Two Israelis were killed in separate shooting attacks on Sunday. Avi Sabag, 24, from the settlement of Otniel, was shot and killed as he was driving in the southern Hebron Hills. Sunday morning, Palestinian gunfire penetrated into an armored bus near Ateret, northwest of Ramallah. Kindergarten teacher Esther Klieman, 23, was hit in the head and died of her injuries. Other potential attacks were thwarted as security forces killed terrorist infiltrators in the Gaza Strip and near the Golan Heights.

Sabag was mortally wounded at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday night when Palestinians fired at his car near the El Fawar refugee camp south of Hebron. Security forces assume that at least one terrorist ambushed the car from the side of the road. "All findings point to an ambush but we have not ruled out the possibility that it was a drive-by shooting," Judea and Samaria Police spokesman Rafi Yaffe said.

Sabag, a former resident of Kiryat Ata who had been studying at the Hesder yeshiva in Otniel, had been in Jerusalem yesterday with his wife of six months, Dafna. Dafna returned to the couple's home safely in the early evening. Residents of Otniel said Sabag was murdered at the exact spot where the settlement's rabbi, Ami Olami, was killed in a Palestinian shooting attack seven years ago.

Klieman, a resident of Neve Tzuf, was killed in a shooting attack Sunday morning while traveling to work in a reinforced Egged bus. At least one terrorist on a ridge overlooking the Abud bypass road fired at the bus as it passed the village of Um Safa, near Ateret. A bullet apparently penetrated an unprotected part of the bus above the bulletproof windows, hitting Klieman in the head.

"The terrorists have studied the protective measures taken on busses," an expert in reinforcing vehicles told Yediot Aharonot. "These busses aren't 100 percent bulletproofed, and they fire very accurately at the unprotected areas."

Klieman, who worked as a kindergarten assistant for Downs Syndrome disabled children in the community of Ofra, was the daughter of Nahman and Ruhama Klieman, who immigrated to Israel from Chicago in 1977. Her father was the former El Al Airlines spokesman.

Immediately following the shooting attack, the IDF launched an extensive manhunt in the area for the gunmen, who apparently escaped to Palestinian territory north of Ateret. Palestinians opened fire at the troops, and one soldier was lightly injured. Palestinian sources reported that a PA policeman was killed by Israeli gunfire in the village of Um Safa.

Major terrorist attacks thwarted
A major terrorist attack was thwarted Sunday afternoon when soldiers of the elite Egoz unit located and killed four terrorists who had infiltrated into Israel from Jordan overnight. After hours of a widespread search, the terrorists, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, and commando knives, were discovered near Tel Katzir, southeast of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).

The incident began late Saturday night when the Jordanian army informed the IDF that it had spotted a suspicious vehicle near the Israel-Jordan-Syrian border. The Jordanians opened fire at the vehicle, and killed two passengers.

Only at about 6 a.m. Sunday morning did IDF trackers notice signs of a security breach in the border fence. Footprints of four infiltrators were discovered in the Hamat Gader area. The terrorists reportedly dug a tunnel under the fence, thereby managing to avoid contact with the electronic alarm system.

A high security alert was issued in the northern Jordan Valley and the southern Golan Heights, and residents were asked to stay in their homes. Organized trips in the area were canceled and vacationers were evacuated from the area. Members of Kibbutzim Tel Katzir and Ha'on manned security trenches, reliving experiences of the 1960s when terrorists regularly tried to infiltrate into Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights.

Workers from the Society for the Protection of Nature advised the army as to where the terrorists could possibly be hiding. Shortly after 1:30 p.m., the troops located them on a ridge overlooking Tel Katzir and quickly killed them before they were able to return fire.

"From the spot where we stand, they could easily have struck at communities in the area," said Col. Nadav Hajbi, deputy commander of forces in the Golan region. "There's no doubt they had intended to descend on one of the communities and carry out murder and mayhem."

It was unclear if the infiltrators were Palestinians who had been living in Jordan, or Hizbullah fighters sent to the area. The army launched investigations into why it took so many hours to discover the infiltration into Israel. "There is no doubt that there is a problem with the border fence," a senior IDF officer told Yediot Aharonot.

Sunday evening, IDF troops spotted three members of a terrorist cell attempting to plant a roadside bomb near Netzer Hazani, in the Gush Katif bloc of settlements. The soldiers opened fire and killed the three terrorists.

Alert members of a Golani unit thwarted efforts of Palestinians to drive a booby-trapped car into Israel late Sunday night. The soldiers stopped a suspicious car near Baka a-Sharkiya, north of Tulkarm. The driver attempted to flee the scene and the soldiers opened fire. After discovering that the vehicle was wired with explosives, bomb experts were called in and the charges were detonated safely in a controlled explosion.

© 2001-2002 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.