The IDF confirms that today for the 1st time it used (against 400 Palestinians protesting nonviolently against the separation wall in Bil‘in) a new crowd-dispersal device that emits painful bursts of sound at a specific frequency. The IDF conducts patrols in Dura, fires on stone-throwing youths who confront the troops, wounding 2; conducts arrest raids, house searches nr. Bethlehem; razes 300 d. of agricultural land southwest of Hebron for construction of the separation wall. 5 Palestinian gunmen fatally shoot Fatah regional head Ali Farraj and his brother, charging that Farraj ordered the killing of their father, an alleged collaborator, in 1991. (AP, BBC 6/3; XIN 6/4; AP 6/5; PCHR 6/9; JP 6/26 in WNC 6/27)
Ma’ariv 6/3 runs a feature interviewing IDF soldiers who confirm that the IDF carried out “eye for an eye” reprisal attacks on PA police officers in 2002 in retaliation for the 2/19/02 killing of 6 IDF soldiers at a checkpoint outside Ramallah by a lone AMB gunman who escaped. The IDF says that the reprisal killings were never investigated because they were “part of a series of operations against terrorism in line with Israeli army orders and procedures.” (MA, Newsday 6/3; NYT 6/4)