An Israel Defense Force spokesman denied Wednesday that the army has used a highly toxic gas to disperse Palestinian demonstrators in the administered territories.
The spokesman said the IDF employed standard tear gas used in riot control all over the world.
The charge was made by a doctor who is director of health at the Vienna-based United Nations Work and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees which operates refugee camps in the territories.
He claimed that at least two Palestinian youths have died and 60 women had miscarriages from inhaling the gas.
The IDF denial notwithstanding, several dozen residents of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza were hospitalized Wednesday after the army used large quantities of tear gas to disperse demonstrators protesting the expulsion of eight Palestinian activists to Lebanon Monday.
The Shati refugee camp in Gaza remained under curfew Wednesday and a number of other camps were sealed off following disturbances Tuesday in which more than 40 Palestinians were injured, according to unconfirmed reports. The riots occurred near the deportees’ homes.
But despite the mounting tension, thousands of Arab day laborers from the Gaza Strip reported to their jobs in Israel Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the official report on events at Beita village in the West Bank on April 6 is expected to be submitted by the police Thursday.
It will contain no surprises, according to unofficial sources. Pathologists and ballistic experts have already established that Tirza Porat, the 15-year-old Jewish girl who died at Beita, was killed by a bullet fired from an M-16 rifle by Romam Aldubi, 26, a Jewish settler.
Aldubi, one of two armed civilians escorting a group of teen-age hikers, remains hospitalized at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem in serious condition. He was clubbed unconscious by the mother and sister of a Palestinian youth he killed in Beita.
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