JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) - Israeli troops opened fire with live rounds on Friday to try to halt Palestinians marching in cities across the West Bank and Gaza Strip to demand civil rights and an end to Israeli occupation.

At least one person was killed and more than 30 were wounded as thousands of people, chanting "End to occupation," marched to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the killing of six Arab Israelis by Israeli soldiers during mass protests in 1976.

Passions were fuelled by a week of Palestinian bomb attacks, Israeli missile strikes on security targets in Gaza and the West Bank, and demands by U.S. President George W. Bush that the Palestinians in particular do more to halt the violence.

Protesters marched in the West bank cities of Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus. Protests also took place inside Israel itself and in Gaza, which borders Egypt.

Troops shot dead a 21-year-old Palestinian who was hurling stones at them as more than 1,000 people marched towards an army checkpoint near Ramallah, witnesses and doctors said. They said Mohammed al-Wawi, 21, was struck in the head.

Troops responded with rubber bullets, then live ammunition and eventually heavy machineguns, a Reuters correspondent at the protest said.

The crowd in Ramallah burned an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, chanting "Brigades, Brigades" in support of militants who carried out suicide bombings this week in which two Israeli teenagers were killed.

Protesters hurled stones and home-made petrol bombs at soldiers during protests in Hebron. Witnesses said the troops responded with live ammunition, but the army denied this.

In the old walled city of Jerusalem, police fought stone-throwing Palestinians after stones and bottles were hurled from Muslim holy sites at praying Jews.

About 10,000 protesters also gathered in Nablus, where marchers called for anyone with weapons not to take part. The army fired rubber-coated metal bullets and live rounds to try to disperse them, a Reuters correspondent said.

Tensions have risen this week as a Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupaton of the West Bank and Gaza entered its seventh month.

Siding with Israel its long-time ally, the United States accused Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Thursday of failing to end the bloodshed that began after U.S.-sponsored efforts to forge a final peace deal failed.

"The signal I am sending to the Palestinians is stop the violence and I can't make it any more clear," Bush told a news conference. "I hope that Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear. He's going to hear it again on the telephone today."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also made the point in a telephone call to Arafat.

Arafat said on Thursday the uprising would continue "until the Palestinian flag is raised on the walls, churches and mosques of holy Jerusalem."

He vowed defiance despite Israeli air strikes on Wednesday which hit facilities used by his elite security forces in Ramallah and Gaza. His home in Gaza was also hit.

Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath said in Geneva on Friday the United States was "really missing a very important point, namely that what we are facing is an Israeli occupation that is deepening and aggravating."

"When you talk about the responsibility for violence you first start talking about the responsibility of the occupying (power) and then you talk about the responsibility of the occupied," he said before addressing the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

"I wish the United States would really come back to act as the real sponsor of the peace process, find out what really needs to be done on both sides and take the side of the victims for a change," he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called Bush's remarks "very reasonable." Other Israeli ministers said the new govenrment had shown restraint and would stage more assaults if Israelis contineud to come under attack.

At least 359 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 69 other Israelis have been killed since the uprising, or Intifada, erupted in late September.

As clashes flared on Friday in the West Bank, Israeli Arabs staged a peaceful march in the Arab town of Sakhnin in northern Israel, the epicentre of protests in what is known as Land Day .

Sakhnin was shut down by a general strike and about 10,000 people joined the march.

A Israeli state inquiry has been investigating police conduct in the killing of the 13 Israeli Arabs during stone-throwing demonstrations inside Israel last October.

Land Day commemorates the police killings of six Arabs in 1976 during mass protests against land expropriation policies. Police said they would stay out of Arab communities to avoid confrontation.

Palestinians who stayed in Israel and became citizens after it was created in 1948 complain of entrenched discrimination and confiscation of land to build Jewish towns and military bases.

Arabs make up 18 percent of a population of six million.

JERUSALEM (AP - 30 March): Large-scale protests swept the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, with thousands of Palestinians hurling stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded by firing live rounds and rubber bullets. A Palestinian man was killed and dozens were injured.

Demonstrators burned Israeli and U.S. flags, as well as effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in their weekly ``Day of Rage.''

In Israel's Arab communities, thousands took to the streets peacefully to mark ``Land Day,'' a symbol of Israel's 1.2-million-strong Arab community's struggle for equality. Land Day is the annual commemoration of 1976 protests against land expropriation in which six Israeli Arabs were killed by police.

Friday's protests capped a violent week of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks that killed three Israelis and eight Palestinians. In response to the flare-up, Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat both said the violent confrontation was likely to continue for some time.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Israeli troops fired live rounds and rubber bullets at Palestinian stone-throwers, killing a 21-year-old man and wounding seven others, including a teen-age girl.

In the Gaza Strip, 30 gunmen from Arafat's Fatah group led a large march, firing in the air and chanting ``Sharon, wait, Fatah is going to open your grave in Gaza.''

Mohammed Musallam, carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, said attacks against Israel would continue. ``If Sharon thinks for a second to reoccupy the Palestinian areas, he should prepare black bags for the remains of his soldiers,'' Musallam said.

Musallam was responding to warnings by Israel's defense minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, that Israeli soldiers would enter Palestinian-controlled areas if necessary.

Asked about chasing militants into Palestinian territory, Ben-Eliezer said, ``Everything ... is kosher.'' He said Israel would send forces to ``any place we feel ... is endangering us.''

In the West Bank town of Nablus, 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets. Several thousand then broke away, marching toward an Israeli checkpoint where they threw stones, drawing rubber bullets and tear gas.

In the Israeli Arab town of Sakhnin, thousands of Arabs and some Jews joined Land Day commemorations. Residents said that since the 1976 round of expropriations that sparked the initial protests, more land has been taken.

``Now the fight is about the land we have to live on, our houses. It has arrived at our bedrooms,'' said one of the marchers, Fakri Abu-Raya, 40.

Marchers also laid wreaths at the graves of two Sakhnin residents killed in clashes last fall with Israeli troops. At the time, thousands of Israeli Arabs had staged anti-government protests to show their support for their Palestinian brethren.

At the most sensitive spot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, more than 100 Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Police briefly evacuated Jewish worshippers from the nearby Western Wall, Judaism's holiest shrine, after stones were thrown there from the mosque area. At one point, undercover police arrested seven stonethrowers and dragged them away.

The turbulent week began with the killing of a 10-month-old Israeli baby by Palestinian snipers, followed by suicide bombings that killed two Israeli teen-agers. Six Palestinians were killed in subsequent clashes with Israeli troops, including a rocket attack Wednesday night on the headquarters of Arafat's Force 17 security branch.

Sharon, having ordered his first military operation since taking office March 7, has charged that Arafat was responsible for promoting violence, and that his elite Force 17 guard was behind some of the attacks.

Defiant after inspecting smoldering rubble at a rocketed Force 17 base, Arafat said the uprising would continue ``until we raise the Palestinian flag in every mosque and church and on the walls of Jerusalem.''

In Washington, President Bush called on Arafat to stop attacks on Israelis. ``I hope Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear,'' Bush said Thursday. He also called on Israel to show restraint and ease restrictions on the Palestinians.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/3/122.htm