Thirty-two settlements in Samaria in the northern West Bank were shut down by a general strike Thursday, as settlers vented their fury over the deteriorating security situation by threatening violence and heckling Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Security forces had their hands full as they also had to attend to Palestinians rioting. Israel Defense Force soldiers killed two Palestinians, including a 13-year-old, and wounded eight others in violent clashes in the West Bank towns of Tulkarm and Hebron.
There were also confrontations in Anabta and Nablus, where at least 10 other Palestinians were reported wounded in clashes with soldiers.
The Israeli settlers chose Thursday for the demonstration because it marked the end of the 30-day mourning period for Yaacov Parag, a settler, and Arthur Herstig, a reserve soldier, who were murdered near the settlement of Bracha a month ago.
The day was also the end of shiva for Shimon Edri, an Israeli taxi driver whose bullet-riddled body was found at a crossroad near the settlement of Yakir last week.
Police said Edri’s killing seemed politically motivated, but they found no evidence linking it to any terrorist organization.
The settlers, angered by daily stoning of their vehicles on West Bank roads, massed at the Yakir crossroads Wednesday night after erecting a stone memorial to Edri there.
This led to a tense standoff with Israel Defense Force troops sent to dismantle it.
The IDF is under orders to prevent public gatherings outside the settlement boundaries. Witnesses at the scene reported fistfights, suicide threats and road barricades that blocked traffic on the trans-Samaria highway.
Eventually, the soldiers permitted the settlers to hold a brief ceremony for Edri.
Shamir ran into trouble at Bracha when he went there for the memorial to Parag and Herstig.
SHAMIR SHOUTED DOWN
He had barely begun his eulogy with condolences to the families and a call for national unity when settlers shouted him down.
They waved placards reading “You are a traitor,” “You are responsible for the murders.”
Forced to cut short his speech, Shamir moved to a planned cornerstone-laying ceremony at a local synagogue and planted a tree. But his tormentors were relentless.
“Begin also planted a tree in Yamit,” settlers shouted.
That was a reference to the forced evacuation of Jewish settlers from Yamit in northern Sinai in 1982, in compliance with the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty signed by Menachem Begin, Shamir’s predecessor.
Settlement leaders who have been on a protest hunger strike outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem for the past month lashed out Wednesday at Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who is responsible for security in the territories.
They warned that the situation will get worse and that settlers would begin taking matters into their own hands.
Rabin insisted that only security forces are responsible for security, but he said he under stood the plight of the settlers and promised “more drastic measures” to end stoning attacks.
Meanwhile, a curfew was imposed on the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, just below the Temple Mount.
It was only the third curfew in the Israeli capital since the Palestinian uprising began, and is something Mayor Teddy Kollek and other municipal officials had hoped to avoid.
But Jerusalem police commander Yosef Yehudai said Silwan has been a center of unrest for the last three months, and the policy now is to clamp curfews wherever disturbances occur.
The curfew is expected to last all weekend.
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