West Bank Mayor Stabbed; Arab Militants Get Blame

RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank — The Israeli-appointed mayor of the West Bank town of Al Birah was stabbed in the chest today in an attack police said was an assassination attempt by Palestinian militants.

The stabbing of Hassan Tawil, 74, follows repeated demands by underground leaders of the 6-month-old Palestinian uprising that he and other Israeli-appointed officials resign their jobs in the occupied West Bank.

Tawil was taken to nearby Ramallah Hospital, where officials said he was in critical but stable condition after surgery.

“We are trying to save him. We hope we will be able to,” Dr. Yasser Obaid said.

Internal Organs Pierced

Tawil was stabbed once with a “very long knife” that pierced his heart, diaphragm, liver and stomach, the hospital officials said.

Brig. Gen. Shaike Erez, head of the military government in the West Bank, said Tawil was attacked near City Hall in Al Birah, a mostly Muslim town about nine miles north of Jerusalem.

“The mayor left his office without his bodyguard. Almost at the threshold he was stabbed,” Police Minister Chaim Bar-Lev told reporters at the stabbing scene.

Bar-Lev said a knife was found near the scene. “I assume it’s a nationalistic motive,” Bar-Lev said, meaning the attack was made by Palestinian nationalists.

Three Israeli soldiers guarded Tawil’s room at Ramallah Hospital and prevented even family members from entering.

The army set up roadblocks and imposed a curfew on Al Birah, confining the 10,000 residents to their homes.

Yusef Taher, one of four members of the Al Birah City Council, also blamed the attack on Palestinian militants and said, “I had hoped we would not descend to the level of assassination.”

Tawil was one of three mayors appointed by the Israeli government in September, 1986, as part of an effort to gain cooperation from Palestinian moderates. The Palestinian mayors replaced Israeli officials who had been running the municipalities.

The appointments immediately provoked opposition in the West Bank, where Palestinian extremists often have threatened to assassinate those who cooperate with Israel’s government.

In March, 1986, Mayor Zafer Masri of Nablus was slain in front of his office three months after Israel appointed him to govern the West Bank’s largest city.

Meanwhile today, the army clamped curfews on the Gaza Strip Jabaliya refugee camp where a 9-month-old girl lost an eye when struck by a rubber bullet fired by Israeli troops dispersing protesters.

The rubber bullet, fired during a demonstration Monday evening, ruptured the infant’s eye, hospital officials said. It was the second time in a week that a 9-month-old child from the U.N.-run camp had lost an eye after being struck by a rubber bullet.

The rubber bullets used by Israeli troops are fired, more than a dozen at a time, in a burst from a canister attached to the end of a rifle. The cylindrical bullets, about half an inch long, contain metal pellets.