Arab Youth Slain as Israel Marks Six-Day War : Another Hurt; Widespread Unrest on 20th Anniversary Fails to Materialize

Israeli soldiers shot and killed an Arab boy and wounded another one Friday in West Bank violence marking the 20th anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War.

Palestinian sources identified the dead youth as Azzam Arandi, 15. They said he was killed when soldiers opened fire to disperse a demonstration in the West Bank town of Nablus. They said another boy, 10, was wounded.

Israeli military officials confirmed the shootings and said they occurred when an army patrol fired into the air to disperse a group of stone-throwing youths. They denied that the soldiers had fired at the demonstrators.

An Arab doctor at the Nablus hospital where the dead boy was taken said the boy apparently was sitting on a balcony when the soldiers opened fire.

Day of Relative Calm

The Nablus violence was the most serious incident during a day that otherwise passed in relative calm. Fears of widespread unrest by Arabs to protest two decades of Israeli rule proved to be largely unfounded.

What could have been a bloody terrorist attack failed when a hand grenade hurled into a bus near Tel Aviv failed to explode.

Officials said that a passenger, a male soldier, was slightly injured by flying glass when the grenade, later found to have been of Israeli army manufacture, was thrown through the bus window. The assailant escaped with the aid of an accomplice in a waiting car.

Military officials said several suspects were detained for questioning.

Bus Stop Bomb Defused

Elsewhere, a bomb was defused at a bus stop in Holon, near Tel Aviv, and a curfew was imposed on the West Bank town of Hebron after a firebomb was thrown at a passing car.

Security had been increased throughout the occupied territories in expectation of serious unrest on the anniversary of the 1967 war, in which Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

No casualties were reported except for the Nablus shootings, however, and the other incidents that occurred were of the type that happen here almost routinely. A security source said that “in general, things are surprisingly quiet.”

Strike Loses Support

A two-day general strike by Arab merchants to protest the Israeli occupation appeared to have lost support in its second day.

On Thursday, the strike shut most businesses in Arab East Jerusalem and in the West Bank town of Ramallah. But while many stores in both places remained closed Friday, others reopened after it became clear that most Arab merchants in other West Bank towns were not observing the strike. Palestinian sources attributed this to resentment among the merchants over being asked to close their doors for two days in a row.

But if protest was generally muted among the 1.4 million Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a strident political debate was taking shape following the announcement Thursday by a prominent Palestinian newspaper editor that he intends to field a slate of Palestinian candidates in the 1988 Jerusalem municipal council elections.

No Arab Has Run Before

The announcement, by Hanna Siniora, editor of Al Fajr, startled Israelis and Palestinians alike because no Arab has ever run for one of the 31 seats of the city council.

Although Palestinians living in Jerusalem have the right to vote in the municipal elections and to hold public office, they have refrained from doing so in line with the general Arab policy of not recognizing Israeli rule over Jerusalem, whose eastern half was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war.

In the last municipal elections, in 1983, there were 68,000 eligible Arab voters, but less than 20% of them voted because of a call by the Palestine Liberation Organization to boycott the elections.

Siniora, who supports the PLO, denied that his call for Palestinian participation in the next elections means acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem.

“This doesn’t mean,” he said, “that for me as a Palestinian I accept or renounce sovereignty over the eastern part of the city. . . . (But) locally we have to do something about trying to show the Israeli political system that the Palestinians can have a political influence on the process.”

Respected West Bank Figure

Siniora, a moderate and one of the most widely respected Palestinian figures in the West Bank, said he believes that an Arab slate could win seven council seats, enabling it to wield power by providing crucial swing votes in council debate.

Siniora said he had discussed his plan with other Palestinians over the past several weeks and that there is substantial support for the idea. But public reaction to the proposal was mixed.

Moderates, including Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, welcomed it, but Israeli rightists joined with some Palestinians in criticizing it, albeit for opposite reasons.

“I am against this completely,” said Radwan abu Ayash, the head of the Arab Journalists Assn. of East Jerusalem. “The main struggle is not to have mayors but to end the occupation. We don’t want to divert the direction of our struggle.”

‘Political Trick’

Geula Cohen, a right-wing member of Parliament, denounced Siniora’s move as a “political trick” and said that because he supports the PLO he should not be entitled to vote, let alone run in municipal elections.

Kollek, however, issued a statement lauding Siniora’s intention to run as “positive because it provides for Arab participation in running the united city and sharing responsibility.” The city has a large Arab population, he said, “and for years we have been interested in having them as partners.”

The mixed reaction to Siniora’s move underscored the different, highly emotional but to some extent ambivalent feelings that many Israelis have toward the 20-year-old occupation.