Demonstrators fired on in clash after ambush

Press, 28 November 1980, Page 7

Demonstrators fired on in clash after ambush

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinian student demonstrators on the occupied West Bank yesterday and wounded two of them, an Israeli Army spokesman has said. Military sources said soldiers used tear-gas. rubber bullets, and shots fired in the air to disperse students who stoned Israeli Army vehicles in Nablus. Later they fired at the students’ legs, the sources added. The Israeli High Command has been acutely sensitive recently about troops firing on unarmed Arab teenagers. Last week the shooting and wounding of 10 West Bank students brought international protests after which troops were seen to use rubber bullets.

The demonstrations were directed against soldiers hunting for guerrillas who ambushed an Israeli bus carrying children of Jewish settlers on Tuesday night (local time). The attackers opened fire on the bus with automatic weapons just outside Nablus, slightly wounding the driver. Some of the children were cut by flying glass. Occupation forces imposed a curfew on four villages in the area. The children were from the Elon Moreh settlement whose establishment last year led to bitter Palestinian protests and a successful court case to have the outpost moved from its original site. The ambush was the biggest guerrilla attack on the West Bank since the killing of six Jewish settlers in Hebron last May. I

Israeli authorities have arrested some Palestinians alleged to have carried out the Hebron attack. They have not so far announced any ; success in the hunt for car bombers who crippled two iWest Bank mayors in June.

The latest clash in Nablus indicated that the Israeli military administration was sticking to its policy of firing when necessary to quell West Bank disturbances, regardless of foreign opinion.

[ Israeli moderates have been ; uneasy about the way in which youthful demonstrations have been pul down. There have been frequent comparisons between the treatment meted out to stone-throwing Arab youngsters and the impunity with which ultra-religious Jews attack cars they deem to be violating holy law on the Jewish sabbath.