Helmeted Israeli soldiers and police patrolled curfewed West Hank towns today after a wave of pro-terrorist rioting by high school students that resulted in the death of a 16-year-old Arab girl, scores of injuries and up to 50 arrests. The unrest, the most serious on the West Bank since the Six-Day War, engulfed the largest population centers–Jenin and Nablus in Samaria, Hebron and Halhul in Judaea, and to a lesser extent Al Birah and Bet Zeth, north of Jerusalem.
Four high schools were ordered closed by the Military Governor until the end of the current school year. School principals and the mayors of West Bank towns were warned that more schools would be closed if rioting broke out again.
The disturbances were attributed by Israeli authorities to PLO chieftain Yasir Arafat’s inflammatory speech to the United Nations General Assembly last Wednesday which West Bankers apparently viewed as a green light for anti-Israel dem- onstrations. In Jenin, high school students and students from the upper grades of elementary schools staged a pro-Arafat rally yesterday which rapidly degenerated into a stone-throwing melee against Israeli security forces.
INCIDENTS OF VIOLENCE
Several Israelis were injured. A 16-year-old Arab girl who was injured died later in a hospital: Local Arabs claimed she was hit by an Israeli army car. Physicians who treated her indicated, however, that she sustained a fatal head wound from a rock thrown by one of the demonstrators. A new demonstration developed during the girl’s funeral today but it was promptly quelled and a curfew was imposed on the township.
In Hebron, an Israeli army officer, the Military Governor’s chauffeur and six other Israeli soldiers were slightly injured by stones hurled at them by students. Twenty-three students were arrested on suspicion of having organized the demonstration. Late yesterday afternoon rioters set fire to a restaurant and souvenir shop belonging to Jewish settlers near the Machpela Oave, An Israeli car was attacked, its windows were smashed and its four occupants were dragged out and beaten. A curfew was clamped down on Hebron last night.
Israeli security forces were also stoned in Nablus and Halhul where demonstrators were dispersed by club-wielding police. Some anti-Israel slogans and Palestinian flags appeared today in. East Jerusalem. They were removed by police.
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