Israelis Fire on West Bank Protesters; Boy Killed

JERUSALEM — A 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed and at least five other Arabs were wounded as Israeli troops opened fire Monday for a fifth straight day in an effort to quell demonstrations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The violence, which began last Thursday with protests at Birzeit, the Palestinian university about 25 miles north of Jerusalem, has left four Arabs dead and at least 17 wounded by Israeli gunfire.

At least 11 Israelis and an unknown number of Palestinians have been injured by rocks, clubs and tear gas.

Military authorities Monday shut down for the rest of the month a part of Birzeit where Thursday’s trouble was centered.

Later in the day, Israel radio reported that An Najah, the largest university on the West Bank, had been closed for a week in a preemptive step the army hopes will defuse the situation.

Monday’s disturbances affected a dozen towns and Palestinian refugee camps, according to military and Arab sources. Ramallah and Bira, twin West Bank towns near Birzeit, were both placed under curfew for much of the day after Palestinians threw up barricades, burned tires and threw stones at passing Israeli civilians and military patrols.

Two Israeli women motorists and three soldiers were injured by stones, an army spokesman said.

Many shops in the the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem were closed as merchants joined the protest.

The worst of Monday’s violence occurred at the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, where a 14-year-old boy was shot to death by troops last Friday. An army spokesman said residents blocked roads and threw stones at military patrols. The troops used tear gas and, when that failed, fired into the air in an unsuccessful attempt to disperse the protesters.

“The height of the disturbances was early this afternoon,” said a man identified by Israel army radio as the military commander at the scene in Balata. “Hundreds of youths, some of them masked, were throwing stones, bottles and pieces of metal, and it endangered the lives of the soldiers.”

He said the soldiers followed standard procedure, giving a verbal warning and firing into the air before firing at the feet of the demonstrators.

The army said four demonstrators were wounded and that a 12-year-old boy was dead on arrival at a hospital. A hospital official said the bullet that caused the fatal wound, in the boy’s head, came from an M-16 semiautomatic rifle, the kind used by Israeli troops.

A military spokesman said Monday night that a preliminary investigation showed that the boy, identified as Ramadan Mohammed Zeitun, had arrived at the hospital before the shooting at the camp began.

The army closed off the camp Monday, along with the center of nearby Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city with 90,000 people.

Troops also opened fire at Sinjil, near Ramallah, where the military confirmed that one Palestinian was wounded. The Palestine Press Service, which monitors activity in the occupied territories, reported that troops also fired toward demonstrators in Gaza and Ramallah.

In Abu Dis, a suburb of Jerusalem, troops surrounded a vocational college after police fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse stone-throwing students.

Israeli authorities blame the wave of protests on Palestine Liberation Organization agitation. They say the agitators are connected with the “war of the camps” taking place in Lebanon between PLO fighters and Shia Muslim Amal militiamen.