Two firebombs that exploded in the center of Jerusalem Wednesday night caused no casualties or damage, but raised fears that the attack was meant to extend the Palestinian uprising from the administered territories into Israel proper.
The bombs were thrown onto King George Street, one of Jerusalem’s main thoroughfares, where they burst into flames.
It appeared that they came from a building under construction. Several armed civilian passers-by entered the construction site with guns drawn, but found no one.
Police detained 10 Arabs in the vicinity on suspicion, but Southern District Police Commander Rahamim Comfort said later that the attackers had not yet been apprehended.
A similar gasoline bomb attack occurred last month in the heart of Tel Aviv, when several firebombs were thrown from the roof of the Dizengoff Street shopping mall, one of the city’s busiest. There were no casualties or damage and the perpetrators have yet to be found.
Premier Yitzhak Shamir insisted Thursday that the firebombing in Jerusalem did not herald a new stage in the Palestinian uprising, now nearing the end of its seventh month.
“There were many cases like this in various parts of the country,” he told reporters.
Shamir repeated his view that the uprising itself “is not about territorial issues, but it is about the very existence of Israel.”
Israel, meanwhile, in a goodwill gesture toward the Palestinians Wednesday, released a prominent Gaza lawyer, Mohammad Abu-Shaaban, after he served four months of a six-month term under administrative detention.
Abu-Shaaban, an executive member of the Gaza Bar Association, was seized in March on his way home from giving an address at Tel Aviv University in which he called for a Palestinian state to exist side-by-side with Israel.
No reason was given for his arrest. Administrative detention, a holdover from the British Mandate, allows the authorities to jail anyone for renewable six-month periods without trial or formal charges.
The Israeli authorities said Abu-Shaaban was freed in order to prove there is no “iron fist” policy against Palestinians and to persuade striking lawyers in Gaza to return to work.
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