Blast Hurts 12 Israeli Border Police : 5 Arabs Injured; Pattern Seen in Attacks by Palestinians

Twelve Israeli border policemen and five Arab passers-by were wounded by an explosion outside Jerusalem’s walled Old City on Sunday in what appears to have been part of an accelerating trend of Palestinian attacks on Israeli security forces here.

“At this time it’s not clear to us yet if we’re talking about a hand grenade explosion or a bomb blast,” Police Chief David Kraus told reporters soon after the incident. The device was apparently thrown from a passing car.

Jerusalem police commander Yosef Yehudai added that the attack was clearly directed at the border police unit, occurring just at the time many were on hand for the changing of the guard around the main Damascus Gate into the Old City’s Muslim Quarter.

9 Policemen Hospitalized

Most of the wounded were hit by shrapnel, and none was reported to be critically hurt. Nine border policemen remained hospitalized Sunday night.

Security forces sealed off the area immediately after the explosion, and about 70 Arabs who were in the vicinity were detained for questioning. The attack took place Sunday afternoon, a normal work day both for Jews and Arabs.

Mayor Teddy Kollek said he believes the incident was related to a wave of violence on the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River during the past two weeks.

“You cannot have tension in the West Bank without a spillover into Jerusalem,” he said.

One Palestinian has been killed and at least two dozen wounded by Israeli army gunfire since Feb. 10 in almost daily confrontations between security forces and rock-throwing Arab demonstrators. Four Palestinian youths were shot to death during a similar wave of unrest last December.

‘Iron Fist’ Crackdown

Arab sources here say the demonstrations are a protest against attacks by Shia Muslim militiamen on Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon and also against what they describe as Israel’s “iron fist” crackdown on political dissent in the occupied territories. The authorities on Sunday ordered the West Bank’s Hebron University closed for three weeks because of continuing unrest there.

Israeli security officials charge that the trouble is being stirred up by outside agitators eager to show support here for the outlawed Palestine Liberation Organization.

Israel captured the West Bank and predominantly Arab East Jerusalem from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan during the 1967 Middle East War. Currently, about 850,000 Palestinians and 60,000 Jewish settlers live on the West Bank, while about 125,000 Arabs live amid 325,000 Jews in united Jerusalem.

While Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets have been a familiar occurrence here for years, Sunday’s incident is another in a growing list aimed at well-armed soldiers and policemen.

Pure terrorist incidents against innocent civilians continue here, but these riskier attacks on military targets are seen as part of an important shift in tactics by Palestinians intent on armed resistance to Israeli rule.

Israel radio quoted an unnamed senior border police officer as saying Sunday, “This attack will be remembered as a turning point because of the boldness of the attackers.”

Earlier this month, three Palestinians from a village near Jerusalem were sentenced to life imprisonment for a grenade attack last Oct. 15 on a group of army recruits who had just left a swearing-in ceremony in the Old City. One person was killed and 69 were injured in that incident.

Last Wednesday, an Arab taxi driver was shot to death by soldiers near Nablus after he had run down and seriously injured two troops patrolling by the side of the road.

Two-Year Trend

Increased targeting of Israeli security personnel appears to have been under way for more than two years. During an 18-month period starting in the late summer of 1984, 10 soldiers were killed and a score more wounded by Arabs in a series of incidents that caused the army to order extraordinary precautions, particularly for soldiers on duty in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinian attacks on the military here are an extremely sensitive subject. For one thing, they suggest a growing desperation, particularly among Palestinian young people, as Israeli rule in the territories nears its 20th anniversary.

Both sides are also acutely sensitive to the distinction between guerrilla warfare and terrorism because of its potential importance in the way the outside world views the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Palestinian groups frequently claim that civilian victims of terrorist attacks were really Israeli soldiers or intelligence operatives. Israeli officials try to blur the distinction between military and civilian victims in an effort to discredit their Arab enemies.

They routinely describe as “terrorists,” for example, even those Lebanese guerrillas battling Israeli troops on south Lebanon soil.