Palestinians, Israeli Police Clash At Jerusalem's Temple Mount Holy Site

JERUSALEM -- Israeli policemen entered a sensitive Jerusalem holy site Friday and used stun grenades to disperse dozens of Palestinian protesters who were hurling stones at security personnel, police said.

The scene of the clash was the Old City compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Israeli spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police entered the compound after Palestinians began lobbing stones at security forces stationed outside one of the gates. The clash began immediately after Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Police used stun grenades to disperse the crowd, he said.

Officers made three arrests, no one was injured and order was quickly restored, Rosenfeld said.

The compound, holy to Jews and Muslims and captured by Israel in 1967, is one of the most combustible sites on earth. Clashes there in the past have ignited broader violence.

A Muslim clerical body known as the Waqf runs the compound under Israel's overall security control.

Also Friday, a Hamas leader said Israel had stepped up a campaign of arrests against members of the Islamic militant group in the West Bank, which Israel controls.

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said around 100 Hamas members had been arrested by the Israeli military in the last two weeks in the West Bank, including eight of the group's leaders.

An Israeli military spokesman would not comment on the number arrested, saying only that the military "carries out action based on security assessments and needs." He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the military's regulations.

The Western-backed Fatah, which governs Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and has also carried out arrests of Hamas members, recently signed a reconciliation deal with Hamas and has scaled back pressure on the rival group.

The reconciliation followed a four-year split after Hamas' bloody seizure of Gaza Strip that left Fatah in control only of the West Bank.

Comments

[James from MD]

05:16 PM on 06/14/2011

Hmmm, I just looked through my history glasses and never heard of a state called Palestine or a people called Palestinians. I do see Arabs though...

I did see people called Arabs from Arabia come invade and annex the holy land, which was controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire, who had annexed the holy land and kicked out the jews in AD 70 & 136, from the roman province of JUDAEA, then renamed Syria Palaestina (from the word philistine).

The fact is that all of this is meaningless. Wars have consequences. Israel has won four separate wars designed to destroy the country.
Romans took it from the Jews, Persians (Sassanids) from the Romans, Romans again from the Persians, Arabs from the Romans, Turks from the Arabs, Crusaders/Europeans from the Turks/Arab remnants, Ayuubids (Kurds) from the Crusaders, Crusaders again from the Ayyubids, Mamelukes from the Crusaders, Different (Ottoman) Turks from the Mamelukes, British from the Ottomans, and finally!!! Jewish Rebels from the British! I don't see any "Palestinians" in there....

[RockyMissouri]

05:46 PM on 06/14/2011

Of course you cannot see, because you are blind.....

[Amariri]

08:42 PM on 06/14/2011

Clean up your glasses and get to part just after the Second World War, and maybe you'll notice that that war was precisely fought - and won - to uphold and assure a critial and essential principle of international law: the prohibition on acquiring territory through war.

No matter whether the country has been attacked by an entire continent: the principle stands: no country can acquire territory by war. The international community strictly forbids any and all annexation of land as a result of an armed confflict. No country is immune to this rule. Not even Israel.

Now, catch up on your knowledge and read the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

[Karlin Carney]

10:07 PM on 07/02/2011

Actually thats not true. Countries may acquire and hold territory captured in wars of defense.

[Taxim]

12:31 AM on 06/14/2011

Local sources report that a number of Jewish settlers broke into the al-Aqsa compound and began drinking wine and smashing bottles on the floor. Consumption of alcohol is forbidden in Islam and such acts are considered desecration. The group allegedly broke through a gate near the Western Wall and were protected by Israeli police. Police only intervened to ensure that angry worshipers from the mosque were kept separate from the settlers.

The al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock are considered the third holiest site in Islam. The act of desecration was allegedly a result of calls to celebrate the Shavuot holiday at the site. Tensions have been particularly high in East Jerusalem recently as a result of inflammatory marches on 'Jerusalem day' last week and Israeli MK Michael Ben-Ari's tour of the mosque with a group of settlers on Tuesday.

