ISRAEL . . . CLAMPING DOWN ON PALESTINIANS

Israel's Cabinet, in a furious attempt to crack down on the Islamic terrorist group Hamas, closed the West Bank and Gaza Strip indefinitely--a move that keeps as many as 80,000 Palestinians from their jobs in Israel. P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat blasted the move as "economic and social war" on his people and "collective punishment" for Wednesday's Tel Aviv bombing by Hamas. Meanwhile, Hamas today distributed a videotape of a man it said was the suicide attacker who blew up 22 others on a crowded bus; on the tape, Salah Abdel-Rahim Hassan Assawi says he planned the bombing because his brother was killed in the Palestinian intifadeh. At least one witness, however, swore he wasn't the culprit.

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.