Bloody Day in Jerusalem : 19 Arabs Die in Clashes at Holy Site

Police opened fire on stone-throwing Palestinians at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City today, and Israeli police said at least 19 people were killed and 140 injured.

Arab hospital officials first said 22 were killed. However, they later gave a lower casualty toll than the one provided by Israeli Police Minister Roni Milo, saying 18 Palestinians were killed and 125 wounded.

The incident was the bloodiest in the holy city since Israel captured its Arab sector from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War.

The death toll also was the highest in a single day since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in December, 1987.

The Jerusalem clash erupted after Palestinians threw stones from the Mount at Jews worshiping below at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, witnesses said. Thousands of Jews were at the wall celebrating the Sukkot festival.

The Palestinians apparently were angered by rumors that an extremist Jewish religious group was trying to establish a presence on the Temple Mount, which is holy to both Jews and Muslims but is under Muslim control.

On the Temple Mount, pools of blood stained the ground around the Al Aqsa mosque. Palestinians said thousands of Muslims, including some wounded, remained in the mosque, apparently afraid to come out with the heavily armed border police still around.

Milo said 20 Jews were injured. He said 120 Arabs were arrested, including Faisal Husseini, a prominent Palestinian nationalist involved in unofficial peace contacts with Israeli moderates. He said Husseini was arrested on the Temple Mount.

A senior paramilitary border police officer, Yossi Tobias, told Israel radio about 3,000 Arabs were involved in the rioting.

The Arabs burned down a police station in the Temple Mount compound and hurled hundreds of rocks at Jewish worshipers.

As thousands of Jews fled from the Western Wall, police riot squads fired tear gas to disperse Arab rioters on the mount above. Witnesses said the Palestinians regrouped and charged the police.

Police opened fire with rubber and plastic bullets and then live ammunition, the witnesses said.

Police Commissioner Yaacov Terner said:

“They burned the police station. There was no policeman who wasn’t stoned. Their lives were in real danger. They had no other way but to respond the way they did. The toll was very heavy, but the Israel police had to defend themselves, and to protect the thousands of worshipers.”

Terner told reporters that authorities had repeatedly assured Muslim leaders that no Jewish demonstrations on the Temple Mount would be permitted.

Calm returned to the Temple Mount about two hours after the incident, but throughout the day scattered incidents occurred in the Old City. Israel radio said it had reports of Jewish civilians shooting at Arabs.

Until today, the worst toll in the uprising was 17 dead on April 16, 1988, when rioting swept the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Palestine Liberation Organization military leader Khalil Wazir was killed in Tunis in a commando raid. Israel was blamed for that operation.