2 More Israelis Killed; Rabin Urged to Get Tough on Violence

Two more Israelis--a settler in the occupied Gaza Strip and a paramilitary policeman patrolling in the West Bank--were killed by Palestinians in weekend attacks, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to take tougher action and halt the spiraling violence.

Yehuda Gawi, 49, from the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, was stabbed to death Sunday, apparently by two construction workers at the house he was building for his family in Nisanit, a new Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip.

Police Constable Jamal Masalha, 19, an Israeli Arab from a farming village near Nazareth, was shot and killed Saturday when his border police unit was ambushed in a crowded street in Tulkarm, a major market town in the West Bank.

A Palestinian, identified as Sami Ziyad Ahmed Guyal, 23, a member of a guerrilla group allied with the Palestine Liberation Organization, was killed and two others were wounded in a gun battle Sunday evening with Israeli troops in Gaza City, a military spokesman said. All three were described as armed and wanted for previous attacks on Israeli troops.

Early this morning, the Israeli military closed Gaza indefinitely.

In Jerusalem, a Jewish man in his 20s was stabbed and critically wounded Sunday evening while walking near the Haas Promenade, a scenic spot popular with tourists; an Arab youth was seen running away. Later, an Arab man was stabbed and slightly wounded by Jewish youths in what police said was possibly revenge for recent attacks on Jews.

The two Israelis’ deaths brought to 10 the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks this month; two more Israelis were killed in a hit-and-run incident near the West Bank of Eli in what residents there charge was a deliberate attack.

Angry over the murder of Gawi, the settlers’ movement Yesha blamed Rabin, accusing the prime minister of encouraging terrorism by failing to crack down hard.

“The prime minister’s statements to the press--’What can we do? If it is hard on (the settlers), they should leave’--mean that Jewish blood has been made fair game,” Uri Ariel, Yesha’s general secretary, declared.

The conservative Tsomet Party demanded that the government use “an iron fist” to halt the attacks and called on Rabin to appoint a full-time defense minister rather than continue in the job himself.

Rabin, addressing a meeting of his Labor Party in central Israel, defended the government’s approach to terrorism and insisted that only a negotiated settlement of the Palestinian question can bring peace.