Israeli Troops Exit Isolated Holy Site

After battling thousands of demonstrators in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, Israel pulled a small force of troops out of a disputed holy site in Nablus, saying it hoped the move would ease tensions.

Paramilitary border police had come under heavy fire each day at Joseph’s Tomb, a small site in the midst of a Palestinian-controlled city, since riots erupted in Palestinian areas and Jerusalem on Sept. 28. Prime Minister Ehud Barak had said Israel would never abandon the site under pressure. But after a border policeman who was shot at the shrine bled to death before Israeli forces could rescue him, the army sought to pull out of the tomb.

An army announcement said what it called a “temporary” evacuation of the tomb took place early this morning after Barak consulted with the army chief of staff and other advisors.

“The evacuation was carried out with the will of both sides to care for human life and to try to bring down the tension and violence in the whole area,” the announcement said. The site came under fire during the evacuation and one border policeman was shot and wounded, according to an army spokesman. The army said it expects the Palestinian Authority to protect the site and the Jewish yeshiva there.

The evacuation was a dramatic end to a day marked by widespread clashes across the West Bank and Gaza Strip and inside Jerusalem. At least eight Palestinians were killed.

For the first time since the rioting began, the militant Islamic movement, Hamas, which had been largely on the sidelines turned out hundreds of its supporters in mass demonstrations in the Gaza Strip. They waved the green flags of Islam, and some wore white burial shrouds to signal their willingness to carry out suicide bombing attacks inside Israel.

“I’m going to take revenge,” vowed a shrouded youth, who declined to give his name, at a rally in Gaza City. “I will be a suicide bomber and blow myself up inside Israel.”

Israeli officials had hoped to curb the violence Friday by blocking Palestinians from entering the Jewish state from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the morning. The officials also ordered police to pull back from one of the most sensitive sites, the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.

But in what they called a “day of rage,” tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza City and the West Bank city of Nablus. Half a dozen gun battles broke out in the West Bank and Gaza between Israeli troops and Palestinian militias. In the Old City, a mob attacked and torched a small police station where 10 Israeli police officers were trapped. Eight officers were wounded before they could be rescued.

Palestinians continued to insist that the violence is a spontaneous reaction to the Sept. 28 visit of Ariel Sharon, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, to the Al Aqsa compound. Called Haram al Sharif by Muslims and the Temple Mount by Jews, the site is revered by both religions.

Israeli officials continued to say that the unrest is a well-orchestrated campaign by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, aimed at improving his position in peace negotiations with Israel.

“At its core, this is not a disorderly outburst of rage,” said a senior Israeli defense source who requested anonymity for security reasons. “This is a well-controlled operation by an organized militia,” the official added, referring to Tanzim, an armed faction of Arafat’s Fatah movement.

A pattern has emerged, the source said, of stone-throwing demonstrations during the day and “a full-fledged shooting war” at night, with Tanzim fighters targeting soldiers and Jewish settlements.

In Jerusalem, violence erupted at the Temple Mount on Friday. The unrest, which in the past nine days has claimed more than 75 lives--most of them Palestinian--and left about 2,000 people wounded, began there after Sharon’s visit.

Although both sides denied that they coordinated the move, Israeli police on Friday turned over responsibility for checking visitors to the compound at entrance gates to plainclothes Palestinian security forces and the Islamic Trust, which administers Al Aqsa and the nearby Dome of the Rock mosque. Israeli police pulled back from their usual positions as between 8,000 and 10,000 people streamed up to the compound for afternoon prayers.

When Palestinian youths emerged from the mosques and began hurling rocks at Jewish worshipers praying below the compound at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, Palestinian security forces stopped the onslaught. They herded the troublemakers out of the compound while Israeli police evacuated Jews from the Western Wall plaza.

Once outside, however, youths clashed with Israeli police in the narrow stone streets of the Old City. Dozens of Palestinians were injured and one was killed. Police said more than two dozen officers were injured. Later in the afternoon, Palestinians raised the Palestinian flag over the compound.

Israeli politicians expressed horror that the police would leave security in Palestinian hands and evacuate Jewish worshipers.

After night fell, police stormed the compound, tearing down the flags and dispersing hundreds of demonstrators. By then, four Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, where thousands attacked soldiers near the isolated Jewish settlement of Netzarim.

Three more Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. Another Palestinian in Gaza died of wounds suffered in clashes Wednesday. The Palestinian Authority said about 400 Palestinians were wounded in the day’s events, as gun battles between Israeli troops and Palestinian militias continued into the night.

Israel is hunkering down for a long struggle. The government opened a special media center and appointed a spokesman to coordinate its contacts with the foreign press. Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami dispatched emissaries to European capitals in an effort to explain Israel’s position and ease the outrage the international community has registered over the high number of Palestinian casualties.

At the same time, security forces are on alert across the nation. The army said it is braced for Hamas to make good on its threats of a bombing campaign inside Israel.

The organization has been sidelined for months, its operational abilities curtailed with the arrests of its leaders by the Palestinian Authority and Israeli security forces. Now, however, Arafat has released 10 Hamas leaders and is allowing the group air time on Palestinian television.

“Hamas needs to get back in the game,” said the senior defense source. “That might drive them to do something spectacular.”

The fear of a Hamas attack, the source said, is one reason the Palestinian territories will remain sealed off until after the Jewish holy day, Yom Kippur, ends Monday night.

* STRAINING TIES IN L.A.

When a Muslim-Jewish group failed to speak out on violence, some members spoke. B2