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9 Palestinians Killed in Clashes With Israel
Nine Palestinians, including two Palestinian policemen, were killed Saturday in clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a senior Palestinian official said.
Palestine National Council Chairman Salem Zanoun said that six people had been killed in the West Bank and another three in Gaza. Meanwhile, 523 Palestinians, 318 in the West Bank and 205 in Gaza, were also injured by Israeli forces.
The deaths raised to 15 the number of Palestinians killed in three days' of violent clashes.
In Gaza, clashes have spread to nearly all the Jewish settlements. Palestinian demonstrators hurled stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded by firing rubber-coated metal bullets as well as live ammunition.
Fire exchange between Israeli soldiers and the Palestinian police and some armed Palestinians are going on at the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the center of Gaza, where the most violent clashes took place Saturday.
In the West Bank cities of Hebron and Ramallah, protests and clashes are also continuing.
Israel military has closed the Erez checkpoint, barring the Palestinians from leaving and Israeli settlers entering the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leadership has declared Saturday the "day of mourning" for the five Palestinians killed Friday in clashes with Israeli security forces at the holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or Nobel Sanctuary, in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, and called for a general strike.
The widespread clashes that started on Thursday were ignited by hard-line opposition Likud party leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.
The holy compound, the site of destroyed Jewish temples, is the most sacred place for Jews and the Wailing Wall, where Jews pray and mourn, is the only remaining part of the Second Jewish Temple that was built on the ruins of the First Temple and destroyed by Romans in 70 A.D..
The site also houses Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam. Sovereignty over the holy site is the chief obstacle to a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal. For now, the Waqf, an Islamic organization has autonomy in administering the day-to-day affairs of the area while Israeli police remain in charge of security.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the escalating violence at a cabinet meeting on Friday and vowed not to give up the sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its "eternal and undivided"
capital while the Palestinians want the Arab East Jerusalem, seized and by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their future state.
On Thursday, Israeli leading newspaper the Jerusalem Post said that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had said for the first time that Jerusalem and al-Qods, the Arabic name for the Holy City, will be side by side capitals of Israel and a future Palestinian state under a peace deal.
But he did not said which parts make up the "Palestinian capital" and the violence is widely believed to cloud the already tough talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
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