West Bank Ignites As Talks Fail Three Palestinians Killed, More Than 100 Injured In Worst Violence Since Israel’s Decision To Build In East Jerusalem

After an inconclusive summit with President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel on Tuesday to find his immediate challenge is not to save the Middle East peace process but to stop violence from spiraling out of control.

Three Palestinians were shot to death and more than 100 were injured as Palestinian-Israeli clashes erupted in the West Bank town of Hebron. At least five Israeli police and soldiers also were injured.

It was the bloodiest day in three weeks of Palestinian-Israeli violence spawned by Israel’s decision to break ground March 18 on a housing project in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel has refused to resume negotiations as long as violence continues, and the Palestinians have refused to halt protests unless Israel stops building Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank.

Tuesday, the Nonaligned Movement, meeting in New Delhi, India, called on its 113 member nations to freeze ties with Israel at existing levels to pressure the Jewish state to end the peace impasse.

In Washington, where U.S. officials plan to meet this week with a high-level delegation representing Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, President Clinton insisted the two sides will have to work out their problems directly.

“I want these parties to do what they have to do to get this (peace) process up and going again. We’ve got to have an atmosphere of zero tolerance for terror, but we’ve also got to have the kind of confidence-building necessary to make peace.”

David Bar-Illan, a senior Netanyahu aide who traveled to the Washington talks, asserted Tuesday that Israel was confident that the Americans support Netanyahu’s stand against making concessions to Arafat under the threat of violence or terrorism.

“I’m sure they will accept our point of view that whatever we do by way of concessions will not be done in response to either violence or threats of violence, because that only means surrender to extortion and an endless surrender to such threats,” Bar-Illan, the prime minister’s director of policy planning and communications, said in an interview.

But Palestinians reeling from Tuesday’s casualties, sought to portray Israel as the party guilty of provocations, a mirror of Netanyahu’s accusations that Arafat is giving a “green light” to Arab violence in order to protest the housing project.

“What happened today is a crime that happened with Israeli encouragement and clear American cover,” charged Jabril Rajoub, head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank.

Israeli police said Tuesday’s bloodshed began after two settlers, both students in their 20s at a Hebron religious school, were confronted by Palestinians on a Hebron street. There were conflicting reports of what happened.

Israel Radio reported one of the settlers opened fire with an Uzi submachine gun, fatally wounding the shopkeeper, identified as Asem Arafeh, after the Palestinians sprayed the settlers with tear gas and threw stones.

Another Israeli witness said the Arabs had poured acid on the students, but Palestinians said the students provoked the incident and the religious school student simply opened fire at point-blank range.

Afterward, intense rioting erupted as hundreds of Palestinians chanted “revenge” and threw stones and gasoline bombs at Israeli soldiers.

The soldiers responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets. There were reports some of them also used live ammunition.

Two more Palestinians were killed in the clashes, according to hospitals, both apparently by rubber bullets.

Yacoub al-Joulani, 15, died when a rubber-coated metal bullet penetrated his head, and another Palestinian, Nader a-Said, 25, died when a rubber-coated bullet pierced his eye and brain, according to hospital officials.

At least 103 people were wounded.

Witnesses said the clashes tapered off after Palestinian police intervened between the Arab crowds and Israeli security forces.

Despite security cooperation in the streets, there were no signs Tuesday of new talks to restore the peace process.

Netanyahu kept a public hard line toward the Palestinian leadership.

“If they want peace, they must fight terrorism,” Netanyahu told the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee after meeting Clinton. Netanyahu has steadfastly refused to stop building on the disputed land in Jerusalem.

Arafat’s conclusion after Netanyahu’s Washington visit: “This means that he does not want peace.” Both sides spoke of an impasse.

“There’s nowhere to go in the political process,” Israeli government spokesman Moshe Fogel said late Tuesday, “if violence is considered by them a legitimate tool.”

Said Hasan Abdel-Rahman, the Palestinian spokesman in Washington: “We won’t even consider (new talks) unless the Israelis cease these policies of building new settlements” on disputed land.