Israel Adopting Softer Policy Toward Uprising : Occupation: Deaths of Palestinians decline sharply as new Defense Minister Arens shows he prefers that the army use less provocative tactics.

Israel’s military posture has been strengthened by a new, softer policy toward the Palestinian uprising, military sources said Friday.

The policy, never publicly announced, was adopted by Moshe Arens after he took over as minister of defense in mid-June.

It is described as “more carrot than stick,” and it has resulted in a sharp decline in the number of Palestinian deaths attributed to troops patrolling the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“This means we can turn our attention to the real enemy, those Arab nations full of hate with strong armies arrayed against us,” Brig. Gen. Nachman Shai, the chief military spokesman, told a reporter.

Palestinian casualties are at present about a third of what they were in 1988 and 1989, Israeli officials said.

No senior military officer believes that the intifada , as the uprising is called in Arabic, is ending, or that Palestinians are any more inclined to accept the Israeli occupation. But military officials said Friday that the declining trend in casualties suggests the army can devote more time and energy to preparing for conventional warfare.

And that, rather than concentrating on anti-uprising tactics, is what is needed, they said.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) should not train its soldiers to fight against stone-throwing boys and girls,” Gen. Shai said. “They should be trained to fight a future war.”

Israeli army figures show that in July only three Palestinians were killed in the occupied territories. In June, no deaths were reported as the result of army action in the volatile Gaza Strip, although in the West Bank eight Palestinians were shot to death by soldiers. Figures supplied by Palestinian sources are somewhat higher.

The July casualty figures are the lowest since the intifada began in December, 1987, according to the IDF.

The decline in Palestinian casualties can be attributed in part to the general slowing down of the uprising. And Palestinian leaders agree that the pace has slowed.

But IDF sources think the decline in violence is also a direct result of Defense Minister Arens’ policies, which differ sharply from those of his predecessor, former Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, who ordered Palestinians beaten if they raised a hand against soldiers.

Many observers had thought that the new, right-wing defense minister would be even tougher than Rabin in cracking down on the uprising. But as an Arens aide said, “Our policy in the territories is to hit less and talk more.”

Gen. Shai, a veteran war correspondent before taking over as chief IDF spokesman, said troops are given clear instructions before going on duty in the occupied territories. No longer, he said, do small units go deep into the Arab quarters.

“We don’t send small, unprotected jeep patrols into heavily populated areas,” he said. “Small patrols, when surrounded, were faced with three options, to run away, to hit back, or to shoot.”

Those options had led to unnecessary casualties, he said, and added:

“We have instructed our troops to be much more careful in their approach to Palestinian residents. If we see a hundred people getting together now for a funeral, a wedding, a parade, we let them alone. We don’t interfere. We take it easy during mourning periods.

“If they raise a Palestinian flag, we don’t worry too much. We are trying to avoid incitement, to avoid provocation, because that just plays into the hands of those who want violence. Our instructions are to avoid clashes when not necessary. We don’t arrest women.”

Shai, 44, was offered the unenviable job of army spokesman, military sources said, because the government finally realized how tarnished the IDF image had become, at home and abroad, as the result of pictures and articles dealing with the beating and shooting of unarmed Palestinian men, women and children.