Israel Will Declare Peace Process Over if Violence Persists

With the threat of greater bloodshed looming, Israel said Sunday that it will declare the peace process dead if Palestinians fail to end by tonight the wave of hate-filled violence engulfing the region.

As Israeli tanks rolled into position and Jews began their most solemn religious observance of the year, clashes erupted again for the 11th straight day. The unrest has claimed more than 80 lives--including at least two more Sunday--and took a qualitative leap Saturday with the capture of three Israeli soldiers by Islamic guerrillas based in Lebanon.

Palestinians defiantly rejected Israel’s ultimatum for ending the revolt and blamed the Jewish state for failing to make peace.

On a day when tough talk continued on both sides, President Clinton called several Mideast leaders and offered to host a summit later this week, perhaps in Europe.

Despite the tense mood, Sunday was one of the least deadly days since riots were sparked by the Sept. 28 visit by a right-wing Jewish politician to Jerusalem’s most contested holy shrine. The worst clashes Sunday were reported inside Israel, in the Arab city of Nazareth, where Jews battled Israeli Arabs despite the Yom Kippur holiday, and at least one person was killed. Other fighting was reported in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Hebron.

Touring worried Jewish communities along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, Prime Minister Ehud Barak reiterated his demand that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat halt violence by tonight. Otherwise, Barak said, the peace process that for seven years has sought to end half a century of bloodshed will be effectively finished.

“If we do not see a difference--on the ground--we will conclude that Arafat has deliberately decided to abandon the negotiations, the peace process, and instead wants deadlock and confrontation,” Barak told reporters. In that case, he said, his military will use “all means available” to put out the flames.

An Arafat aide, Nabil abu Rudaineh, countered that if anyone is killing the peace process, it is Barak.

“The next 24 hours will be a crossroads for the peace process, and we will see how serious Israel is,” he said.

There were signs everywhere that the delicate fabric of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence was disintegrating: One Jewish man was killed late Saturday after Israeli Arabs stoned cars on a highway near Tel Aviv; an Israeli settler allegedly shot and killed a Palestinian near the West Bank town of Biddiya; and the body of a missing American-born rabbi was found in a Palestinian area. In the Israeli town of Tiberias, crowds chanting “Death to the Arabs!” set fire to a mosque. Palestinian gunmen fired on an Israeli bus entering the Gaza Strip from Egypt; Israel responded by shutting down the Palestinian airport in Gaza.

For Israelis, the trauma of watching all hope for peace wither before their eyes was compounded by the start Sunday night of Yom Kippur, Judaism’s most sacred holiday, the Day of Atonement.

It was 27 years ago that Israel fought its last true war for survival, precisely at Yom Kippur. Catching the Jewish state unaware, Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks from the south and north. Though Israel eventually prevailed, it was at a huge cost of life and morale.

“We had another Yom Kippur 27 years ago,” Barak said, “when everything looked really desperate, but we emerged victorious.”

Reflecting the emergency footing that the current unrest has caused, rabbis made extraordinary exceptions for this year’s Yom Kippur, which is observed with a daylong fast. Soldiers on duty were to be allowed to drink water and eat. Radio stations, normally silent on Yom Kippur, were to keep a special channel open and ready to broadcast any major development.

Netzarim, the intersection in Gaza that has been the battleground for the bloodiest fighting, remained relatively tranquil Sunday after Israeli troops blew up two apartment buildings that had been used as Palestinian firing positions. The Israelis also cleared away trees, removing cover that Palestinian gunmen were using to engage Israeli troops in battle.

A preliminary cease-fire between senior Israeli and Palestinian officials was worked out with the assistance of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and appeared to be holding most of the day, Gen. Yom-Tov Samia, commander of the Gaza area, said.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, troops with loudspeakers ordered Palestinians to leave homes near a position used by gunmen to fire on the Jewish settlement of Psagot, and tanks were posted around the city.

“I hope that we won’t have to use our tanks to shell Ramallah, but everybody should know that when I order the tanks to take position, I don’t do it for the sake of decoration,” said Col. Gil Hirsch, who commands the Israeli army detachment in the Ramallah region.

Near the West Bank town of Nablus, Israeli police said, the body of Hillel Lieberman, a 36-year-old rabbi and yeshiva student originally from New York, was found with signs of his having been murdered. His family said he went missing during the Palestinian ransacking of Joseph’s Tomb, where he studied. There were reports that he was a distant cousin of U.S. Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, but the senator’s office said it did not appear that the dead man was a relative.

The divided city of Hebron was especially tense Sunday after the army sent in helicopters overnight to attack suspected Palestinian positions on a nearby hillside.

“We’ve taken thousands of rocks, and we killed only two Palestinians who used live fire on us,” said Col. Noam Tibon, commander of Israel’s forces in Hebron, who added that the army “is not using all its force yet.”

Tibon said he had warned his troops that there is a long struggle ahead as Israel hunkers down for low-intensity warfare.

“My soldiers already think they are in a war,” he said. “A very dangerous one.”

Even with no Palestinians in sight, troops kept their helmets, face shields and bulletproof vests on, their guns at the ready. Their families, they said, were worried.

“My mother calls 20 times a day now. It is driving me crazy,” said Gilad Remez, a 20-year-old military policeman who said he had never experienced worse times in his two years in Hebron. “I always tell her everything is fine, I’m OK, nothing is happening. But today I had had it. I told her the truth, everything. How the bullets almost hit me. My brother called to say she was crying.”

If the Palestinians believe that Israel will withdraw from Hebron as it withdrew from southern Lebanon in May, Tibon said, they are mistaken. In Hebron, he said, the soldiers are protecting Jewish lives and property.

Many of the soldiers, and many Israelis, have long regarded the 400 ultranationalist Jews living among about 40,000 Palestinians in Hebron as more of a liability than an asset, Tibon acknowledged. But, he said, those feelings have been shelved.

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Wilkinson reported from Jerusalem and Curtius from Hebron.

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* A TENSE YOM KIPPUR

Shadows of past wars weigh on Jewish observances. A14

* MIDEAST REVERBERATIONS

Thousands of Palestinians and Jews in Southern California share anxiety over clashes. B1