Sometimes, Boyish Enthusiasm for the Other Side : Curses, as Well as Stones, Fly in Occupied Areas

The heavily armed Israeli trooper stepped deftly to his left, avoiding a large stone and then a green soda bottle heaved by a masked Arab youth whose awkward throwing motion suggested a sports background more attuned to soccer than to baseball.

As the stone and the bottle crashed harmlessly at the soldier’s feet, the Israeli reached into his own arsenal, aimed carefully and, with the same clumsy follow-through, launched first a stone and then another green bottle.

As the two enemies fought in the manner of primitive people the world around, their comrades accompanied the barrages with various gestures obviously questioning the others’ manhood.

Ancestry Questioned

Then there were the curses. Middle East insults are among the most creative in the world, and the rioting Arab youths and the Israeli soldiers showed championship form, commenting mostly on the others’ ancestries and their parents’ life styles. It was a bizarre scene on a warm sunny Sunday here in Nablus, the West Bank’s largest and, in recent days, most violent city. But such scenes have become almost mundane in the towns and villages where Palestinian demonstrators confront the occupying army.

Protesters wearing wool ski masks and covering their features with checked Arab headdresses called kaffiyehs set up barricades of burning tires, ripped-up curbing, garbage dumpsters and anything else they could haul into the streets. Added to the barricades were the outlawed red, green, black and white Palestinian flag and pictures of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.

Inevitably, an Israeli patrol appears as if on schedule, and a confrontation begins: young boys fighting with other young boys. Often it ends with little more damage than sore arms, hoarse throats and a messy street. But in the last two days, the atmosphere of stones, bottles, gestures and curses has again deteriorated into bloodshed.

On Saturday, soldiers shot and wounded at least eight people. Sunday was not as bloody, but foreign journalists witnessed the use of live ammunition in at least two incidents in Nablus, and the army confirmed that a man was wounded by gunfire during a demonstration in Ramallah. Hospital sources said the man was shot in the back. And for the first time during the current unrest, an Israeli civilian was seriously injured.

In addition, there were rock-throwing demonstrations near the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and in Jerusalem’s Old City, site of various Jewish, Christian and Muslim shrines. These were broken up by the use of tear gas and rubber bullets.

Total Curfew Imposed

The army also imposed a total curfew on the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Deir al Balah and continued an around-the-clock curfew on Balata, a West Bank refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus, which was also ordered closed to journalists for the second time since Saturday afternoon.

The heavy use of live ammunition--in one incident here, four soldiers and a man dressed in jeans and a sport shirt fired at least 20 rounds at rock throwers--indicated that Israel is again increasing its use of lethal force after a week and a half of trying to intimidate protesters by less deadly means, primarily tear gas, rubber bullets and beatings.

But even on a day when potentially lethal forces are at work, the almost silly nature of the confrontations can be remarkable.

At one point in the early afternoon Sunday, a dozen or so teen-age Palestinians invited a reporter to join them on a patrol to find Israeli troops. When this failed to result in the desired confrontation, they set up a barricade near a parking lot just off the main highway in downtown Nablus.

Israeli Troops Show Up

The Palestine flags, including one hung from a nearby mosque, the burning tires, the chants all finally worked, and the soldiers arrived--first a foot patrol of eight troopers, then two jeeps and a larger command vehicle carrying several officers.

As the forces gathered, the rooftops began to fill with spectators, mostly women, giving the area the appearance of a rather warped sporting event complete with cheering sections. There was no Goodyear blimp overhead, but an Israeli military helicopter circled above.

The game--rock- and bottle-throwing, marbles propelled by slingshots from both sides and an occasional tear-gas canister--began to take on a kind of choreography. The protesters would edge closer and closer to the troops, throwing bottles and rocks, then run back as soon as the soldiers advanced.

After an hour or so, the players seemed to tire of this routine. One of the demonstrators climbed on a roof and began dropping an almost unimaginable assortment of objects over the side--wrecking bars, empty bottle cartons, part of a bedspring and a broken bottom of what appeared to be an office chair. No injuries were inflicted, since he had to throw everything over a marquee that protected the soldiers below.

Boyish Enthusiasm

Although these games can and do turn serious, even deadly, the players often express boyish enthusiasm for the other side. When one Israeli almost hit one of the Arabs at a distance of about 50 yards with a stone, both sides whooped, and the soldier tipped his helmet.

Shortly afterward, one of the demonstration’s leaders, a tough-looking teen-ager wearing a kaffiyeh over his head and face, threw a rock and then did a complete somersault in the air and landed on his feet in a mock karate stance.

His comrades responded with an impromptu dance and cheers, and in admiration, the Israelis answered with cheers and applause.

Then, after a few anticlimactic exchanges of rocks and bottles, the protesters drifted back into the twisting alleys and streets of the neighborhood, and the soldiers moved off.

No Cops and Robbers

Asked why the soldiers didn’t disperse the protesters sooner, Maj. Gen. Amram Mitzna, army commander of the West Bank, told the Associated Press: “We don’t want to play cops and robbers. Nothing comes of it.”

Mitzna said the soldiers are concentrating on keeping the main roads open and arresting troublemakers.

Asked about reports that soldiers continued to beat Palestinians randomly despite an army policy allowing the use of force only against rioters, Mitzna said those were “old stories.”

“For several days, it seems there has been more restraint,” he said.