Rogue Jordan Soldier Kills 7 Israeli Schoolgirls

A Jordanian soldier unleashed volleys of automatic rifle fire on Israeli schoolgirls who were on a field trip at the scenic “Island of Peace” border post Thursday, killing seven of the junior high students and wounding six.

Witnesses said 40 to 50 eighth-graders had gotten off their bus and were surveying the sun-washed view over the River Jordan when the gunman grabbed a fellow soldier’s weapon and began firing at the students’ backs from a guard tower.

He then climbed down from the tower, chased girls who tried to escape over a ridge blooming with wildflowers and shot one in the head at close range before he was subdued by other Jordanian soldiers as he stopped to reload, according to accounts from several witnesses.

The brutal attack on 12- and 13-year-old Israelis--and coming from an Arab whose country is at peace with Israel--stunned the region, despite recent warnings from political leaders that the crumbling of the Mideast peace process could lead to bloodshed.

Jordanian soldiers at the scene called the shooter “a madman” and spoke of his rampage as an “accident.” But several Israeli leaders directly and indirectly tied the attack to Jordanian King Hussein’s recent criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Israeli leader’s policies toward Palestinians.

“Verbal violence unfortunately can lead to physical violence,” Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai said after reviewing the scene of the shooting with Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan.

Earlier this week, King Hussein sent a personal and harshly worded letter to Netanyahu accusing him of “continued deliberate humiliation of your so-called Palestinian partners” in proposing to build a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem and to carry out a smaller troop withdrawal from the occupied West Bank than Palestinians anticipated.

He warned Netanyahu that his actions were leading Israelis and Arabs “toward an abyss of bloodshed and disaster, brought about by fear and despair.”

In Jerusalem, Foreign Minister David Levy seethed at “this bloody harvest” of schoolchildren and said that attempts to dismiss the gunman as a madman were unacceptable. He warned Jordan and the Palestinians to ease their rhetoric against Israel.

“There can be no absolution . . . for the murder of peaceful, defenseless children in a place where we are at peace,” Levy said. “This is also the time to tell the Palestinians to take care and heed what they say, since who knows what goes on in the minds of madmen.”

Following the attack, the Jordanian king cut short a trip to Spain and flew home. Visibly shaken, the king said, “When I warned a few days ago of the danger of the possibility of violence, I never thought it would lead to this.”

He earlier telephoned Israeli President Ezer Weizman to offer his condolences and promise to work to reduce tensions between the two countries. Arrangements were being made for Hussein to visit the victims’ families. The king postponed a trip to the U.S. that had been scheduled for this week.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, and Hussein has been Israel’s closest Arab ally since then. But Palestinians make up about 70% of Jordan’s population, and among them a majority view the peace process with skepticism or outright hostility.

While Hussein has had good relations with several Israeli leaders, particularly with slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the feelings have not always filtered down to average Israelis and Jordanians, who must overcome decades of hostility.

Israelis observing the tragedy focused on reports that Jordanian soldiers were slow to overpower the gunman and that they kept Israeli rescue teams waiting at the border for 40 minutes before allowing them access to the wounded. Many Israelis said their fears that Arabs will never accept their Jewish neighbors had been confirmed.

Jordanians interviewed on the streets of their capital, Amman, condemned attacks on civilians and particularly on children, but blamed the conservative Netanyahu for raising tensions in the region to such a degree that something like this could happen. Had Israeli soldiers been the target, several said, they might not have felt so badly.

“It’s all the result of the Israeli stubbornness and its unjust policy,” said Mohammed Adnan Harbawi, 50. “The basic problem is there is no justice on the ground.”

Still, most of the political leaders and analysts who have been predicting a violent reaction to Netanyahu’s policies believed that an attack might come from the Palestinians. Violence from a Jordanian, linked to the policy disputes or not, was unexpected.

Apart from periodic infiltrations by Palestinian guerrillas opposed to the peace process, the heavily guarded Israeli-Jordanian border has been largely quiet for years. Cooperation between the two armies has been good.

The attack took place on a verdant hill overlooking the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers southeast of the Sea of Galilee, in an area that Israel returned to Jordan in 1994 as part of their bilateral peace agreement.

The land is leased to Israelis for agriculture, and the “Island of Peace” is a popular tourist spot with Israelis because it provides a sweeping view and offers a chance to set foot in Jordan.

Residents of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov said they take tourists there daily and never had problems with the soldiers before Thursday.

The area is patrolled by Jordanian soldiers, and armed Israelis may not enter the area. The schoolchildren, who like all students in Israel routinely travel with armed escorts, therefore had no armed Israeli guards to protect them.

Jordanian and Israeli officials said the gunman was a noncombatant draftee with an administrative job in the army who did not have his own weapon.

