Palestinian Girl, 16, Slain by Israeli Civilians on West Bank

A 16-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed Monday by Israeli civilians in a confrontation on the occupied West Bank, a death that occurred in a political atmosphere highly charged by actions of armed Israeli citizens.

Israel Radio reported that the girl was shot in the chest and that two other Palestinians were wounded at the Samarian village of Kfil Harith, south of Nablus. It identified her attackers as civilians--but not specifically as West Bank Jewish settlers--and said the army was combing the area for them.

According to the government radio report, the Israelis had apparently gone to the village to visit the reputed tomb of the biblical Joshua. Reacting to stones thrown at them by a group of villagers, the broadcast said, the visitors opened fire. Initial press reports said the gunmen then fled in their car, leaving behind the shell casings from an Uzi submachine gun.

Reportedly Set Fires

The press reports identified the girl as Ibtisam Abdel-Rahim Bouziah. Quoting villagers, the reports said that the Israelis had come from the nearby settlement of Ariel and that they had set fire to wheat fields and olive trees as well as automobiles during the clash. A village spokesman said Ibtisam was shot when she came out of her house to see what was happening.

Close to 450 Palestinians have been killed in the 17-month-old uprising.

In a second West Bank incident Monday, Israeli hikers said they were stoned by Palestinians while walking near another village in the Samaria region. One of the hikers was hospitalized with minor injuries.

The violence took place amid a growing controversy here over Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank firing on Arab demonstrators and staging night-time vigilante raids on Palestinian villages.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a strong supporter of the settlement movement, told a reporter outside a parliamentary hearing room Monday, “All that concerns defense matters has to be done by appropriate institutions,” clearly implying the army, not armed settlers. Speaking before the West Bank incidents were reported, the prime minister declared, “It is inadmissible for anyone in the State of Israel to take the law into his own hands.”

The controversy flared last week while Shamir was on state visits to Britain and Spain. The settlers complained that the army, which has recently restructured its tactics to concentrate on highway security, was not doing enough to protect Israelis living in the West Bank.

A settler association, the Council of Settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, declared Sunday night that “only a complete change” in army policy could calm Jewish families in the West Bank, who claim they are threatened by the intifada (uprising) of the 1.7 million Palestinians in the occupied territories. Nineteen Israelis have been killed in the violence.

Since the Israeli army captured the territories in the 1967 war, 70,000 settlers have moved in, many to bolster the claim of some Israelis to a so-called Greater Israel, others to find better homes than they could afford in Israel proper.

Increased violence by the settlers has left the army caught in the middle trying to maintain order, according to some Israeli analysts. Zeev Schiff, the respected military analyst of the newspaper Haaretz, declared in an article last week that the army “is on the verge of losing control over inflamed settlers.”

Noting the apparent rift between the settlers and the army, Shamir said Monday: “I’m against any confrontation between any Jewish people and our army. There is no justification. There must not be confrontation between Jews. Our survival depends on this.”