Palestinians Mourn 19 Dead in Jerusalem

Black flags hung limply over Arab homes Tuesday as Palestinians mourned the 19 Arab victims of police gunfire Monday in Jerusalem’s Old City and Arabs living in Israel feverishly protested the deaths.

The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were shut down by a general strike called by Palestinian nationalists as reinforced military patrols imposed curfews on numerous towns and villages. A leaflet distributed by leaders of the Arab uprising called on Palestinians to kill soldiers in the occupied territories.

Israeli police rounded up 40 Palestinian activists, mostly from Muslim organizations, on suspicion of encouraging Palestinians to stone Jews worshiping near the Temple Mount.

Controversy broke out late Tuesday over police efforts to investigate the authorities’ possible failure to provide adequate security in the Old City, and Police Minister Roni Milo dismissed a police-appointed investigative panel. A new team will be named today, Israeli officials said.

The doors to the Temple Mount, where Monday’s shootings took place, were locked until Tuesday evening to prevent anyone from entering. Early in the day, the leading Muslim cleric in Jerusalem was overcome by police tear gas when he tried to enter. Palestinian hospitals in the city struggled to cope with Monday’s wounded, including a few from a new spate of violence Tuesday.

While the sullen mood prevailed in Arab neighborhoods, Israeli leaders and Palestinian activists vied to interpret Monday’s violence in line with their particular views. The audience was mainly Washington, where President Bush criticized Israel’s handling of the situation Monday.

Avi Pazner, the spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, appeared to agree with Bush’s criticism in one respect. Bush said the Israeli forces have to be better prepared to deal with unrest and to “act with greater restraint.”

Pazner said: “There was not a big enough force to handle the crowd. It was a very special situation on the Temple Mount, where lives of police were threatened by a murderous mob. We regret the loss of life.”

He said the incident was an exception to the policy of trying to reduce Arab casualties.

Monday’s toll of 19 dead, plus a pair of stone-throwing protesters who were shot and killed by soldiers in the Gaza Strip, was the highest since the start, almost three years ago, of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. About 150 Palestinians were wounded, and 22 Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall were injured by stones.

Palestinian activists said the incident shows that Arabs need the protection of the United Nations, and they pressed for the dispatch of a U.N. investigative team to Israel.

“We are defenseless against Israeli excesses,” said Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, who heads a Palestinian research institute in East Jerusalem. Arab governments have proposed a U.N. resolution calling for an investigative committee.

The United States vetoed such a proposal last spring after a wave of Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israeli troops. Since then, Washington has become embroiled in the Persian Gulf crisis and has allied itself with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria against Iraq. Another veto would put a strain on this nascent partnership.

Israel has publicly rejected the idea of U.N. intervention in the Palestinian issue.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, whose invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2 set off the gulf crisis, has been trying to link settlement of the conflict with resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. On Tuesday, Hussein responded to the violence in Jerusalem by threatening to attack Israel with a new, long-range missile.

Other Arab countries, including U.S. allies, roundly condemned the killing of Palestinians.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, a key U.S. ally, warned that Monday’s bloodshed at the Temple Mount could lead to “grave consequences” in the Middle East. He attacked Israel for “savage repressive measures” and said the Jewish state is “fully responsible” for protecting Muslim shrines in Jerusalem.

Al Thawra, the official Syrian newspaper, said Israel is plotting to force the Palestinians out of the Israeli-occupied territories in order to make room for Soviet immigrants.

It sought to divert criticism of Syria’s backing for the United States by blaming Iraq for having given Israel a window of opportunity to suppress the Palestinians.

“Would the Zionist enemy be able to commit this aggression,” it asked, “if Iraq had not invaded Kuwait and diverted world attention from the occupied Palestinian state and Israel’s criminal practices?”

In Jordan, where half the population is Palestinian and supports Iraq, thousands of residents waved black flags and marched to protest the incident in Jerusalem. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry called on the world community to take steps “to halt these inhumane practices and protect the Palestinian population.”

Police in Jerusalem confronted protesters on the Mount of Olives with tear gas and closed off roads leading to several Arab neighborhoods where masked demonstrators marched. There were several injured in incidents in the city, among them a 4-year-old boy from Surbahair whose skull was split by a tear-gas canister.

Police used tear gas to turn back Sheik Saadeddin Alami, the city’s leading Muslim cleric, and a group of followers who tried to enter the Temple Mount. The 80-year-old cleric was treated at Mokassed Hospital and was said to be in good condition. In apparent recognition of the sensitivity of the incident, no word of it was broadcast on radio or television.

For the second time this year, there were major demonstrations in several Arab-populated Israeli towns in response to a violent incident. As in May, when a lone Israeli gunman shot down seven Palestinian workers, the scene in Arab Israeli towns resembled the unrest that has come to be commonplace in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Leaders in Arab Israeli towns have called for a two-day commercial strike to protest the Temple Mount shootings. About 700,000 Arabs live in Israel proper, compared with 1.7 million Palestinians in the occupied territories.

In Nazareth, youths stoned police patrols and broke into a department store, stoned an Israeli man and blocked the city’s main street. Parading demonstrators raised the red, white, green and black Palestinian flag as well as the three-starred Iraqi flag. In Taibe, two police officers were hurt by stones.

Youths masked with checkered scarves burned tires and threw stones at police in the town of Umm al Fahm.

“You martyrs can rest in peace,” they chanted. “We will follow in your footsteps.”

Police patrols intercepted them as they moved to block a main highway into the Galilee region.

The funeral of an Arab-Israeli victim of Monday’s incident attracted a large crowd at a village near Nazareth. Mourners shouted nationalist chants and vowed vengeance.

Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian investigators sought to piece together the sequence of events at the Temple Mount and assess blame.

Military officials leaked a report saying that police intelligence had failed to foresee the violence and left the Old City underprotected.

Police investigators were trying to determine why there were so few police on the Temple Mount even as young Palestinians gathered there in unusual numbers. In the past, when information of a possible confrontation has been received, border and municipal police have massed to prevent it. On occasion they have blocked entry to the Temple Mount.

Israeli officials contend that the stone-throwing was premeditated and that, in any case, the outnumbered police had no choice but to open fire. Why the police investigative panel was dismissed was not clear, but Israeli sources said there was doubt about the neutrality of the select team.

Arabs contend that the gathering of thousands of protesters on the Temple Mount was in response to reports that Jewish fundamentalists were going to try to enter and begin work on a new Jewish temple.

The Palestinians offer different accounts of how the violence started. Some say that chanting women prompted the police to fire tear gas, which set off the stone-throwing and drove the police away. Others say a rumor spread that a policeman had dropped a pistol while fleeing attacking mobs and that reinforcements then attacked, thinking the Palestinians were armed.

In any event, the Palestinians agree that the number of police officers was unusually low, even for routine times.