Shamir Seeks to Ease Rules on Firing at Rock-Throwers

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has called for changing Israeli policy to permit civilians and soldiers to open fire on Arab stone-throwers without shooting warning rounds first, an aide said Wednesday.

Shamir, in a private meeting with a Jewish settler, said he believes that rocks should be “reclassified as lethal weapons, against which one should defend oneself in the same way as against firebombs and gunfire,” said Yossi Ahimeir, an aide to the prime minister.

“A stone must be considered a weapon that can end your life,” Ahimeir quoted Shamir as saying.

Israeli policy states that civilians and soldiers can fire on Arabs armed with guns or firebombs without firing warning shots.

Criticism From Settlers

Shamir, leader of the right-wing Likud Bloc, has faced criticism from many of the 60,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which together have a population of 1.5 million Palestinians.

The settlers have been angered by police confiscation of some of their weapons during investigations of civilian shooting incidents in the occupied territories.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin explained the use of plastic bullets to a closed parliamentary meeting Tuesday, according to media reports Wednesday.

While live ammunition can only be used in self-defense, troops are permitted to fire plastic bullets while pursing Arab protesters or to incapacitate suspected ringleaders, a defense official said on condition of anonymity.

Ian Hogg, an ammunition expert at the London-based Jane’s Defense Weekly, said plastic bullets generally can kill at a range of 20 yards or less but pose no danger beyond a distance of about 120 yards.

An Israeli army official said army tests on its plastic bullets found them to be non-lethal “at a reasonable distance.”

In the Gaza Strip, doctors said troops shot and killed an Arab youth, and the army said a 16-year-old Palestinian died of injuries sustained in a clash with troops Tuesday.

Wednesday’s killing occurred in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp when troops opened fire to disperse Arab stone-throwers, doctors at Shifa Hospital said. They said that 17-year-old Hamis Minawi died of a gunshot wound to the heart and that five other Palestinians were wounded, including a 40-year-old woman shot in the head.

At the Rafah refugee camp, relatives of 16-year-old Ayman Ahmed Nagar said he died Wednesday, a day after being hit in the head and body by rubber bullets. They said he was also beaten by troops.

Israeli troops frequently use cork-shaped rubber bullets that contain metal pellets to disperse stone-throwers. They bruise but usually are not lethal, although they have caused eye loss and at least one death earlier this year.

Last month, the army introduced pointed plastic bullets that penetrate the skin but are generally lethal only when fired from less than 20 yards.

240 Palestinians Killed

More than 240 Palestinians have been killed, most of them by Israeli soldiers, since the Arab uprising began Dec. 8. Three Israeli Jews and an Israeli Arab have also died.

In the West Bank, a Jewish settler whose car was hit by a firebomb accidentally shot and wounded two Israeli soldiers because “he thought they were terrorists coming to kill him,” a settler spokesman said.

Confirming the incident, an army spokesman said the civilian was chasing a firebomb thrower near the Efrat settlement.

The soldiers also were pursuing the suspect when they were shot, the army spokesman said. Israel Radio said the civilian, a resident of the nearby Tekoa settlement, was detained for questioning.

David Bedine, a spokesman for Jewish settlements in the area, said, “We are very sorry about the harm done to the soldiers.”