Israeli Troops Break Up Protests by Palestinians : Mideast: Almost 100 are reportedly wounded during demonstrations in support of hunger strike by ‘security prisoners.’

Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian demonstrators in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Wednesday, reportedly wounding almost 100 people in some of the most serious confrontations in recent months in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Most of the injuries occurred when troops used rubber bullets, tear gas and live ammunition to break up a protest by several thousand Palestinians at the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in support of a hunger strike begun 12 days ago by more than 5,000 Israeli-held “security prisoners.”

The Palestinians, who gathered outside the Rafah office of the International Committee of the Red Cross, refused to disperse when ordered to do so by a local military commander and then stoned the soldiers and threw at least five firebombs, an army spokesman said.

Disputing the number of casualties provided by local physicians, a military spokesman dismissed the Gaza protests as “a failed attempt to provoke (Israeli forces) into a greater confrontation on Yom Kippur,” which as the Day of Atonement is the holiest Jewish holiday.

Officials of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which administers the Palestinian refugee camps, said 72 people were treated at Rafah’s hospital and clinics for wounds from rubber bullets and rubber-coated metal pellets, and for other injuries; 10 others were admitted to nearby Ahli Hospital. Four were described by local physicians as being seriously wounded, among them a man shot twice in the neck. A 12-year-old girl lost an eye to a rubber bullet.

But the Israeli military spokesman put the number of people injured at Rafah at 20 to 25; he added that a soldier was slightly wounded by stone-throwers.

The clashes were the fiercest in the Gaza Strip in five months, and the overall injury toll was the highest in almost as many months.

Further clashes were reported in Gaza City, where troops fired volleys of rubber bullets and tear-gas grenades to disperse a march by an estimated 3,000 Palestinians.

Fifteen more people were reported by Palestinian sources to have been injured at two other Gaza refugee camps, Mughazi and El Bureij, when the army broke up demonstrations there in support of the hunger strike.

More than 50 people were treated at local clinics for tear-gas inhalation, U.N. officials and Gaza physicians said.

Around Jerusalem, police reported a wave of vandalism, apparently by Palestinian gangs, against Israeli cars. A Jewish man was stabbed and slightly injured while walking into the Old City of Jerusalem, police said.

Meanwhile, two Arabs were killed in separate incidents while preparing explosive devices, state-run Radio Israel said. One died Tuesday evening in the village of Anza near Janin and the second died Wednesday in the village of Aqqaba near Nablus, the radio said.

Israel contends that the prisoners’ strike is a political move to bolster the Palestinian position at U.S.-sponsored Arab-Israeli peace talks scheduled to resume Oct. 21 in Washington. Police Minister Moshe Shahal has refused to consider prisoners’ demands until they end their protest.

The prisoners want better food, more exercise facilities and an end to long-term solitary confinement. They also have urged that security prisoners in Israeli jails be moved to facilities closer to their homes.