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 Israel Seals Off Shrine, Foils Jewish Protest March
By Jonathan Saul JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Thousands of Israeli police sealed off a flashpoint Jerusalem shrine on Sunday to foil a march by ultranationalist Jews that could have inflamed violence and complicated Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants pounded Jewish settlements with the worst barrage of mortar fire in months, a day after Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian youths.
The rounds caused no casualties but damaged an Israeli home.
As he headed for a meeting with George W. Bush at the U.S. president's Texas ranch on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the mortar rounds as a "flagrant violation" of a two-month-old truce with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Sharon, quoted by a senior aide on the plane to the U.S., said he would take up the issue with Bush in their talks, suggesting he did not plan any immediate retaliation.
The intended Israeli march in Jerusalem was part of a rightist campaign to spark a cycle of violence to foil Sharon's plan to evacuate Jewish settlers from Gaza in a pullout U.S.-led mediators hope will launch long-stalled "road map" peace talks.
Palestinian militants had threatened to abandon a truce they agreed last month and start another uprising if Jews had rallied at the site revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and Jews as Temple Mount.
The site is the most sacred for Jews, as the spot where biblical King Solomon built a temple and where a second temple was razed by the Romans in 70 A.D. It is Islam's third holiest site, as home to the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques.
Israeli police blockaded all approaches to the shrine and arrested 31 far-right protesters of the Revava ("Multitude") movement and eight Palestinian counter-protesters, including the West Bank leader of the militant Hamas movement, Hassan Youssef.
Palestinian men under 40 were barred from the shrine to minimize friction, but that restriction was later lifted.
A few dozen Jewish protesters tried to push their way in, shouting "Gestapo" at police and injuring an officer with a thrown rock.
"If Sharon thinks it will be as easy to expel Jews from Gaza as he has dealt with us today, he is mistaken. The struggle will continue," Jewish protester Eric Cohen, 21, a West Bank settler, said before being hustled away by police.
SHARON: MORTAR FIRE VIOLATES CEASEFIRE
Violence flared in the Gaza Strip where Palestinian militants fired more than 70 mortars at Jewish settlements in Gaza, a day after Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian youths near a border fence.
"The firing was a flagrant violation of the understanding achieved at Sharm el-Sheikh and it will be a central issue to be raised in my talks with President Bush," a senior aide quoted Sharon as saying on his trip to the U.S.
Sharm el-Sheikh was the site of a peace summit in Egypt where Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a cease-fire in four years of violence on Feb. 8.
Israeli Defense Minister called Abbas to urge him to intervene to assign more security forces to the southern Gaza area to put an end to the shooting, ministry sources said.
"If you don't act quickly who knows where this escalation will lead," Mofaz said. "You aren't doing the job and Israel cannot accept that." In Tel Aviv, right-wing Israelis blocked a main highway at the height of rush hour with burning tires. Police arrested 30 and said some would be brought before a judge on Monday.
Hassan Youssef, Hamas's West Bank political leader, had slipped past police into the Jerusalem shrine disguised as an elderly cleric, sources close to Youssef said. He was later arrested as he left the shrine, a police spokesman said. "I did not wait for a permit from the (Israeli) occupation. All Palestinians should come here to protect al-Aqsa from desecration by Jewish extremists," Youssef told Reuters by telephone before he was detained. In Gaza, Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, demanded Youssef's release and said his arrest clouded a truce militants had agreed last month to cement Abbas's cease-fire with Israel. "All parties concerned with calm should intervene to secure the release of Sheikh Hassan Youssef," al-Masri said. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and Haitham Tamimi in Jerusalem)
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