Economic Crisis Gripping West Bank : Unrest-Triggered Recession Cited as Arab Programs Are Cut

New violence and a quickening sense of malaise gripped the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Wednesday as Israeli troops skirmished with rock-throwing Palestinian youths and government officials grappled with a severe economic crisis.

“There is an atmosphere of anarchy,” a senior administrator in the West Bank told reporters, describing a recession, a crime wave and the decision of a cash-strapped administration to suspend social programs for Palestinian residents.

Meanwhile, troops used tear gas and rubber bullets at refugee camps to disperse small crowds of youthful protesters who marched, erected barricades, burned tires and threw stones in response to a call by underground Palestinian leaders to observe International Children’s Day. A military spokesman said all the clashes were minor.

Release Relatives

In Jerusalem, about 100 Palestinian women and children peacefully occupied Red Cross offices to demand the release of detained relatives, while police used tear gas in an all-Israeli labor dispute to disperse workers seeking compensation from the owners of a factory that is about to close. A total of 14 demonstrators and five police officers were slightly injured, police said.

The West Bank official, meeting reporters at the headquarters of the civil administration for the territories that Israel has occupied since 1967, declared: “We are unable to meet our budgetary commitments. We have frozen some commitments.”

Medical, welfare and development programs, from water and electric power projects to schools and telephones, are being frozen or cut back, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some Palestinians have withheld tax payments since the violent protests began in the territories last Dec. 8. That, plus the violence and strikes, has triggered a recession, the official said. In Bethlehem alone, its mayor acknowledged Wednesday, 80 restaurants and a factory have closed since the unrest began driving away tourists.

Both political and criminal violence among the 1.5 million residents of the territories is also up, the senior official said. Economic hardship and a shortage of Palestinian police officers--many have resigned in protest--have been followed by increased assaults and burglaries, he added.

Also Tuesday, the army issued revised casualty figures for the uprising. By the army’s count, 207 Palestinians have died in protests, 157 from gunshot wounds. The army did not specify how the other 50 died.

A U.N. tally, however, showed 199 Palestinians killed, 167 of them shot by soldiers, 11 shot by Jewish settlers, 11 from tear gas and the rest from beatings and other causes.

The casualty figures from the unrest, in which an Israeli soldier and civilian have also been killed, have varied widely.

5,133 Injured

According to a left-wing member of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, a confidential government document said 5,133 Palestinians have been injured in the uprising. The legislator, Dedi Zucker, said the government has been told by top defense officials that brutality and maltreatment of civilians by soldiers is the principal reason the unrest continues.

The army says “several tens” of its personnel have been disciplined for using excessive force. Earlier this week, a 19-year-old Ethiopian immigrant became the first Israeli soldier convicted of killing a Palestinian. A military court found him guilty of unjustifiably shooting a protester in the Gaza Strip on Jan. 10. Sentencing is pending.