Israel Rejects 2nd U.N. Bid to Probe Killings

Israel rejected a second U.N. attempt to investigate the police killing of at least 17 Arabs in Jerusalem and chided the United States, its guardian ally, for demanding cooperation.

Government officials said today that Washington yielded to Israel’s biggest foes by voting for the second Security Council resolution in 12 days, first over the assault on the Temple Mount itself, then deploring the Jewish state’s refusal to receive a team to probe the Oct. 8 shootings.

“We are sorry the United States supported an anti-Israeli resolution because they are playing into the hands of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein and the PLO,” said Avi Pazner, senior adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Israeli officials said there was no reason the rejection should further strain ties with Washington or prompt U.N. sanctions. They urged the world to await findings of an Israeli government inquiry due out soon, perhaps as early as Friday.

The newspaper Haaretz reported the state inquiry was likely to recommend that two leading police officers resign over the affair.

An Israeli human rights group earlier concluded that police fired indiscriminately and without justification.

Two leading Palestinian watchdog groups today revised the death toll from the killings on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, saying police shot to death 17 Arabs, not 21 as first reported.