Thousands of Israelis thronged the West Bank town of Hebron over the weekend to show their support for the Jewish settlers there.
Police estimated that some 8,000 people, many of them members of religious youth movements and yeshiva students, spent the weekend in Hebron.
They came in a show of solidarity for the 450 Jewish settlers living in Hebron and to mark the weekly Torah portion, which records the patriarch Abraham’s purchase of the land on which the Tomb of the Partriarchs sits.
Israeli soldiers clashed Saturday with Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators calling for the turnover of Hebron to Palestinian self-rule.
When police tried to disperse the demonstrators as they approached the Avraham Avinu enclave in Hebron’s Jewish quarter, the protesters resisted.
Fourteen people were briefly detained, including four members of the Hadash Party, a leftist, predominantly Arab grouping that holds five Knesset seats.
Meanwhile, one Palestinian was killed and at least a dozen were wounded by Israeli soldiers during violent protests Sunday against Israeli plans to expropriate Arab-owned land for Jewish settlements near the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The violence was the most serious since the rioting in late September after the opening of a new tunnel entrance near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
The unrest came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators prepared to resume their discussions this week to implement the Israeli redeployment in Hebron.
President Clinton, in his first news conference since his re-election, called last Friday for the two sides to conclude an agreement for the redeployment.
“I think the first and most important thing we can do is to nail down the agreement on Hebron,” Clinton said, adding that an agreement “will open the door to go on and fulfill all the other challenges that are there before us.”
As negotiators planned this week to hash out the final details of the agreement, Israeli security officials continued their preparations for dealing with expected Jewish opposition to the redeployment.
Public Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani said this week that the police were considering making preventive arrests of some 20 to 30 Jewish extremists from Hebron and nearby Kiryat Arba who security forces suspected would try to thwart the redeployment.
Kahalani tried to calm concerns that a Hebron redeployment would be fiercely opposed by Jewish extremists.
“Most of the army has already left the city, and the Jewish residents will not feel the difference between the situation today and the one which will follow the redeployment,” he told the Israeli daily Ma’ariv.
According to a police report made public last Friday, Israeli security officials are recommending increased protection for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of recent assassination threats against him linked to the redeployment.
The report said Hebron settlers had been stockpiling weapons, raising the concern that they would open fire on Palestinian police when they take up positions in most of Hebron.
The report also said the wives of activists Baruch Marzel and Noam Federman would set themselves on fire on the day of the redeployment.
Elisheva Federman denied the report, saying that it was unfounded.
“I have children to take care of. I don’t know where [the police] gets such ideas,” she said.
On Sunday, her husband, a former member of the outlawed anti-Arab Kach movement, was placed under administrative detention for two months.
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