Teen’s Slaying Spurs Palestinian Call to Arms

As mourners in this West Bank village buried a teenager killed in an encounter with Jewish settlers, speakers at the boy’s funeral Friday exhorted Palestinians to launch a new uprising against Israel.

“We must wake up from a long sleep . . . and prepare for a fierce war with Israel,” said Sheik Aziz Ataya, a local Muslim leader, urging a crowd of several hundred mourners to abandon the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “This peace is not what we want.”

Iyad Karabseh, 17, died Thursday after one or more Israelis--there were conflicting accounts--fired into a group of high school students walking home from classes in the village of Beitunia. Karabseh was buried in Ein Arik, his family’s ancestral village, in a solemn ceremony organized by the Palestinian Authority.

Friends and his school principal characterized Karabseh as a class leader and a good student, although they differed about the extent of his political activity.

Some said he had headed the school’s branch of the youth movement of Fatah, the political party of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, while others said he had hardly been involved at all.

Avshalom Ladani, who lives in the Jewish settlement of Dolev, turned himself in to police a few hours after Thursday’s shooting.

His lawyer said Ladani told investigators that he acted in self-defense after his car came under a barrage of rocks. Palestinian witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked.

The incident, along with the shooting deaths a week ago of two activists from the militant group Hamas, has sent tensions skyrocketing across the West Bank and raised new fears in Israel of retaliatory attacks from Islamic extremists as the Jewish holiday period begins.

Amid warnings that Hamas and other groups could try to disrupt Jewish New Year celebrations with suicide bombings or kidnappings, the government Friday tightened a closure already in effect that cuts off Israel from the West Bank and Gaza. Under the new conditions, virtually all Palestinians from the two areas will be prohibited from entering Israel for several days, until the holiday period ends Wednesday. There were more threats Friday.

A few miles from Karabseh’s funeral, at a rally in the West Bank town of Al Birah, a crowd of Hamas supporters called on the group’s military wing, the Izzidin al-Qassam brigades, to “blow up Tel Aviv.”

Several hundred demonstrators then broke off from the main group and headed for the nearby Jewish settlement of Psagot, where they hurled stones at Israeli troops guarding the community.

The soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowd. More than 30 Palestinians were reported hurt. Most of the injuries were not serious.

Alongside the violence and threats on the West Bank, there were signs that a U.S. mediator may be making at least limited progress as he tries to break an 18-month-old deadlock in the peace process.

After meeting Arafat in Gaza City on Friday, envoy Dennis B. Ross said he was making some headway in the negotiations, his most optimistic assessment in several days.

Ross, who was due to leave for Washington on Friday, also decided to remain in the region an extra day.

“Issues are being dealt with seriously, intensively and comprehensively, in a way that I think gives us a chance to put the process back on track,” he said. “That is the objective, but there is still work to be done.”

Since he arrived in the region Sept. 9, Ross has been trying to close a deal for an Israeli troop withdrawal from more territory in the West Bank in exchange for a comprehensive security plan from the Palestinians.