30 Palestinians Hurt in Anti-Israel Protest

Israeli soldiers wounded at least 30 Palestinians with rubber-coated bullets Saturday in West Bank clashes touched off by Israel’s killing of two senior Muslim militants, witnesses said.

Violence erupted in the towns of Al Birah and Hebron two days after Israeli troops killed brothers Imad and Adel Awadallah, allegedly top members of the military wing of the militant Islamic organization Hamas.

While tension rose, U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis B. Ross conferred with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on further Israeli troop withdrawal in the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian security moves.

There was no sign of progress in breaking an 18-month deadlock, and Netanyahu made a point of publicly reiterating Israel’s security demands before starting his third meeting with Ross since the envoy’s arrival Wednesday.

“It’s in our interest to achieve real peace. Real peace means no terror, and for the last five years, since we signed the Oslo agreements, we’ve had more terror, more Israelis killed from terrorist attacks than in the previous 15 years,” Netanyahu said.

“Why? Because the Palestinian Authority continues to refuse to conduct a systematic war on terror that operates from its areas and is launched from its areas against Israel,” he added.

In Tel Aviv, about 50,000 Israelis gathered Saturday in the square where former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and demanded that Netanyahu resign to save the peace process from collapse.

The rally, held under the slogan “Netanyahu Go Home,” was organized by the opposition left-wing Meretz Party and the Peace Now organization to mark the fifth anniversary of the signing on the White House lawn of the Oslo interim peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority police used clubs to beat back several dozen Hamas supporters who turned out for a street rally for a group held in Palestinian Authority prisons, witnesses said. No serious injuries were reported.

In the West Bank the heaviest clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers were in Al Birah, the Awadallah brothers’ hometown, during a protest march from nearby Ramallah in which several thousand Palestinians shouted pro-Islamic slogans and called for revenge.

Demonstrators threw stones and bottles at Israeli soldiers, who responded by firing the rubber-coated rounds.