Hand-grenades thrown into Jerusalem crowd

Press, 17 October 1986, Page 6

Hand-grenades thrown into Jerusalem crowd

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem One man was killed and 69 people were wounded yesterday when Arab guerrillas threw hand-gre-nades at a crowd of Israeli soldiers and their families near Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, Judaism’s

holiest site. The Palestine Liberation Organisation said its forces carried out the “heroic operation in response to the decision taken by the Palestinian leadership to escalate military action inside occupied Palestine.” New recruits from Israel’s elite Givati infantry brigade were leaving a military swearing-in ceremony at the shrine when two assailants hurled three hand-gre-nades in a car-park at the Dung Gate entrance to the old walled city. Pandemonium erupted and startled soldiers opened fire as the attackers fled in a car driven by a third man. The dead man was the father of an infantryman, an Army spokesman said.

The police said 21 of the injured were soldiers. It was the most serious attack in the Holy City since six Israelis were killed by a bus bomb in December, 1983, for which the P.L.O. claimed responsibility. The attack happened as Israeli leaders were bickering over the delayed transfer of power from the Labour Party Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, to the hard-line Likud bloc leader, Yitzhak Shamir. The two were due to switch posts earlier this week under an agreement sighed after inconclusive elections in 1984. Political analysts said the guerrilla attack might spur them to close ranks and set aside differences over the composition of the new Government.