Arafat’s men fail to quell Hebron riots

HEBRON (WEST BANK), July 4: Bricks, bullets and bombs flew in the West Bank town of Hebron again today after street activists from PLO lead...

HEBRON (WEST BANK), July 4: Bricks, bullets and bombs flew in the West Bank town of Hebron again today after street activists from PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction failed to hold back Palestinian demonstrators, witnesses said.

Allahu akbar! (God is greatest),’ dozens of demonstrators cried as they threw stones and bottles at battle-ready Israeli troops on the confrontation line between Israeli and Palestinian-run sectors of Hebron.

Jeering demonstrators shrugged off the efforts of some 25 Fatah activists to push them back in a bid to dampen renewed violence.

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The city’s heart has been a battleground since a Jewish woman ignited Arab anger last week by pasting anti-Moslem placards depicting the prophet Mohammad as a pig holding the Koran with one hoof while writing in it with another.

Witnesses said a home-made bomb exploded in Hebron’s Casbah in the same alley where a similar device wounded two Israeli soldiers earlier in the week. They said soldiers responded with a barrage of rubber bullets, wounding three.

Other soldiers on roofs rained stones and bottles back at protesters.Israel sealed Hebron on Friday to try to stifle unrest, bracing for violence following weekly Moslem Friday prayers. Witnesses said Israeli troops erected roadblocks around Hebron and turned back non-residents at entrances to the tense city.

“Since the morning, the Israeli army is preventing the entrance of Palestinians who do not live in Hebron to the (Palestinian-ruled) H1 area for security reasons,” an army statement said.