Israel Orders Curfew for Palestinians : 450,000 Confined to Homes in Effort to Halt New Violence

Israeli authorities ordered about 450,000 Palestinian residents of the occupied territories confined to their homes Sunday and declared other major West Bank population centers “closed military areas” in an extraordinary effort to halt a new wave of violence after the weekend assassination of a Palestine Liberation Organization leader.

Fifteen Palestinian refugee camps on the West Bank and five in the Gaza Strip were put under full or partial curfew, as was the West Bank’s largest city, Nablus, the army said.

In most cases, the restrictions went into effect Sunday morning, after the bloodiest day since the Palestinian uprising began in the occupied areas last December. At least 12 Arabs were shot to death by Israeli troops and as many as 100 wounded on Saturday in the wake of the announcement that an unidentified assassination squad had gunned down Khalil Wazir, the chief deputy to Yasser Arafat in the PLO’s dominant Fatah wing.

Key Figure in Unrest

Wazir, better known here by his nom de guerre, Abu Jihad, was the central figure in coordinating PLO support for the 18-week-old uprising in the territories. PLO officials accused Israel of carrying out the assassination, and Israeli officials pointedly avoided any direct denial of the charge.

Wazir was felled in his Tunis home by up to 70 bullets, reportedly as a member of the death squad filmed the execution with a video camera. The PLO official’s wife and two of his five children were in the house at the time, but, in a postscript to a press release containing biographical material on Wazir, the Israel Government Press Office noted Sunday, “Media reports indicate that Abu Jihad’s family was unharmed.”

“We organized ourselves because we knew it would be a very violent day,” an army spokeswoman said of the widespread curfews, affecting about one-third of the 1.4 million Palestinians in the occupied territories.

A spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which administers the Palestinian refugee camps, called the army action “incredible” and added, “Never in all of our experience has there been such a measure taken.”

A three-truck convoy from the U.N. agency trying to deliver food parcels to residents of the Jalazoun camp, just north of Ramallah, was turned away by Israeli troops, the spokesman said. The army also announced that Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tulkarm, and Qalqiliya were “closed military areas,” meaning that the media and other non-residents were prohibited from entering those cities.

In the past, the military has put selected towns and refugee camps under curfew and, for certain periods, halted travel between the West Bank and Gaza and between those territories and Israel proper. Sunday’s action, however, was believed to be one of the most far-ranging sets of restrictions since the uprising began.

In the past, the military has put various towns, camps and regions under nightly curfew and, for certain periods, halted travel between the West Bank and Gaza and between those territories and Israel proper. Sunday’s action, however, was believed to be one of the most far-ranging sets of restrictions since the uprising began.

Violence at a Minimum

The combination of the extraordinary security measures, the beginning of the monthlong Muslim fast of Ramadan, and a three-day period of mourning for Wazir apparently kept violence in the territories to a minimum Sunday. In the only incident reported by the army, two residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm were wounded when soldiers opened fire to fend off people who allegedly attacked them with axes.

Also Sunday, thousands of Arabs who work in Israel stayed away from their jobs as part of a general strike called over the killing of Wazir, and most businesses in the occupied territories were closed.

The assumption is widespread that Israeli agents killed Wazir, but there has been no confirmation here. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declined to comment on a possible Israeli role in the killing, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, asked a similar question by a reporter for the British news service Reuters, smiled and replied, “I am not here.”

Israeli Responsibility Assumed

Israeli military correspondents, in their analyses of the Wazir assassination Sunday, wrote from the assumption that Israel had carried out the attack.

“This was Israel’s punishment of Abu Jihad and a boost to the morale of at least some of the (Israeli) population,” wrote Ron Ben-Yishai in the mass-circulation Hebrew-language tabloid Yediot Aharonot.

“This was a message to Palestinians and to Arabs in general that Israel is still disposed to put itself in danger, to surprise and particularly to strike a painful blow,” he commented.

Other analysts noted that there had been some criticism here of the fact that until the weekend, at least, Israel had not responded to the March 7 killing of three civilians by terrorist infiltrators who hijacked a bus near Dimona.