Journalists Barred Amid New West Bank Turmoil

Soldiers today barred journalists seeking to enter the occupied West Bank as demonstrations erupted after noon prayers on the Muslim Sabbath. Two Arabs were reported shot to death and eight others wounded by Israeli gunfire.

Authorities also discovered and defused a car bomb near the central bus station 300 yards from the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz was staying. Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Palestine Liberation Organization guerrilla group, Fatah, claimed responsibility and said Shultz was the target.

The explosives-laden car was discovered by a police officer after it ran into a wall and was abandoned.

Shultz met Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in a final, but apparently inconclusive, effort to promote Arab-Israel negotiations that would help end riots in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Hospital officials and Arab press reports said Mohammed Ahmed Salah, 18, was shot in the head during a demonstration after noon prayers in the village of Khatar close to Bethlehem. Israeli photographers said the army imposed a curfew.

Violence in Town

The army said one Palestinian was killed and another wounded in the West Bank town of Araba between Nablus and Jenin after soldiers opened fire to quell a riot by hundreds of Arabs, who attacked them using clubs, bottles and stones.

The outbreak of violence came despite a crackdown on press coverage. Israeli officials contend television cameras and still photographers inflame demonstrations.

“There is no policy” to bar journalists from covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said a senior Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It is not a total closure,” said Brig. Gen. Ephraim Lapid, the army spokesman. He said local commanders had been authorized to bar journalists and indicated some areas were closed because noon prayers often end in violent demonstrations.

A tightening of restrictions on press coverage had been expected after Shamir warned he was considering closing occupied zones to journalists, whom he accused of being biased against Israel.