Violence intensifies in West Bank, Gaza; four killed

The Washington Post, Jerusalem

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“JERUSALEM — The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, sealed off to forestall violence on this traditional day of Arab protest, were swept yesterday by unrest as Israeli soldiers fatally shot four Arabs and injured 60 others in some of the worst violence since the Palestinian uprising began 15 weeks ago.

Despite government claims that restricting residents and closing off the area to journalists would inhibit violence, military officials said there were major incidents in at least 23 locations. Witnesses said the army in the West Bank used more aggressive tactics and more firepower against rioters than in the past.

Three soldiers and three Jewish settlers also were reported injured. ‘There is no question that there were more clashes, they were more violent and more spread out,’ said a military spokesman of yesterday’s violence, which brought to at least 116 the number of Palestinians killed since Dec. 9. One Israeli soldier has been killed.

By contrast, hundreds of thousands of Israel’s Arab citizens inside the so-called ‘green line,’ delineating Israeli proper from the West Bank, staged a generally nonviolent general strike, and thousands demonstrated peacefully to mark Land Day, which commemorates the killing of six Arab protesters by Israeli police in 1976.

The army further tightened its grip on news from the territories by closing down the Palestine Press Service, an Arab-owned, Jerusalem-based news agency of activist journalists that served as a major source of quick information and reports to foreign correspondents and Western diplomats in Israel.

The violence began before dawn this morning outside the West Bank village of Deir Abu Mashal near Ramallah, according to the army’s account. A military jeep was disabled by spikes hidden on the main road and ambushed by stone throwers. The soldiers claimed pistol shots were fired at them from nearby trees.

Soldiers claimed they were attacked by an ax and club-wielding mob when they chased demonstrators into the village. They reported one soldier was hurt but because of press restrictions its account could not be verified.”

Context added by this archive

Land Day, 1988. The paper says plainly that it cannot check the army’s account because of press restrictions, and reports in the same column that the army had just closed the Palestinian news agency the correspondents relied on.

Cite this clipping

"Violence intensifies in West Bank, Gaza; four killed," Press & Sun-Bulletin, 31 March 1988, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-011. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-011

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What the censor left behind