 |
||
|
||
|
||
Hundreds of Israeli police today stormed the Al-aqsa mosque compound, Jerusa-lem's most contested religious site, and fired stun grenades at Muslims who were pelting stones at Jews worshipping at the nearby Western Wall.
Israel's Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy, however, said: "Police did not enter Al-aqsa mosque itself." Hospital sources said around 35 Palestinians were injured.At least 15 policemen were hurt by stones and 28 Palestinians arrested, a police spokesman said.
Fifteen policemen and seven Palestinians were injured inside the hilltop compound, the site where the current round of Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted 10 months ago during a similar confrontation. The compound contains two mosques and is the third holiest site in Islam, known collectively as the Noble Sanctuary. The mosque compound is said to be built atop the ruins of two Biblical Jewish temples, the holiest site in Judaism, known as the Temple Mount or Al-Haram al-Sharif.
Police rushed into the compound to drive back the Muslim stonethrowers while Jews praying at the Western Wall down below fled the barrage of rocks, with some holding plastic chairs above their heads. The Western Wall forms one side of the compound. Israel Radio said later a deal had been brokered under which the Muslim protesters would leave peacefully and police would not arrest them. Israeli police were on heightened alert after warnings by Palestinian officials that a plan by the right-wing Jewish group, Temple Mount Faithful, to lay a 4.5-tonne marble cornerstone at the site could lead to confrontations.
Jordan slammed the proposed plan as provocative that would stoke violence in West Asia. ''This situation is dangerous and it is totally rejected by Jordan,'' Information Minister Saleh Qallab said. ''This act will further complicate the already deteriorated situation in West Asia. So, Israel has to refrain from these provocative acts. ''Talk in current circumstances about laying a cornerstone for the alleged temple, which we do not acknowledge,...is a provocation of feelings and like pouring oil on flaming fires,'' he said.
Today was the Jewish holy day of Tisha B'av, when observant Jews mark the destruction of Jewish temples at the site in 586 BC and 70 AD. Police were deployed in large numbers to block a small group of the ultra nationalist Jews who sought to march on the mosque compound.
In Pakistan's Karachi, Shiite Muslims violated a ban on public rallies to protest against the alleged Israeli atrocities on Palestinians. Police said they arrested 30 members of the Shiite Tehreek-i-Jafria Pakistan party because they violated the ban.
(News Agencies)
|
||
|
||
|
||