A total of five Palestinians have died of their wounds, and 200 others injured after clashes Friday with Israeli police on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, Al Jazira TV reported.
Four were hit by bullets and died in east Jerusalem's Maqassed hospital, a hospital source told AFP. The official Voice of Palestine radio station announced that a fifth man died in Augusta Victoria hospital, also in east Jerusalem, said the agency.
Ahmed Qunbar, a doctor treating wounded Palestinians on site, told AFP that he had treated some 200 men, six of them wounded by live bullets. He added that three were in serious condition.
Israeli public radio reported that the clashes which started in the mosque compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Palestinians as Haram al-Sharif had spread to the West Bank, including Bethlehem and Atarot airport near Jerusalem.
Palestinian security officials said the soldiers used both rubber bullets -- which at short range can be deadly -- and live rounds. The Israeli police insisted it only used rubber bullets.
Meanwhile Nabil Abu Rudeina, an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, told the official Voice of Palestine radio that he called the US embassy in Tel Aviv, asking Washington to urge the Israeli army to pull out of the compound to restore order to the area.
The clashes allegedly started when Palestinians threw stones down at Jewish worshippers praying at the Western Wall, which lies below the mosque compound. The Jews had gathered in large numbers for the Sabbath and the start of the Jewish new year, which begins Friday evening.
Several hundred Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces Thursday after a controversial visit to the site by Ariel Sharon, leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party, but Friday's clashes were more serious, as the area was full of worshippers attending Friday prayers, said AFP
Reports said that Friday’s confrontations started at Bab Al Magharebah, the same Jerusalem gate through which Sharon entered the Muslim holy site, in a vist that Arafat described as “serious.”
“Sharon’s visit was an attempt to try the Palestinian sentiments towards Jerusalem, and to destroy the already collapsing peace process,” Arafat’s consultant Abu Khaled Lahham told Al Jazira – (Several Sources)
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