Word: jala
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...most flagrant recent example of harassment occurred at Beit Jala (pop. 8,200) two months ago, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon:* some 50 Israeli troops surrounded a school, ordered the students to close the windows, and then lobbed canisters of CS antiriot gas into the classrooms. Some students leaped 18 ft. to the rocky ground below. Ten were hospitalized with fractures. Military authorities at first denied the incident, but Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman pressed his own investigation and found it to be true. He removed Brigadier General David Hagoel, 49, as military governor of the West Bank...
Weizman's move stemmed from an episode involving Israeli forces on the West Bank who were overzealously cracking down to discourage Arab protests against the incursion into South Lebanon. At Beit Jala, a village five miles south of Jerusalem, a group of soldiers entered the local Arab high school, ordered the students to shut their windows and then tossed cans of U.S.-made antiriot gas into some rooms. A number of students leaped out of second-floor windows to escape the choking gas; ten were hospitalized with various fractures, some crippling...
...Beit Jala incident gained national attention in Israel when it was reported by TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff, who was the first journalist to investigate the episode. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, citing a "thorough" probe of the matter, heatedly maintained that there was "no truth whatsoever" in TIME's account. Israelis accepted that explanation. The Tel Aviv daily Ma'ariv implied, falsely, that Neff had never visited Beit Jala...
Said Ma'ariv last week: "It is hard to say which is more serious, the deeds that were perpetrated in the Beit Jala school in contravention of orders and of any human decency, or the attempt to escape responsibility by a false report." No less surprised were the West Bank Arabs. Said Jabra Arag, a Beit Jala physician: "It is a great credit to Weizman that even in occupation, democracy can prevail...
Perhaps the worst incident occurred at Beit Jala (pop. 8,200), five miles south of Jerusalem. One day last week, residents reported, about 50 Israeli troops rolled up in trucks and surrounded a school. Headmaster Louis Rabbo complained that he was "shoved rudely" by the soldiers when he tried to protest. The troops ordered the pupils, all in their early teens, to close their windows, then hurled beer-can-size canisters of U.S.-made CS antiriot gas into the packed classrooms. One student, Mohammed Azzeh, 13, was studying Arab literature in a second-floor classroom when a soldier appeared, ordered...