Israelis Search Houses in Gaza, Detain Hundreds
Israeli soldiers rounded up hundreds of Palestinian men and boys Friday in house-to-house searches at the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip after Israel was closed to Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin indefinitely barred the nearly 2 million Arabs of the occupied territories from Israel this week in response to violence that has taken the lives of 17 Israelis since he expelled 415 alleged Muslim activists to Lebanon in December.
Israelis killed 76 Palestinians during the same period.
Palestinian leaders likened the ban to a “massive collective prison” and called it a new obstacle to the suspended peace talks.
Soldiers who took part in the Shati raid in the Gaza Strip said such actions remind Palestinians who is in charge.
“Operations like this preserve our deterrent force,” a colonel identified as “Y” told Israel Radio from Shati, home to 50,000 of the 750,000 Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians said hundreds of males, age 15 to 40, were imprisoned in the Shati camp during a curfew. The colonel said most would be released after questioning about wanted activists.
Meanwhile, troops moved in Friday to pick lilies and tulips and help save Israeli agriculture, deprived of its Arab laborers at the height of a crucial harvest.
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