Troops wounded dozens of Palestinians Sunday and ordered curfews across the Gaza Strip. Government leaders dismissed as ``one-sided'' a U.N. call for international protection of Arabs under Israeli occupation. Israel radio said 86 Palestinians were injured in widespread clashes following the death of a jailed Palestinian, while Arab reports said 70 were hurt. The army put the number at 27 and said it was checking the other figures. A Foreign Ministry statement castigated U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar for his report Thursday in which he suggested broadening the mandate of U.N. institutions in Israel to safeguard the 1.7 million Palestinians under occupation. The report was produced as a recommendation to the U.N. Security Council on response to the killing Oct. 8 of 20 Palestinians on Jersusalem's Temple Mount by Israeli authorities. ``The world community's continued preoccupation with this subject can only serve those forces who are interested in creating a link between the Arab-Israeli conflict and the gulf crisis,'' the statement said. The statement assailed a proposal to convene the signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which sets out rules for the treatment of civilians in wartime. ``Israel is disappointed at the one-sided approach exhibited in the report,'' it said. ``The recommendations in the report are directed only toward Israel and do not see fit to call for a cessation of violence on the Palestinian side.'' Israel has refused to accept a U.N. investigation into the Oct. 8 incident on Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Moslems. Israel says the inquiry would undermine its sovereignty in Jerusalem. Israel had conducted its own investigation and ``extracted the necessary lessons,'' it said. A government-appointed panel defended the action by police, saying they faced a threat to their lives. But it also said top officers failed to adequately supervise riot-control troops. Under the panel's recommendation, the Cabinet set up a permanent seven-member ministerial committee to oversee Temple Mount affairs. Police Minister Roni Milo upgraded Jerusalem to a full police district Sunday, acting on the commission's recommendations. Milo did not say if senior officers would be transferred or fired. About 350 officers will be added to Jerusalem's 1,000-member force and the public will be encouraged to volunteer for the Civil Guard, said police spokeswoman Ruth Shlezinger. In the Gaza Strip, extensive curfews were imposed and the area of 750,000 residents was declared a military zone and was closed to reporters. Arab reports said at least 180 people were injured during the weekend violence, started with rumors that a Palestinian inmate was killed by Israeli troops. Israeli authorities say the man hanged himself in his cell. In some sections of Gaza City, streets were littered with stones and scorched remains of burning tires. Masked youths in the city's Nasser Quarter fired rocks with slingshots at soldiers checking identification papers on a street. Arsonists gutted the town hall of Khan Yunis in Gaza, Arab reports said. Gaza police were not immediately available for comment. A senior aide of Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat claimed two girls' schools with hundreds of pupils in the Gaza Strip were hit by gas bombs fired by Israeli troops. Bassam Abu Sharif also said in a statement that dozens of other Arabs were wounded when Israeli troops opend fired on a Khan Yunis hospital and a number of clinics in the area run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. The statement was sent to The Associated Press in Nicosia, Cyprus, from PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed east Jerusalem.
