Israel Orders 3 Arabs Deported, Detains 15

The Israeli army said Thursday that it has ordered the deportation of three West Bank Palestinians and the detention of 15 in what the state radio called “an unprecedented strike” against terrorists.

The action followed a surge in terrorist attacks that have claimed at least 10 Jewish lives here this year and 13 in the last 10 months. The latest victim was shot to death Saturday while shopping in the West Bank town of Tulkarm.

Earlier this month, under popular pressure and in hope of stopping the trend, the government revived the long unused practices of deportation and administrative detention without trial.

An army spokesman said Thursday that the West Bank commander, Maj. Gen. Amnon Shahak, issued the deportation orders “as part of ongoing security activity.” The three Palestinians have already appealed the orders to a military court.

Require Judicial Confirmation

The administrative detention orders, which normally last for six months and may be renewed, must be confirmed by a military judge within 96 hours.

Both measures were common in the first years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War of 1967, but neither had been used since 1981. On Aug. 4, the Cabinet resolved to revive them, and since then six other West Bank Palestinians are known to have been placed under administrative detention.

No one had been forcibly deported since the Cabinet decision. On Aug. 7, Gen. Shahak ordered the deportation of Khalil abu Ziad, a West Bank resident accused of being a Palestine Liberation Organization commander. But on Monday the military canceled the order as part of an agreement under which Abu Ziad accepted voluntary exile for three years.

Those affected by Thursday’s sanctions are mostly in their 20s and relatively unknown even to longtime Palestinian activists in the occupied territories.

University Activists

Security sources described them as part of “the new generation of leaders on the West Bank.” At least five of them are active in the student councils of West Bank universities, and two others are said to have used An Najah University in Nablus as a base for their alleged anti-Israeli activity.

The army identified the three men ordered deported as Amin Ramzi Darwish Makboul of Nablus, Walid Ahmed Mahmoud Nazal of the village of Kabatiya, near Janin, and Bahajat Mustafa Hassa al Baida Jayousi of near Tulkarm. All three have served prison terms for security offenses and two were under military orders restricting their movements.

Makboul, 34, was described by the army as a key figure in the PLO’s Fatah faction in the Nablus region, responsible for coordinating and consolidating sabotage operations. He spent 10 years in prison on an earlier security charge and had been under an order restricting him to Nablus and banning him from the An Najah campus since May.

Nazal, 26, was described as a leader of the pro-Soviet Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Janin district. He was arrested in 1982 and spent a year in prison for visiting the front’s headquarters in Damascus, the army said. He has been restricted to his village since January.

Imprisoned for Bombing

Jayousi, 29, who was also described as a Fatah operative, served five years in prison for placing a bomb on an army bus.