Effingham Daily News · 30 March 1976

CP-1976-002

Arabs Killed In Rioting In Israel

United Press International, Deir Hana, Israel

Transcribed from the clipping

“DEIR HANA, Israel (UPI) — Security forces opened fire on a crowd of rioting Arabs today, killing three demonstrators in the early hours of the first general strike by the nation’s minority Arabs. The renewed violence raised the death toll in northern Galilee to four in what may be the worst outbreak of Arab rioting in Israel since the birth of the Jewish nation. A government spokesman said troops and police shot and killed three Arab youths in the village of Sakhnin hours after killing another young Arab in nearby Deir Hana. The spokesman said the security forces fired warning shots first in an attempt to break up a crowd of Arabs hurling stones, bottles and firebombs. He said the troops fired into the crowd when the Arabs ignored the warning. Nine policemen and soldiers were wounded in the confrontation. Seventy Arabs were arrested… Tens of thousands of Arabs went on strike in Israel, bringing economic life to a halt in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Nazareth, Galilee’s major town. Authorities reported sporadic disturbances all across Galilee this morning in the strike called to protest the seizure of thousands of acres of Arab land. The predominantly Arab Israeli Communist party accused troops of beating up children without provocation during the morning in Nazareth, but the Israeli government reported the city quiet. Arab sources said police arrested dozens of youngsters in towns and villages around Nazareth. They reported a ‘total strike’ on the West Bank with the region’s major towns—Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jenin—brought to a standstill. One Arab was killed and at least 16 were injured Monday night. Authorities imposed a round-the-clock curfew on three Galilee towns and sealed them off from the rest of Israel… The overall impact of the walkout among the 400,000 Arabs living in Israel was not known. But a sympathy strike by Arabs on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River and in East Jerusalem appeared more successful. Arab sources there reported virtually all stores and schools closed in Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron and Ramallah, the major West Bank cities, as well as in the Old City of Jerusalem.”

Context added by this archive

Land Day, the day it happened, in an Illinois daily. Four hundred thousand Arabs living in Israel, a general strike against the seizure of their land, and four of them shot. The government account and the Arab account are printed in consecutive paragraphs. The headline calls it rioting.

Cite this item

"Arabs Killed In Rioting In Israel," Effingham Daily News, 30 March 1976. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1976-002. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1976-002

Elsewhere in the archive

• Israel Fights ‘Worst Arab Riot’Pittsburgh Press · 30 March 1976 · the same dispatch, carried by another paper
• Arabs rioting in GalileePort Arthur Daily News · 30 March 1976 · the same dispatch, carried by another paper
• Galilee Calm; Arabs Set BurialsThe Evening Sun · 31 March 1976 · the same year
• Security forces kill 5 Arabs in GalileeMessenger Inquirer · 31 March 1976 · the same year
• Galilee quiet as Arabs prepare to bury strike riot deadMobile Press · 31 March 1976 · the same year