Israel Reopens Site of Mosque Massacre in Hebron : Mideast: Only a few come to worship at the Cave of the Patriarchs. Muslims observe an unofficial boycott.

A faithful few braved frigid rain, elaborate security measures and a heavy army presence Monday to pray at the Cave of the Patriarchs, reopened for the first time since a Jewish settler shot dead about 30 Muslim worshipers there in February.

Muslims, who accused Israel of desecrating a holy site because its security arrangements separate Jews and Muslims who come to pray there, observed an unofficial boycott of the mosque. Only a trickle of worshipers ventured through the metal detectors to kneel in prayer in the newly whitewashed halls.

Muslim officials said they will appeal to international organizations to reverse the measures. “The Palestinian Authority will take this up with high Israeli officials and world organizations,” said Hassan Tahboub, minister of Islamic affairs in the Palestinian Authority. “The mosque cannot be divided.”

Palestinian officials said Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat will bring the matter up today with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin when the two men meet at the Erez checkpoint separating the Palestinian-governed Gaza Strip from Israel.

“The mosque is a Muslim holy site, only Muslim,” said Azzam Muhtasab, secretary general of the Hebron municipality. “Never could there be a holy place claimed by two different religions.” Both Muslims and Jews complained bitterly about the government’s decision to separate them and divide the structure--called the Ibrahim mosque by Muslims--between them.

In interviews, Jews and Arabs made it clear that neither the army’s ubiquitous presence nor the passage of time has eased the enmity between the communities, who live unhappily alongside one another in this mostly Palestinian town.

“The Cave of the Patriarchs is a Jewish place,” said Orit Stroock, a Jewish settler who lives in Hebron. “Avraham, our father, bought this place for 400 shekels. It is written in the Bible. This is a Jewish place. It was built as a Jewish place before Muslims existed.”

Stroock spoke in the portion of the site designated for Jews. Under the army’s new arrangements, Jewish worshipers will enter from one gate and Muslims from another. Two sets of metal detectors are set up at each entrance, and the site is surveyed by cameras. Metal doors that soldiers can automatically swing open for easy access separate the Jewish and Muslim sides.

On 10 separate days of the year, each religion will be granted exclusive access to the entire site. The rest of the time, the army hopes, adherents of the two faiths will come and go without seeing each other. Only officials of the Islamic Waqf, the Islamic trust that administers Muslim holy sites, have free access to all parts of the complex.

The Jewish side of the site consists of the Jacob and Abraham halls, the Covenant Hall and an inner courtyard the army has now roofed with canvas. Jews claim this represents only about 20% of the total space available at the site, and that they are prevented from praying in the Yitzhak Hall, the mosque where Baruch Goldstein trained his automatic weapon on Muslim worshipers in February.

Only two Muslims were in the newly whitewashed Yitzhak Hall when reporters came through on an army tour Monday.

“I won’t go and pray in such a situation,” said Issa al Mukhtasib, 38, outside the site. “I don’t want to enter a military fortress. We can pray in the desert. We don’t have to pray in a mosque. If they put limitations on access and on the number of people who are allowed to pray, then we don’t need to go there at all.”

During the two-day trial opening, the army is restricting the number of worshipers from each faith to 300, hoping to avoid mass demonstrations. If all goes well, the army plans to reopen the mosque permanently next Tuesday.

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On the Jewish side of the site Monday morning, a dozen men prayed in the tiny Abraham Hall. Children bundled in winter clothes ran in the courtyard, where the canvas roof failed to keep rain from washing across the stone floor. A handful of women gathered in another small hall to pray opposite the Abraham Hall.

“This is a happy day for all the people of Israel,” Stroock said, “because we are here. But it is a sad day because we didn’t get all our rights, and because our government--a Jewish government--gave our place to another people.”

Caught between the acrimonious claims being made by adherents of each faith is the newly trained Israeli army unit charged with ensuring that no further disasters occur at the site. The February massacre temporarily derailed Arab-Israeli peace talks and triggered a series of revenge attacks against Jews by Islamic militants.

The shooting also raised questions about Israel’s ability to ensure free and safe access for all religions at all holy sites, and about the future of the community of 450 Jewish militants living in the heart of Hebron, the West Bank’s second-largest city. Some members of Israel’s government have publicly spoken of the need to consider relocating the settlers, who say they are only reclaiming land that belonged to Jews in ancient times.

An unhappy-looking Israeli colonel, Benny Gantz, commander of the Hebron area, pointed out newly installed security cameras to a crowd of journalists he was guiding through the site.

“We have 16 cameras, inside and out,” said Gantz, who has been at his post four months. “I hope we will not need to use them, not for security reasons nor for any kind of legal aspect.”

Gantz emphasized that no one will be allowed to carry arms into the site except soldiers. At the time that Goldstein carried out his attack, Jewish settlers were commonly allowed to carry their weapons into the site. Soldiers have also been given a list of militant Jewish settlers--Gantz said about a dozen names appear on the list--who will be denied access to the cave.

In an embarrassing incident for the army on Monday, Avishai Raviv, an activist with the extremist Kach movement whose name appears on the security list, boasted to reporters that he slipped inside the site to pray without anyone checking his identification.

Gantz attributed the security lapse to the need for the security force to settle in at the site.

“We’re focusing on security checks right now,” said Gantz, who described the overall situation in Hebron as one of “high tension.”

Maj. Gen. Ilan Biran told Israel Radio that army intelligence has information that attacks are planned against the site. Militant Islamic groups have threatened revenge attacks against the cave.