Palestinians, Israeli police clash at shrine

JERUSALEM — Palestinians clashed with Israeli police Friday at one of this city's holiest sites and demonstrated across the West Bank to protest a construction project Israel has begun near a pair of venerated mosques.

The work near Haram al-Sharif, a complex of seventh-century mosques and olive groves known by Jews as the Temple Mount, also sparked angry demonstrations in Cairo on the campus of the Arab world's most esteemed Islamic university and in several Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

The foreign minister of Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic nation, demanded that Israel immediately halt the work here near the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven, the third-holiest site in Islam.

Hundreds of police officers in riot gear poured into the area as thousands of Palestinians finished Friday prayers. Palestinians hurled rocks at police, who responded with tear gas, concussion grenades and rubber-coated bullets for more than an hour.

Palestinian hospital officials said 30 people were treated for injuries, including two Palestinians wounded by metal-jacketed bullets that witnesses said police fired into the air and trees. About 15 Israeli police officers were slightly injured in the rioting, the worst in the Old City in years.

Several of the injured were carried out on stretchers through the Lion's Gate, the locus of the skirmishes. "We finished the prayers and said, 'God is great, God is great,' then the shooting and grenades began," said Abed Owais, 45, a scrap-metal salesman from Jerusalem. "I think they want to change the view of the al-Aqsa mosque so when anyone looks at it from the outside they will see only Jewish tradition."

Israeli crews began work this week on a damaged access ramp that leads from the Western Wall plaza, where Jews pray at the base of the Temple Mount, to the Mugrabi Gate. The entrance, one of eight to the mosque complex, is used by Israeli soldiers and tourists to reach the plateau where the Second Temple stood until its destruction in A.D. 70.

In September 2000, a visit by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount set off clashes that marked the start of the most recent Palestinian uprising.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected requests to stop the work now under way.

The project is being done to replace the earthen ramp Israel built after seizing the Old City from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war. The ramp washed away in heavy rains three years ago.

In November, the Jerusalem municipality approved plans to more than double the length of the ramp and widen it, threatening walls dating to the seventh-century Omayyad rule of Jerusalem.

Israeli state archaeologists have been supervising at the site for several weeks and say nothing of historical importance will be harmed by the project.

But Arab leaders across the region, including the head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a political organization, warned this week that the project could damage the mosques and called for demonstrations that have gained momentum in recent days.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has also issued a statement asking Israel "to suspend any action that could endanger the spirit of mutual respect."

Hundreds of Israeli police officers stood at the entrances to the Old City before prayers Friday, barring Palestinian men younger than 45.

A white Israeli surveillance blimp floated above Haram al-Sharif as more than 10,000 Palestinians assembled to pray. Many of them were young men who evaded the police checkpoints, and witnesses said hundreds of them later took refuge from police inside the al-Aqsa mosque.