Israeli Troops Kill Jordan Soldier Near Border

JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers Sunday shot and killed a Jordanian soldier who crossed into Israeli territory near the Sea of Galilee in the latest of a weeklong string of border incidents, the military said.

In Jordan, an army official said a conscript from the same area “was absent since yesterday (Saturday) and had his personal weapon.”

The official, quoted by the state-run Petra news agency, said Jordanian soldiers had searched the area but could not find him.

Sunday’s slaying of the Jordanian soldier occurred near Hamat Gader, a resort area at the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee, as Israeli troops patrolled the border for gunmen who had fired across the Jordan River in recent days, an army spokesman said. No Israeli casualties were reported.

“During an initiated activity by the (Israel Defense Force) in the Hamat Gader area this afternoon, a Jordanian soldier was spotted inside Israeli territory,” the spokesman said. “He was shot and killed.”

The slain man wore a Jordanian army uniform and carried an M-16, the spokesman said.

The commander of the Jordan Valley section told Israel Radio that the slain Jordanian may have been responsible for several incidents along the border since Jan. 1. When Israeli troops discovered the Jordanian’s body in a unused bunker 100 yards inside Israeli territory, they found five full magazines and four empty ones, said the commander, identified only as Col. G.

Authorities believe the Jordanian either crossed into Israeli territory late last week and remained or crossed back and forth several times during the past week, Israel Radio reported.

Meanwhile, Israel’s coalition government confirmed Communications Minister Gad Yaacobi as the newest member of the powerful 12-member Inner Cabinet, replacing Ezer Weizman, who was demoted in a Cabinet dispute last week.

Yaacobi, 54, is a liberal intellectual whose personal beliefs are not far removed from Weizman’s.

Weizman, the science minister and a Labor Party colleague of Yaacobi’s, was dropped from the Inner Cabinet after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir accused him of meeting with an official of the Palestine Liberation Organization in violation of an Israeli law barring such contacts.