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Mideast violence worse; 12 killed
By Compiled from Times wires © St. Petersburg Times, published October 1, 2000 JERUSALEM -- Violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday left at least 12 Palestinians dead and more than 500 wounded in the third straight day of fierce fighting that was set off by the defiant visit Thursday of a right-wing Israeli leader, Ariel Sharon, to the steps of the ancient mosques atop Jerusalem's Old City. Saturday's fighting, on the first day of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, an Israeli national holiday that is commemorated as a time for quiet reflection and prayer, was one of the bloodiest confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians in years. In a terse official statement, Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Israel "is exercising maximum restraint, but is determined to preserve public order and protect its citizens." With the death toll rising Saturday night, there were fears that the violence could sabotage hopes for a quick resumption of the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Barak spoke to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by phone late Saturday. "The prime minister warned Arafat that he (Barak) will not let violence be a tool in the negotiations," Barak's office said. Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, said the Palestinian Authority did nothing to stop the violence, and that Palestinian police officers in some cases even participated in the clashes. As of late Saturday evening, Arafat had made no public comment on the day's events. Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath called the deadly confrontations at the Jerusalem shrine a "premeditated massacre" by Israeli security forces, aimed at proving that Israel is sovereign there. On Saturday eight Palestinians, including two police officers, were killed in a chaotic confrontation with Israeli troops outside the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian officials said. Hundreds of rock-throwing protesters had marched on an Israeli army checkpoint and the troops responded with live ammunition. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli security forces engaged in a fierce gun battle for more than an hour at the entrance to a Jewish settlement there. A Palestinian police officer was killed in the exchange, officials said. An ambulance driver and a 12-year-old boy were also killed. The boy, caught in a cross-fire, was filmed by a foreign television crew as he cowered behind a cement block with his father, who shouted at the Israeli soldiers to hold their fire. "The child, the child!" the father yelled, helplessly waving his arm in the air. The boy screamed in panic as shots hit a wall just inches over their heads. Seconds later, 12-year-old Mohammed Aldura was fatally struck in the abdomen. He loosened his grip on his father and slumped over. Seriously wounded, the father, Jamal, shook with convulsions and lost consciousness. He was hospitalized in Gaza and was expected to recover, family members said Saturday. The excruciating scene, including the boy's cries as he was hit by the fatal gunfire, was broadcast on Israeli television Saturday night. More than 200 Palestinians were reported wounded in the bloody Gaza clash, which erupted from demonstrations protesting Sharon's visit to the mosques Thursday morning and the storming of the Muslim religious site Friday afternoon by heavily armed Israeli troops. The Gaza protesters, many of them sympathizers of the radical fundamentalist Hamas movement, directed their fury not just at Sharon, but at Arafat, ripping apart posters of the Palestinian leader. In East Jerusalem, Palestinian protesters fought sporadically with Israeli troops throughout the day, and a teenage boy was killed during a clash with Israeli forces near Ramallah. "The battle over Jerusalem has begun," said Bassem Naim, a Palestinian activist, as thousands of protesters chanting the Muslim battle cry "Allahu Akbar," or God is Great, marched toward an Israeli army position. Saturday night, Israeli army chief Mofaz said he and his Palestinian counterparts had agreed to a cease-fire throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Reuters reported. The Israeli army ordered the evacuation of Jewish worshipers from the Western Wall, the site of rock-throwing attacks by Palestinian youths on Friday. Army helicopters crisscrossed the skies and troops blocked Israeli access to the West Bank, including at the heavily traveled checkpoint between Ramallah and East Jerusalem, as Israeli families strolled to synagogues and family gatherings to mark Rosh Hashana. In Arab East Jerusalem, as in the Palestinian-ruled cities of Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians held a general strike to protest the Israeli incursion into the Old City plaza that Jews call the Temple Mount but that Muslims call Haram al-Sharif and consider the third holiest site in Islam. The fighting between Palestinians and Israeli security forces since Thursday is the worst sustained violence the area has seen since riots erupted in 1996 after Israel opened an ancient tunnel deep beneath the plaza. The Western Wall, the most sacred site of worship to Jews because of its proximity to where the last Jewish temple is believed to have stood two millenniums ago, is part of the foundation of the great raised courtyard, the site of the seventh-century mosque, the Dome of the Rock. Though Israel asserts sovereignty over the site, its security forces normally stay on the plaza's walled perimeter. Internal policing is handled by Palestinian Authority officials and by the Islamic clerics who exercise religious control over the mosques and surrounding courtyard. Sharon, who obtained Israeli police permission to lead a delegation from his rightist opposition Likud Party to the plaza, has vociferously objected to suggestions that a peace pact with the Palestinians might give an independent Palestine state whole or partial sovereignty over the site. His visit infuriated Palestinians, who continue to associate Sharon with the massacres of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon two decades ago, and who are united in demanding control over what Muslims consider the third most sacred site in Islam. The fighting on the plaza Friday, ignited by protests over Sharon's visit, was the heaviest Israeli show of force and the worst outbreak of violence on that particular site since the beginning of the peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO seven years ago. While Sharon used his visit to criticize what he called concessions on Jerusalem by Barak, the tour seemed no less an attempt to upstage Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister cleared of corruption charges last week who could challenge Sharon for leadership of the Likud Party. In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, acting foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami indicated that the violence was orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority. "We are noticing an orchestrated attempt to create violence in the areas," the statement said, according to Agence France-Presse. It added that Ben Ami had asked world leaders to tell Arafat that "the attempt to make political gains from violence in the short run is a very dangerous matter."
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From the Times wire desk
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