Israel Seals Off Gaza, West Bank : Mideast: Palestinian Authority warns closures may turn people against peace plan. Rabin’s Cabinet OKs new moves against Hamas. Video shows alleged suicide bomber.

JERUSALEM — Responding to Wednesday’s deadly bombing of a Tel Aviv bus, the Israeli Cabinet on Thursday ordered the West Bank and Gaza Strip sealed indefinitely, a move the Palestinian self-governing authority immediately denounced as an act of “economic and social war.”

The nation was plunged into mourning as families buried 14 of the 20 Israelis killed in the bombing. A Dutch tourist and the bomber also died. Drivers for the Dan Bus Co., whose No. 5 bus was incinerated in the attack, kept their headlights on all day as they traveled their routes, a gesture of solidarity with the victims.

And by Thursday afternoon, a videotape began airing on Israel Television of the man who is believed to have carried out the attack.

In the videotape, Salah Abdel-Rahim Hassan Souwi Nazal, 27, who carried a briefcase packed with explosives aboard the No. 5 and is thought to have blown himself to bits in the bombing, bade farewell to his friends and family. Nazal cradled an Israeli-made Galil rifle as he somberly addressed the camera.

The neatly dressed man said he wanted to avenge the deaths of three Hamas militants killed by Israeli soldiers Oct. 14 in the army’s failed attempt to rescue an Israeli soldier kidnaped by the extremist group. The kidnaped soldier, Nachshon Waxman, and another Israeli soldier were killed in a raid on the West Bank house where Waxman was held.

Nazal also said that his brother had been killed by Israeli soldiers during the Palestinian uprising, or intifada , that erupted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in December, 1987. The army put Qalqiliya, Nazal’s West Bank hometown, under curfew and said it would demolish the home of Nazal’s family, even though a survivor of the bombing who said she sat behind the attacker told Israeli Radio she did not believe the man in the videotape was the one on the bus.

Israeli police said Thursday that 22 bombing victims had been identified, but that the condition of the bodies made it difficult to determine if that is the final death toll.

The curfew and the planned demolition appeared to be the government’s first show of force in what Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has promised will be a war against Hamas.

The Cabinet, called into emergency session by Rabin on Thursday morning, agreed with the prime minister that security forces could use unspecified “additional means . . . to strengthen their activity against the Hamas and its military wing.”

Addressing the nation Wednesday night, Rabin said he did not want the security forces hampered by the guidelines of the Landau Commission when dealing with Hamas. The commission devised guidelines several years ago for security forces to use “limited physical pressure” in the course of interrogations, in situations where lives could be saved by obtaining information from a suspect.

Speaking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting, several ministers, including Justice Minister David Libai, said they had persuaded Rabin not to put forward a proposal to let security forces use harsher methods during interrogation of Hamas militants whenever they are apprehended. But it appears likely that security forces will start rounding up Hamas activists in the West Bank and subjecting them to “administrative detention”--arrest and imprisonment without charges being filed.

Several Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups Thursday called on the government to refrain from practicing collective punishment that will affect wide segments of Palestinian society.

“We call upon the Israeli government to refrain from implementing any measures which bring harm to innocent persons, such as house demolition and sealing, curfew, unacceptable treatment of the families of wanted persons,” the B’tzelem and five other human rights groups said in a statement faxed to news organizations.

But already, the entire population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is forbidden to enter Israel to work or visit, unless granted special permission. The new restrictions cut off the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Palestinians and limit the movements of nearly 2 million.

“I see in these resolutions adopted by the Israeli Cabinet today a declaration of war, an economic and social war against the Palestinian society that will negatively affect the whole process,” said Marwan Kanafani, spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. “I do not know how we are going to go ahead with implementation of the peace process with such an attitude,” Kanafani told the Associated Press.

“There is no doubt that the continuation of the closure of the Gaza Strip and West Bank will have grave consequences on the Palestinian people from a security, social and economic point of view,” said Palestinian Authority Labor Minister Samir Ghoshe. Ghoshe said more Palestinians will be driven into opposition to the peace process if the closure is lengthy.

But Israeli Cabinet ministers were in no mood to sympathize with the Palestinians on Thursday.

“This is not just a closure,” said Tourism Minister Uzi Baram, referring to the new restrictions. “It is a closure and also the return of people who are illegally (inside Israel) and also a series of operative activities.”

Ministers spoke of a “strategic separation” between Israel and the territories where Palestinians live. They said that the government soon will increase the number of foreign workers allowed into the country. There already are about 25,000 foreign workers--most of them from Asia and Eastern Europe--legally working in Israel, and 15,000 more will be authorized.

At the same time, Israel did not suspend its talks with the PLO on expanding its authority throughout the West Bank. Rabin withdrew his chief negotiator, Danny Rothschild, from the talks in Cairo after Waxman was kidnaped. Rothschild on Wednesday completed another round of talks that made little progress toward agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Government spokesman Uri Dromi said Wednesday that Rabin and his Cabinet are more inclined now to speed up those talks and to speed up the transfer of authority to the Palestinians in the West Bank than they were before the bombing.

“In the long run, what is important is not so much the decisions the government took today, but the shock of this tragedy,” Dromi said. “People are suddenly realizing that this sort of attack can happen in the heart of Tel Aviv. More Israelis are open to the conclusion that their security can be better assured if they are not wrapped in a bearhug with the Palestinians.”

But about 120,000 Jewish settlers live on the West Bank either in the midst of or near Palestinian communities. The army has yet to figure out how to provide security for those settlers after it redeploys out of Palestinian population centers.

And it must find a way to confront Hamas--which has pledged to destroy the Israeli-Palestinian peace process--without alienating both the Palestinian Authority and the vast majority of Palestinians living in the territories who feel they are being punished for the acts of an extremist minority.

“I hope that this (closure of the territories) will not last a long time, because there is a clear distinction between the PLO and Hamas,” said Culture Minister Shulamit Aloni, a member of the left-leaning Meretz parliamentary bloc. “We are conducting a strategy (for) peace. We will continue with it and therefore, it will be necessary to keep building it.”