Arabs Battle Police Over Demolition of Buildings

Hundreds of stone-throwing Arab youths battled police Tuesday during one of the biggest protests in an Israeli town during the 11-month-old Palestinian uprising in the occupied areas.

Residents observed a general protest strike and took to the streets to demonstrate against the demolition by police on Monday of 15 buildings erected without permits in Taiyiba, a town of 14,000 at the edge of the West Bank.

Police fired tear gas to disperse masked demonstrators who set up roadblocks, burned tires and hurled stones at them. They made 10 arrests.

Israel’s Interior Ministry said the buildings had to be demolished because they were constructed on agricultural land without building permits. However, Israeli Arabs say the government does not grant them enough permits for their expanding population.

Police denied a claim by residents that 40 people were injured Monday in a similar demonstration. In the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, troops shot and wounded eight Palestinian demonstrators, Arab sources said Tuesday.

Dozens Arrested

Troops this week have arrested dozens of suspects in the Israeli-occupied territories, captured from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War, to discourage unrest before a meeting of the Palestine National Council scheduled Saturday in Algiers.

The council, which acts as the Palestinian parliament-in-exile, is expected to declare an independent Palestinian state at the meeting.

Lt. Gen. Dan Shomron, Israel’s military chief of staff, on Monday forecast a surge in anti-Israeli violence this month if an independent state is declared.

Also on Tuesday, Israel’s Supreme Court recommended that the army improve conditions and relieve overcrowding at the Ketziot prison camp in the Negev desert, where hundreds of Palestinians have been detained, Israel’s ITIM news agency reported.

The court, however, rejected the appeal of 14 prisoners to be transferred to a jail in the occupied areas, the agency said.