Israel Puts Gaza Under Nightly Curfew

Israel imposed a nightly curfew on the occupied Gaza Strip, home to 650,000 Palestinians, on Monday to try to prevent the spread of unrest.

Military officials said the strip will be closed and under curfew every night from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m., when many residents begin leaving for work in Israel. The 3,000 Jewish settlers living in Gaza are not affected by the curfew.

The curfew is an effort to silence “hostile elements” behind a 13-week-old Arab uprising in Israeli-occupied territories, according to military officials. Israel Radio said the measures are aimed at preventing Palestinian “troublemakers” from threatening the residents and distributing leaflets calling for anti-Israeli action.

Senior military officials decided to close the 28-mile-long Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean after more than 200 Arab policemen quit their jobs Monday, joining policemen in the occupied West Bank in a mass resignation.

Half of Police Quit

More than half of the 1,000 Palestinian policemen working for Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have quit their jobs in the last week at the urging of leaflets issued by the uprising’s clandestine leadership, which is influenced by the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Israeli police officials said the Arabs were pressured to quit under threat of death or damage to their property, and at least 250 Arab policemen resigned in Gaza City alone. Dozens handed in their uniforms and equipment.

“They did not want to resign but feared for their lives,” said Shimon Levy, assistant police commander of Gaza.

Arab policemen perform routine duties such as crime prevention, traffic control and criminal investigations but are not involved in suppressing the anti-Israeli violence.

Since the uprising began on Dec. 9, demonstrators have killed an Arab policeman and lynched a Palestinian they accused of being an informant for the Israeli authorities.

Market Shut Down

In the town of Jericho, 22 miles northeast of Jerusalem, troops shut down one of the biggest produce markets in the West Bank on Monday, turning away 70 trucks of food grown by Arab farmers and tightening the economic noose on the occupied territories.

Leaflets have ordered Jericho shops to open only in the morning. But on Monday, merchants said troops told them they could operate only after noon.

Saeb Erakat, a political science professor from An Najah University who lives in Jericho, said Israeli authorities want to break the back of the Palestinian strike with economic pressure.

“The military government is trying to tell the people here who is boss,” Erakat said. “Jericho is an agricultural city. To order the market closed in the morning amounts to killing it economically.”

At least 10 Palestinians and two Israelis were wounded in West Bank unrest Monday.

Strike Call

Leaders of the uprising called for a general strike today and Wednesday in the occupied territories, which Israel captured from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Middle East War.

Israeli military authorities banned fuel deliveries to the West Bank for a second consecutive day Monday after Palestinians hurled stones and firebombs at Israeli tanker trucks.

A defense official said the ban on fuel was a security precaution and denied Palestinian suggestions that it was one of a series of economic sanctions designed to end the uprising, in which at least 89 Palestinians have died.

The official said hospitals, power plants and water pumping stations would continue to receive fuel.