ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: MONDAY, February 28, 1994                   TAG: 9402280066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and The New York Times
DATELINE: JERUSALEM                                LENGTH: Medium

ISRAEL TO DISARM SETTLERS PALESTINIAN RIOTS SPREAD AFTER MOSQUE MASSACRE

The Israeli government Sunday announced creation of a commission of inquiry into the massacre of Palestinian worshipers by a Jewish settler and said it would disarm some militant Jewish extremists as Arab rioting continued in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel itself.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said also that Israel Bomb kills nine at Lebanese church. A3 would release 800 to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture in hopes of keeping peace talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization from collapsing, but PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat dismissed the Israeli measures as "hollow."

Israeli security forces killed four Palestinians and a Bedouin in a third day of Arab rioting that spread to the Negev desert in the south of Israel and erupted anew in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv. Demonstrators burned tires and hurled stones at police, who responded with tear gas, clubs and in some cases live ammunition.

The commission of inquiry into the killings that sparked the riots is the highest form of official inquiry codified in Israeli law.

The government also approved measures targeting members of a Jewish nationalist group called Kach, composed of militant followers of the late American rabbi Meir Kahane. It was one of Kahane's adherents, Baruch Goldstein, a physician at the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, who opened fire Friday with an automatic rifle on hundreds of Arab worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The official death toll in that incident stands at 39, and at least 25 more have been killed in subsequent rioting.

The government said it had authorized use of administrative detention orders against leaders of Kach, permitting authorities to take them into custody without charge or trial. Such orders have been used almost exclusively against Palestinians. The government also said it had authorized use of restraining orders to keep some Jewish militants from entering the West Bank, as well as to seize their weapons.

But of the initial five members of Kach sought under the crackdown, only one had been apprehended by late Sunday. The government said it would consider outlawing the Kach movement.

Syria, Jordan and Lebanon informed the Clinton administration Sunday that they were breaking off peace talks with Israel scheduled for this week in Washington, U.S. diplomats said. Arafat withheld a decision.

U.S. and Israeli officials sought to play down the gravity of the announcement, indicating that they interpreted the Arab withdrawal as a symbolic gesture. 


 by CNB