Stone-throwing skirmishes in West Bank after slain Palestinian’s funeral

Samar Assad

Sunday, May 21, 2000 | 12:14 p.m.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The funeral for a Palestinian man slain in clashes last week in the West Bank boiled over into violence Sunday - but this time Palestinian demonstrators battled Palestinian police, who picked up stones thrown at them and hurled them back.

Also Sunday, Israel ordered its citizens and foreign tourists to stay out of Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hours after an Israeli toddler was critically burned by a firebomb tossed at the car in which she was riding in the West Bank town of Jericho.

Palestinian police imposed a heavy security presence on the West Bank town of Ramallah during the funeral for Issa Abed, 28, one of four people to die during last week's riots. The unrest throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past seven days - which began when Palestinians took to the streets to demand the release of 1,650 prisoners held by Israel for anti-Israeli attacks - also left hundreds of other Palestinians injured.

After Abed's body was buried, about 70 protesters from among the mourners tried to push their way close to a hilltop Israeli army base, but Palestinian police formed human chains to block them.

The demonstrators broke through several lines of defense and threw rocks at the Palestinian police. Although armed with clubs and guns, the police picked up stones and hurled them back at the demonstrators rather than using their other weapons.

The Israeli army said its unusual order forbidding travel to so-called Area A - territory under full Palestinian security control, including most major cities in the West Bank - was a result of the surge of violence and a spate of firebombing attacks against Israeli vehicles.

In the Gaza Strip, Israel radio reported stone-throwers targeted Israeli cars Sunday as they drove toward the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, the scene of heavy fighting last week. Cars were damaged, but no injuries were reported.

The firebombing of an Israeli car early Sunday in Jericho, which also injured the mother and aunt of the critically burned 2-year-old girl, was one of about eight such attacks overnight on Israeli vehicles in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the army said. No other injuries were reported.

On Saturday, as riots raged throughout the West Bank and Gaza, more than 40 firebombs were thrown at Israeli vehicles, the army said.

The burned girl was in intensive care on life support, said a spokeswoman at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital. The girl's brother, also in the car, was not hurt.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday night canceled his planned visit to the United States as a result of last week's violence in the Palestinian areas, plus heavy fighting in south Lebanon between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas. Israeli troops are to withdraw from south Lebanon by a self-imposed deadline of July 7.

Israel's security cabinet decided on Saturday night that the peace negotiations in Stockholm between Israel and the Palestinians should not be affected by the surge of violence. U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who met Friday with Barak and late Saturday with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, urged the two sides to press ahead with peace efforts.

"In the months ahead we have a historic opportunity that we must not allow to slip away," he said Sunday in a speech at Tel Aviv University.

The latest unrest came as Israel and the Palestinians are working on a final peace treaty to settle long-standing issues like the nature of a Palestinian state, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians want to set up a state with traditionally Arab east Jerusalem as the capital. They insist that refugees who fled Israel when it was created in 1948 have the right to return.

The sides have set a September deadline for a final treaty, but negotiations have progressed slowly.

The rioting, the worst in years in the Palestinian lands, began May 14 when Palestinians protested Israel's holding prisoners for anti-Israeli attacks.

Israel's Justice Minister, Yossi Beilin, generally dovish in his stance toward the Palestinians, told army radio that violence would not advance the prisoners' cause.

"If anyone really wants to get prisoners released, the last thing he should do to encourage it is to continue with this process, because not one of us will countenance release of prisoners on the background of columns of smoke in the territories," Beilin said.

archive