The Times (Trenton, NJ) · 26 October 1998

CP-1998-026

Palestinian teen dead as accord sparks infighting

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Transcribed from the clipping

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — In a major rupture within the ranks of the Palestinian leadership, members of Yasser Arafat’s political faction fought Palestinian security forcesyesterday. A teenager died in the violence.

The fighting followed an attempt by Palestinian military intelligence to seize unlicensed weapons and inspect files belonging to Arafat’s Fatah faction. A crackdown on illegal arms was among tough new security measures Arafat agreed to at last week’s Israeli-Palestinian summit.

The clash alarmed Palestinian leaders, who fear that the pressures of putting the U.S.-brokered agreement into effect will wind up pitting Palestinian against Palestinian. Many of its provisions, such as reining in Islamic militants and halting anti-Israel incitement, are extremely unpopular and will be difficult politically for Arafat’s government to impose.

Former Cabinet minister Hanan Ashrawi, who was present when the outburst began in the West Bank town of Ramallah, called it a result of an accord that put too much emphasis on Israeli security at Palestinian expense. “This is very dangerous,” she said. “If this situation is allowed to continue, we would be facing an internal breakdown.”

The fighting broke out as Marwan Barghouti, the leader of Fatah in the West Bank, was addressing a group of about 100 supporters outside the Palestinian Authority headquarters and the offices of Gov. Mustafa Isa.

SOME OF the Fatah activists picked up stones and hurled them over a fence into the compound and at plainclothes intelligence agents who were watching the gathering from the sidelines, witnesses said. Intelligence agents hurled rocks back at the crowd. Some agents then fired from the second- and third-floor windows, with some of the gunfire directed into the crowd.

About the same time, armed Fatah members arrived on the scene, firing shots into the air. One man was injured and a Fatah activist, 16-year-old Wassim Tarifi, died of a gunshot wound to the head. After he was shot, the gunfire stopped, and leaders from both sides quickly withdrew for a meeting.

How this transcription was made

This scan is a complete newspaper page carrying TWO complete articles side by side, with a photograph between them, and the archive holds a record for each. This record transcribes the right-hand story, “Palestinian teen dead as accord sparks infighting”, in which 16-year-old Wassim Tarifi is shot dead in Ramallah. The left-hand story on the same page, “Jewish settlers protest accord, rip Netanyahu”, to which the photograph belongs, is a separate record, o981026settlers. Both records show the whole page as it was printed rather than a crop of half of it, so the archive’s claim that every record is a photograph of the page its story ran on stays true; the cost is that the same photograph appears twice under two ids. The photo caption is recorded on o981026settlers and left empty here, because the photograph belongs to that story.

Cite this clipping

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