hurt, Arab Killed as Attacks Continue

A Palestinian truck driver stabbed two unarmed women soldiers in northern Israel today in a third straight day of Arab knifing attacks.

In the southern town of Ashkelon, a Palestinian bludgeoned two Israelis with a hammer to avenge the death of a friend in the Gaza Strip, army radio said. The two victims were hospitalized with serious head wounds, it said.

In response to the attacks, Defense Minister Moshe Arens today barred Palestinians in the occupied territories from traveling to Israel.

Under Arens’ order, the 1.7 million Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip will be banned from entering Israel as of Wednesday morning, the military command said. Those staying in Israel, where many work, were ordered to return home.

Israel television said the travel ban will remain in effect for “several days” until tensions are reduced.

Arens’ order was issued hours after Israeli civilians fired on an Arab car in the southern Negev desert, killing one Palestinian laborer and wounding his three cousins.

In the knife attack on the Israeli soldiers, police spokesman Yehoshua Butbul said that the wounded women were rushed to Rambam Hospital in the nearby port of Haifa and that the assailant was caught by other soldiers.

One of the women was in serious condition with a knife wound in the chest that punctured a lung, said Dr. Albert Suttinger, deputy director of Rambam. The other suffered a superficial back wound, Suttinger said.

The attack occurred this morning as the soldiers waited for a ride near the town of Kiryat Tivon, Butbul said.

The attacker “took out a knife and started to stab the soldiers,” the radio said, adding that the women were not armed.

Radio reports said civilians assisted in the capture.

“We chased him and then he threw down the knife and we grabbed him,” one Israeli civilian, Eli Koman, told Israel radio. “We held him down and shouted at the soldiers to shoot and kill him. They wouldn’t. I asked one of them to give me his rifle; he refused.”

Israel radio said the suspect, who was taken to a hospital for treatment, told police he had driven into Israel with the intent of attacking Jews. He was identified only as a 39-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin area, about 20 miles southeast of the crime scene.

In Ashkelon, the two victims of the hammer attack were identified as Israelis in their late 40s, army radio said. The Palestinian was apprehended after a brief chase, the radio said.