Israeli preparations to maintain law and order in the administered territories in the event of war with Iraq have many Palestinians convinced that Israel intends to “settle accounts” with them while the world is preoccupied with the conflict in the Persian Gulf.
They believe Israel will use the situation to engineer the mass transfer of Palestinians out of the territories or, at the very least, apply severe punitive measures against them.
The Israeli authorities believe most Palestinians back Saddam Hussein. And indeed, there were scattered pro-Hussein demonstrations in the West Bank over the weekend.
Palestinian leaders abroad also have been urging support for Hussein. Their exhortations were repeated in the latest leaflets issued by the intifada leadership.
Police Minister Ronni Milo and his senior officials have been planning measures to cope with a serious escalation of the uprising should war break out. They are worried about an upsurge of terrorism in Israel.
Milo warned Arabs in the territories and Arab citizens of Israel last week not to indulge in hostile acts on the home front or against the army under cover of a war in the region.
The chief military prosecutor of the Israel Defense Force, Judge Advocate Gen. Amnon Strashnov, issued a blunt warning over the weekend. He said if Palestinians engaged in hostile acts against Israel in time of war, they would lose the status of protected civilians under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which protects civilian populations under military occupation.
In that case, the territories would be considered a war zone, and standing orders governing the use of firearms by troops would be revised accordingly, Strashnov warned.
NO GAS MASKS YET FOR PALESTINIANS
At a news conference in East Jerusalem, Palestinian activist Faisal Husseini urged international organizations and foreign governments not to leave the territories but increase their presence there “to protect the Palestinians.”
A more fearful mood was evident in the territories over the weekend as the prospect of war became more and more real.
Palestinians are as concerned as Israelis over Iraqi threats to attack Israel with missiles bearing poison gas warheads. But while virtually the entire Israeli population has been supplied with gas masks, Palestinians in the territories have not received the protection.
Distribution of the gas masks to Jewish settlers in the territories began Sunday.
The level of fear has been raised by public service announcements on Israeli television advising what to do in case of a gas attack, which includes how to don a gas mask.
An Arab resident of Bethlehem appealed to the High Court of Justice on Sunday to order the Defense Ministry to issue gas masks to everyone in the territories.
A Moslem preacher during Friday services on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem pleaded with Saddam Hussein not to forget “that hundreds of thousands of Moslem Arabs live in Israel.
“Please take that into account,” he urged.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
