Israel Outlaws Palestinian Grass-Roots Committees

The Israeli government today outlawed Palestinian popular committees, saying every Arab who continues to be a member of such committees or to assist them will be arrested and put on trial.

Popular committees are grass-roots groups carrying out the directives of the Palestinian uprising’s underground leaders. The groups organize protests and patrols and supply food and medical assistance to needy Palestinians.

The government accused the committees of being an arm of the outlawed Palestinian guerrilla groups and of organizing violence.

“The committees have a double aim: to impose by violent means the orders of the PLO and the uprising’s leaders on the population and to undermine the Israeli authorities . . . to create alternative mechanisms instead,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The move followed deportation orders issued Wednesday against 25 Gaza Strip and West Bank Arabs, mostly members of the popular committees, and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s warnings of a crackdown on the popular committees.

Curfew Partly Lifted

Meanwhile, Israel partly lifted a curfew in Gaza, and 17 Arabs were treated for beating injuries, bringing the number of such cases to more than 250 in four days, Red Cross and hospital officials said.

Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers reportedly shot and wounded a Palestinian teen-ager today during clashes in the West Bank with Arabs protesting the expulsion Wednesday of four Palestinians and the deportation orders against the others.

The European Community, meanwhile, officially protested the deportations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross complained that the detention without trial of thousands of Palestinians in a harsh desert prison violated international humanitarian agreements.

And a London-based human rights organization, Amnesty International, denounced the government policy of beating rioters.

Clash in Nablus

The wounded youth, Said Alshami, 19, was shot in the right leg after Palestinians in central Nablus clashed with soldiers, said an official at Al Ittihad hospital. Seven of the 25 Palestinians to be deported are from Nablus.

The army, attempting to deal with the violence, imposed curfews on nine refugee camps and towns in the West Bank where 85,000 Arabs live. It lifted a three-day curfew from parts of the occupied Gaza Strip but left the restriction in force against 180,000 Palestinians in the area.