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

DATE: MONDAY, March 11, 1991                   TAG: 9103110161
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: JERUSALEM                                LENGTH: Medium

4 DEATHS A MESSAGE TO BAKER

An Arab man stabbed four Jewish women to death here Sunday before he was shot and captured by police, who said the man was trying "to send a message" to U.S. Secretary of State James Baker on the eve of his visit to Israel.

The incident was the most serious attack by a Palestinian against Israelis in four months and prompted angry demonstrations by residents of the West Jerusalem neighborhood where it occurred, as well as by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Settlers reportedly fired guns into the air in Bethlehem, and residents of the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood of Jerusalem stoned Arab cars and shouted, "Death to Arabs," and "Baker, Go Home."

Authorities deployed riot police throughout Jerusalem on Sunday night and said they would bar West Bank Palestinians from entering Jerusalem for the next few days. Baker is due in Israel today for a two-day visit as part of a trip through the Middle East. He is scheduled to tour the predominantly Arab Old City of Jerusalem.

The government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir seized on the latest violence to bolster its stand against making concessions to the Palestinians in the regional peace process Baker hopes to foster. The stabbing, said Shamir's adviser Avi Pazner, "underlines the difficulties we have in trying to find a solution to this conflict. We are dealing with hatred and extremism."

Many Palestinians in the occupied territories backed Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, in part because of his rhetorical support for the Palestinian cause.

Israel radio said the assailant arrested Sunday night was a 26-year-old male nurse from the Jabalyia refugee camp, one of the poorest and most troubled areas of the Gaza Strip. It said he was hospitalized at Hadassah-Ein Kerem hospital, near the site of the slayings, with a bullet wound in his leg.

Police said the attacker got out of a car at a bus stop near a busy intersection and began stabbing the women there with a long kitchen knife. Chasing his victims, he managed to stab four before an off-duty policeman saw him and shot him, police said. Another woman suffered a broken leg while trying to run away, police said.

by CNB