Michael Jansenwas in the Old City of Jerusalem during clashes at a sacred site between Israeli activists and Palestinians Muslim worshippers
SHOPS WERE tightly shuttered along the narrow street leading from Herod’s Gate to the mosque compound. A few elderly Palestinian men in white caftans and women in long coats and headscarves hurried away from fresh clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli activists seeking to pray in the Noble Sanctuary, the site of al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site for Muslims.
According to Palestinian sources, yesterday’s clash erupted in the early morning when Palestinians inside the complex – sacred to both Islam and Judaism – saw a group of Jews trying to enter. The Jews did not manage to get in because several hundred Palestinians began a loud protest. Israeli police responded with tear gas then stun grenades.
These clashes were expected. Jewish activists who made an attempt on Thursday night pledged to return as Palestinians marked the ninth anniversary of their second uprising, sparked by a visit by former Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon to the mosque compound, and Jews prepare for Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, the holiest day of the year. The activists belong to a group that seeks to destroy the mosques and erect a third Jewish temple on the site, regarded as the Temple Mount by Jews.
A knot of Palestinian men and boys hovered at the corner of Mujahideen Street, ready to bolt if charged by Israeli forces massed outside the compound.
Jaber said: “The trouble began at half past seven when Israeli soldiers allowed settlers to enter the compound and closed all the gates. Muslims were not allowed in. Muslims inside and outside threw stones at the Israelis. The soldiers fired back with rubber bullets and gas.”
A platoon of heavily armed Israeli troops in flack jackets parted the gathering and marched toward the compound.
A similar formation in T-shirts and jeans followed, and were exposed as Israelis by the handle of a pistol projecting from the hip of an unshaven man in red. “You see, they are pretending to be Arabs to arrest the lads,” said Jaber.
The crowd moved toward the compound. Israeli police blocked access to the plaza before the compound gate but I managed to slip in as a gleeful batch of nine- or 10-year-old schoolboys in blue emerge chanted: “We will defend you with our blood, O, Aqsa.”
Dr Amin Abu Ghazzali, head of Palestinian medical services in Jerusalem, said his ambulances evacuated three seriously wounded Palestinians an hour and a half after the clashes began. A dozen others and two Israeli police were hurt. A clutch of Israeli border police dragged a Palestinian man into the plaza, slammed him up against a stone wall and shoved him to the pavement. Dr Abu Ghazzali gritted his teeth. “This is Israel exactly . . . they bring him here to beat him in front of people to let everyone be afraid of them. If he has done something wrong, they must take him to court.”
The man was hauled up, his hands trussed with a plastic band, and dragged away in front of the television cameras.
Palestinians and Israeli Jews stay at home on Yom Kippur [which began at dusk yesterday and ends this evening], fearing attacks on vehicles by Jewish zealots.
“The lockdown is on all. They stone cars and ambulances,” said Jeff Halper, an Israeli anthropologist. “They enforce atonement in a totalitarian way. There is zero tolerance. The attitude is, ‘If you don’t atone, I’ll kill you.’ The religious vent their rage. They were marginalised for years, now they are one-third of the [Jewish] population of Jerusalem . . . they are empowered, aggressive and anti-Arab. They don’t get arrested if they throw rocks on Yom Kippur.”
The threat of violence has increased by the planting of settlers in East Jerusalem, he said, occupied by Israel in 1967 but claimed by Palestinians as the capital of their future state. The zealots, he adds, “behave like the Arabs [still a narrow majority] are living in a Jewish area.”