Security authorities announced with considerable pride Monday that there have been no fatalities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the past 48 hours, a possible indication that the Palestinian uprising may be winding down.
In East Jerusalem, however, police arrested 14 Arab shop-owners who disobeyed orders to remain closed during the hours the underground leadership of the Arab uprising decreed they should be open for business.
The police began the confrontation Sunday in an effort once and for all to break the Arab commercial strike, now in its fifth month. They have ordered the merchants either to keep normal business hours or remain closed altogether.
It is a contest of strength with the Palestinian underground in which legal penalties, not force, are the weapons. Merchants found guilty of violating orders face fines and up to two years in prison.
throughout the morning, police patrolled barricades in the business district of East Jerusalem near the Damascus Gate. When shop-owners showed up at 2 p.m. and raised their shutters in accordance with instructions from the underground, the police arrested 14 and them and issued 22 closure orders.
There was no violence. But a crowd of onlookers was dispersed with water cannon.
Although the situation seems to have eased in the administered territories, the civil administration issued restraining orders Monday against dozens of Gaza Strip residents suspected of involvement in disturbances.
They are forbidden to use their cars and are required to check in at the Gaza police station twice a day.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Cabinet at its weekly meeting Sunday that some 165 Palestinians in the administered territories have died since the uprising began Dec. 9. Of that number, 147 were shot by security forces and the others were either killed by fellow Arabs or in accidents.
There are some 4,700 Palestinians under detention, of whom about 1,700 are under administrative arrest, meaning they may be held up to six months without trial.
In another development Sunday, a military court imposed a five-month suspended sentence on Israel Defense Force Cpl. Sagi Harpaz and reduced him to the rank of private. Harpaz was one of several IDF soldiers who kicked and beat two handcuffed Palestinian prisoners.
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