OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 1 November 2003 — Tens of thousands of Palestinian Muslims attended prayers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the first Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, despite Israeli-imposed access restrictions. They listened to preacher Yusef Abu Sneineh question the need to resume talks with Israel and condemn the separation wall that the Jewish state is constructing in the West Bank.
“The detestable apartheid wall is aimed at preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian entity, protect the settlements and averting their dismantlement,” he said.
More than 190,000 people prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem on the first Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, police said. A “few thousand” policemen and women, in
cluding reinforcements from other districts, were deployed in Jerusalem in anticipation of possible violence and to guide traffic, but the prayers ended peacefully, Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said.
Israeli police restricted access to the compound — the third holiest site in Islam — to married men over 45 and married women over 35. The number of special permits granted to Palestinian worshipers from the Gaza Strip and the rest of the West Bank was also limited to 5,000 amid fears of fresh attacks inside Israel.
Jerusalem Mufti Ekrama Sabri complained that only 60,000 people were able to reach the mosque compound. “The occupation forces have turned the Old City into a military garrison for absolutely no reason,” he told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Clashes broke out earlier between Israeli soldiers guarding the exit of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem and Palestinian residents who wanted to cross the checkpoint to attend prayers in Jerusalem, witnesses said.
The army responded to stone throwing with tear gas grenades but no serious injuries were reported. After the incident, the soldiers allowed through a few faithful of over 55 years of age, the witnesses added.
The army also set up checkpoints all around Jerusalem to prevent people from taking back roads into Jerusalem by foot, witnesses said. Arab Israelis and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, however, were allowed unrestricted access to the Harem Al-Sharif compound, which houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has authorized Palestinian deputies from the Gaza Strip to attend a Parliament session in the West Bank city of Ramallah, official Israeli sources said yesterday.
The decision was made in order to allow all Palestinian MPs to participate in a vote of confidence for the government which Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei is due to present, the sources added. The current emergency Cabinet is expected to be replaced by a full-fledged government next week.
The Israeli authorities had repeatedly barred Gaza deputies from crossing into the West Bank to attend Parliament sessions.
In another development, Russia introduced a UN resolution on Thursday endorsing the “road map” on a Middle East peace settlement in hopes of securing a Security Council vote next week to revive the plan, despite US objections about timing.
Moscow, frustrated by the recent surge of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories and by the lack of peace talks, wants to breathe life back into the “road map” that it helped design.
The resolution simply backs the stalled plan, formulated by the “quartet” of advisers on the Middle East - Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations - and “calls on the parties to fulfill their obligations under the road map in cooperation with the quartet and to achieve the vision of two states.”
But James Cunningham, the US deputy ambassador, said, “We think we need to look at the context, the timing and what we want the impact to be. We don’t think the timing is right now because there is no Palestinian government in place.”
