4 Israeli MPs Hurt as Arabs Stone Jeep in Gaza

Arab stone-throwers Monday forced an Israeli army jeep to veer out of control and overturn, injuring four military police, the army said.

The military police were hurt while patrolling the Jabaliya refugee camp, a frequent site of violence in the occupied Gaza Strip.

An army spokesman said the driver lost control of his vehicle after a rock injured his hand.

Two of the military police were taken to a hospital and two were treated at the scene, the spokesman said.

The army immediately clamped a curfew on Jabaliya, forcing the camp’s 60,000 residents to stay indoors.

Meanwhile, the army released 148 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture of good will. The freed prisoners were taken in five buses from the Ketziot detention camp in the southern Negev Desert to military headquarters in seaside Gaza City, where they were welcomed by hundreds of friends and relatives.

When some of the prisoners went home to the nearby Shati refugee camp, they were greeted by Arabs shouting pro-PLO slogans, and the army fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, witnesses said.

Some of the detainees had been jailed without trial, and the rest had served short sentences on charges of anti-Israeli violence during the 7 1/2-month uprising.

Since the rebellion began in December, more that 210 Palestinians and three Israeli Jews have died.

The prisoner release came on the second day of the four-day Muslim holiday Eid al Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice. The holiday, which comes at the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, marks God’s request that Abraham sacrifice his son, Ismail.

5,000 Still Being Held

More than 5,000 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel, among them 2,500 jailed for up to six months without trial.

In the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Monday, masked Arab youths enforced a strike called to protest the death of a resident of nearby Beit Jala who was killed by army gunfire Sunday.

The masked youths threatened shopkeepers who briefly opened their stores in the morning, and by midday all shops were closed, an Arab reporter said.

Curfews remained in effect in Beit Jala, where 10,000 Palestinians live, nearby Beit Sahur, home to 12,000, and Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city with 120,000 residents.

Armed supporters of American-born anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane, meanwhile, began car patrols of Arab East Jerusalem looking for stone-throwers. The group, calling itself “The Committee For Safe Roads,” already patrols the area around the West Bank city of Hebron.