KIDNAPPED SOLDIER DIES AS RESCUE RAID FAILS.(MAIN)

Byline: BARTON GELLMAN Washington Post

JERUSALEM Israeli commandos stormed a safe house in the occupied West Bank where militant Islamic captors were holding a kidnapped Israeli soldier Friday night, touching off a fierce gunbattle in which the captive, a would-be rescuer and three of the Palestinian kidnappers were killed.

Nachshon Waxman, a 19-year-old Israeli-American corporal kidnapped last Sunday, died along with an Israeli commando officer and the three Palestinians in what the Israeli army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, described as a ``brief but harsh, intense battle'' in the West Bank town of Bir Nabalah, four miles north of Jerusalem. At least nine other Israeli soldiers were wounded.

A fourth Palestinan captor was taken into custody, the Israeli army said. All four were linked to the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, the radical Palestinian group opposed to the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The raid took place about 90 minutes before a 9 p.m. deadline by which Hamas had threatened to kill Waxman unless Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, an ailing Muslim cleric regarded as the Hamas spiritual leader. Waxman was killed by his captors as the Israeli commandos burst into the concrete house where he was held, Barak said.

A grim and emphatic Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in a late-night news conference at the Defense Ministry, said he had learned only Friday morning that Waxman was in Israeli-occupied territory after declaring ``with certainty'' all week that the captive was in the Gaza Strip zone in which Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority has been granted limited autonomy.

``I never considered that we would not act'' after discovering Waxman's whereabouts, Rabin said.

For a time this week, the political marriage celebrated in Oslo Friday with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres seemed to be on the rocks. Rabin issued increasingly explicit threats to break off implementation of Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories if Arafat failed to crack down harshly on Hamas and see to Waxman's safe return.

But Rabin's government shifted tone Friday, saying Arafat appeared to be responding vigorously to Israeli demands. The disclosure that Waxman had been held all along in Israeli-controlled territory, barely a mile from where his captors snatched him while hitchhiking and two miles from his parents' home, further diminished the onus on Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.

Rabin expressed the hope that the kidnapping and killings will not derail negotiations with Arafat's organization on extending Palestinian self-rule.

In a revelation that seems sure to be controversial here, Rabin confirmed widespread speculation that he had been ``positively'' disposed to exchange Waxman for Sheik Yassin. But he said he never received a concrete offer to do so, and therefore could not act.

According to official sources and early accounts by neighbors in Bir Nabalah, the commando raid began at 7:15 p.m. when Israeli special forces disguised in Arab garb began congregating near the Hamas hideout.

Backed by border police and regular army units, the commandos used explosives to blow out the doors and windows and stormed the house. In an outer room, they exchanged fire with one or two of Waxman's captors, then paused to blow out the bolted door to a second room further inside.

Waxman was held in that room, his wrists and ankles bound. Two gunmen were guarding him, according to Barak. When they heard the shooting, he said, one gunman fired through the door, killing an officer in the rescue team, and the other shot Waxman in the chest and throat. Both Israelis died at the scene, along with three of the Hamas guerrillas.

After a long day of shadowy negotiations among many would-be mediators, Taleb Sana, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, the Israeli legislator, announced Friday evening that Hamas had granted a 24-hour extension of its 9 p.m. ``death sentence'' against the young soldier. Sana's announcement came more than a half hour after the commando raid began, and a handwritten Hamas leaflet confirming it did not reach news services until 9 p.m.

Israeli officials said they knew about the offer before the rescue mission began but did not trust it, noting that Hamas has been known to kill captives before even its initial deadline is set to expire.

CAPTION(S):

Associated Press ISRAELI SOLDIER Cpl. Nachshon Waxman is shown with his two brothers, Uriell, right, and Ely, left in this undated photo. Waxman was killed Friday during an attemot to rescue him from Islamic radicals.

KIDNAPPED SOLDIER DIES AS RESCUE RAID FAILS.(MAIN)

Byline: BARTON GELLMAN Washington Post

JERUSALEM Israeli commandos stormed a safe house in the occupied West Bank where militant Islamic captors were holding a kidnapped Israeli soldier Friday night, touching off a fierce gunbattle in which the captive, a would-be rescuer and three of the Palestinian kidnappers were killed.

Nachshon Waxman, a 19-year-old Israeli-American corporal kidnapped last Sunday, died along with an Israeli commando officer and the three Palestinians in what the Israeli army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, described as a ``brief but harsh, intense battle'' in the West Bank town of Bir Nabalah, four miles north of Jerusalem. At least nine other Israeli soldiers were wounded.

A fourth Palestinan captor was taken into custody, the Israeli army said. All four were linked to the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, the radical Palestinian group opposed to the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The raid took place about 90 minutes before a 9 p.m. deadline by which Hamas had threatened to kill Waxman unless Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, an ailing Muslim cleric regarded as the Hamas spiritual leader. Waxman was killed by his captors as the Israeli commandos burst into the concrete house where he was held, Barak said.

A grim and emphatic Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in a late-night news conference at the Defense Ministry, said he had learned only Friday morning that Waxman was in Israeli-occupied territory after declaring ``with certainty'' all week that the captive was in the Gaza Strip zone in which Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority has been granted limited autonomy.

``I never considered that we would not act'' after discovering Waxman's whereabouts, Rabin said.

For a time this week, the political marriage celebrated in Oslo Friday with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Arafat, Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres seemed to be on the rocks. Rabin issued increasingly explicit threats to break off implementation of Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories if Arafat failed to crack down harshly on Hamas and see to Waxman's safe return.

But Rabin's government shifted tone Friday, saying Arafat appeared to be responding vigorously to Israeli demands. The disclosure that Waxman had been held all along in Israeli-controlled territory, barely a mile from where his captors snatched him while hitchhiking and two miles from his parents' home, further diminished the onus on Arafat and his Palestinian Authority.

Rabin expressed the hope that the kidnapping and killings will not derail negotiations with Arafat's organization on extending Palestinian self-rule.

In a revelation that seems sure to be controversial here, Rabin confirmed widespread speculation that he had been ``positively'' disposed to exchange Waxman for Sheik Yassin. But he said he never received a concrete offer to do so, and therefore could not act.

According to official sources and early accounts by neighbors in Bir Nabalah, the commando raid began at 7:15 p.m. when Israeli special forces disguised in Arab garb began congregating near the Hamas hideout.

Backed by border police and regular army units, the commandos used explosives to blow out the doors and windows and stormed the house. In an outer room, they exchanged fire with one or two of Waxman's captors, then paused to blow out the bolted door to a second room further inside.

Waxman was held in that room, his wrists and ankles bound. Two gunmen were guarding him, according to Barak. When they heard the shooting, he said, one gunman fired through the door, killing an officer in the rescue team, and the other shot Waxman in the chest and throat. Both Israelis died at the scene, along with three of the Hamas guerrillas.

After a long day of shadowy negotiations among many would-be mediators, Taleb Sana, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, the Israeli legislator, announced Friday evening that Hamas had granted a 24-hour extension of its 9 p.m. ``death sentence'' against the young soldier. Sana's announcement came more than a half hour after the commando raid began, and a handwritten Hamas leaflet confirming it did not reach news services until 9 p.m.

Israeli officials said they knew about the offer before the rescue mission began but did not trust it, noting that Hamas has been known to kill captives before even its initial deadline is set to expire.

CAPTION(S):

Associated Press ISRAELI SOLDIER Cpl. Nachshon Waxman is shown with his two brothers, Uriell, right, and Ely, left in this undated photo. Waxman was killed Friday during an attemot to rescue him from Islamic radicals.