Arabs kill 3 Israeli soldiers

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This report was deiayed by the Israeli military censor, who made no changes. EIN IBRAHIM, Israel (AP) — In an attack likely to have political repercussions, Arab assailants raided an army camp in Israel and hacked to death three soldiers, the army said yesterday.

The attackers — armed with axes and knives — escaped with four of the soldiers’ rifles, military sources said. The attackers were Palestinians or Israeli Arabs who attacked as the victims slept in a base near the occupied West Bank, army officials said. A fourth soldier was moderately wounded.

It was the first time in the four-year Palestinian uprising that local Arabs hit a base in Israel. Army radio said the raid was audaciously planned, and others compared it to a 1987 attack by hang-glider from Lebanon that set the stage for the uprising. The attack, which came on the Jewish Sabbath, was expected to prompt a public outcry over military preparedness.

Two of those slain arrived only recently from the former Soviet Union and had been in the army a few weeks. The slayings raised questions about preparedness at the camp, 23 miles southeast of the coastal city of Haifa.

The apparent ease with which the attackers operated sent shockwaves through Israel, as reflected in a question by Israel television’s military reporter to army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak.

“When a veteran soldier like you ... sees a chain of things that simply can’t be — no response, no opening of fire, communications problems ... no struggle with the terrorists, the terrorists leaving an area like this clean, unharmed — how do you react?” reporter Motti Eden asked.

“It is an extremely serious incident,” Barak said after arriving by helicopter at the camp near the Israeli Arab village of Ein Ibrahim. The killings were likely to cause political repercussions that could affect the Middle East peace talks. Army radio reported Parliament would meet this week to discuss the raid.

Military officials said the assailants stabbed and hacked the two Russian immigrants to death around midnight as they slept in their tents. A third soldier was fatally stabbed with a pitchfork when he heard the commotion and ran to help the others, they said. News of the slayings was held up by military censors for nearly 16 hours while the victims’ families were notified.

Troops descended on the area to launch a search. Flares lit the green, windswept hills around the camp, helicopters flew overhead and Bedouin trackers were called in. Police said about a dozen Israeli Arabs were rounded up for questioning.

Army radio quoted residents as saying responsibility was claimed by the Black Panthers, a local Palestine Liberation Organization militia, but radio reports said Islamic fundamentalists were suspected.

How this transcription was made

FLAG FOR EVA — Maria’s label is “The Central New Jersey Home News.” What the page shows is “THE HOM…” and nothing more. Check the archive’s existing spelling before ingesting; the paper used both “The Home News” and “The Central New Jersey Home News” at different periods, and a wrong choice would create a second newspaper. — No date anywhere on the cut; the folio gives the page and section only. The body says the attack came “on the Jewish Sabbath” and that the army spoke “yesterday,” and dates the uprising as four years old, which fits February 1992 and a Sunday printing. 16 February 1992 was a Sunday, so Maria’s label is consistent with the text, but the date is not on the page. — Complete article as clipped, four columns. Printed error kept as set: “This report was deiayed by the Israeli military censor” — the l in “delayed” is set as an i. The ellipses inside Motti Eden’s question are the paper’s, set with spaced periods.

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"Arabs kill 3 Israeli soldiers," THE HOM[E NEWS] — masthead truncated, 16 February 1992, p. A14, section WORLD/NATION. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1992-024. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1992-024