Palestinian groups call on Arabs to strike today

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 8

Palestinian groups call on Arabs to strike today

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem Two underground Palestinian groups, vying for control of an uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, have both called on Arabs to stage a strike today.

The Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, is due to meet the United States President, Ronald Reagan and Egyptian Foreign Minister, Esmet Abdel-Maguid, in New York today, in the highest-level gathering since the 1978 Camp David negotiations. The so-called unified national command, backed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, urged residents in its latest leaflet to strike in protest today against the Ketziot desert prison in which more than 2000 Arabs are held without trial. The prison, located in a desolate area of the Negev desert, was transformed by the Army into a mass detention centre for Palestinians suspected of taking part in the revolt against Israeli rule in the occupied territories. Local and international civil rights groups have

criticised Israel’s treatment of Ketziot inmates, most of whom are detained without trial under security regulations. Troops last month shot dead two prisoners during a riot in the camp. The Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, urged a strike to commemorate Khaybar, a Jewish settlement in Arabia ravaged by an Islamic army during the seventh-century Muslim conquest. Declaration of a strike day, often a time of violent Palestinian protests, came amid major disturbances at the week-end when soldiers wounded at least 30 Arabs. The clashes erupted after the death of an Arab girl who was hit in the head by a plastic bullet fired, by soldiers at demonstrators a week ago. Naheel Nu’man, aged 13, was the 280th Pales-

tinian to die in the uprising. Six Israelis have also died. The Army started using plastic bullets this month as part of a renewed offensive against antiIsrael protests in the territories. The most violent clashes on Sunday occurred in Nablus, the largest Arab city in the West Bank, Palestinians said. Troops fired on a predominantly women’s march, wounding one man with live ammunition and five residents with rubber bullets. Of the New York talks with Mr Reagan and the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres told Israel Television: “This is a meeting for maintenance, maintenance of the peace process.” • Mr Peres said: “All that is happening now, the Intifada (uprising), the arms race, threats in the air,

need ... a political answer, not a military answer.” Soldiers on Sunday dispersed about 10 Jewish families who tried to establish an illegal West Bank settlement at Keren Tai, near Jericho. An army spokesman said the families did not resist army orders to vacate the area. In response to their eviction, however, some of the would-be settlers erected huts outside the Jerusalem residence of the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, where they planned to spend Succot, the Jewish feast of the Tabernacles. The Army shot and wounded two residents of the West Bank village of Bala’a, near Tulkarem, during searches on Sunday for suspected troublemakers, security sources said.