Palestinian Firebomber Shot Dead As Israel Says Attacks Continue

Send this clipping to somebody

Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM, June 15 — Israeli soldiers came under attack by Arabs with firebombs in three incidents today. In one of the attacks, near Bethlehem, troops shot and killed a 21-year-old Palestinian, the army said. A second Palestinian, also armed with a firebomb, was wounded.

The shooting occurred after Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, reacting to a surge in firebombings in the occupied territories and inside Israel, told the Cabinet on Sunday that soldiers and civilians were free to shoot Palestinians seen holding the devices — which typically consist of a container filled with a highly flammable liquid such as gasoline.

The wick is lighted and the container thrown. An army spokesman said that the Palestinian killed, Nidal Ibrahim Hassan, was shot to death in the village of Battir near Bethlehem, after troops “clearly identified that two Arabs were going to throw firebombs at them.” A curfew was imposed in the village.

His death brought to at least 183 the number of Palestinians who have died since the uprising in the occupied territories began in December. Other Attacks Reported In the city of Gaza and near Hebron on the West Bank today, firebombs were thrown at army patrols but caused no damage.

In Jerusalem, a firebomb exploded harmlessly in a Jewish neighborhood, and the police arrested several Arabs in the area. On Tuesday night, two army officers patrolling on the West Bank were hospitalized after a firebomb thrown at their jeep ignited. The army said they were severely burned. The village of Beit Omar, where the attack happened, was also placed under curfew.

It was the second attack in a week in which army officers were burned by a firebomb; no one has died. The same night, leaders of a group of Jewish settlements on the West Bank reported as many as a dozen such attacks. Many Israelis say they believe that the recent surge in firebombings is a new phase of the uprising.

They also blame Palestinian arsonists for a recent wave of fires that have destroyed 400,000 acres of forest and pasture land. Israelis say these two tactics are meant as an alternative to Arab street demonstrations, which are waning. In the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem; Palestinians observed a general strike today.

The army also closed all the schools in the occupied territories for two days after “students took part in strikes and demonstrations in recent days,” a spokesman said. More than 400,000 pupils are affected. A Videotape on Brutality The army today unveiled a new videotape that warns soldiers not to use brutality toward Palestinian protesters or foreign journalists.

Called “The Camera Sees Everything,” the tape included clips from American television newscasts showing troops beating young Palestinian men and children, vandalizing Arab property and using captured Palestinians as shields to ward off stone-throwing demonstrators.

“The viewer is not used to such things and such pictures,” the narrator of the videotape explains, “and is shocked by them and feels sympathy for the victim.” The narrator warns: “Don’t give the camera the opportunity to catch you in an extreme act. Brutality is illegal, and the military censor cannot delete such scenes.”

How this transcription was made

Single scan, one two-column clipping with the masthead folio intact at the top. Read at 5x–6x magnification throughout. The excerpt is the complete story, dateline to final quotation; the two crossheads (Other Attacks Reported, A Videotape on Brutality) are reproduced on their own lines. Nothing on this clipping required summarizing for graphic content: the killing is reported in one clause and the paper gives no physical detail of the body. — The masthead folio survives at the top of the clipping and reads, in full caps italic: THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1988. 16 June 1988 was a Thursday, so the day name and the date agree. The dispatch is datelined JERUSALEM, June 15 — a next-day run, as expected. Maria's label matches the page exactly. — The sentence “In the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem; Palestinians observed a general strike today” is printed with a semicolon where a comma belongs. I read it at 5x and the mark is a semicolon on the page, not a comma with a scan speck — it has a clear dot above the tail. Kept as printed.

Cite this clipping

"Palestinian Firebomber Shot Dead As Israel Says Attacks Continue," The New York Times, 16 June 1988. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1988-127. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1988-127