Israelis Close Down Palestinian’s Information Office

Israeli authorities Thursday closed the East Jerusalem information office of a prominent Palestinian, contending it has been used to help promote PLO objectives and disturbances during the 18-month-old uprising.

Sari Nusseibeh, an Oxford-educated philosophy professor whose father was a former Jordanian defense minister, was also summoned to Jerusalem’s police headquarters for questioning but has not been charged with a crime.

He denied claims that his office engaged in subversive activities or associated with “any illegal organization.”

The order was issued after authorities searched the premises and confiscated documents and papers, Nusseibeh said.

Nusseibeh, considered a moderate Palestinian and supporter of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, met with a State Department delegation that recently visited Israel to discuss the peace process.

Several weeks ago, authorities ordered Nusseibeh to halt publication of “The Monday Report,” an English-language newsletter containing analyses and information on the events in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the uprising. The newsletter began publication earlier this year.

In the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, meanwhile, assailants with axes and knives killed a 40-year-old Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israeli authorities, Palestinian sources said. The attack on Zuhdi Ahmed Imam was the fifth against a suspected collaborator in two days and the second fatal assault, the sources said.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, an Israeli cameraman for ABC News was wounded Thursday while filming a clash between Palestinians and soldiers. Shlomo Franco was treated at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital for a wound above the eye caused by a splinter from a plastic bullet, officials said.

Military sources said the incident occurred in downtown Ramallah after Franco and his soundman were ordered out of the area when it was declared a closed military zone because of disturbances.

Sources said the television crew left but positioned itself out of view of the soldiers and within the Palestinian crowd to continue filming. Troops fired rubber and plastic bullets and tear gas to disperse the 50 youths, wounding Franco and a 16-year-old girl, the sources said.

In Jerusalem, a military court jailed four Israeli soldiers for six to nine months for their role in the beating death of a Palestinian.

The army said the four were convicted of brutality in the killing of Hani Shami, 43, of the Jabaliya camp in the occupied Gaza Strip last August. The court earlier acquitted the soldiers of manslaughter.

Three soldiers were sentenced to nine months in jail and a fourth to six months. The court said the soldiers’ commanders should be prosecuted for ordering the beating.