JERUSALEM, March 12, (Agencies): Israel sealed off the West Bank on Friday amid tension in Jerusalem over controversial plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers and fears of fresh violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Israeli police also barred men under the age of 50 from prayers at the site of the mosque compound, which is holy to both Muslims and Jews.
A few isolated incidents broke out after the noon prayers.
Four young Palestinians were arrested after several youths hurled stones near Jerusalem’s Old City, where the mosque is situated, police said.
Security forces used stun grenades to disperse the protesters, one of whom threw a brick that smashed the windscreen of a car in which a family of settlers was travelling.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak earlier ordered the army to seal off the Israeli-occupied West Bank until midnight on Saturday, an army spokesman said, citing a heightened risk of attacks.
Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Israel has sealed off the West Bank ahead of major holidays, but only rarely on other occasions.
The closure was announced one day after US Vice-President Joe Biden concluded a visit of the West Bank and Israel aimed at promoting renewed peace talks but marred by an announcement that 1,600 new settler homes would be built in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem.
The announcement infuriated the US administration, ignited international condemnation and cast doubts over the outlook for the indirect talks which the Palestinians had reluctantly agreed to hold after a 14-month hiatus in negotiations.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Thursday called Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who is on a visit to Tunisia, to press him to go ahead with the planned talks, a Palestinian official said, asking not to be named.
The UN humanitarian chief warned Thursday of an impending humanitarian disaster if Egypt succeeds in blocking the tunnels that pass under it’s border into the Gaza Strip.
John Holmes said that as bad as the hundreds of tunnels that bypass the Israeli blockade are, Gaza would have difficult surviving if Egypt succeeds in blocking them because they are a conduit for badly-needed food, medicine and commercial goods.
He repeated calls for Israel to end its blockade of the Palestinian territory.
“If those tunnels were blocked, however undesirable they may be, and however undesirable the effect they’re having on the Gazan society and Gazan economy, the situation without the tunnels would be completely unsustainable,” said Holmes, who visited the region for four days earlier this month.
The tunnels are also widely believed to be used for smuggling cash and weapons to Hamas, which wrested control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2005 and refuses to recognize Israel. The Israeli government has repeatedly tried to shut the tunnels down.
Egypt has a fence along Gaza’s southern border and is reinforcing the area with underground metal plates to try to block the tunnels. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has defended the move as necessary for his nation’s security following a series of terrorist attacks on nearby tourist resorts.
Holmes said it was “very frustrating” to see that there has been almost no rebuilding in Gaza, as a result of the Israeli blockade, since the three-week conflict that ended in Jan. 2009, leaving 13 Israelis and almost 1,400 Palestinians dead.
“What people in Gaza want to see is the opening of the crossings ... not only for goods but for people because they are living ... in a large open-air prison,” Holmes said.