Israel condemns U.N. vote on deportations

On the same page: “Israeli soldier wounds Palestine attacker in West Bank, army says”

Associated Press, Jerusalem

Israel condemns U.N. vote on deportations — The Birmingham News, 6 January 1988 — The Birmingham News · Birmingham, Alabama · 6 January 1988

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“JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli soldier shot and wounded a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Tulkarem today after the man attacked an army vehicle and stabbed a female soldier, the army said. The Palestinian suffered moderate wounds, and the female soldier was slightly injured, said an army official. Israel radio said the female soldier was stabbed in the hand.

Scattered demonstrations were reported throughout the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, a day after Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 25-year-old Palestinian and wounded seven others in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis.

The Arab-run Palestine Press Service said a 20-year-old resident of the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem was shot in the head today by a soldier after the army dispersed stone-throwing demonstrators in the camp. It was not immediately clear whether the report referred to the same incident reported by the army… At least 24 Palestinians have been killed since Dec.

8, when the worst disturbances in Israel’s 20-year occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank broke out. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin vowed Tuesday that Israel would toughen measures to end the unrest in the territories, which Israel captured from Egypt and Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.

The army detained more than 1,000 Palestinians accused of organizing protests, ordered nine of them deported, set up military courts to try the detainees and poured thousands of troops into the territories. In New York, The U.N. Security Council voted Tuesday evening to approve a resolution calling on Israel to refrain from deporting Palestinians.

Israel said it would ignore the vote, which was approved by the United States. Israel’s crackdown did not cool tempers in Khan Yunis, a small town of dilapidated houses, bad roads and open sewers. Arab merchants on Tuesday kept their stores shut.

Bands of young boys, most between the ages of five and 14, patrolled intersections and stopped cars to check the identity of passengers… Tuesday’s trouble began around noon when a group of women began a protest march from the home of Hassan Abu Shakra, one of nine Palestinians ordered expelled, the army spokesman said.

Hundreds of Khan Yunis residents joined the women, while mosques played music over loudspeakers to encourage marchers, the spokesman said. The crowd threw stones at a group of soldiers, striking one soldier in the face. An officer hurled tear gas grenades and fired shots in the air to disperse the crowd.

When those methods failed, the spokesman said, the officer shot live ammunition at the legs of demonstrators, wounding three. At the refugee camp, soldiers tried to stop stone-throwing protesters with tear gas, a water cannon and warning shots. When that failed, an officer used live ammunition. One Arab was killed and four others were wounded.

The spokesman stressed that the soldiers fired after other measures failed to disperse the demonstrators. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, in charge of troops in Gaza, visited the scene and concluded in an initial investigation that the soldiers acted properly in both cases, he said.

Israel condemns U.N. vote on deportations. UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israel condemned the Security Council for challenging its plan to deport Palestinian activists and said it would ignore the resolution, even though it was approved by its chief ally, the United States.

‘Frankly, we were disappointed with the American vote,’ Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu said after the resolution was adopted Tuesday evening. ‘We think this was a day of hypocrisy in the United Nations.’ Netanyahu said the resolution will encourage ‘the forces behind the violence’ in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He accused the council of playing a ‘rigged game,’ adding: ‘We’ve never had a Security Council convene to condemn the murder of a Jew. Not once.’ But he also praised the United States for seeing that the resolution requested rather than demanded that Israel refrain from deporting Arabs.

The United States, one of Israel’s closest allies and its staunchest defender at the United Nations, joined the other 14 council members in endorsing the resolution against the deportations in the occupied lands.

The U.S. mission said it was the first U.S. vote against Israel in the council in six years… ‘The United States believes that such harsh measures are unnecessary to maintain order,’ U.S. Ambassador Herbert Okun said of the deportation order.

‘They serve to aggravate tension rather than create an atmosphere conducive to reconciliation,’ he added.”

Context added by this archive

A protest begun by women marching from the house of a man ordered expelled, and the army’s account of why live ammunition was fired at demonstrators’ legs. Beside it, the first American vote against Israel in the Security Council in six years.

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"Israel condemns U.N. vote on deportations," The Birmingham News, 6 January 1988, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-004. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-004