Death Toll in Gaza Strip Hits 32 in Five Weeks

GAZA CITY, Occupied Gaza Strip--Israeli soldiers fired on knife-wielding. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah yesterday, killing one and wounding three, the army command said.

One soldier was treated for a minor stab wound, the army, reported.

The killing was the 32nd death in five weeks of riots and unrest in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

U.N. Investigation

As the latest violence erupted, a top U.N. official investigating Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza was barred from one by Israeli troops and by Arab demonstrators from another, Israel radio said.

Marrack Goulding, a United Nations deputy secretary general sent by the Security Council, was barred by troops from entering Jabaliya refugee camp, U.N. officials said.

Maher Nasser, a spokesman of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, said Goulding "tried several entrances to the camp but could not enter."

Later, Israel radio reported, Goulding tried to visit Mughazi camp but was turned back by a barricade of fires set up at its entrance by hundreds of residents. An aide who went into the camp returned 10 minutes later and advised Goulding not to enter.

In the Rafah incident, Israel army radio said people armed with knives attacked an army patrol that had tried to force the attackers back with smoke bombs. It said soldiers opened fire because their lives were in danger.

The radio also said two protesters were wounded in the Jabaliya refugee camp, a flashpoint of the almost daily anti-Israeli demonstrations, where residents attacked an army patrol with stones and sticks embedded with nails.

Stores were shut yesterday in Gaza City and in the Arab sector of Jerusalem in observance of a general strike that began Sunday.

The Arab-run Palestine Press Service, which monitors events in the occupied territories, said a Palestinian demonstrator was struck by a rubber bullet and a soldier was struck by a rock during a clash in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Also in Hebron, demonstrators smashed the window of an Israeli passenger bus, but no one was hurt, Israel radio said.

The Palestine Press Service said soldiers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators in the village of Sair.