Israeli authorities released about 100 Arab detainees in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and announced that schools in the West Bank would be reopened as early as Monday, after a three-month closure for security reasons.
The detainees were freed in the Gaza Strip on the occasion of Id El Fitr, a Moslem feast that follows the holy month of Ramadan.
The territories were generally quiet Tuesday. No serious clashes were reported. But a resident of the Kalandiya refugee camp, north of Jerusalem, was shot by Israel Defense Force soldiers, after he allegedly tried to snatch a rifle from one of them.
Another soldier was sentenced by a military court to three months in jail, and his superior officer was severely reprimanded for unauthorized use of firearms during a clash with Arabs at Azmout village, near Nablus.
Military sources stressed that the men were not being punished in connection with the death of an Arab resident of Azmout whose body was brought to the government hospital in Nablus on Monday. The IDF is investigating the cause of that death, which remains unknown, the sources said.
The soldiers were punished because their commanding officer determined that they had fired their rifles in a non-life-threatening situation, which is against IDF regulations.
Meanwhile, the Israeli civil administration in the West Bank said schools there would be reopened gradually, starting with kindergarten and the lower grades. Preparatory schools and high schools will follow with a period of about a week between each reopening, the authorities said.
The schools were shut in February as part of the effort to put down the Palestinian uprising. They will be closed again if there is new unrest, the authorities said. Arab universities, the main centers of Palestinian nationalism, will remain shut down.
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