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Thousands Flock To East Jerusalem As Violence In Territories Kills Two
by Judi Rever
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Muslims flocked to occupied east Jerusalem Friday for the first weekly prayers of Ramadan, a pilgrimage that went off peacefully but endemic violence elsewhere in the territories left two Palestinians dead, one a 12-year-old boy.
The bloodletting, now into its third month, came amid a chilling warning by Israel that regional confrontation was looming if Syria did not stop Lebanese guerrilla attacks on the Syrian-Lebanese border. A Hezbollah attack in the area on Sunday left one Israeli soldier dead and two others injured.
"In a way we can find ourselves, the Syrians and the Israelis in a war that neither one wanted," a senior Israeli security official, who asked to remain unnamed, told a press briefing in Jerusalem.
"We have the military capability to cause significant damage to Syrian forces in Lebanon without the need the invade Lebanon," he warned, evoking the possibility of air strikes.
The official said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, unlike his late father Hafez, has cultivated ties with Iraq, and increased the chance of regional confrontation.
"The likelihood of regional confrontation has become greater this year than it was in the last 10 years since the Gulf War."
Meanwhile, Israeli security officials on Friday were focused on efforts to contain any outbreak of violence in Jerusalem's Old City, after Palestinian factions earlier this week called for a surge in the nine-week Intifida, or uprising, during Ramadan.
Israeli police tripled the number of troops to 3,000 in the eastern section of the city near a disputed holy site known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount.
The Islamic Hamas had urged Muslims to wage a jihad (holy struggle) for the sake of Jerusalem, the city they revere as their capital.
Both Hamas and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah political faction had called on Palestinians to visit the holy compound, which houses the al-Asqa and Dome of the Rock mosques. The Wailing Wall, the most sacred site in Judaism, structurally supports the mosques.
A provocative visit to the site in late September by Israel's hawkish opposition leader Ariel Sharon triggered the uprising, which has since sent nearly 300 people, mostly Palestinians, to their graves.
But tens of thousands poured into the mosque compound without incident on Friday, surrounded by police armed with automatic weapons. Access to the sacred site was permitted only to Arab Israelis and Palestinians living in Jerusalem.
Israel has refused to lift a blockade it imposed two months ago on Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, areas locked in vicious battle with Israeli troops.
On Friday, Israeli soldiers shot Salleh al-Arjeh, a 12-year-old who had been throwing stones at them in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in the neck with a live round, killing him, hospital sources said.
Hamza Nadi al-Hasis, 27, was also shot dead with a bullet to the heart during clashes in the southern West Bank town of as-Samua, near Hebron, hospital officials said.
On Friday, Barak said he was willing to make peace with Palestinian children throwing stones, if negotiations failed to reach a deal with Arafat.
"The Palestinians will always be there, they will not go up in smoke," Barak told the country's biggest daily, Yediot Aharonot.
"If it is impossible to make peace with Yasser Arafat, then we will do so with children who are today throwing stones," Barak said.
Palestinian children and teenagers throwing stones have served as the front line of the uprising.
About 100 Palestinians under the age of 18 have died in the recent conflict, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said Friday.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak tried to revive peace negotiations when he said he was willing to transfer to Palestinians another 10% of the occupied West Bank, - land seized by Israel in the 1967 war - and recognize an independent Palestinian state.
But the most emotive issues of the half century conflict - a deal on the future of east Jerusalem and the return of some 3.7 million Palestinian refugees - would be put off for up to three years, Barak said during a press conference in Tel Aviv.
Palestinian officials swiftly rejected the ideas.
Barak, who agreed this week to early elections in the face of opposition-sponsored bills calling for the dissolution of parliament, is seeking a peace deal to revive his chances at the ballot box.
Opinion polls show the Prime Minister is trailing behind former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A poll published Friday in the daily Maariv gave the media-savvy ex-Likud leader a 17-point lead over Barak.
Netanyhau is currently in the United States and has not said whether he will stage a political comeback.
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