The military authorities on the West Bank today ordered the administrative arrest of four students at A-Najah University in Nablus. The university, considered a hotbed of PLO activity, was ordered closed for two months last weekend.
The arrest order was given under the power of the mandatory emergency regulations, and was an expression of the tough new policy approved by the Cabinet last Sunday and enforced in the past few days by the military authorities.
Besides ordering the closure of A-Najah, the authorities last weekend approved the administrative arrest of Zaid Abu-Ein, one of 1,150 terrorists released in the May prisoner exchange with Ahmad Jibril’s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The actions by the authorities follow the murders last month of two school teachers from Afula and the fatal shooting in Nablus of Albert Buchris, who operated a food stand at the entrance to the nearby military government headquarters. Three Arabs from the West Bank have reportedly confessed to the murder of the school teachers, and the investigation of the Buchris murder is continuing.
The four students placed under administrative arrest were all active in the A-Najah student body. Although no specific reason was given for the arrests, sources in the Defense establishment described the four as leaders of groups associated with terrorist organizations.
The six month administrative detention will be reviewed upon completion. It can theoretically be renewed indefinitely, subject to approval of a military court. Administrative detention has not been used in the past eight years. Its renewal was an expression of the authorities’ determination to use all possible means in order to curb the present unrest in the territories.
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP PROTESTS ARRESTS
The Civil Rights Society, meanwhile, protested today the renewal of administrative arrests. The Society argued that if there was enough material to press charges, one should do so, and if the person was innocent of any violation, one should leave him alone.
But Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin rejected this argument, saying that he preferred issuing, administrative arrests and targeting specific areas of unrest rather than imposing wide ranging curfews to calm down an area.
HIGH COURT INTERVENES IN DEPORTATION
In the meantime, the Supreme Court intervened today to prevent the deportation of a terrorist released in the May prisoner exchange. Abdul Majid Ghadad of Tul Karem left Israel for Jordan in September, 1967, and returned here in May, 1968, as a member of a terrorist unit. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.
Ghadad served 17 years of his 30-year sentence when he was released last May. Upon his release he received from the authorities a temporary visit visa, which is due to expire August II. In preparation for that date, he was ordered to go to the offices of the Red Cross in Tul Karem. Instead he appealed to the High Court.
The court argued that Ghadad had regretted his past involvement with the terrorist organization and that his deportation from his home town and his family constituted a violation of international law and of an international agreement Israel had signed. The court issued an interim order banning his deportation and demanded that the government show cause why it should not refrain from doing so.
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