Palestinian students arrested

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Cent opposed to the wishes I the Palestinian people.

The establishment of a restinian sovereign state • the West Bank or West ank plus Gaza Strip would * constitute a just solupn of the Palestinian restion.

The fact that a section of e PLO leadership has for me time been pressing r such a state and the ct that this leadership vuld in return for the tablishment of such a ate guarantee the borders Israel — if necessary by ¡litarily suppressing iose wanting to continue e struggle against the onist settlement - does * change the fact that the ¡lestinian nation has a tht to return to all of lestine, nor. does it ritimate the existence of lewish state based on the propriation of Aral THE third closure of Birzeit University - a Palestinian university in the West Bank - during this academic year has been accompanied by mass arrests of 82 students.

It started on July 6 when Israeli military forces invaded Birzeit village and attacked students who were demonstrating against the war in Lebanon. By midafternoon a heavy cloud of tear gas hung over the village.

During the night soldiers and interrogation units visited most houses in the village, searching for students, confiscating IDs.

The next day roadblocks were set up on the main route into Birzeit village from the neighbouring West Bank town of Ramallah. Students and staff were herded off buses and were searched. ID cards were taken and about to students were detained. The students were then pursued by a low-flying helicopter firing tear gas canisters as they attempted to leave the area through the fields, near the village of Abu Qash.

Spot arrests and detentions of large numbers of students continued from July 8 when the university was cut off by army vehicles. Schools in the West Bank have been threatened with closure if they offer facilities to BZU, and on Saturday July 10 three Jerusalem schools were surrounded by jeeps from 6.30am.

Over 100 students attempting to attend alternative programmes were arrested.

Under the military occupation persons may be held incommunicado for 18 days under "administrative detention": a procedure similar to Britain's Prevention of Terrorism Act.

All members of the student council are either in prison or under house arrest and Israeli tactics have been aimed at forcing students to return home to their camps and villages.

The case of Anne Scott, a British research assistant at BZU, has received wide publicity in Britain. Anne was detained on Sunday July 11 at Ramallah military headquarters and prison while accompanying two students trying to retrieve their ID. During her interrogation Anne refused to answer further questions without the university lawyer, and was beaten with a softball bat. On the same day she was transferred to Moskobiya Prison in Jerusalem and released two days later.

In the face of widespread criticism from outside Israel the authorities hastily mounted an inquiry and have announced the trial of the soldiers involved.

But regular and routine beatings and tortures of Palestinian prisoners and arrested persons continue unabated.

LOUISA SADLER An eye-witness re from the West Bal Begin 47-° today amongst the soldiers is that they will not become involved in full-scale fighting against the Syrians. Shooting civilians is not pleasant, but not dangerous.

Everything in racist Israel is seen from the Jewish point of view, even the courage of the people of Beirut.

After a month of war we were told that there is a chance that Beirut's Jews will come to Israel: "They refused to come in '76" , we were told, "but they might have changed"

Some two weeks later we was in West Beirut and spoke with those Jews -but they still refused to come to "their Zionist homeland". , or even to leave West Beirut!

No wonder the operation is not complete and the bombing continues

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August

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heard that a special envoy of the "Jewish Agency"