Abbas freezes Israel contacts
3 PALESTINIANS KILLED IN UNREST OVER METAL DETECTORS AND CURBS ON ENTRY TO HOLY SITE
Three Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded yesterday as clashes erupted on the ‘Day of Rage’ between protesters and Israeli forces over new security measures at a Jerusalem holy site.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was freezing contacts with Israel over the security measures at Al Haram Al Sharif.
Abbas said in a speech that the freeze would stay in place until Israel lifted the measures at the Haram Al Sharif compound.
Abbas earlier has asked the US to “intervene urgently” and compel Israel to remove metal detectors from a contested Jerusalem shrine.
The unrest came after Israeli ministers decided not to order the removal of metal detectors erected at entrances to the Haram Al Sharif.
In anticipation of protests yesterday, Israeli police barred men under 50 from entering Jerusalem’s Old City for prayers, while all women were allowed in. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that 390 people were wounded in Jerusalem, of whom 58 were taken to hospital.
The Arab League condemned Israel’s use of “excessive violence” against Palestinians, while Egypt called on Israel to exercise reason.
The US State Department called for avoiding actions that could escalate tensions.
Palestinian worshippers yesterday clashed with Israeli security forces outside Al Haram Al Sharif in occupied Jerusalem in violence prompted by the installation of metal detectors at its entry point, and at least three Palestinians were killed.
There have been daily confrontations between Palestinians hurling rocks and Israeli police using stun grenades since the detectors were placed outside Al Haram Al Sharif, known to Jews as Temple Mount, on Sunday, following the killing of two Israeli policemen.
The site includes the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, and the golden Dome of the Rock.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Mohammed Sharaf, 17, and Mohammad Hassan Abu Gannam, age unknown, died of gunshot wounds in two neighbourhoods of occupied East Jerusalem somewhat away from the epicentre of tension in the walled Old City. It reported a third Palestinian fatality, Mohammad Lafi, 18, later.
It was not immediately clear who fired the shots, with unconfirmed media reports that an Israeli from a colony in the nearby occupied West Bank was responsible in Sharaf’s death.
Israel’s Channel 10 reported that a child of eight had died from tear gas inhalation, but that could not be confirmed.
Despite international pressure to remove the metal detectors, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet decided in yesterday’s early hours to keep them in place, saying they were needed to prevent arms being smuggled into the shrine.
In protest, thousands of worshippers gathered for Friday prayers at various entrances to Al Haram Al Sharif. They refused to enter, preferring to pray outside, in some cases filling the narrow alleyways of the Old City’s Muslim quarter.
“We reject Israeli restrictions at the Aqsa Mosque,” said occupied Jerusalem’s senior Muslim cleric, Grand Mufti Mohammad Hussain.
Muslim leaders and Palestinian political factions had urged the faithful to gather for a “day of rage” yesterday against the new security policies, which they see as changing delicate agreements that have governed the holy site for decades. But by early afternoon, with police mobilising extra units and placing barriers to carry out checks at entrances to the Old City, there had been little serious violence. Access to the shrine for Muslims was limited to men over 50 but open to women of all ages. Roadblocks were in place on approach roads to occupied Jerusalem to stop buses carrying Muslims to the site.
At one location near the Old City, stone throwers did try to break through a police line, and police used stun grenades to drive them back.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said four officers were injured in the sporadic clashes and the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said at least 377 protesters had been hurt, some suffering from tear gas inhalation.
Ahmad Abdul Salaam, a local businessman who came to pray outside Al Haram Al Sharif, said: “Putting these metal detectors at the entrance to our place of worship is like putting them at the entrance to our house. Are you really going to put me through a metal detector as I go into my house?”