A police sapper safely defused a bomb near a taxi stand at the Nablus Gate in East Jerusalem this morning. The incident was symptomatic of the growing unrest in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank during the past two weeks which has triggered reactive measures by the Israeli authorities.
The West Bank civil administration shut down the Ramallah Teachers College until further notice yesterday in response to student demonstrations. A military court in Lod gave a one-year suspended sentence to an East Jerusalem Arab journalist, Saman Khorie, for possession of two copies of a magazine banned in the occupied territories.
The magazine was Al-Huriya published in Beirut by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Two back issues were found in Khorie’s office when it was raided by Israeli security forces seven weeks ago. The office was ordered closed for six month by the commander of the central region, Gen. Uri Orr.
Friction is growing between Palestinians and Jewish settlers on the West Bank. The settlers committees are holding on emergency meeting today to discuss “increasing attacks on settlers by local Arabs.” The heads of the Jewish settlement councils warned they would take “steps to safeguard Jewish homes” unless the situation improved. They did not elaborate.
A group of Orthodox students from the Gush Emunim settlement of Elan Moreh announced they would open a yeshiva at the site of Joseph’s tomb in nearby Nablus, the largest Arab town on the West Bank.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.