A Pall of Anger Hangs Over Bloodied Place of Worship : Jerusalem: Both Arab and Jew remain bitter two days after a deadly confrontation at the Western Wall.

The common act of worship in the Old City is one of the inspiring sights of Jerusalem, but on Wednesday a common pall of anger hung over Muslim and Jewish shrines in the ancient walled district.

On the Temple Mount, holy to both religions, worshipers at the Al Aqsa mosque prayed amid bloodstains on the richly woven Oriental carpets. Bloody clothing also was on display, reminders of police gunfire Monday that killed 19 Palestinians.

Below, at the Western Wall, Jews prepared for the conclusion of Succot, the feast of the tabernacles. Rocks hurled down from the mount had been cleared away from the plaza in front of the wall, but the resentment of the attack by rioters remained in the minds of the worshipers.

Talk was apocalyptic: The week’s tragedy left only bitterness on both sides and a gap of understanding that has long seemed unbridgeable.

“Next week, or next month, more of us will die. We expect nothing less from the Jews,” said Jihad Hamide Yassini, the father of a 15-year-old boy killed Monday, as he looked at the display of bloody clothing in a side room at the mosque. The pale-blue shirt of his son, Ezzedin, was among the collection.

“We don’t want to kill anyone,” said Rabbi Sholom Gold, a Long Island, N.Y., native, as he made his way to the Western Wall. “But we have to be able to live here, come here and pray at the wall. Anyone who limits our access must understand that he is endangering his own life.”

The riot and killings Monday only accentuated a steady degeneration of the atmosphere in the Old City during nearly three years of the Arab uprising--stabbings of Jews by Arabs; shootings of Arabs by Jews; clashes between Arabs and Jews who have moved into the traditional Muslim quarter of the city; clashes between Jews and Christians over the occupation by Jewish seminarians of a Christian Quarter building; stonings; marches; tear gas; police chases; beatings; searches.

Now, even worship seems like a competition. Some would argue that here it always was.

After the deaths Monday, the Temple Mount has become a shrine to martyrdom for Palestinians. The fading bloodstains on the marble approaches to the Dome of the Rock are marked by prayer rugs. Onlookers stop to count the six bullet holes on the western face of the gilt-top dome. Boys finger full metal shells collected at Al Aqsa.

“This was a massacre,” murmurs a woman in a white veil, the traditional female garb at the dome. “The Jews want to kill us.”

When she learned an American was present, she shouted, “Why does America help Israel? Do you hate us?”

Outside, within winding alleyways, four simultaneous wakes were under way for Old City victims. One was at Yassini’s house, held for his son. Neighbors sat outside sipping coffee and praising the dead boy for defending the mosque against Jews. Periodically, a rambunctious group of local youths would march by chanting Palestinian slogans and consoling Yassini with a pledge that “we are all your sons.”

Around the corner, at the home of Musa Suweiti, a 26-year-old goldsmith killed at the Temple Mount, the political tone of the wake was more pronounced. Red, white, green and black Palestinian flags and pictures of Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization leader, hung on the alleyway walls. Nationalist music blared from a stereo.

A patrol of armed soldiers passed by and scanned the rooftop for stone throwers, ignoring the illegal display of nationalist symbols.

“More explosions, more explosions,” predicted Musa’s brother, Majid.

At the Western Wall, the outward signs of tension were less apparent. Soldiers kept watch from the heights of the Jewish Quarter. In an indirect reference to the trouble, the government urged worshipers to attend celebrations there as usual, and police pledged they would be safe.

“We’re angry,” said Tsvi Klein, a New York native and 18-year resident of Israel. “The police should keep the Temple Mount closed so the Arabs learn they pay for what they do. We came here yesterday. We could have been killed.”

His wife, Drora, said that to remain, the Arabs must accept Jewish rule. “There are certain conditions for strangers to stay in this land,” she said.

Abe Grunfeld, a visitor from Brooklyn, criticized the Bush Administration for its statements that Israeli police need to be better prepared and use more restraint in similar situations.

“The world would condemn us for sneezing,” he said. “Whatever we do, it will bring a condemnation. We don’t throw stones up at them.”

“We can’t reach them,” his wife, Yona, remarked dryly.

But Aaron Tomlin, a newly arrived yeshiva student from Canada, expressed shock at the incident and at the atmosphere here.

“Everybody hates somebody in this country,” Tomlin said. “It’s sad to walk around.”

As the sun set Wednesday, turning the blue sky a faded pink, crowds arrived for the Simha Torah, or “Joy of Torah,” celebration marking the end of Succot. From afar, their prayers and song would appear to mingle with the call of the muezzin at Al Aqsa proclaiming God is great and calling his own flock to worship.