"Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue to be decided in Israel's peace talks with Palestinians."

The issue has been delayed until final settlement talks, scheduled to begin by 1996.

Associated Press

October 11, 1994

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Fredi Engelberg flipped open a book of religious quotations to reveal a bullet embedded in the pages of a chapter on "The Nature of God." Another penetrated a red fake leather box, only to be stopped by the hard cover of a Bible.

Indeed, some Israelis credited divine intervention with preventing a greater massacre when Palestinians armed with assault rifles and grenades rampaged through Jerusalem's teeming pedestrian mall Sunday night, spraying bullets.

The attack that killed an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man and wounded 13 people -- including a U.S. diplomat -- struck deep at Israelis' carefully nurtured view of their world as normal and prosperous despite their conflict with the Arabs.

"I've always been afraid of robbers, not terrorists," said Engelberg, a New York City native who has lived in Israel for 27 years and owns a bookstore on the mall.

Twelve bullets shattered his storefront as police battled with the two guerrillas in the narrow street amid hundreds of people in dimly lit bars and outdoor cafes. Police killed the two assailants, one an Islamic militant from the Gaza Strip, the other reportedly a Muslim extremist from Egypt.

Hamas, an Islamic group that opposes peace with Israel, claimed responsibility.

Workers labored throughout the day Monday to remove shattered glass and bloodstains from the area.

One girl arrived with her high school friends, saying she was curious to see blood. Still she was shocked to discover a garbage pail filled with blood-soaked paper towels and a bloody sneaker outside an Italian restaurant.

By evening, Engelberg's bullet-grazed volumes were among the few remaining visible signs that something had gone terrifyingly awry the previous night.

"I definitely want people to return to the normal routine, even if it is difficult emotionally," said Mayor Ehud Olmert, who arrived to survey the area.

Armed attacks in downtown Jerusalem are rare. Even at the height of the seven-year Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, most attacks were carried out by lone knifers.

Olmert said the attack should lead the Israeli government to reconsider its peace moves. Israel has granted Palestinians autonomy in the Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho and is negotiating to extend autonomy throughout the West Bank.

"Arafat calls for a jihad (holy war) to free Jerusalem (and) two men come from Gaza to kill in the city," Olmert said, referring to a speech in May by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that raised a furor. "This calls for soul-searching by the government."

Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue to be decided in Israel's peace talks with Palestinians.

The Palestinians want the eastern sector, captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the capital of their would-be state. Israel claims the entire city as its eternally unified capital.

The issue has been delayed until final settlement talks, scheduled to begin by 1996.

The political and security morass was the focus of conversation late Monday as customers began to fill cafes near the site of Sunday's attack.

Some Israelis vented frustration with scattered talk of killing Arabs -- and even Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

"You go out to drink coffee, have a bite to eat, enjoy yourself, and you find yourself in a cemetery or a hospital," said Arieh Kovach. "Rabin gives the Arabs too much freedom."

"May God watch over us, Amen," muttered one man in a group of devout onlookers.

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