OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 30 July — Israeli riot police stormed one of the world’s holiest sites in Jerusalem yesterday after a provocative rally by extremist Jews. A feared bloody showdown was avoided, but 18 Palestinians and 15 Israeli police were wounded.
Muslim worshipers and demonstrators then left the Al-Haram Al-Sharif in the evening after a day of pitched battles with Israeli police, during which 28 Palestinians were arrested.
Police had used tear gas and stun grenades to quell the violence which erupted after Israeli ultra-nationalists laid a symbolic cornerstone for a new Jewish temple near the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, infuriating Muslims around the world. “We’re now in control of the situation,” Jerusalem police commander Mikki Levy told army radio several hours after the clashes began on the very spot where the Palestinian uprising against Israel began 10 months ago.
Tension had been building for days after Israel’s Supreme Court gave the Temple Mount Faithful movement permission to bring the stone to one of the gates of the Old City near the Haram.
The group has long wanted to build a Jewish Temple at the site. The court barred the group from bringing the 4.5 ton stone into the sacred complex, which police also kept off-limits to the roughly 50 members of the movement on hand.
But the ceremony was seen as an Israeli bid to assert control over Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and the Palestinians want as the capital of a future independent state. Emotions boiled over as dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks at the Jews, who were cleared by police but allowed to return hours later after the violence was brought under control.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s top aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Israeli government bore full responsibility for the “provocations of radical Jews.” “They are playing with fire and will only plunge the region into a religious war. It is pure provocation and a blatant challenge to Arabs, the Muslim world and the international community,” he told AFP.
In towns across the West Bank, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in protest at the ceremony, some burning Israeli flags and in one case an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Israel’s storming of the Haram showed its “bad intentions” and could have serious consequences.
