New Riots at Temple Site Leave 4 Dead

On a day and at a place holy to both Jews and Muslims, Israeli security forces battled thousands of enraged Palestinians on Friday, engulfing Jerusalem’s most hotly contested sacred shrine in chaos.

It was the second day of skirmishing within the walled Old City here, at a site known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Arabs as Haram al Sharif, or noble sanctuary. Rioting spread to other areas.

At least four Palestinians were killed and more than 230 Palestinians and Israelis injured, including this city’s Israeli police chief. Five tourists visiting Christian sites in East Jerusalem also were injured. In a separate incident, an Israeli police officer was killed by his Palestinian patrol partner.

The bloodiest Temple Mount fighting in four years came amid rising tension over deadlocked peace talks. It mirrored the political battle over the revered site: Both Israelis and Palestinians claim sovereignty in the Old City, a conflict that remains the most stubborn impediment to a final peace settlement to end decades of contention.

The violence could not have come at a worse time for peacemaking. Talks collapsed in July at the U.S.-sponsored Camp David summit in Maryland--precisely because of issues related to sovereignty over Jerusalem--but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat have been struggling to revive negotiations and improve relations that had become bitter.

Palestinian leaders appealed to the Clinton administration for help amid fears that the violence will continue. They called a general strike for today and accused Israel of having ignited “a religious war.” Israel accused the Palestinians of inciting attacks.

With the advent of the Jewish new year Friday night, Jerusalem’s Old City was bracketed by unusually heavy patrols of paramilitary police. Barak summoned his security advisors to an emergency meeting and spoke by telephone with Arafat, urging the Palestinian leader to rein in troublemakers.

Israelis were prohibited from entering Palestinian-controlled territories until further notice.

Friday’s clashes began about noon on the holiest day of the Muslim week. Palestinians were finishing prayers at Al Aqsa mosque when youths among them began hurling rocks, iron bars and debris at Israeli police. Witnesses said some of the projectiles rained down onto shocked Jewish worshipers praying at the Western Wall, just below the Temple Mount. Many of the Jews had come to pray before the new year, which ushers in a reverential period of atonement.

Police responded in force, rushing the compound and firing tear gas, rubber-coated pellets and conventional ammunition.

Four Palestinians were killed, and at least 207 Palestinians were wounded, according to three hospitals. Israeli police said 25 officers and four paramedics were injured.

Many of the Palestinians were clearly riled by a highly publicized tour Thursday of the Temple Mount by Israeli right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon. Although Jews are allowed to visit the site, Sharon is one of the most hated Israelis among Arabs. Many Palestinian leaders saw his presence as a provocation. The tour triggered disturbances Thursday that injured about 30 people.

“We are facing a religious war, ignited by Sharon,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh, a senior advisor to Arafat.

Friday’s prayers at Al Aqsa concluded with a sermon condemning the Sharon visit. According to Palestinians who were present, Imam Hayan Idrisi urged Muslims to defend the mosque and warned that Israelis will not be allowed to enter by force.

Minutes later, the fighting erupted.

Injured Palestinians were pulled by their comrades onto the mosaic floors inside Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock for first aid before they could be evacuated. Sirens wailed throughout the day, and a thick plume of black smoke rose above the Old City from vehicles that rioters had set ablaze.

Israeli and Palestinian security commanders eventually negotiated a cease-fire--but not before rioting had spread elsewhere. Palestinian youths armed with rocks and chunks of concrete menaced motorists on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives and battled with police at Rachel’s Tomb near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Molotov cocktails were hurled at Israeli patrols in Hebron.

Palestinians charged that the Israeli forces overreacted at Temple Mount.

“They started shooting everywhere!” said 64-year-old Mahmoud Abusbitan, wearing the white skullcap of an observant Muslim. “They didn’t differentiate between young and old. I started running, and I thought for sure I would be killed. My legs are still shaking.”

Abusbitan spoke from the hospital bedside of his 19-year-old nephew, Takir, who took a rubber-coated bullet in the forehead.

“I was praying, and I heard all this commotion, so I got up to leave and that’s when I got hit,” Takir said, who bore a bloody bandage above his left eye. “We didn’t have time to try to escape.”

In the wide driveway outside the Makassed Islamic Charity Hospital in East Jerusalem, where most of the Palestinian victims were taken, a large and emotional crowd surged around a white panel truck bearing the body of a man who had been killed in the clashes. “Allahu akbar! [God is great!]” people in the crowd chanted for their new shahid, or martyr, as he was whisked off for burial. Youths clung to the doors and windows of the van as it sped away.

Most of those hurt were young men, although the casualties included women, hospital officials said.

Israeli police commander Yehuda Vilk confirmed that police snipers used live conventional ammunition. But he said police showed restraint, and he was surprised at the severity of the rioting, which broke out despite negotiations the night before with the Muslim clerics who have day-to-day custody of the 36-acre Al Aqsa compound.

Barak, speaking on national television, said it was absurd to blame Friday’s upheaval on Sharon. At least one attack, the bombing of an Israeli army patrol near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, occurred before Sharon toured the Temple Mount, Barak said. He blamed incitement by Palestinian leaders.

“We will have to respond where the security of Israelis is harmed, even if we do not usually,” Barak said, alluding to Israel’s policy of generally avoiding confrontation inside the Al Aqsa compound. “We expect the Palestinians to ensure peace at this site. . . . I have made it clear to Arafat that we cannot accept terrorist attacks.”

On Friday, Barak first spoke with Arafat when the latter telephoned to express condolences for the killing of an Israeli police officer by a Palestinian counterpart. The incident happened near the West Bank town of Kalqilya. The two men were on a joint patrol--units established as one of the relative successes of the peace process--and had paused for a coffee break when the Palestinian inexplicably opened fire on his colleagues. Another Israeli was wounded.

Jews believe the Temple Mount to be where the biblical First and Second temples once stood. Thus it is the holiest site in Judaism. Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from what is today the Dome of the Rock, making the compound the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

In 1990, Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinian stone-throwers at Al Aqsa and killed at least 17 people. About 75 people were killed in 1996 when rioting erupted near the Temple Mount over a tunnel entrance opened by the government of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.