[enderM]

09:49 AM on 06/14/2011

interesting that a march on jerusalem day is *inflammatory*, but the rushing the borders of israel is *a right* and not inflammatory or provocation?
bit of typical twisted logic

[RockyMissouri]

05:47 PM on 06/14/2011

It's shameful to act like that.....

[Danny Dan]

03:25 PM on 06/13/2011

Who has not done business with the Jews.
As much dislike as there is,seems Arabs and Jews have always
figured out ways to do business in the name of
commerce.And so it goes,most Arab's who move elsewhere do business just fine.
The ones who look to evolve instead de-evolve.

[cdncommentator]

10:02 AM on 06/13/2011

Don't throw stones.

If you want to protest, do it peacefully. The message will get across as well as the greater message that you do not espouse violence. That speaks volumes.

[Avirahim]

11:28 AM on 06/13/2011

The Israeli settlers throw stones at little Palestinian school girls, because they have the blessing and protection of the IDF, they don't care about hurting innocent Palestinian children.

"Leila Sarsour, who is 17 years old, lives in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. She has a dream that everyone can live in peace, but she and her schoolmates are exposed daily to harassment, violence and intimidation from Israeli settlers.

For the Palestinian school girls in the city of Cordoba School in Hebron in the West Bank, it is impossible to remain unaffected by the Israeli occupation. The school is surrounded by military checkpoints, barbed wire and fanatical Israeli settlers. The path to school has become a path of degradation. Leila and her classmates are exposed daily to the indifference of the Israeli soldiers and laughter and stones from settlers. But in spite of constant harassment and racist slogans, Leila retains a belief and hope in peace and justice. She refuses to let bitterness and hatred to control her life: “We can all live together. Muslim, Jew or Christian, there is no reason to hate each other,” she says in Terje Carlsson’s documentary Welcome to Hebron."

http://warincontext.org/2010/01/16/welcome-to-hebron/

[cdncommentator]

12:51 PM on 06/13/2011

Good for her.

But the comment is off-context.

[enderM]

05:00 PM on 06/13/2011

that has nothing to do with the topic at hand….
however, since you brought it up, are you seriously implying that "(not so) innocent
palestinian children" don't throw rocks at israelis in WB?
They not only throw stones, the break into homes and slau. hter entire families….
remember the fogels? so please, tell me again about those "innocent pal children".

there are innocents and instigators on both sides avi.

[Taxim]

11:50 AM on 06/13/2011

"Israeli spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police entered the compound after Palestinians began lobbing stones at security forces stationed outside one of the gates"

Naturally someone as sophisticated as yourself has confirmed that stones were, in fact, thrown as no intelligent individual would accept an "Israeli spokesman" on the issue..

[BcemXAHA]

01:07 PM on 06/13/2011

I know right Cihangir? because Palestinians are not known for their barbaric rock tossing!

[Neets101]

08:09 AM on 06/13/2011

Does anyone ever pause to wonder if God minds his name being dragged into so many wars?

Would be nicer if folks were more honest about the whole "conquest" and "money" aspects of war...

and drop all that "holy roller" k-rap. Not buying it.

[Neets101]

07:56 AM on 06/13/2011

This comment will not survive screening....

[Neets101]

07:53 AM on 06/13/2011

Kick everyone out.

Turn the whole place into a theme park.

Can't get any more desecrated than it already is....

[Neets101]

07:48 AM on 06/13/2011

It's all them "churchy" types making trouble.

[Neets101]

07:42 AM on 06/13/2011

Now now, the U.S. Military Industrial Corporation (tm) would experience profit loss if those two were simply encouraged to blow each other to the kingdom come each side claims to have exclusive rights to....

the cat and mouse stuff pays better....

Actually, lots of moolah made playing both sides against the middle.

Too bad so many folks who could care less who you worship are caught up in the middle of this mess.

