A mobile police station was set up in Zion Square today to maintain strict control over traffic in the aftermath of Thursday’s bomb explosion in downtown Jerusalem that took six lives. It was the third terrorist perpetrated blast in the Zion Square area since last July and the second to cause fatalities. As a result, maximum precautionary measures have been instituted and Police Minister Shlomo Hillel asked the Cabinet today to approve additional security measures.
Many of the 60 Arabs arrested for questioning directly after the blast remained in detention this morning. Police conducted spot checks and searches of all Arabs passing between East and West Jerusalem. The mobile police station will remain in Zion Square “until further notice,” police sources said.
Police had the additional task of preventing hot-headed Jewish youths from invading Arab quarters for reprisals. Two explosions rocked the West Bank towns of Ramallah and El Birrah yesterday injuring two persons and causing damage, but it was not clear whether they were caused by revenge-seeking Jews or PLO terrorists opposed to Israeli plans to extend administrative autonomy to West Bank Arabs.
21 REMAIN HOSPITALIZED; DEAD IDENTIFIED
Meanwhile, 21 of the persons injured in Thursday’s explosion remained hospitalized today, four of them reported to be in poor condition. The death toll, originally given as seven Thursday night, was revised to six Friday after the dead were identified. All were teen-agers: Mahluf Baluli, 17; Malka Cohen, 16; Leah Harari, 15; Eliezer Karni, 17; and Shlomo Deri, 16, all of Jerusalem; and Malka Nahum, 17, a resident of a moshav outside of the city.
The explosions on the West Bank were caused by bombs planted under automobiles with Israeli license plates. They occurred after a week of sometimes violent demonstrations by students in both towns in favor of the PLO and against Israel autonomy plans which are regarded as an attempt to weaken PLO influence in the administered territories.
WARNS AGAINST ARAB VIOLENCE
Defense Minister Shimon Peres, who publicly proposed administrative autonomy several weeks ago, warned on a radio interview yesterday that demonstrations and violence would solve nothing. “Some Arabs are trying to make it appear they will be doing us a favor by managing their own affairs,” Peres said. “The Arabs must realize they will achieve no real solution by force, demonstrations or threats.”
Peres noted that only 500 out of 16,000 civil servants on the West Bank are Israelis and said the government wanted to transfer more responsibility for commerce, industry, health and education to senior Arab administrators in the territories who would be selected by the local populace.
He said such autonomy was not linked to any final peace settlement or solution of the Palestinian problem that may eventually be reached, “If an agreed solution is found, self-government won’t present an obstacle,” he said.
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