
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 27, 1994                   TAG: 9402270098
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Baltimore Sun and Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: JERUSALEM                                LENGTH: Medium

MASSACRE BEGETS MORE VIOLENCE NOTE: ABOVE

The massacre of Muslim worshipers in Israeli-occupied Hebron on Friday took a further toll Saturday, as three more Arabs died in disturbances and questions mounted about the actions of Israeli soldiers during and after the shooting.

Clashes between Palestinians and Is Enemy of peace returns. A12. More world news on A9. raeli soldiers spread throughout the occu pied West Bank and into usually quiet Arab neighborhoods in Israel Saturday.

Three more Palestinian youths were killed Saturday in confrontations with Israeli troops, raising to 61 the death toll from the massacre inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs and its bloody aftermath. More than 250 have been injured.

Police used tear gas in confrontations with Israeli Arabs demonstrating in Jaffa near Tel Aviv, and in Nazareth in northern Israel. At least 20 were injured.

Israeli President Ezer Weizman called Friday's mass murder at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron "the most severe thing that has happened to us in the history of Zionism."

The government Saturday emphasized its portrayal of the tragedy as the solitary act of a deranged man, a New York-born Israeli settler named Dr. Baruch Goldstein. But there were more demands for an explanation of the deaths caused by soldiers in Hebron Friday.

The gunman is said to have killed 39 Muslims praying at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. But perhaps as many as 15 other Palestinians were reportedly killed by soldiers either in a melee at the mosque, or in clashes later in Hebron. Five more were killed elsewhere in the territories Friday.

There still is no official version of the events, which are clouded by conflicting eyewitness accounts. Some Palestinian survivors said they clearly saw soldiers shooting at people trying to flee from the mosque.

Israeli television reported that soldiers had opened fire inside the Hebron mosque, accounting for some of the 40 Palestinians killed.

But Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, the military chief of staff, said the New York-born Goldstein had acted alone and that the only gunfire from soldiers was a few warning shots fired in the air outside the mosque.

Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, alleged from his headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia, that the shooting was "a great conspiracy . . . a dirty plan between settlers and some soldiers."

Arafat summoned Palestinian negotiators from various cities where they had been talking with Israeli counterparts.

Members of the PLO executive committee were to meet today to consider the offer by President Clinton to resume negotiations in Washington.

Israeli government ministers were scheduled to meet today to consider a response to the mounting international condemnation of the event.

by CNB