The World : Likud May Call Early Vote

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s right-wing Likud Bloc threatened to hold early national elections in Israel in an escalating political struggle with the Labor Alignment, its coalition partner and chief rival. The jockeying over dates followed a shift in popularity to Likud prompted by voters’ fears of increased violence in the five-month-old Palestinian uprising. The elections are scheduled for Nov. 1, but Likud proposed holding them in August. “It is worth holding early elections because many things have not been decided,” Shamir told reporters in the northern town of Yoqneam. In another development, a Palestinian was shot dead in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops were reportedly searching the home of Saadi Sharhy, 52, at the time; the army said he attacked a soldier.