Israelis shoot stone-throwing students in West Bank towns

Press, 20 November 1980, Page 8

Israelis shoot stone-throwing students in West Bank towns

NZPA-Reuter Bethlehem, West Bank

Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinian student demonstrators in two occupied West Bank towns yesterday and wounded nine of them. Five students were wounded at Ramallah and four at Bethlehem.

Hospital statements described the injuries to all the casualties as light to moderate.

The latest West Bank violence, after several months of quiet, followed the closing of the Palestinian University of Bir Zeit for a week by the occupation authorities.

Military sources said the troops fired at the demonstrators’ legs after they had thrown stones and ignored warning shots in the air and orders to disperse. The sources said that in Bethlehem troops opened fire from outside the campus of the Free University after students had stoned the Israeli military gover-

nor and his deputy, who arrived to ask the principal to end a demonstration. But one student said the soldiers had charged into the campus and opened fire.

“We were sitting there singing and they burst on us like a full-fledged army,” she said. In Ramallah, soldiers opened fire after high school students stoned Israeli cars.

Two American camera crews filming the scene were arrested but released several hours later. One of the cameramen said: “I saw about 50 schoolgirls throwing rocks at cars. Then two soldiers stationed on rooftops opened fire on them and I saw three pupils fall wounded with leg wounds. “After that an Israeli jeep arrived and was pelted with rocks. The soldiers fired in the air.” Bir Zeit University was closed on Friday at the beginning of the students’

“Palestine Week.” The occupation authorities said the week was being used to stir up opposition to Israeli rule.

The Mayor of Bethlehem (Mr Elias Freij), said he was shocked by the shooting. He accused the occupation authorities of trying to suppress Palestinian opposition and predicted that all West Bank universities would be closed.

In the occupied Gaza strip an unidentified gunman yesterday killed an Arab town council leader known as a supporter of the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement. The gunman escaped after shooting Mohammed Abu Wardi, head of the Council of Jabaliya, in what the authorities described as a political murder. In the Knesset (Parliament), the Israeli Government seemed almost certain yesterday to survive another bid to bring it down because of its economic policies.

The Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin), was hurrying home from New York for the debate on an Opposition motion of noconfidence, but the debate was expected to be over before he arrived. The motion was tabled by three Opposition parties over the Government’s failure to curb inflation, now standing at 138 per cent for the last 12 months.

The debate was to have been held on Tuesday. But Government majority on the house procedures committee managed to postpone it for the 24 hours needed to bring home several Knesset members and ministers travelling abroad. Mr Begin cut one day off his private visit to the United States during which he saw President Carter.

The Opposition would have had a slightly better chance of ousting the Government if the debate had been held on Tuesday.