ABC Cameraman Filming Protesters Shot by Israelis

An ABC cameraman was shot in the head today with a plastic bullet when Israeli soldiers fired on Palestinian demonstrators in the occupied West Bank.

An army spokesman said the TV crew violated an army order putting the area off limits to reporters. He said the army filed a complaint with the government press office and would likely file one with police.

The crew could then be subject to arrest, said the official, who was not identified in keeping with army regulations.

Bill Seamans, the ABC bureau chief in Israel, said: “To the best of our knowledge, we have followed all legal orders.”

A Palestinian news agency said the cameraman, Shlomo Franco, 42, was filming a Palestinian demonstration in downtown Ramallah in which protesters threw stones at soldiers. Troops opened fire, wounding Franco and several Palestinians, the report said.

Franco, an Israeli, was hospitalized at Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem. A photographer who visited Franco saw three fragments of a brownish-gray plastic bullet that had been removed by doctors.

Also today, police raided a news service run by Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian activist accused by Israel of being a mastermind and Palestine Liberation Organization paymaster of the Palestinian uprising.

Authorities ordered the Holy Land Press Service closed for two years, and Nusseibeh said he was told to report to police headquarters for questioning.

“The office was being used to advance the goals of the PLO and find ways to incite the uprising,” police spokesman Uzi Sandori said.

In another development related to the Palestinian uprising, a military court today sentenced four Israeli soldiers to up to nine months in jail for their roles in the beating of a Palestinian who later died in custody.

The defendants left the courtroom angered by what their attorney termed “particularly harsh” sentences and immediately got into fistfights with photographers.