Police Restrict Access to Holy Sites in Jerusalem : Israel: Fearing reprisals for last week’s massacre in Hebron, authorities close the Western Wall. They also limit attendance at nearby mosque.

In an unprecedented move, Israeli police on Friday closed the plaza in front of Judaism’s holiest site--the Western Wall of the Jews’ ancient temple--fearing Palestinians from the neighboring Al Aqsa Mosque would attack Jewish worshipers in revenge for the massacre of Muslims at a mosque in Hebron last week.

The police also sharply restricted access to Al Aqsa, permitting only Jerusalemites older than 40 to enter for midday prayers, although Muslims are three weeks into the Islamic holy month of Ramadan; fewer than 20,000 people, a 10th the normal number, were allowed in to pray.

With more than 1,000 police and soldiers saturating Jerusalem’s walled Old City, surrounding the religious complexes and filling the adjacent maze of streets and alleys, the Friday services at Al Aqsa passed peacefully, with no repeat of last week’s stone-throwing confrontations and the serious casualties and deaths that resulted.

But four Palestinians were reported killed in clashes with Israeli troops and settlers elsewhere in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip:

* Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians in clashes in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, north of Jerusalem, according to Palestinian sources, after protests over an apparent attack by Jewish settlers on the camp’s outskirts overnight.

* In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded two Jewish settlers, one of whom then shot the Palestinian dead, Israeli military sources said.

* In Gaza City, troops killed a man they said had tried to stab one of them.

Israeli authorities had feared violence Friday marking a week since a Jewish settler from the community of Kiryat Arba gunned down Muslims--as many as 48, though the precise number is disputed--while they prayed in a Hebron mosque.

Clashes continued in the Hebron area Friday. But security forces were deployed in increased strength throughout most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Jerusalem, to smother any trouble.

The police actions in limiting access to the Western Wall and Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem nonetheless drew sharp criticism, reflecting the religious passions woven into the fabric of Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israelis accused Police Commissioner Rafi Peled of yielding to the threat of violence and effectively ceding Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall, sometimes called the Wailing Wall. It is believed to be the only remaining structure from the temple built by King Herod and destroyed by the Romans. Known to Muslims as the Haram al Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, the area has long been a focus of Arab-Israeli strife, and Israeli police shot and killed 18 Palestinian youths there in 1990 protests.

“This is an embarrassment and a real shame for Israel that we have reached such a situation,” Rabbi Benny Alon, head of a movement attempting to re-establish a Jewish presence throughout the biblical Land of Israel, said after police led him away from the wall and closed it for more than an hour. “We do not impose sovereignty over the Temple Mount (site now of Al Aqsa), and as a result we are afraid of rocks thrown over to the Western Wall. We have already conceded the Temple Mount (to the Palestinians), so the Western Wall also must be evacuated because it is dangerous.”

Noting that this was the first time the Western Wall has been blocked off in anticipation of violence, Menachem Porush, a member of Parliament from the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism coalition, said it was “inconceivable that police allow Muslims into the area while Jews are being evacuated.”

Palestinians, on the other hand, complained that the police measures--a tight network of roadblocks around the city, stringent identity checks of worshipers wanting to enter the mosque complex, no admission to men younger than 40 or from outside Jerusalem--constituted a serious curtailment of freedom of religion and freedom of access to Jerusalem’s holy places.

But Peled justified the moves as having saved lives and kept the peace.

“We thought the primary interest was to calm (the atmosphere in) the street, to calm the Jews and to calm the Muslims,” Peled said. “We were determined to prevent any deterioration in the situation. . . .

“The Western Wall is immediately adjacent to the Temple Mount, with the danger that a single stone could cause injuries.” The sole person to remain at the wall throughout an hour of acute tension was Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meshulam Amit, who said Peled had given “a prize to the supporters of terror” in closing approaches to the wall. He showed his commitment to a Jewish Jerusalem by remaining at the wall during the hourlong Muslim service.

* REASSURING WORDS: Israeli officials in L.A. reassure potential immigrants. B3