Palestinian police went head-to-head with protesters in two West Bank towns, with one of the confrontations becoming violent.
In Bethelethem some 200 protesters scuffled Saturday with Palestinian police, who stopped demonstrators from reaching an Israeli checkpoint outside the city.
The protesters demonstrated against Israel’s continued closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and against what they said were Israel’s plans to confiscate land from the city for road construction.
Hundreds of Palestinian students held a rally the same day in Nablus, where Palestinian security forces fired shots into the air and hurled tear gas to break up the protests.
Reacting to the day’s worst outbreak of violence at a protest, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called for a formal inquiry into the clashes in Nablus, where 10 students were injured after Palestinian security forces broke up a pro-Hamas rally at An-Najah University.
Despite Arafat’s move, Nablus residents reportedly said they thought that police had been acting under this instructions when they raided the campus gathering.
The rally was held to protest the arrests of several students as part of the self-rule government’s crackdown on suspected Islamic militants. The crackdown comes in the wake of the recent series of Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.
At least five students were arrested in Saturday’s confrontation.
Studies at the university were suspended to protest the Palestinian police action.
Meanwhile, Israeli Arabs spent the day holding rallies to commemorate Land Day, an annual tribute to six Israeli Arabs killed in 1976 as they protested Israeli land seizures in the Galilee. In at least one rally Saturday, Israeli Arabs called for an end to the closure imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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