Clash at holy site upsets Muslim world

Following violent protests last week, Israel said Palestinians would be allowed to lodge protests about construction work taking place near a mosque in Jerusalem's Old City. However, preparatory archaeological digging at the holy site, revered by both Jews and Muslims, will continue as before. Dozens of police and demonstrators were injured on Feb. 9 as Palestinians protested about the work at the site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. Around 150 Palestinians barricaded themselves into the compound of the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, after Israeli police fired stun grenades and teargas. Clashes in and around the mosque left about 40 Israeli police and Palestinians injured. Police said that 17 policemen had been taken to a hospital with injuries while a Palestinian volunteer nurse who had helped to staff a clinic next to the mosque said he had counted 23 injured worshippers. Muslim leaders called for protests after archaeologists began digging to make sure no important remains were damaged when a walkway was rebuilt. The planned new walkway is meant to replace an ancient earthen ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police moved onto the compound's hilltop esplanade after a protest march turned violent. But Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, said police provoked the clash by attacking a crowd of several dozen demonstrators before the march started. The mufti, Jerusalem's highest-ranking Islamic cleric, said he was finishing the prayer service in the mosque when he heard grenades and tear gas guns outside. He pleaded over the loudspeaker for police to go away. "What the police did was a preorchestrated act to intimidate people who are angry about the digging," he said. "They started firing grenades before anyone had a chance to protest." As worshipers left the mosque, he added, "the police attacked old people, women and children. It was repulsive." Young men in the crowd hurled stones, bottles and trash. Medics tended to injured people lying on the stone pavement. The clash sparked rock-throwing incidents in Hebron, Kalkilya and Bethlehem in the West Bank. There were peaceful marches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called "a day of Palestinian anger." The excavations have angered Muslims, inspiring protests across the world. The Arab League called it a "criminal attack" and has asked the UN to intervene. "There are plans to change the features of the city," Amr Moussa said in a statement distributed to representatives at an emergency meeting in Cairo. The statement said the construction was "threatening the security and stability in the region." The violence in the compound sparked additional protests in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, where television viewers watched live footage of Israeli police chasing Muslim demonstrators across hallowed ground. Jordan and Egypt–Israel's sole Arab peace partners and key US allies in the region–have demanded the state to stop the work, as did Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. King Abdullah of Jordan, whose family has custodianship of the Muslim shrines, has condemned the work as a "blatant violation" and a "dangerous escalation.... These measures will only create an atmosphere that will not at all help in the success of efforts being undertaken to restore the peace process." "Only an announcement from the Israeli government ordering a halt to all work once and for all, and authorizing the Waqf [Islamic endowment authorities] to embark on the necessary repair work will satisfy us," said Sheik Mohammed, the mufti. In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, dozens of Palestinian youths threw rocks at Israeli soldiers guarding a checkpoint into Jerusalem. The soldiers detained 30 protesters. In a similar protest in the West Bank city of Hebron, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused to call off the renovations, despite the recent clashes and opposition within his governing coalition. More than 2,000 Israeli police have been deployed to bolster security at the compound after two days of violent clashes in which dozens were wounded in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Al-Aqsa Mosque is viewed as the third holiest site in Islam. It is considered by Muslims to be the site of the Prophet Mohammed's first prayers and his ascent into heaven. As well as containing the mosque, the disputed compound, built on top of ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples, is also the holiest site in Judaism. In Jewish lore, it is said to be the location of the rock on which Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice to God. Jews gather to pray near one of its outer retaining walls, known as the Western Wall. The area–captured by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War–has regularly been a flashpoint for violence. The compound is in religious and political terms the most sensitive site in the Arab-Jewish conflict. In 1996, Israel's opening of an exit to a tunnel near the site triggered riots in which 80 people died in clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops. The second intifada followed Ariel Sharon's decision to conduct a heavily policed walk on the compound in 2000. Israeli police have now restricted access to the compound's Islamic sites. Only Muslim men aged 45 or older with Israeli identity cards, and women are allowed to pray at the mosque.