Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan today defended the army’s use of live ammunition to quell riots on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. An Arab school girl was fatally wounded by Israeli soldiers in Kahn Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday.
Eitan, oppearing before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, said investigations of that incident and similar ones on the West Bank showed there had been no deviation from standing orders by Israeli troops.
He said those orders banned the use of live ammunition unless all other methods of riot control failed and the soldiers were in immediate danger. Recently, Israeli forces have resorted to rubber bullets but on some occasions they proved inadequate.
TOUGH QUESTIONS FROM LABOR ALIGNMENT
Eitan faced tough questions and criticism from Labor Alignment members of the committee. Shlomo Hillel, a veteran Laborite with hawkish views, said that every Arab fatality on the West Bank did enormous damage to Israel’s image abroad. Former Foreign Minister Abba Eban asked why more sophisticated, non-lethal riot control methods used elsewhere in the world, could not be applied by Israel.
Other Laborites asked why shots fired “at the legs” of demonstrators sometimes struck vital organs. Eitan, for his part, contended that the riots in the occupied territories in recent weeks were inspired and organized from outside. Israel Radio reported tonight that the wave of violence on the West Bank seemed to be abating despite the latest outbreaks.
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