U.N. Aide Calls Security in Gaza ‘Heavy Handed’

A senior U.N. representative expressed concern to Israeli defense and foreign office officials here Thursday over what he termed the “rather heavy-handed reaction” of security forces to protesting Palestinian refugees.

Giorgio Giacomelli, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, told reporters that he felt “obliged to point out that what is happening is extremely dangerous” and that Israeli forces have sometimes dealt with unrest “in a way that may serve to create more turbulence rather than improve security.”

The unusually sharp U.N. criticism came as another Palestinian died from Israeli army gunfire. The army confirmed that Atwa abu Samahdaneh, shot in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah on Wednesday after he stabbed an Israeli soldier, died of his wounds on Thursday. Three other Palestinians were wounded in the same incident, including an 8-year-old girl. The soldier sustained what were termed “light to moderate” wounds.

Abu Samahdaneh was the 14th confirmed fatality from Israeli gunfire in eight days of what has been termed the worst violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since at least 1981. According to U.N. and hospital sources, some 200 Palestinians have sustained gunshot wounds in that same period.

About a dozen Israeli soldiers have been injured.

The casualty toll has resulted in what some Israeli officials call the most severe international criticism of the Jewish state since the 1982 bombing of Beirut.

Israel radio reported that the Foreign Ministry is setting up a special committee to coordinate the government’s response to criticism connected with the recent disturbances.

Meanwhile, the commander of the southern military district that includes Gaza, Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, ordered the arrest Thursday of a plainclothes police officer who opened fire on protesters Wednesday, wire services reported.

Israeli television broadcast film of the man, identified by Israel army radio as an agent of the Shin Bet security force, continuously firing a Uzi submachine gun at Palestinians gathered on a highway in Gaza. Senior army sources said the agent will stand trial for unauthorized use of his weapon.

The situation appeared to be quieting down in both Gaza and the West Bank on Thursday, although there were scattered clashes and the general mood remained extremely tense. The army clamped a curfew on Rafah to prevent fresh violence in connection with Abu Samahdaneh’s death.

Curfew Reimposed

A curfew was also reimposed on the West Bank’s Balata Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus after a demonstration there by Arab and leftist Israeli women. The protest was in connection with a clash last Friday in which the army shot and killed one Balata boy and two women, one 17 and one in her 50s.

Giacomelli, who toured the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, met Thursday with Shmuel Goren, coordinator of Israeli activities in the occupied territories, and Yossi Beilin, political director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. He told reporters that he expressed special concern to the Israelis over the deaths and injuries to refugee women and children during recent clashes.

There are 367,000 registered refugees among the West Bank’s 800,000 Palestinian residents and 445,000 registered refugees among Gaza’s 650,000 inhabitants.

Giacomelli said 21 Palestinian refugees are known to have been killed in clashes with Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories this year--12 in the Gaza Strip and nine in the West Bank. Two were 17-year-old schoolgirls and seven were youths between the ages of 11 and 19, he said.

Eleven of the 14 acknowledged victims of the most recent spate of violence have been refugees.

“I think (the Palestinians) are behaving as they are . . . because they are losing confidence; they are losing hope,” Giacomelli told a small group of journalists who met him at his Jerusalem hotel Thursday evening.