Israel seals off Al-Aqsa Mosque compound

Supporters of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement chant anti-Israel slogans during a demonstration in Gaza City yesterday against a plan by right-wing Jewish extremists to stage a rally at Jerusalem's disputed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, holy to both Jews and Muslims. PHOTO: AFP

Israel banned the march, intent on derailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, and security forces blocked approaches to the Old City holy site revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and Jews as Temple Mount.

Only a few hundred far-rightist adherents of the Revava ("Multitude") had shown up by mid-morning for a march they had said would draw 10,000. About a dozen were arrested.

"We came here to show the world we are unable to pray even at our holiest place, the Temple Mount. But if Sharon thinks it will be as easy to expel Jews from Gaza as he has dealt with us today, he is mistaken," said protester Efraim Cohen, 21.

"The struggle will continue," he told Reuters before being hustled away by Israeli plainclothes police. There was a brief scuffle and rightists shouted "Gestapo" at police.

Palestinian militants threatened to abandon a de facto ceasefire with Israel if right-wing Jews went ahead with the march.

"If the Zionists defile Al-Aqsa Mosque, they will be planting the seeds of the third uprising," said Nizar Rayyan of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Police kept the rightists well away from the Western Wall, a Jewish prayer site abutting the elevated shrine of two ancient mosques, to avoid any possible clash with Muslims praying there.

"Given assessments that such a move on the Temple Mount may spark a flare-up and disturbances from worshippers there, this (decision) is final and non-negotiable," Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco told Army Radio.

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.

Tensions were high 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.

Militants retaliated by firing several dozen mortar bombs and rockets at Jewish settlements and Israeli army bases. Two rockets were launched toward the town of Sderot on Israel's border with Gaza. No casualties were reported.

Hamas and another leading militant group, Islamic Jihad, said they remained committed to "calm."

Any eruption in violence could complicate the Gaza pullout and trouble a meeting between Sharon and George W. Bush at the US president's Texas ranch on Monday.

US-led mediators regard the Gaza "disengagement" as a catalyst to starting talks on a long-stalled "road map" peace plan for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Hassan Youssef, a West Bank Hamas political leader, slipped past Israeli police into the shrine on Sunday disguised as an elderly cleric to show Palestinian resolve against the Jewish rightists, sources close to him said.