Arab Students Pelt Troops; Schools Shut

Hundreds of Arab students pelted soldiers with rocks and blocked a main road Monday in Bethlehem, and the army slapped a three-day closure order on all West Bank schools.

Troops in this biblical town fired tear gas, and dozens of students were overcome, hospital officials said.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, meanwhile, announced that the nearly seven-month-old Arab uprising in the occupied territories had cost the Defense Ministry $162 million and that Israel’s economy would be endangered if the rebellion continued, Israel Radio said.

Stone-Throwing Incidents

The radio reported scattered incidents of stone-throwing in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, where Arab protesters briefly erected a roadblock on the main commercial thoroughfare.

Police arrested five Palestinian schoolgirls for allegedly stoning Israeli cars near the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, the radio said.

Releasing new figures on incidents of unrest inside Israel proper, Police Commissioner David Krauss said Arab nationalists were responsible for 114 out of 210 forest and pasture arson fires.

Krauss said more than 1,000 protests broke out inside Israel in the last three months, including 730 demonstrations in the Jerusalem area and 51 firebomb attacks.

He said 900 Arabs had been arrested on a variety of charges, including 55 suspected of arson.

In Bethlehem, 5 miles south of Jerusalem, hundreds of students demonstrated on the main road, hurling stones at troops who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

In an effort to limit student participation in the uprising, the army announced that it would close all Palestinian schools in the West Bank for three days starting today.

Name Change Urged

The move was timed to coincide with a call by the Palestine Liberation Organization to rename all Arab schools with more nationalistic names today, said Brig. Gen. Shaike Erez, head of Israel’s military administration in the West Bank.

The order was the first West Bank-wide shutdown of Arab schools since the area’s 800 schools were reopened June 6 after a four-month closure.

At the height of the uprising in February, the army closed 1,200 schools in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Erez said he hoped closing schools again would “bring home to students and parents that the current level of disturbances is unacceptable.”