‘Uncontrolled’ Shooting Cited in Israel Probe

Police used “uncontrolled” fire to shoot at crowds of rock throwers during the Oct. 8 riot in Jerusalem’s Old City in which at least 20 Palestinians were shot to death, an official Israeli investigative team concluded Friday.

The long-awaited report also criticizes top police officials for being unprepared for trouble, but it puts the bulk of the blame on Palestinian agitators who, it alleges, incited worshipers at the Al Aqsa mosque, backdrop for much of the bloodshed.

Israeli officials expressed hope that the investigation, undertaken by a three-member team, will put to rest disputes over the origin and suppression of the riot. But Palestinians condemned it as a whitewash, and the report itself has some omissions and awkward explanations.

The U.N. Security Council, with the concurrence of the United States, has condemned Israel’s crackdown. On Wednesday, it chastised Israel for refusing to permit a U.N. team to visit Israel to look into the killings.

“We think that for people of goodwill, this report should put the problem to rest,” said government spokesman Yossi Olmert.

“The whole tragic event and the tragic loss of life started as a result of a provocation by Arab extremists on the Temple Mount,” commented Avi Pazner, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who ordered the investigation. “All in all, I think the police did a good job.”

In general, the report dovetails with the initial government contention that Muslim preachers at the Al Aqsa mosque inflamed worshipers. A crowd of about 3,000 had gathered to confront a reported march by a fundamentalist Jewish group to lay the cornerstone of a Jewish temple on the site. The march never took place, having been prohibited by Israeli authorities.

Al Aqsa and the nearby Dome of the Rock stand inside an enclosure that Muslims call Haram al Sharif, or noble sanctuary. It is atop an artificial plateau that Jews revere as the Temple Mount, the ancient ground of temples built by Solomon and Herod.

The report says the hurling of stones at Jewish worshipers at the adjacent Western Wall, which is a remnant of Herod’s complex, was “a serious criminal offense in which masses (of Arabs), incited by preachers over loudspeakers, participated, and it is (that which) caused the tragic development and results.”

Preachers shouted “Slaughter the Jews!” and other inflammatory statements, the report said.

Twenty-two Jewish worshipers were slightly injured by the barrage of stones. According to the report, 20 Palestinians were killed by police, a reduction of one in the death toll announced in the days after the incident. The report does not explain the discrepancy.

The report also says 52 Palestinians were hospitalized with a variety of wounds. In all, more than 140 Palestinians were injured, according to previous accounts.

Police began to fire lead bullets when they burst through a barricaded door after being driven off the grounds by the Palestinian mob, the investigators declared.

“While breaking through, there was an uncontrolled usage of live ammunition,” the report says.

However, the shooting was justified, investigators contend, adding: “The usage of fire in this sector, rubber bullets, tear gas and then live ammunition, to confront the stone throwers was unavoidable.

“The police were afraid for their lives and the lives of the many worshipers that were at the Western Wall during the holiday prayers.”

According to the report, 21 police were injured.

The report refers vaguely to an unspecified abuse by a single officer who took an “initiative” that requires a “separate inquiry.”

Otherwise, the alleged lack of preparation and slow movements of Jerusalem Police Chief Aryeh Bibi and Southern District commander Rahamim Comfort receive the most criticism. Police assumed that, having deterred the fundamentalist Jewish march, tensions at Al Aqsa would ease.

There were too few police, and commanders were out of touch at key moments and came to the scene late, the investigators concluded. In what Israeli commentators viewed as groundwork for the dismissal of the top officers, the report says Bibi “should have hurried immediately to the Temple Mount” and Comfort should have joined him “to supervise the situation personally.”

Although the officials are criticized for failing to act on reports of possible unrest, Shin Bet, which is Israel’s domestic intelligence group, also is criticized for not putting its predictions of possible trouble in writing.

The investigative team was headed by Zvi Zamir, a former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. The other members are former senior government functionaries. Israel’s Cabinet will take up the report Sunday at its regular meeting.

Palestinians responded negatively to the report. Lawyer Jonathan Kuttab, who handles many human rights cases for Palestinians, termed it a whitewash.

The government hoped the report would help end the controversy, but several omissions and awkward explanations are likely to keep the issue alive for a while.

The two-week probe did not address numerous reports that police put their rifles on automatic, spraying the crowd with bullets.

The investigators tried to counter testimony that victims were shot while fleeing by offering the “opinion” of a medical expert who said that of seven wounded victims admitted to Mokassed Hospital, the largest Palestinian health center in Jerusalem, not one was shot in the back. The report did not mention the dozens of other injured who were admitted to Mokassed or to nearby Augusta Victoria Hospital, nor did it mention the dead.

The report confirmed a complaint by officials at Mokassed that police fired on at least one of its ambulances. A nurse and driver were wounded. The investigators say the ambulance was hidden between two pillars at Al Aqsa and could not be seen by the police. It is not explained how, if sight was blocked by the pillars, the bullets were not.

The report sometimes uses acrobatic language to describe seemingly improbable situations.

In explaining why Mokassed Hospital was hit by tear gas, the investigators said the police were chasing rioting youths, and, “while running, one officer fell down, and because of that, a tear-gas shell was fired from his gun. During its flight, the tear-gas shell penetrated the hospital.

“The commander of the patrol immediately apologized to the manager of the hospital about the tear-gas grenade, which also mistakenly hit a patient. He also apologized about the sudden event in which women and children that happened to be in the room were injured.”

The narrative asserts that the Western Wall plaza was cleared by 11 a.m. but that because of continued rioting and the danger to two police officers thought to be trapped by the mob in a police station, the firing on the mosque grounds continued for another 30 minutes. The report omits accounts published by B’tselem, an Israeli human rights group, that one police officer escaped on his own to the office of the chief Muslim preacher and the other was rescued by Muslim officials, all of which seemed to discount the general impression of mob rule.

In the wake of the report, the question of control of the mosque area may also be taken up, Israel radio said. The Cabinet will consider taking the keys of the sanctuary away from Muslim clerics and may also limit attendance at services there, the broadcast said.

Israeli rightists and fundamentalist Jewish groups have long lobbied for the government to take full control of the plateau. They consider the Muslims usurpers and Islamic control a statement of anti-Israeli nationalism.

When Israel annexed Arab districts of Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East War, Israeli officials left the area in control of the Muslim clergy.

Last week, Israeli officials complained bitterly that the U.N. Security Council, in its condemnation, called the site by its Muslim name, Haram al Sharif. In Friday’s report, it is called only the Temple Mount.

“Haram al Sharif?” asked government spokesman Olmert when asked whether use of the Jewish term was purposeful. “I don’t know what Haram al Sharif means.”

The Oct. 8 violence in the Old City set off riots, revenge killings and army and police crackdowns in other parts of Jerusalem, Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the aftermath, 10 Palestinians were killed, one in a civilian ambush. Three Israelis were stabbed to death by a Palestinian laborer in Jerusalem.