1st Arab Israeli Citizen Dies in Uprising : Incident Raises Worries That Violence May Cross ‘Green Line’

The Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied territories took three more lives Thursday, including that of the first Arab citizen of Israel killed since the uprising began last December.

The shooting death of a youth from the northern village of Arara, 15 miles from the Mediterranean coast, raised immediate concern here that the violence might spread in a serious way across the so-called Green Line to the 700,000 Arabs who live as citizens inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.

Although Israeli Arabs have demonstrated occasionally in support of the uprising by their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, residents of the occupied territories have so far borne the brunt of the violence. Any spread of the clash across the Green Line would mean a significant widening of the conflict.

Palestinian sources said Mohammed Taher Seif, 17, was visiting relatives in the nearby West Bank village of Dannaba when he apparently became involved in a clash between local youths and the army. He died from a gunshot wound in the chest and was buried late Thursday, the sources said.

An army spokesman said the incident is still under investigation, but he confirmed that there were disturbances in the area and that another Palestinian was wounded in clashes with troops. A Palestinian refugee camp in Tulkarm, adjacent to Dannaba, was placed under curfew, the spokesman said.

Earlier Thursday, two Palestinian protesters were killed by army gunfire in Nablus, the largest town in the West Bank, and widespread disturbances paralyzed East Jerusalem for much of the day.

An upsurge in the uprising, or intifada , as it is called in Arabic, in recent days has returned the pace of fatalities to the peak levels of last April. Thursday’s three victims brought to 17 the number of Arabs killed in uprising-related incidents in the last two weeks. Eighteen have died so far this month, up from 14 in June.

The latest fatalities brought to at least 220 the number of Palestinians killed in uprising-related incidents since last Dec. 9. Three Israeli Jews have died in the violence.

In Nablus, hundreds of Palestinian youths shouted anti-Israeli slogans, raised the banned flag of the Palestine Liberation Organization and clashed with soldiers in demonstrations in the city’s casbah. The army confirmed that two demonstrators were killed in rioting and that 13 others were wounded.

Palestinian sources identified the dead men as Maher abu Ghazaleh, 22, and Hussam Abdulaziz, 23.

An army spokeswoman said there were several other clashes involving troops and stone- or bottle-throwing demonstrators in the West Bank on Thursday as schools closed for the year--a month earlier than planned--under army order.

Jerusalem was rocked by its third straight day of protests. Palestinian youths blocked several streets in the Arab eastern sector with overturned garbage bins, rocks and burning tires. Youths also stoned police vehicles and ran down the main shopping street, Saladin, shouting “Allahu akbar!” (God is great).

Police in vehicles, on horseback and on foot used tear gas and night sticks to disperse the demonstrators. Jerusalem Police Chief Yosef Yehudai said about 50 protesters were detained.

Yehudai also said he has transferred to the military police an investigation into the shooting death Tuesday of a 15-year-old Arab from Jerusalem. It was the funeral later Tuesday for the boy, Nidal Rabadi, that touched off the current round of disturbances.

Rabadi, a Christian Arab from the walled Old City, was the first Jerusalemite to die in the unrest, and there were conflicting accounts as to whether troops or civilians had done the shooting.

But Yehudai said Thursday that according to police investigators, it was army reservists who opened fire while pursuing stone-throwers. Rabadi was apparently an innocent bystander.

An army spokeswoman had no comment pending completion of the military investigation.