Palestinian Killed at Protest of Blockade

Israeli troops shot and killed one Palestinian and wounded at least five others Monday during clashes that erupted when about 1,500 protesters marched on barricades and trenches cutting off the West Bank town of Ramallah from surrounding villages.

Members of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet questioned the tightened closure of the political and commercial center, saying it may cause an escalation of violence and trigger international condemnation of Israel, but Sharon defended the move. Harsh measures will be imposed on towns active in the uprising and restrictions will be eased on towns that are quiet, he said.

“Our policy remains exactly as I clarified it--steps against those who attack and those behind them, and easing as much as possible [the situation] for most of the population. This is the line we’ll take,” Sharon said in remarks to his Likud Party.

Sharon insisted that the tightening of pressure on Ramallah, a town of 50,000 that lies eight miles north of Jerusalem, does not represent a policy shift. It was the response of a local commander to an immediate threat, he said.

Saturday night, “terrorists who were about to carry out a devastating attack in Jerusalem were captured,” Sharon said. “It was perfectly clear that the entire cell was not captured and that members were still at large.” The army imposed the closure “to stop these people from fleeing or from carrying out their terrorist mission,” he said.

Palestinians had billed their march on the road--severed by two 6-foot-deep, 150-yard-long trenches a quarter-mile apart and guarded by troops in tanks and jeeps--as a peaceful protest to illustrate how cutting off Ramallah from dozens of surrounding villages is disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of people. Students from Birzeit University, located in a village now inaccessible from Ramallah, joined their professors, Palestinian officials and others as a bulldozer attempted to fill in a trench and reopen the road.

The trouble began when soldiers fired tear gas at the bulldozer driver and demonstrators pelted the soldiers with stones. The soldiers then fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the marchers, witnesses said. A 28-year-old demonstrator was fatally shot in the chest, Palestinian hospital officials reported. At least five others were wounded by bullets. Several people were overcome by tear gas.

Hospital officials said the man was killed by live ammunition, but the Israelis said they used only rubber-coated bullets.

Hours after the clashes subsided, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he had ordered the army to lift its blockade of Tulkarm and Kalkilya in the northern West Bank and of Bethlehem and Hebron, south of Jerusalem, areas that have been relatively quiet in recent weeks.

“I want the residents to go out, to work and make a living and to live, and I want to start relating to them as neighbors very soon,” Ben-Eliezer told Israel Radio.

Palestinians denounced what they called the siege of Ramallah as an effort to starve them into abandoning the uprising that erupted at the end of September and has claimed more than 400 lives, most of them Palestinian.

“The Palestinian people are determined to confront the siege. . . . To the Arabs, we say, ‘This is the beginning of the battle, not the end of it,’ ” said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo, who exhorted protesters during the march. In a leaflet distributed Monday, the mainstream Fatah faction called on Palestinians to march on blockades of towns again Wednesday and Friday.

In Cairo, Arab foreign ministers, preparing for a summit in Amman, Jordan, at the end of the month, said they would seek an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to debate a Palestinian demand for international protection against Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

At the first meeting of his Cabinet, Sharon laid out what he said are the five principles that will guide him in dealing with the Palestinians, his office said: He will not resume negotiations until Palestinians stop attacking Israeli soldiers and civilians; his first priority is the restoration of Israeli security; he will not allow Palestinians to use violence to force Israeli concessions; he will not let the conflict be internationalized or spill over to surrounding countries; he will keep open the possibility of resuming talks.

A member of Sharon’s own rightist Likud Party, Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, expressed doubt about the ethics of imposing such a harsh blockade on Ramallah.

“As Jews, we cannot allow a situation by which the Palestinians will starve or will be deprived of vital things such as medicine,” Sheetrit told reporters after leaving the Cabinet meeting. “Contrary to the position held by some of my colleagues in the Cabinet, I believe that we promised to bring peace and that it’s our duty to do everything to seek and achieve this goal.”

Labor Party ministers complained that the decision to ratchet up the pressure on Ramallah was taken without consulting with Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres. The dovish Peres has warned publicly that Israel is in danger of radicalizing the Palestinian masses unless it eases restrictions that have already crippled the Palestinian economy.

Peres has advocated a resumption of contacts with the Palestinians even if the violence continues. But on Monday, Peres said he was pleased that Sharon and Ben-Eliezer supported lifting closures on towns and villages that are quiet, and he said the closure of Ramallah was nothing new.

In fact, Israel has imposed closures on West Bank towns and villages periodically since the violence erupted, but those blockades have been porous enough that many Palestinians have managed to circumvent them. The closure imposed on Ramallah on Sunday is more comprehensive, reinforced by a far greater presence of troops, barriers and equipment.

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Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.