4 Arabs Die in Worst Violence in 3 Weeks : Toll Reaches 69; Protests Reported in 17 Israeli-Occupied Areas

Four Palestinians died and dozens more were wounded Friday as the first full day of Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s Middle East peace shuttle was marred by the worst violence in nearly three weeks in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Demonstrations were reported in at least 17 towns, refugee camps and villages, mostly after Muslim prayers. The underground Unified National Leadership for the Uprising in the Occupied Territories had called for a wave of protests to coincide with Shultz’s visit.

The latest victims brought to at least 69 the number of Palestinians killed during the violence that has afflicted the territories almost continuously for more than 11 weeks. Two were killed by Israeli army gunfire, and two others died in protest-related incidents for which details remain unclear. The army said it is investigating all four deaths.

A military spokesman said one person was killed and four were wounded when hundreds of demonstrators attacked an army unit with stones and firebombs after prayer services at a mosque in Hebron, the West Bank’s second-largest city. The spokesman said soldiers opened fire after tear gas and rubber bullets failed to restrain the crowd.

The nationalist Palestine Press Service identified the victim as Fouad Ayyoub Sharawi, 47, a schoolteacher, and said that he apparently died of tear-gas suffocation. The army spokesman said that the cause of death is still in question and that a preliminary autopsy revealed no marks of violence.

A 55-year-old woman was killed and two more women and one man were wounded by army gunfire during disturbances in Tubas, a village near Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank, the army said. The Palestine Press Service identified the slain woman as Raziqa Misleh Daraghmeh.

‘Fierce Demonstration’

The Palestinian news agency also reported that Hassan Abu Kheirat, 22, was shot to death by soldiers during what it described as a “fierce demonstration” in the El Arrub refugee camp after Friday prayers. The army confirmed that the body of a young man from El Arrob had been brought to a hospital but said it was still checking the circumstances of his death.

The fourth victim was from the Gaza Strip, where clashes were reported in a number of towns and refugee camps. The army said that the youth, identified as Iyad al Ashqar, 14, from the large Jabaliya refugee camp, was killed by a stone that hit his left temple, but the Palestine Press Service said that he had been shot.

The press service claimed that 22 others were wounded by army gunfire in the Jabaliya disturbance and that “tens” more were injured by rubber bullets and tear gas. But Reuters news agency reported that registers at two Gaza City hospitals showed that five of 25 injured Palestinians admitted from Jabaliya on Friday had bullet wounds. The others were injured by rubber bullets or soldiers’ clubs, it said.

Friday’s fatalities were the worst single-day toll since Feb. 7, when five Palestinians died, including two who had been injured earlier.

The trouble is expected to continue today, despite a massive Israeli army and police presence throughout the area. More than 1,500 reinforcements were brought in earlier this week to bolster security forces in and around Jerusalem alone.

Underground leaflets distributed last weekend called for demonstrations to protest the peace plan for which Shultz is trying to win support in his five-day visit to Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Key to the plan is an interim period of limited Palestinian self-rule before the opening of negotiations on a permanent settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Palestinians rejected similar plans after the 1978 Camp David negotiations, and they say that, in the midst of unrest that spurred the latest U.S. initiative, they are not going to endorse the idea now.

In another development, CBS Television on Friday showed the Israeli army a videocassette showing soldiers beating and breaking the arms of two arrested Palestinian youths. The action was filmed in Nablus on Thursday through a long-distance lens, according to CBS correspondent Bob Simon.

West Bank commanding general Amram Mitzna said in an Israel Radio broadcast interview this morning that he was “shocked” by the 15-minute film and that the four soldiers who committed what he called “this crime” are under arrest. He said the two Arabs had been released from custody and an army officer suspended.