Son of slain extremist rabbi and wife killed in West Bank ambush

JERUSALEM (AP) _ The son of slain extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane was killed along with his wife Sunday in an apparent ambush in the West Bank, the Israeli army said. Five of the couple's six children

Sunday, December 31st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

JERUSALEM (AP) _ The son of slain extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane was killed along with his wife Sunday in an apparent ambush in the West Bank, the Israeli army said. Five of the couple's six children were injured in the attack, which came a day after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction called for an intensification of the uprising against Israel.

Hours after the attack that killed Binyamin Kahane, a senior member of Fatah was shot to death near his West Bank home, according to Palestinians who called it an assassination. The army had no immediate comment. The victim, Thabet Thabet, was the secretary-general of Fatah in the Tulkarem area.

The deaths sent tensions skyrocketing, with both sides bracing for retaliatory attacks. The army and police were beefing up security in Jerusalem and the West Bank, army radio said.

Meir Kahane, who headed the now-outlawed Kach movement, advocated expelling Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was assassinated in New York in 1990. His son Binyamin lived in the West Bank settlement of Tapuah and ran a religious school that kept his father's extremist policies alive.

The army said shots were fired at the Kahane family's car as it passed the Palestinian village of Ein Yabroud, and the passengers were trapped inside as it flipped over and fell into a ditch.

Kahane, 34, who was driving, was killed along with his wife Talia, 31. Five of their children, ranging in age from 2 months to 10 years, were injured, one seriously, hospital officials said. A sixth child had been dropped off at school earlier, neighbors said.

Palestinian gunmen have been staging roadside ambushes and drive-by shootings against settlers in recent weeks.

It was not known whether Kahane had been specifically targeted.

The Kahane attack triggered an outburst of fury among Jewish settlers, who bitterly oppose U.S. peace proposals that call for uprooting dozens of Jewish settlements, and denounce the peace policies of Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

As word of the deaths spread, settler activists scuffled with Israeli police outside the prime minister's office.

Barak called it a grave attack. ``No type of violence against Israeli civilians will break our determination ... and the killers will not go unpunished,'' his office said in a statement.

But the settler umbrella group Yesha blamed Barak and his foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami. ``Our blood is being shed ... we are paying the price for Barak's campaign for prime minister,'' the group said in a statement.

Barak is running for re-election Feb. 6 against right-wing opponent Ariel Sharon, whose stance toward the Palestinians is far more hawkish.

Speaking on Israeli TV, Barak said attacks like this one illustrate Israel's concerns about the level of security offered in the terms of a peace plan President Clinton has proposed. But he added: ``There of course is not a problem here of support for the continuation of the peace process.''

In other violence Sunday, three Palestinians were wounded in clashes at the Erez crossing point at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians said. In the West Bank town of Hebron, Jewish settlers scuffled with Palestinians vendors, knocking over their vegetable stands.

A day earlier, Arafat's Fatah movement, in a leaflet distributed throughout the West Bank, spoke of Palestinians' ``utter rejection'' of Clinton's peace plan and urged followers and fighters ``to make the next two weeks days of struggle against Israeli soldiers and settlers.''

``The continuation of the intefadeh is the only way, the only method, of achieving independence,'' Fatah declared.

While Arafat is under international pressure to accept Clinton's proposals as the basis for a final peace deal, he also is grappling with vehement demands at home to uphold the popular uprising.

Arafat traveled to Tunisia for talks Sunday with Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, an effort to gauge Arab support for peace on Clinton's terms. Arab foreign ministers are to weigh in on the peace plan next week.

Making a final peace push in his last three weeks in office, Clinton is asking the two sides for a tradeoff: Israel would concede Arab parts of Jerusalem, including control of Judaism's most revered holy site.

In turn, Palestinians would scale back demands on the ``right of return'' for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Both sides have signaled unwillingness to compromise on those crucial points, although Barak has not explicitly ruled out international sovereignty over the disputed holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount. To Muslims it is Haram as-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, the place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.