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Wilk to Or inquiry: Police were ready for October riots Yehuda Wilk, the inspector-general of the Israel Police during the riots in the Israeli Arab sector in October 2000, said yesterday he did not tell police to open the Wadi Ara highway using 'any means necessary' and that he expected the commander on the spot to decide whether to keep it open to traffic. Wilk testified before the Or Judicial Commission of Inquiry for a second time, after receiving a warning letter that he could be harmed by the commission's findings. Two of the 13 Arabs killed inside the Green Line during the riots died on October 2, when police clashed with rioters trying to block Route 65 at the Umm el-Fahm intersection. In its letter to Wilk, the commission warned him that he might be harmed if it comes to the conclusion that he did not properly equip the police force to handle disturbances; that he forced police to rely on rubber-coated steel bullets by not providing them with enough tear gas; that he did not disperse the forces under his command properly so that there were enough police in the northern district; that he did not train his forces sufficiently; and that he was not prepared for trouble on October 1 when the riots broke out. During the first phase of the hearings, the members of the commission, Supreme Court Justice Theodore Or, Prof. Shimon Shamir, and Nazareth District Court Judge Hashem Khatib, indicated that had the police not insisted on opening the road that day, the casualties might have been spared. Wilk said he had not decided that the road had to be opened. Police abandoned the intersection in the afternoon of October 1 and cleared up the debris overnight, after the rioters had gone home. In the morning, trouble started again, and anti-terror squad snipers shot and killed two demonstrators during the clashes over the road. Wilk said that no one had anticipated the 'fury and the extent' of the riots that broke out on October 1. 'Anyone who tells you differently is either a prophet or is using hindsight,' he told the commission. He added that it was the Shin Bet that was supposed to supply intelligence regarding developments in the Israeli sector. But up until the last minute, the Shin Bet did not predict that there would be the kind of violence that erupted that day. Wilk added that the situation would have been much worse had he not doubled the number of policemen trained to handle disturbances when he took over as inspector-general on January 1, 1998. He told the commission that there were 500-600 policemen in the special patrol units of the police and Border Police at that time. Within a short time, he established another 11 units to handle riots. Wilk also said the forces held special exercises on all levels to prepare for possible disturbances in the Israeli Arab sector. The exercises were conducted in the context of 'Magical Tune,' a scenario in which the Palestinians would declare an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, to be followed by disturbances in the Israeli Arab sector. Wilk said he reached the conclusion that the police were properly trained but did not have enough equipment and that he had 'passed this on to the political echelon.' Wilk maintained that the police did not lack tear gas during the riots and that the police storehouses were fully restocked by the end of each day. If police ran out of tear gas, it was only momentarily and on the level of a small unit. He said that police did not have to use rubber-coated steel bullets after running out of tear gas, but he was not concerned about their potentially lethal nature. 'Rubber-coated steel bullets were still included in the police arsenal as of October 2001,' he said. 'The only difference is that now they must be fired at targets 50 meters away instead of 40 meters.'
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