[Neets101]

06:15 AM on 06/13/2011

"The compound, holy to Jews and Muslims and captured by Israel in 1967, is one of the most combustible sites on earth. Clashes there in the past have ignited broader violence."

A holy site, drenched in blood. And this is respectful of each religion and their shared deity how?

If it truly is "holy" and "sacred" then it can't really be "owned" by man can it?

[RockyMissouri]

06:04 PM on 06/14/2011

Enter the evangelicals, all hope is lost, because they WANT it to blow up....don't you know this??? It would just be further proof of gods' holy word.....oh, brother...! What a crock... Corporate religion is HUGE... just look at the selection of religious programming on cable TV...Ginormous selection...all kinds, all greedy.

[Neets101]

06:38 AM on 06/15/2011

That's true. It's perverted, all of it.

[billsmith98]

04:57 AM on 06/13/2011

Never solve the problem of terrorists with "stun grenades".

[Taxim]

04:15 AM on 06/13/2011

An Israeli military spokesman would not comment on the number arrested, saying only that the military "carries out action based on security assessments and needs."

A bastion of progressive democracy. :)))

[cdncommentator]

10:04 AM on 06/13/2011

Yes, I'm sure that wherever you are in Turkey, you can just throw stones from a mosque at the police and they will smile and do nothing.

Being arrested for throwing stones at security says nothing about whether a country is, or is not a progressive democracy.

[Taxim]

11:05 AM on 06/13/2011

I would be arrested by the police-not the military-- who would have no problem releasing the number arrested.

[Seriously27]

08:04 PM on 06/12/2011

There is literally nothing funnier than those who try to assert that Israel is an apartheid regime. Let's see, there are approximately 1 million non Jews living in Israel. A typical Arab country ranges from 96% Muslim to 100% muslim. And we see how well anyone else is treated there....

[EmmaNYC]

12:57 AM on 06/13/2011

By 'daily killings,' I take it to mean the daily killing of Jews by Islamists blowing themselves up, slitting the throats of infants and otherwise attempting to inflict bodily harm on innocent people sitting in cafes and riding buses.

[TheLonelyGod]

02:03 AM on 06/13/2011

Once again, the anti-Zionist definition of "apartheid" is different from everyone else's.

[QuakerJewish]

11:12 PM on 06/12/2011

The apartheid is not in Israel. It's in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

GoogleEarth the region and you see from space the tiny gated ghettos of the indiginous Palestinian people. You can see how dry their areas are and the multitude of golf courses, gardens, and swimming pools on the Israeli side. It is all there for you to see for yourself.

[pinkibus]

02:36 AM on 06/13/2011

Quaker - it is all there for Zionists to see and it makes them happy to see it. They know they were given the land by god and by god they have seized it from the people who lived there and have titles to the homes they had to flee and even keys to the homes though it is likely the homes were bulldozed decades ago.

[cdncommentator]

10:08 AM on 06/13/2011

This is mostly true (true for the WB, not as much for Eastern Jerusalem). The rabid rants on the sight saying Israel itself practises apartheid are crazy.

Still, apartheid was a philosophy about the nature of things. There is no philosophy about a descending order of humanity and racial purity in Israel. The "apartheid"-like conditions in the WB are due to a myriad of factors that will cease to exist when trust is established and peace is hammered out.

[Avirahim]

04:53 PM on 06/12/2011

"When an international flotilla sails for Gaza this month to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, among the boats will be an American ship with 34 passengers, including the writer Alice Walker and an 86-year-old whose parents died in the Holocaust."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/middleeast/02flotilla.html?_r=1

[Anybodyseenthepopos]

07:26 PM on 06/12/2011

You're on the wrong thread. But you'd know that if......

[enderM]

08:53 AM on 06/13/2011

so?

[Anybodyseenthepopos]

07:26 PM on 06/12/2011

You're still on the wrong thread....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtoBqrD5Qtg&feature=fvst

[BcemXAHA]

01:36 PM on 06/13/2011

A buck short a day late as always, where were you when naiman published it here about 10 days ago?