JERUSALEM/ GAZA: CLASHES BETWEEN ISRAELI ARMY AND PALESTINANS OUTSIDE AL - AL-AQSA MOSQUE

Record ID: 400813

  • Title: JERUSALEM/ GAZA: CLASHES BETWEEN ISRAELI ARMY AND PALESTINANS OUTSIDE AL - AL-AQSA MOSQUE
  • Date: 2nd April 2004
  • Summary: (W5) JABALIYA, GAZA STRIP (APRIL 2, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDD OF HUNDREDS OF PALESTINIANS AT HAMAS DEMONSTRATION WITH SHEIK YASSIN POSTER 0.06 2. CLOSE OF WHEELCHAIR WITH YASSIN POSTER 0.12 3. VAIROUS OF DEMONSTRATORS MARCHING 0.18 4. WIDE OF CHANTING PROTESTORS 0.24 5. SLV CHILD WITH HAMAS FLAG AND GUN 0.30
  • Embargoed: 17th April 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM/ JABALIYA AND RAFAH, GAZA
  • City:
  • Country: Gaza Jerusalem
  • Reuters ID: LVA430RD7EIOUTI0W3LW4429S001
  • Story Text: Fighting occurs outside Jerusalem's holy shrine as
    Israeli police clash with Palestinian worshippers.






    Israeli police in riot gear stormed the square
    outside al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, on
    Friday (April 2) to confront stone-throwing Palestinians in
    the latest outbreak of violence at the flashpoint shrine.

    Police said they fired rubber bullets and tossed stun
    grenades after hundreds of Muslims leaving Friday prayers
    threw stones at security men and Jewish worshippers at
    Judaism's Western Wall below. Palestinians said police acted without
    provocation.

    Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, a religious authority and one
    of the al-Aqsa mosque leaders and a religious authority,
    condemed both parties for their part in the clashes that
    occured on Friday in east Jerusalem.

    Police said they arrested nine Palestinians at the
    site, which Muslims call al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble
    Sanctuary) and Jews revere as the Temple Mount.

    A Palestinian uprising began in 2000 after Ariel
    Sharon, Israel's opposition leader at the time and now
    prime minister, visited the compound, which is at the heart
    of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The Temple Mount is Judaism's
    holiest site.

    Israel seized East Jerusalem, including the ancient
    walled Old City -- where the compound is located -- in the
    1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not
    recognised internationally. The Palestinians want East
    Jerusalem as capital of the state they hope to establish.

    Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians buried one
    Palestinian killed during a tank raid on Friday in a
    refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

    An Israeli military source said troops entered the
    Rafah refugee camp to conduct a "small operation" to search
    for tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from
    Egypt. The raid by tanks and armoured bulldozers sparked
    exchanges of fire between soldiers and gunmen in the camp,
    a frequent flashpoint during a three-and-a-half-year-old
    Palestinian uprising.

    Medics said troops shot dead a Palestinian man
    described by residents as a bystander. The Israeli source
    said he had no information on Palestinian casualties.

    Soldiers took over the rooftops of three buildings to
    provide cover for the operation in which Israeli forces
    penetrated about 250 metres (yards) into the camp,
    witnesses said.

    Israel has carried out frequent raids in Rafah, a
    stronghold of militant groups behind a campaign of suicide
    bombings against Israelis. Troops have demolished scores of
    homes in missions to uncover and destroy arms smuggling
    conduits.



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