He was variously identified by unnamed military sources in Jordan as Ahmed Moussa or Ahmed Yousef Mustafa, a resident of the town of Adasiya, a few miles northeast of the shooting site.

He is not believed to be a Palestinian. Palestinians are not usually drafted into this unit of the 12th Jordanian Division, which serves on the border and works closely with Israeli soldiers.

The Jordanian gunman reportedly had only recently been assigned to the border area. He drove a U.S.-made Humvee up the grassy slope to the outpost.

“We were on the border with Jordan, and the soldiers started to shoot at us,” said Hila Ivri, a student who received a gunshot wound in the leg and was hospitalized, along with her twin sister. “Everyone fell to the ground in the bushes. I saw all of my girlfriends covered with blood, and everyone was crying and shouting. . . .”

Witness Raz Hess, who was on the hill with another group, said at one point the soldier fired from close range and aimed at the head of one of the girls.

“It was simply a nightmare,” said Rosa Himi, a teacher who accompanied the children on the trip from their school in Beit Shemesh, about 10 miles west of Jerusalem. “We were gathered, listening to the guide’s explanation, when we suddenly heard a burst of automatic gunfire from a Jordanian soldier shooting at us from above. . . . He came down from the observation tower and started chasing us.”

She accused the other soldiers of taking too long to stop him, adding that “they even pushed one of our teachers and wouldn’t let him near the injured girls to care for them.”

The dead and wounded were evacuated to Jordan and Israel.

Mordecai, the Israeli defense minister, arrived with Prince Hassan, who said the attack had caused Jordan “deep embarrassment and anguish. . . . Today is a black day in the history of our country.”

After they left, Jordanian soldiers allowed an Israeli army burial team onto the hill, where they clipped and bagged bloody weeds and cleaned up all human remains as required by Jewish religious law.

The dead girls, who were all from Beit Shemesh or surrounding areas, were buried in late-night funerals Thursday.

In Washington, President Clinton condemned the shooting but cautioned the Israeli government against overreacting to the attack, which he said “may have been just [the act of] a deranged person.”

The White House said Clinton later talked by telephone with Netanyahu to express his condolences.

At the same time, U.S. officials said Washington’s top priority is to prevent the killings from derailing the already embattled peace process.

“We have no reason to believe this was politically motivated by any larger group or anything,” Clinton said.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright added: “Violence can never be an answer. It can only produce more victims. We call upon all leaders in the region to calm the situation, to do their utmost to prevent future violence in any form and to redouble their efforts to forge a just and lasting peace.”

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat put aside his anger with Netanyahu and also telephoned the Israeli prime minister to convey his sympathies.

Arafat told Netanyahu that he would be willing to meet with him if it would advance the peace process. Netanyahu responded that Arafat should refrain from declarations that could result in violence.

Arafat is furious over Netanyahu’s plans to build 6,500 housing units for Israelis in southeastern Jerusalem on a hill that Israelis call Har Homa and Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghneim.

In New York, the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday voted 130 to 2, with two abstentions, to call on Israel to refrain from actions that “have negative implications” for Middle East peace, including the planned housing project in a traditionally Palestinian area.

The United States and Israel voted against the measure. Under Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, control over East Jerusalem is an issue that is to be decided in coming final-status negotiations.

Arafat has called for a meeting of international envoys on Saturday in the Gaza Strip to discuss the Israeli housing project and what he calls other Israeli violations of the peace process.

He has also has protested Israel’s unilateral plan to withdraw troops from 9% of the West Bank during a scheduled redeployment. Only 2% of that territory is fully under Israeli control. Palestinians had anticipated gaining control over close to one-third of the West Bank.

The assault on Israeli schoolgirls could buy Netanyahu some international breathing room and help prevent condemnation from the Gaza conference. But it is likely to strengthen hard-liners inside Israel, as the country tends to close ranks when under attack.

Israel’s Channel Two television reported late Thursday that Netanyahu told a meeting of his inner Cabinet after the attack that he would press ahead with the Jerusalem construction next week.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington and special correspondent Ranya Kadri in Amman contributed to this report.

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Tragedy at ‘Island of Peace’

The scene: Several Jordanian soldiers stood atop a 30-foot watch tower 100 feet away from where the schoolgirls arrived.

The shooting: As many as 50 schoolgirls had gotten off their bus and were admiring the view of the Jordan River Valley when an apparently deranged Jordanian soldier began firing from a guardtower. He climbed down from the tower and fired at the girls as they fled into fields of flowers.

The site: A 250-acre wedge of avocado groves and wheat fields created in the 1920s when the Jordan River was split in two for a hydroelectric power station. The land is leased to the Israelis for farming. It is patrolled by Jordanian soldiers. Israelis with weapons may not enter.

The gunman: Officials say he was a draftee from the nearby town of Adasiya. He was assigned to a noncombat position and did not have his own weapon.