Underground Palestinian Leaders Vow Escalation Despite Crackdown

Underground Palestinian leaders said in a leaflet circulated Monday that they will escalate their rebellion despite the army’s tough new measures to quell the 13-month revolt.

In the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, assailants hurled firebombs into an Israeli bank, injuring several Arab employees and causing minor property damage, the army said. Arab reports said four employees were treated for burns or smoke inhalation.

In the underground leaflet circulated in the occupied territories, the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising rejected Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s proposal to hold elections in the occupied territories in return for an end to violence.

The leaflet said the proposal “will be sent to the garbage dump of history.”

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, head of the rightist Likud Party, also criticized Rabin’s plan.

“I hear that all the Arabs reject this plan,” Shamir told Israel Radio. “I would not propose that we enter into a whirlpool of arguments about a thing that stands no chance of coming into being.”

Shamir’s closest ally, Foreign Minister Moshe Arens, said Israel’s peace plan still is being formulated.

Uprising leaders said in their leaflet that an Israeli agreement to an international conference with PLO participation is required for an end to anti-Israeli violence.

Last week, the army announced that it will destroy the homes of stone-throwers and fire plastic bullets at fleeing assailants and protesters who build stone barricades.

A 33-year-old man was shot with a plastic bullet Monday in the West Bank village of Jabaa, and four Palestinians were wounded in the occupied Gaza Strip when army troops opened fire to halt stone throwing, Arab hospital officials said.