Israel Banishes 15 Arabs in Bid to Curb Uprising

Israel on Sunday banished 15 Palestinians considered to be activist leaders of the Arab uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in an apparent challenge to the United States, which has condemned such actions in the past.

The expulsions followed the close of one of the bloodiest months in the uprising, now nearly 13 months old. According to data compiled by an Israeli member of Parliament, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 31 Arabs during December and wounded another 400.

More than 330 Palestinians have died during the uprising. Ten Israeli Jews and one Israeli Arab also have been killed. A total of 51 Arabs have been banished from the country during the intifada, as the uprising is called in Arabic .

Flown to Lebanon

The Israeli army flew the 15 by helicopter to southern Lebanon, where they were each given $50 taxi fare, Israel Radio reported. The 15 then headed for an office of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the radio added.

Two of the Palestinians taken out of the country Sunday agreed to leave after giving up their court appeals in return for the right to come home in five years--provided they refrain from taking part in “negative actions” against Israel. The rest refused the deal and are barred “for life.”

The banishment was “due to their involvement in the leadership of the uprising and the direction of it,” an army spokesman declared.

The United States has opposed expulsions as a violation of due process as well as of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the removal of civilians from land under military occupation “for any reason whatsoever.”

There was no reaction Sunday from the State Department.

Palestinian observers lashed out at the Israeli move. “The timing is atrocious,” Palestinian lawyer Jonathan Kuttab said. “When people are beginning to talk solutions, talk peace, the Israelis create frustration.”

Appeals to U.S.

Kuttab called on Washington to put some bite into its customary condemnation of the expulsions.

The United States recently dropped a 13-year prohibition and opened contact with the PLO, to which most Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza owe their political loyalty. “The strength of the United States criticism of Israel will be a test of its intentions to foster peace,” Kuttab argued.

Israel Radio said the newly expelled Arabs played “leading roles” in the intifada and that most belonged to Fatah, the mainstream PLO faction headed by Yasser Arafat. Among the 15, the radio singled out four for special mention:

-- Rizek Bayari, 29, a journalist who led popular committees in the northern Gaza Strip and was charged with “directing violence” in Gaza.

-- Abdallah abu Samahadana, 38, a lecturer at Islamic University in Gaza. Samahadana spent four years in jail on charges of transporting hand grenades and was released last year.

-- Massoud Zaefer, 42, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was a leader of the uprising in Nablus, the largest and most militant Palestinian city on the West Bank.

-- Abdel Hamid Baba, 25, a Fatah activist in the Amari refugee camp who is reported to be responsible for violence in Ramallah, a West Bank city north of Jerusalem.

Military sources said that the expulsions, in the works since August, were timed to coincide with Sunday’s 24th anniversary of the first PLO guerrilla operation inside Israel, observed by the Palestinians as “Fatah Day.” The timing was a means of depressing Palestinian morale, the source said. In an attempt at showing its psychological impact, the official compared the action to a military raid Dec. 9 on a PLO faction’s headquarters in Lebanon. That raid coincided with the first anniversary of the intifada.

Local Committees Targeted

Removal of Palestinian leaders has been part of an Israeli effort to break the back of so-called popular committees that have spearheaded Arab resistance to Israeli rule in the occupied territories. Last August, Israeli authorities accused the 15 Palestinians of leading the committees in various localities and prepared the cases for expulsion.

At the time, a Defense Ministry spokesman said the popular committees were designed “to impose by violent means the orders of the PLO and the uprising’s leaders on the population, to undermine the Israeli authorities . . . and to create alternative mechanisms instead.”

The number of December clashes and the expulsions appeared to be a concrete sign of Israel’s tough defiance of efforts in the international community to encourage peace talks by Israel with the PLO. Israel refuses to make contact with the organization, which it believes is unswervingly bent on destroying the Jewish state.

Israeli officials insist that peace talks with non-PLO Palestinians must be preceded by an end to the intifada. In the meantime, Israeli army officials have pledged to take the fight to stone-throwing youths in Arab towns and villages.

Last August, the Israeli army authorized occupying soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza to use so-called plastic bullets, whose lethal range is said to be less than that of full-metal projectiles. When the bullets were introduced, firing rules were relaxed; it no longer was necessary for a “life threatening” situation to arise before troops could shoot into crowds or at individuals.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin predicted that the bullets would increase the number of wounded but reduce the number of dead.

The prediction about fatalities is debatable. In the close quarters of Arab neighborhoods, the plastic bullets--actually a blend of plastic and metal--have proved as lethal as regular cartridges. In August, more than 20 Arabs were shot to death. The toll dipped in both September and October, climbed to 20 again in November and surged to 31 in December.

On Dec. 16, paratroopers based in Nablus shot and killed eight Palestinians during unrest that followed a funeral for an earlier victim--the highest one-day fatal toll in a single city since the uprising began. Arabs have taken to calling the shootings “the Nablus massacre.”

40 Killed in April

The only month to top December in carnage was last April, when more than 40 Palestinians were killed.

Last week, Yossi Sarid, a member of Israel’s Parliament from the leftist Citizens’ Rights Party, wrote to Defense Minister Rabin to protest the use of plastic bullets.

“When Israel started using plastic bullets, the basic assumption was: They don’t kill,” Sarid said in an interview. “This evidently is not the case. The use of the bullets is intolerable. The death figures are horrible.”

A few days earlier, Israel’s attorney general, Yosef Harish, said he would investigate the use of the bullets. His report would not be officially binding, but, as legal adviser to the government, his opinion might have some impact, Israeli observers say.

On Sunday, the army imposed a curfew on the entire Gaza Strip in an effort to prevent protests or violence connected to the PLO anniversary.

During the day, at least five Palestinians were wounded by army gunfire, Arab sources said. The army reported that two teen-agers were shot in the legs when soldiers fired at dozens of stone-throwing youths in Ramallah, on the West Bank.