Israeli border police wounded five Arab students while dispersing demonstrators in the university town of Bir Zeit on the West Bank today. The incident ended several weeks of relative quiet in the occupied territories.
Israeli security sources said the demonstrators blocked several streets in the vicinity of the university and claimed that one of the students threw a Molotov cocktail at a police patrol car. Police surrounded the university and summoned buses to carry the students out of town.
The purpose of the demonstration was not immediately clear. According to one report, it was staged to protest the fatal wounding of a young Arab woman by an Israeli soldier in a village near Jerusalem last week. Israeli sources said the soldier had fired his weapon accidentally Bir Zeit, site of the Arab University, has long been a hotbed of Palestinian nationalism and the scene of anti-Israel demonstrations for many years. Israeli authorities ordered the university closed for several months last year.
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