Arab Rage Sparks Riots Across Mideast; 3 Killed : Israel: Soldiers ring Hebron as residents mourn mosque victims. Occupied territories are sealed off.
JERUSALEM — Violent demonstrations over the massacre of 48 Palestinians at a mosque in the occupied West Bank spread deep into Israel on Saturday as Israeli Arabs protested the atrocity.
Three more Palestinians were killed in continuing clashes with Israeli forces in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and military commanders early today ordered the indefinite closure of the occupied territories, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel.
Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, the Israeli chief of staff, said he was deploying more forces throughout the territories in an effort to restore calm, but he emphasized that the soldiers had orders to act with maximum restraint.
“We are confident we can contain further violence, whether the source be attacks by (Israeli) settlers on Palestinians or by Palestinians seeking revenge for the massacre in Hebron,†Barak told diplomats in Tel Aviv.
“But our goal is not only to contain, but to quiet the situation, which is now very, very tense, so that the peace process will not be disrupted by this crime.â€
President Ezer Weizman, describing the attack by a Jewish settler on the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron as “perhaps the gravest thing that happened to us in the history of Zionism,†said he will travel to the West Bank city today to offer his condolences and to apologize on behalf of the Israeli people. “We have to work to heal the wounds.â€
Hebron was saturated Saturday with Israeli troops and paramilitary police, and more soldiers ringed the city, about 20 miles south of Jerusalem, as residents continued to mourn the dead.
Widespread clashes continued, however, between Israeli troops and Palestinians elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The protest also spread to other Arab nations.
In Lebanon, Palestinians in refugee camps burned tires and draped their homes with black cloth in mourning.
In Syria, hundreds of refugees marched through a refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus waving black banners.
More than 2,500 youths marched through the Baqaa refugee camp in Jordan, chanting slogans against Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and the peace process.
In Gaza, more than 35 firebombs were thrown at army patrols in the course of the day, a military spokesman said.
A Palestinian youth was killed in one Gaza clash, and another was killed near Tulkarem in the West Bank.
Police battled stone-throwing youths for most of the day around Jerusalem’s Old City and in other Arab neighborhoods.
Paramilitary border police shot and killed one youth when, they said, he appeared to be preparing to hurl a grenade rather than a rock at them.
The decision to impose a strict closure in the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip reflected the government’s anxiety over possible revenge attacks in Israel’s cities by Palestinians in the wake of the Hebron massacre.
Violence had erupted Saturday in Jaffa, Nazareth, Ramle and other Israeli towns with large Arab populations.
Hundreds of Arab youths rampaged through Jaffa, adjacent to Tel Aviv’s commercial center, looting and burning Jewish shops, torching cars and stoning police and passersby. Police reported arresting 40 of the demonstrators.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Milo called the Jaffa riot “an extraordinary occurrence, an eruption sparked by what happened in Hebron,†and he called for a return to the “good relations between Arab and Jew†in the city.
More than 3,000 Israeli Arabs demonstrated in Nazareth, using burning tires to block the main road and stoning Jewish cars after a rally where they demanded that the government disarm Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Police used tear gas and clubs and fired over the heads of the crowd to break up the protest in Nazareth. More than 45 people were arrested.
Roads were blocked through much of the Galilee region, according to police. Most Arab villages in the area held rallies to protest the massacre and flew both Palestinian flags and black banners of mourning.
Police reported clashing with demonstrators in several other areas.
The protests, bringing some of the everyday violence of the occupied territories into central Israel, were a dramatic reminder to the Jews that nearly a million of the country’s population, more than 18%, are Arab and Muslim and share the anger over the attack by a Jewish settler on worshipers at the mosque in Hebron.
“We try for good relations with the Jews, but we are also part of the Arab and Palestinian people,†said Abdel-Wahab Darawshe, an Arab member of Israel’s Parliament.
While describing the protests as “a storm that will calm,†he said they also reflected “a history of being neglected†by Israel’s Jewish majority.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met Saturday evening with Israeli Arab leaders to plead for their support in maintaining calm and in preserving the momentum in the peace negotiations with the PLO.
“There is no doubt that at this stage we must save the negotiations,†Foreign Minister Shimon Peres commented as the violence spread. “Certainly, the (Hebron) incident places an enormous burden on us.â€
Fears of a serious setback to the talks increased after state-run Israel Television, quoting a preliminary army investigation into the attack at the Cave of the Patriarchs on Friday, reported that two soldiers on duty there had rushed in as worshipers were overpowering the gunman, Baruch Goldstein, and opened fire on the Palestinians, adding to the carnage.
After visiting the Ibrahim Mosque at the shrine, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims, Barak, the Israeli chief of staff, told reporters: “According to what is known to me right now, Dr. Goldstein was the only one who was shooting.â€
The soldiers had fired warning shots in the air outside the mosque amid the confusion, Barak insisted, but had not fired at the Palestinians.
Results of the army investigation are expected early this week, according to military sources, and the government will decide today whether to order an independent judicial inquiry.
Immigration Minister Yair Tsaban, a member of the leftist Meretz Party, called upon the Cabinet to give “very serious treatment of all the events surrounding the massacre†in an effort to rekindle trust between Israel and the PLO.
Pressure is building within the ruling Labor Party and among its political allies on the left for tough action against extremist groups among the 130,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Speaking at a rally in Jerusalem on Saturday, Peace Now leader Tsali Reshef called for removal of Jewish settlers from Arab population centers, for the immediate implementation of the autonomy agreement with the PLO and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
“For our brothers the Palestinians, there are no words in our mouths to express the shock, pain and sorrow for the events in Hebron,†Reshef said, urging the government to follow up its words with concrete steps.
Times researcher Emily L. Hauser in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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