"Israel Storms Aqsa Complex"

Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Jazeera

JERUSALEM, 28 February 2004 -- Israeli police yesterday stormed
Al-Haram Al-Sharif, one of Islam¹s holiest sites, to confront
Palestinian
protesters.

The storming coincided with another spate of protests in the West Bank
against the barrier, now under World Court review for cutting into
occupied
territory that Palestinians want for a state.Israeli police said officers had fired rubber bullets and tossed stun
grenades after hundreds of Muslim worshipers at the Al-Aqsa compound
"started rioting" at the end of Friday prayers.

He said police had mobilized to stop Palestinians from trying to disturb
Jewish worshipers standing below the compound. Palestinians said police
acted without provocation. "There was no provocation for such an Israeli
attack," Adnan Husseini, director of the Islamic Waqf, which oversees
the
compound, said. "This is despicable and unacceptable."

Four Palestinian demonstrators and three police officers were lightly
injured.

A Palestinian uprising erupted 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.

Israel seized East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in the 1967 Middle
East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.

Earlier, soldiers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse 50
protesters
in the West Bank town of Bethlehem near Rachel¹s Tomb, revered by
Muslims,
Christians and Jews.

The army also fired tear gas near the boundary village of Qibya to break
up
a barrier protest.