The Day in the Gulf

* ARABS BACK BUSH: Eight Arab governments endorsed a proposal by President Bush that calls on Israel to trade land for peace in the region. Secretary of State James A. Baker III said their move should prompt Israel to show more flexibility in regionwide disputes. Baker met in Saudi Arabia with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar.

* VIOLENT ‘MESSAGE’: A Palestinian man stabbed four Israeli women to death in what police called a “message” to Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Palestinian leaders have expressed mistrust of the Bush Administration. But they hoped that Baker, scheduled to visit Israel today, might listen to their appeals for statehood for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

* IRAQ IN CHAOS: Rebel unrest in Iraq threatened the major oil center of Kirkuk in the north and sent a postwar flood of refugees over the Iranian border in the south, rebel leaders in exile reported. Fighting in the holy city of Karbala turned particularly bloody as elite Republican Guards, using tanks and artillery, killed 500 people, one of the leaders said. Guerrillas also said thousands of Iraqi soldiers were defecting and joining their ranks. The reports could not be confirmed.

* HEROES’ WELCOME: Twenty-one former prisoners of the Gulf War returned to America. They were flown to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., where they were greeted as heroes by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, family members and several thousand well-wishers. The former POWs were then taken to military medical centers for evaluation.

* RELIEF ON THE WAY: An 18-truck convoy of medicine, food and water treatment machinery left Jordan for Iraq. Relief officials said they are “fighting against time to try to prevent another health catastrophe” as warming weather raises the threat of typhoid, cholera and meningitis outbreaks.