Middle East In the Eye Of a Revolt

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The four were among nine ordered expelled two weeks ago. At first they appealed the deportation orders, but they dropped their cases after their lawyers were not permitted to see evidence against them. The quartet was whisked out of the country within 24 hours, with no notification to their families, and was last reported to be in Syrian hands in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The other five, including three fundamentalist leaders, are continuing to appeal.

The United Nations Security Council reacted to the deportations by passing yet another resolution denouncing Israel's tactics. The U.S., which supported a resolution two weeks ago urging Israel not to go through with the expulsions, abstained from the 14-0 vote. U.N. officials were also indignant at the sour reception Under Secretary-General Marrack Goulding received last week in Jerusalem. Goulding, a Briton assigned by the U.N. to investigate conditions in refugee camps, was snubbed by most Israeli officials, then denied access to two camps he tried to visit. When he finally made his way into the Gaza camp at Rafah, demonstrators threw stones at his army escort, and he was accused by Israeli military authorities of provoking a riot.

Even Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was - caught off guard by the fury of the people he calls his own. Arafat tried to get back into the game last week by renewing his call for an international peace conference. Speaking from his office in Baghdad, Arafat declared that he would be willing to accept all U.N. resolutions, including Resolution 242, which recognizes Israel's right to exist, in exchange for P.L.O. participation in the peace conference.

But there was little thought of peace in the boiling Gaza Strip, where more than 600,000 Arabs live in an area 30 miles long and five miles wide. Every day last week fires from burning barricades flamed into the night, enveloping the squalid refugee camps in black smoke. The thunk-thunk of helicopters sounded overhead as soldiers tipped tear-gas canisters onto rioters below. The twisting alleyways echoed with the rattle of gunfire, the crackle of smashing fire bombs and the thud of stones.

Gaza's main shopping street, Omar al-Muktar, was streaked with soot from burned tires, soaked with water from broken mains, and strewn with stones, chunks of concrete, pieces of metal and smoldering rubber. Barricades stood everywhere, built of tree branches, junked cars, overturned garbage dumpsters and rusting oil barrels. As fast as Israeli troops forced passing pedestrians to dismantle them, they were rebuilt by the roving shabab -- the young men who are the main force behind the uprising.

Finally, the military resorted to its most drastic measures yet. Entrances to the eight camps where most of the residents live were closed and the people were confined to their houses. The curfew was lifted once a day to allow the purchase of food. "We have to beat them in their pockets," said a military official. "They will not be able to carry on for long without the money they earn working either here in Gaza or in Israel." Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir suggested that if the Gazans continued to riot, they might never be allowed to return to their jobs in Israel.