Palestinian Protests Turn Deadly

Violence flared across the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem on Thursday, leaving at least eight Palestinians dead and many injured in clashes between Israeli soldiers and protesters marking the anniversary of the Palestinian upheaval that accompanied Israel’s creation.

Palestinian Authority officials and hospital workers said that along with the deaths, which were all in Gaza, as many as 400 Palestinians were wounded--most of them lightly--as peaceful marches turned into rock- and bottle-throwing confrontations with Israeli soldiers. It was the worst outbreak of violence in more than a year.

As crowds of shouting demonstrators surged forward, the soldiers responded with tear gas, rubber-coated metal bullets and, occasionally, live rounds, an Israeli army spokesman said. Twenty Israeli police officers and soldiers and two Israeli civilians also were hurt, none of them seriously.

The latest bloodshed came as Palestinians and Israelis alike are expressing fears that their 5-year-old attempt at peacemaking is dying, with no progress in more than a year and repeated, unsuccessful efforts by the United States to bring it back to life.

In Washington, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried again Thursday to break the 14-month-old impasse. She met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to persuade him to accept a U.S. proposal that Israel hand over an additional 13% of West Bank territory to the Palestinians. But no progress was reported, and the mood on the Palestinian street was grim.

“From the beginning, we had all these dreams,” said Munira Zurub, a 48-year-old English teacher who stood watching as a small group of demonstrators engaged in a shoving match with Israeli police in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem. “It was like going up to the moon and then falling down, hard. We haven’t gained anything from the peace process.”

In some areas, Palestinian police tried to prevent the clashes but took little action in others, allowing the demonstrators to approach Israeli checkpoints to hurl rocks and other projectiles, including Molotov cocktails. In one instance, Israeli army commanders said Palestinian police officers opened fire on several soldiers. No one was injured, but the incident raised the ugly specter of the gun battles that broke out in September 1996 between Palestinian police and Israeli soldiers, leaving 75 dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Brig. Gen. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli commander in Gaza, said Palestinian officials generally tried to keep the situation from getting out of hand but had organized rallies that were so large they were uncontrollable.

Palestinians, in turn, denounced Israel for dealing harshly with the demonstrators. “Netanyahu’s government bears responsibility for this crime today,” declared Yasser Abed-Rabbo, Palestinian information minister.

Thursday’s confrontations began after thousands of Palestinians turned out for a series of commemorative marches and rallies organized by the Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government headed by Yasser Arafat. The gatherings were to remember the nakba, or “catastrophe,” as Palestinians describe the events of 1948, when Israel declared its independence and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes.

Israel celebrated the state’s birthday with gala festivities two weeks ago, the anniversary date according to the Hebrew calendar. But the Palestinians marked it Thursday, the date according to the Gregorian calendar.

In somber gatherings in every major Palestinian city, people stood quietly for two minutes as a siren sounded in memory of the Palestinian losses. It was an eerie echo of Israel’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust, when a siren brings traffic, pedestrians and commerce to a halt for two minutes.

In a speech broadcast on national television and over loudspeakers set up at each rally, Arafat promised that the Palestinians ultimately would succeed in establishing their own state. He has said that he will declare a Palestinian state in May 1999, although Israel has said such a move, if taken unilaterally, would in effect mean the cancellation of the interim peace accords.

“We say that we promise that we will not . . . compromise and we will not back down from Palestine, and we tell our people in refugee camps in near and distant exiles that we will continue to demand our rights,” Arafat said.

Netanyahu, speaking in Washington, demanded that Arafat put an end to the violence and warned that it would not produce concessions from Israel in the peace process. “The way to peace is not by violence,” he said.

But in the streets of Hebron, Ramallah and East Jerusalem, Palestinians said they were demonstrating not only to show grief and anger at the events of 50 years ago but also to express their frustration at the deadlock in negotiations.

“Now, peace is just a name; there’s no real peace,” said Ali, 20, a business management student at Hebron University.

Up the street, in a garage-turned-first aid station, medic Ayel Doudeen said 93 people, most of them teenagers, had been treated for injuries suffered in the clashes. Most had rubber-bullet wounds, but only three required hospitalization, he said.

Ahmed Subhi, 22, who said he was off work for the day, watched the stone-throwers play cat-and-mouse with Israeli soldiers in the alleyways of this volatile, divided city. “What has the peace process done for us?” asked Subhi, a computer engineer. “Nothing. We don’t have any of our rights.”

He said the demonstrations were unlikely to help. “The people want to say something and don’t know how to say it,” Subhi said. “They will go and throw a stone, but many will be injured and killed. And still, nothing will change.”

Special correspondent Fayed abu Shamallah contributed to this report from the Gaza Strip.