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Hundreds Wounded in West Bank Gun Battles

Israeli Cabinet Decision To Hand Over Villages Threatens Coalition

More than 450 Palestinians were wounded, and at least three killed, in the first sustained exchanges of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, including Palestinian police, since September 1996. At least 13 Israeli soldiers were also wounded by hurled rocks and gunshots.

In most of the major Palestinian population centers - Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron, Bethlehem and Gaza - gunfire crackled through the streets for much of the day and the air was streaked with the acrid black smoke of burning tires.

The mayhem and carnage, broadcast on television, were reminiscent of the intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the late 1980s, but with one major difference: This time, Israeli troops faced off not only against stone-throwing teenagers but also against trained Palestinian police armed with AK-47 assault rifles. This time, they ducked not just to avoid slingshots but also live ammunition.

The upheaval marked the 52d anniversary of the event Palestinians call al Naqba, or the catastrophe, when tens of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in Israel's 1948 war of independence. The demonstrators also directed their anger at the continued detention of hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and the apparent lack of recent progress in peace talks between the two sides.

''We have no other choice,'' said Qusai Abu Houmous, a gynecologist in Ramallah. ''This is the only way we can express our anger. The peace process is going nowhere. We are supposed to be at peace, but they won't release our prisoners.''

The protests, rioting and gunfire erupted despite the Israeli cabinet's vote Monday morning to hand over to full Palestinian control three dusty West Bank villages just east of Jerusalem. One of them, Abu Dis, is less than a mile from Jerusalem's Old City walls.

The Knesset, Israel's Parliament, approved the transfer of the villages Monday evening by a vote of 56 to 48 - less than a majority but enough for passage.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak had pushed the handover as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinians, who have long demanded full control of the villages, which are already under Palestinian civil administration. He insisted that transferring the villages, which make up just a quarter of 1 percent of the West Bank's territory, would promote a peace deal with the Palestinians. And he disregarded arguments from the opposition and within his own government that giving up Abu Dis would jeopardize Jerusalem's security and pave the way for its redivision.

Mr. Barak said, ''This government is determined to keep moving forward toward agreement with the Palestinians and separation between Israel and the Palestinians in a way that will strengthen Israel and keep Jerusalem undivided under our sovereignty as the eternal capital of Israel.''

But the victory was a costly one for Mr. Barak. It left his already brittle governing coalition badly cracked as parties representing Jewish settlers, Russian-speaking immigrants and religious Sephardic Jews all defected in the Knesset vote, leaving the prime minister to rely on the votes of Arab parties outside of his government for the measure's passage.

The Israeli leader was not helped by the violence, which provided his opponents rhetorical fodder throughout the Knesset debate.

Ariel Sharon, leader of the main opposition Likud Party, stood at the lectern and recounted what he had heard on the latest radio bulletin - that Palestinians were firing on Israeli troops from rooftops in Ramallah.

''I say to the prime minister, give them Abu Dis and they'll be able to shoot from rooftops into Jerusalem,'' Mr. Sharon declared. ''That's what you call 'separation.'''

Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident who now heads the main Russian party in the Knesset, said, ''It's a small step on the map, but it's a big step in giving up on Jerusalem.''

That theme was amplified Monday evening in a rally of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers in Zion Square in central Jerusalem, the first such rightist demonstration there since 1995.

The rally, after the Knesset vote on Abu Dis, was orderly, and organizers repeatedly reminded the crowd to behave with moderation. But there was no mistaking the thrust of the rally's message, which was to oppose further territorial concessions to the Palestinians, and by extension the peace process itself.