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Israel seals off srhine foiling jewish protest

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   http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=8134490

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=8134490

Israel Seals Off Shrine, Foils Jewish Protest March
Sun Apr 10, 2005 11:04 AM ET

By Jonathan Saul
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Thousands of Israeli police sealed off a flashpoint Jerusalem shrine on Sunday to foil a march by ultranationalist Jews that could have inflamed violence, complicating Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza.

Thirty-one protesters were arrested in scuffles after authorities banned the march.

Palestinians had warned they would scrap their ceasefire if Jews rallied at the site revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and Jews as Temple Mount. A few hundred adherents of the Revava ("Multitude") movement, bent on derailing the Gaza pullout plan, showed up for a march organizers said would draw 10,000 to a site at the heart of the Middle East conflict and scene of bloodshed in the past.

But a blockade of all approaches to the shrine by police appeared to nip any march in the bud and only several dozen protesters actually tried to push their way into the site.

They shouted "Gestapo" at police and injured an officer with a thrown rock, but dispersed in mid-afternoon. Thirteen of those detained were minors and all were freed after a few hours.

"We came here to show the world we are unable to pray even at our holiest place, the Temple Mount," said Jewish protester Efraim Cohen, 21, a West Bank settler.

"But if (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon thinks it will be as easy to expel Jews from Gaza as he has dealt with us today, he is mistaken. The struggle will continue," he said, before being hustled away by police.

Four Israeli rightist parliamentarians were barred as well.

Hundreds of Palestinian counter-demonstrators also clashed with police on horseback at an Old City gate before being driven back. Eight were arrested, including a man disguised as a woman intercepted inside the Old City en route to the shrine.

Israel had barred Palestinian men under 40 from the shrine on Sunday to minimize any risk of violence with Jews.

The Jerusalem compound, housing the 1,300-year-old al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques, is Islam's third holiest site.

The site is the most sacred for Jews, treasured as the spot where biblical King Solomon built a temple and where a second temple was razed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

Police kept rightists away from the Western Wall, a Jewish prayer site in a plaza abutting the elevated mosque compound, to prevent any possible confrontation with Muslims praying inside.

GAZA WITHDRAWAL AT STAKE

The intended march was part of a rightist campaign to tie down security forces who will be called on to help evacuate 8,500 settlers from Gaza, many of whom also vow resistance.

U.S.-led mediators regard the Gaza "disengagement" as a vital precursor to launching a long-stalled "road map" peace plan for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Any serious relapse into violence could disrupt the Gaza pullout set for July and trouble a meeting between Sharon and George W. Bush at the U.S. president's Texas ranch on Monday.

Palestinian militants threatened to abandon a de facto ceasefire with Israel if the march went ahead. "If the Zionists defile al-Aqsa mosque, they will be planting the seeds of the third uprising," said Nizar Rayyan of Islamist faction Hamas.

Palestinians staged revolts in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank in 1987-93 and from 2000 until the recent ceasefire.

Hundreds of Palestinians marched in two West Bank cities on Sunday in protest at the rightist Jews' bid to enter the shrine.

Tensions had already resurged on Saturday when Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinian youths in a Gaza boundary zone, the first killings since militants agreed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in March to the truce.

In reprisal, Gaza militants fired dozens of mortar bombs and rockets at settlements and Israeli army bases. No casualties were reported. Despite the barrage, militant factions said they remained committed to a ceasefire.

Hassan Youssef, Hamas's political leader in the West Bank, slipped into the Jerusalem shrine on Sunday to demonstrate resolve against the Jewish rightists. Sources close to Youssef said he got past Israeli police disguised as an elderly cleric.

"I did not wait for a permit from the (Israeli) occupation. All Palestinians should come here to protect al-Aqsa from desecration by Jewish extremists," Youssef told Reuters by telephone before he was detained. But he urged Palestinians to eschew violence.

Israeli police arrested Youssef as he left the shrine and he was taken away for questioning, a spokesman said.

The shrine, part of East Jerusalem which Israel also captured in 1967, was kept off-limits to Jews from the start of the revolt in 2000 until 2003, when Israel restored access to non-Muslim visitors as long as they did not pray or rally there. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and Haitham Tamimi in Jerusalem)



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