The Baltimore Sun · Baltimore, Maryland · 31 December 1994
CP-1994-007
Protest draws blood at Israeli settlement
Up to 18 injured; 25 are detained
From wire reports, Al-Khader, West Bank
Transcribed from the clipping
“AL-KHADER, West Bank — A protest against the expansion of a Jewish settlement turned violent yesterday. Up to 11 Palestinians, an Israeli peace activist and six Israeli soldiers were injured during exchanges of tear gas and rocks, according to the army and Palestinian medical workers.
The clash occurred on the ninth day of protests over plans by the Jewish settlement of Efrat to expand onto land claimed by the Palestinian village of Al-Khader. Police detained about 25 protesters, most of them Israeli peace activists opposed to the construction of a new Jewish neighborhood on the land, 10 miles south of Jerusalem near Bethlehem.
The construction threatens to disrupt negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization as they struggle to hammer out an agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat called the settlement a ‘flagrant violation’ of the 1993 peace accord.
He said Palestinians would not accept the new building in an area slated to come under their rule. ‘They don’t know that the Palestinian people [are] not affected by injuries and by clashes,’ he told a crowd at a Gaza rally for the 30th anniversary of his Fatah organization.
Several hundred Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists had gathered peacefully about 200 yards from the designated site of the new neighborhood after the army banned them from demonstrating at the site itself. Witnesses said demonstrators charged scores of Israeli troops guarding the site. Demonstrators also threw stones at border police troops, knocking one unconscious.
Troops pushed back the protesters, in some cases clubbing them. The youths continued to throw stones and the soldiers responded with tear gas. A curfew was imposed on Al-Khader. Ahmed Tibi, an Arafat adviser, said troops provoked the clash. ‘I am sorry to say maybe there were instructions to do so.
Soldiers invaded 200 meters inside the demonstration and started to hit people, and this is the reason why the situation exploded,’ he said. Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected a petition by activists to reverse the army order outlawing demonstrations at the site. Palestinians claim the rocky, 150-acre plot was confiscated from them illegally.
Settlers claim they purchased it privately after a previous Israeli government earmarked the land for their use…
Knesset passes law to tighten grip on Jerusalem.
Limits Palestinian political activity. JERUSALEM — Israeli officials are starting the new year armed with a new law, one that they say will put an end to Palestinian political activity in the Holy City… The legislation, which takes effect Monday, restricts activities of the self-governing Palestinian Authority to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho — areas that Israel handed over to the Palestinians in May.
It bars the Palestine Liberation Organization from carrying out any activity in Jerusalem without Israeli government permission… ‘Passing a law like this puts pressure on the Palestinian Authority and reduces the credibility of the peace process and the Palestinian leadership,’ said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian negotiator who often criticizes implementation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord… In a statement issued after the legislation was enacted, Mr.
Husseini said the law restricting Palestinian political activity ‘represents a serious violation of the Palestinian-Israeli accords and international resolutions.’ ‘Orient House confirms that its political activities will continue unabated as they always have been since 1992.
The new Israeli law will not hinder nor stop any of these activities,’ he said.”
Context added by this archive
Most of the twenty-five people detained at a protest against a settlement were Israeli peace activists. The caption names the Israeli casualty and not the eleven Palestinian ones.
Cite this clipping
"Protest draws blood at Israeli settlement," The Baltimore Sun, 31 December 1994, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1994-007. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1994-007
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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