BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS

Palestinian security forces fought running gun battles with Israeli troops for several hours September 25 in Ramallah, Bethlehem, and elsewhere in the West Bank. They were responding to a frontal assault by Tel Aviv's occupying army on thousands of Palestinian demonstrators. Israeli soldiers fired thousands of rounds of ammunition at protesters, killing at least seven Palestinians and wounding over 300.

The scale of the confrontation, which involved uniformed policemen of the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, was unprecedented since the signing of the Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) accord in 1993. This is the first time since Tel Aviv occupied this Palestinian territory that it has had to battle a Palestinian fighting force that the Israeli regime has recognized, and to which it has ceded some governing authority. In the wake of the bloody assault several Palestinian organizations called new strikes and demonstrations.

"The Palestinians are showing the whole world that they are against [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's policies of stopping the peace process," Khaled Barghouti, a student at Bir Zeit university near Ramallah, told the press. "We're against the Israeli government that wants to kill our dream, the Palestinian dream. We want our country and our freedom."

The new protests against the Israeli occupation erupted on the morning of September 25. The day before, the new Israeli Likud government mounted a surprise predawn operation to finish a disputed tunnel along the edge of Jerusalem's Temple Mount. That is where al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located, one of the main worship sites for people of the Islamic faith around the world, and a symbol of the Palestinian struggle to regain sovereignty over East Jerusalem. "Tel Aviv is opening the tunnel to create more facts on the ground and try to seal Jerusalem as an Israeli city," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian legislature, told CNN in an interview.

The PLO authority and other Palestinian organizations helped organize protests from Hebron to Nablus in the West Bank. In Ramallah and Bethlehem, Palestinian university students gathered and marched near Israeli army checkpoints just outside the Palestinian-controlled city centers.

Under the limited self-rule agreement between Tel Aviv and the PLO, Palestinian forces have some governing authority inside dozens of cities throughout the West Bank. But the Israeli troops still surround these cities, control roads between them, and remain in full charge over the majority of the land and water resources of the territory.

The Palestinian youth hurled stones at Israeli troops with slingshots and used makeshift armor of steel trash cans on wheels to defend themselves. They stood their ground through hundreds of rounds of tear gas, pressing scarves or onions on their noses to ward off the fumes. But they were cut down under Israeli fire, most with rubber bullets and many others with live ammunition from M-16 assault rifles.

"When they started at us it was like rain," said Mustafa Bargouti, a physician at the scene of the Ramallah clash. "I can tell you I saw death. It was hundreds and hundreds of bullets around us." Palestinian witnesses showed reporters two hilltops inside the Ramallah boundary where they said Israeli soldiers drove protesters, and then strafed the streets below for 90 minutes. Palestinian police then responded to the ongoing Israeli fire against unarmed civilians.

PLO leader Yasir Arafat said in Gaza that Tel Aviv's disputed opening of the tunnel marked "the Judaization of Jerusalem." He said that "East Jerusalem is our capital and this has been occupied since 1967."

Netanyahu has stated clearly that his government will not even discuss ceding any part of Jerusalem to Palestinian control. He said in June that there is no chance of a negotiated settlement over the city, whose eastern half is populated in its majority by Arabs. During his three months in office Israeli police and the army have stepped up demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and have aided Zionist thugs who are pushing their way - one apartment at a time - into Arab neighborhoods.

U.S. officials were uneasy about the implications of Tel Aviv's decision to go ahead with the tunnel. "We were not informed in advance of this activity," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pelletreau said.

Meanwhile, Israeli jet fighters again fired rockets into southern Lebanon September 25. Tel Aviv says it was targeting bases of the Hezbollah guerrilla forces, who are fighting against the occupation of the southern portion of their country by Israeli forces.  
 
 
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