Palestinians Feel Pinch of Curfew : Occupied areas: It is the longest imposed by Israel since the 1967 war. Arabs who work in Israel are barred from traveling to their jobs.

A tight curfew imposed by Israel on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is creating shortages of meat and vegetables, draining savings and plunging an already battered economy deeper into depression.

Israel has confined most of the 1.7 million Palestinians under its control to their homes since Jan. 18, a day after the allied war against Iraq began. The curfew, relieved only by irregular intermissions to permit shopping, is the longest imposed over the area since the 1967 Middle East War.

Palestinians who work in Israel also are barred from traveling to their jobs. With many men who depend on jobs in Israel now out of work, some families are begging for credit from the local grocer or selling jewelry to pay for food. Families are pooling resources, but it is not clear how long many can hold out.

“We have not reached hunger yet,” said Palestinian economist Samir Huleileh, a resident of this town north of Jerusalem. “But we are heading that way.”

Huleileh estimated that the curfew has cost Palestinians $5 million a day in lost income.

“For me, it is 10 more days,” declared a man called Nimer, an unemployed plasterer in the village of Battir near Bethlehem. “I have flour, sugar, beans to last my family that long. After that, I don’t know. I will have no money.”

Palestinian bitterness at their plight is compounded by Israel’s slowness in handing out gas masks to them.

The Israeli government imposed the curfew because it fears that Palestinians, fervent supporters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, will take to the streets on his behalf and perhaps attack Israelis on the road and in towns and cities, military officials say.

“We are in a defensive mode and don’t want the Palestinians to create problems,” said a military spokesman.

Even in other times, the curfew would be a hardship, but coming on top of a series of economic disasters for Palestinians, it is doubly severe.

For the past three years, Palestinians have reduced their own commercial activity as a protest in their uprising against Israeli rule. They stopped selling Israeli goods, except for staple items such as milk and flour, and shut down factories that once did piece work for Israeli companies. The protest was meant as an assertion of economic independence.

But the violence and tension of the uprising also dried up tourism in such places as Bethlehem and Jericho. And then several events beyond their control took a heavy toll on Palestinian income: Jordan devalued its currency, reducing in a flash the income of families dependent on relatives there to send them monthly checks.

At the same time, Israeli authorities restricted the flow of money from abroad in an effort to strangle financial support for the intifada, as the uprising is known in Arabic.

Then came Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2. Palestinians found themselves in the awkward position of praising Hussein even as his occupation of the oil mini-state wiped out jobs and the income of thousands of Palestinians who regularly sent money home to relatives in the West Bank and Gaza.

The curfew is an added blow.

“The resources for survival are fewer and fewer,” said Huleileh.

Even the weather is not cooperating. Winter rains arrived late this season, forcing farmers to buy feed to keep their animals alive. The added cost reduces potential profits.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the caretaker organization for Palestinian refugees, called on Israel “to restore daily life to as near to normal as can be expected under the tense and difficult circumstances.” The agency termed the long curfew “an unnecessary burden” on Palestinians.

The United Nations is supplying food for about 800,000 Palestinian refugees. The European Community has promised aid. And the military government of the West Bank and Gaza has distributed some food, although Palestinians complain that it is given out to political favorites of the Israelis.

Commercial distribution of vegetables and meat is crippled by the irregular hours of curfew. When big market towns are open, the towns and villages that rely on them are closed and Palestinians are not permitted to travel to sell and make purchases. When the villages are open, the big towns are closed.

“Our curfew was lifted Thursday, but we could not go to Bethlehem because it was shut,” said Nimer. “We went to neighboring villages, but they were looking for the same things we are.”

Some milk is being smuggled at night from small farms, but deliveries are chance events.

Life under the curfew is mostly a long string of card games and television shows, Palestinians say. Schools are closed and children kept indoors because of Israeli warnings that curfew breakers will be shot.

Gathering and trading news about the war is also a favorite pastime and the most outlandish rumors receive wide currency. One, said to have been broadcast on Jordan television, alleges that Israel is taking Palestinian prisoners and using them as shields at potential military targets, such as Israel’s nuclear plant at Dimona. Iraq used foreign civilians in that way before the war and has said it is using allied prisoners of war for that purpose now.

Groups of youths continue to play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with Israeli soldiers, occasionally throwing stones but mainly enforcing the commercial protest strikes despite the economic hardships.

In Ramallah and Bethlehem, uprising activists have told store owners to stop business at 1 p.m. each day even if the Israeli army permits them to stay open for longer hours to make up for curfew closures. The afternoon closures have been a main feature of the intifada , and Palestinian activists are eager to ensure that commercial strikes are still a live tool of the uprising.

“We want to show that the intifada is alive,” said a youth in Beit Sahour.

Palestinians view Hussein as a hero because he supports their cause for an independent state. They have cheered his Scud missile attacks as just revenge for the Israeli suppression of the intifada.

Their stand in turn has brought on increased hostility from Israelis, who in their present mood are unlikely to sympathize with complaints about the curfew. When an Iraqi missile fell near a Palestinian village last week, an Israeli radio commentator reported dryly that “no Palestinians were standing on their roofs cheering the missile on.”

In a bitter newspaper article critical of Palestinian attitudes, peace activist and left-wing Parliament member Yossi Sarid wrote, “When the missile . . . is sent to kill our children, it fills their hearts with joy.”