WashPost

3 Israelis Shot Dead at Bus Station Attack by Palestinian Disguised as Soldier Deals Severe Blow to Cease-Fire

By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 5, 2001; Page A30

JERUSALEM, Oct. 4 -- A lone Palestinian gunman, dressed in maroon army boots, green fatigues and a red Israeli paratrooper beret, burst into a bus station in northern Israel today and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing three people and injuring seven before he was shot dead by a policeman.

Witnesses said the Palestinian, a 20-year-old father of two, said nothing, changing the clip on his M-16 rifle at least once as he sprayed gunfire around the bus station in Afula, an Israeli town just north of the Palestinian city of Jenin in the West Bank.

The dead included a 76-year-old father of five and a 20-year-old female soldier, both Israelis. The third Israeli victim's identity was not immediately released.

It was the second lethal attack on Israelis in three days, and the fact that it was conducted by a Palestinian disguised as a paratrooper unnerved Israelis, for whom soldiers are the ultimate symbol of security and safety. The attack was seen as further evidence that the cease-fire that both sides proclaimed last month is becoming a fiction.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared "all attempts to reach a cease-fire with the Palestinians have failed" and said the government has directed Israeli forces to take "all steps necessary to bring complete security to Israeli citizens." Sharon's remarks, delivered in Hebrew and then in English, suggested that Israel is preparing a tough military response to a series of bloody attacks.

[Early Friday, Israeli troops and tanks moved into the Palestinian-controlled section of the West Bank city of Hebron, the Reuters news agency reported. At least five Palestinians were killed and 45 wounded in an exchange of fire, doctors said.]

In his comments after the Afula attack, Sharon also drew a parallel between the British attempt to appease Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II and the West's efforts to enlist Arab countries in the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism. He said that the West is prepared to sell out Israel just as the British sold out Czechoslovakia to the invading Nazis, presumably by pushing it to make political concessions to the Palestinians.

"I turn to the Western democracies," Sharon declared. "Do not try to appease the Arabs at our expense. . . . Israel will not be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terror."

The Bush administration, seeking quiet in the Middle East conflict to help it recruit Arab states to the anti-terrorism coalition, has been nudging Israelis and Palestinians toward the negotiating table. Earlier this week President Bush endorsed Palestinian statehood.

Sharon has said he is prepared for an eventual Palestinian state, but Israeli officials said he is adamant that Israel will not be forced into political concessions for the sake of the United States, its principal ally, no matter what problems it may cause Washington in the region.

Today's attack followed two incidents of Palestinian gunfire Wednesday in which four Israelis were hurt, and a raid by a pair of Palestinian gunmen on an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening in which a teenage Israeli female soldier and her boyfriend were killed. Israel retaliated by killing six Palestinians in a neighboring town, including two civilians, with tank fire.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001