2 Infiltrators Ambush, Kill Israel Farm Worker

A pair of infiltrators from Jordan ambushed and killed a farm worker riding with three companions on a tractor-pulled trailer just inside Israel’s border with Jordan on Wednesday, and pursuing Israeli soldiers fatally shot one of the gunmen. But another escaped, setting off a manhunt in the farm country just south of the Sea of Galilee.

The shootings came on the eve of the third visit to Israel by Secretary of State James A. Baker III in six weeks. On the eve of his first visit in March, a Palestinian knifed four women to death in Jerusalem.

No group has taken responsibility for the Wednesday attack, although Israeli soldiers found pamphlets on the dead guerrilla from Hamas, a nationalist Islamic movement with branches in Jordan and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. They also found papers identifying the man as belonging to the Jordanian Popular Army, a militia which Jordan’s King Hussein armed during the Persian Gulf War.

The three other workers were wounded lightly in the ambush as they were heading to a grove on Kibbutz Neve Ur to plant grapefruit trees. One of the wounded was an American volunteer worker from Illinois identified as David Halperin. He was shot in the leg.

Gunmen have crossed the frontier from Jordan into Israel 10 times this year, giving rise to concern in Israel that King Hussein, riding a turbulent tide of growing Islamic nationalism and Palestinian frustration, is losing control of the population. The majority in Jordan considers itself of Palestinian origin.

Israeli officials insisted that the monarch himself is cooperating in trying to head off the infiltrations. “I’m convinced that the Jordanian authorities are not interested in these severe clashes, which we cannot tolerate,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said on Israel radio. “I’m certain that as time passes, or even in the next few days, we will reach a solution to the problem in a common effort by Israeli and Jordanian authorities.”

Military officials said that Jordan had increased patrols and vigilance along its border with Israel in response to Israeli complaints about the infiltrations. “Still, the results are the same: they are getting across, and something must be done about it,” warned the official.

In all, 19 infiltrators have been killed this year by Israeli troops.

During Wednesday’s attack, one gunman opened fire as the tractor passed a grove of trees, a wounded Israeli said afterward. The victim also saw another man hiding nearby who did not shoot.

“I don’t know yet if the entire thing is over,” cautioned Maj. Gen. Dani Yatom, who commands the region.

Soldiers blocked off the roads and cordoned off hills leading up from Neve Ur, and helicopters joined the search. Loudspeakers called for the fugitive to give himself up.