More Arab Police Quit; Rally Backs Peace Effort

Hundreds more Arab policemen in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip resigned Saturday to protest Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the territories, while in Tel Aviv, about 100,000 Israelis rallied on the eve of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s trip to the United States to urge him to support the American peace initiative.

Israel Radio said about 450 of the 800 to 1,000 Arab police officers in the occupied territories have quit their jobs in the past two days. About 20,000 Palestinians work for the government in the territories.

The resignations began Friday, one day after the self-styled Unified National Leadership for the Uprising in the Occupied Territories issued a statement reiterating its call for the Arab policemen to resign immediately.

Israeli warplanes, meanwhile, struck five Palestinian guerrilla targets east of the port town of Sidon in southern Lebanon, the army said. Police said one guerrilla was killed and at least eight others were wounded. It was Israel’s second raid this year in the region.

A Palestinian military leader said on Saturday that Arabs will continue to protest in Israeli-occupied territories despite the air raids.

“The Israelis would be wrong to assume that such raids will end the uprising. They will only fuel the flames,” Khalil Wazir, deputy military commander of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told reporters in Amman, Jordan.

Scattered violence was reported in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday.

Near Tulkarm, a 50-year-old woman was wounded when prison service employees opened fire after their bus was stoned.

On Friday night, Israeli soldiers shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian from Bani Naim, near Hebron, after he threw a hand grenade at them, the army command said. The grenade did not explode.

At least 89 Palestinians have been killed since the uprising began Dec. 9.

In the Tel Aviv demonstration, the group Peace Now urged Shamir to support a U.S. peace initiative.

Tzaly Reshef, one of the Peace Now activists who organized the demonstration, told the crowd, “One hundred thousand people tonight in this square send a clear message to Prime Minister Shamir: You can’t say no to peace plans in our name.”