Palestinian Farmer Killed; Israeli Settler, 16, Arrested

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian farmer plowing his bean field in the West Bank on Thursday morning was ordered to leave the plot by a Jewish settler and shot dead when he refused, according to villagers who witnessed the killing.

An Israeli youth from a nearby settlement was arrested on suspicion of murder.

An Israeli woman, an immigrant from India, was stabbed Thursday by two Palestinians while working in a greenhouse in the Gaza Strip, but she was not seriously hurt.

With tension mounting in the West Bank and Gaza prior to the pullback of Israeli forces there under the agreement on Palestinian self-government, such daily incidents are seriously eroding public confidence in the pact.

The immediate challenge for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat has thus become one of securing an easy transition from 26 years of Israeli occupation to an evolving form of self-government led by the PLO.

“As the (autonomy) agreement progresses, support for it will grow, but without a doubt we have to be prepared . . . for terrorists, new terrorists and old groups,” Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur commented Thursday.

Khamis Mohammed Abu Awad, 51, the father of six, had been plowing his field outside the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, 20 miles north of Jerusalem, according to witnesses. An armed settler--some accounts put the number of attackers at three--approached, ordered him off his tractor and then shot him in the chest and stomach after he refused to leave the area.

Working from a limited description but from tracks from the area and other findings, Israeli detectives later arrested a 16-year-old youth from the nearby settlement of Shiloh, but he denied any involvement.

Amichai Braverman, the community secretary at Shiloh, described the killing as “a very grave act,” but cautioned that it might have been carried out by other Palestinians in a local feud.