JERUSALEM, March 16, (Agencies): Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with security forces in east Jerusalem on Tuesday as tension boiled over in the city and a senior Hamas leader called for a new “intifada,” or uprising.
As the unrest rocked Jerusalem, US Middle East envoy George Mitchell delayed a visit to the region amid the most severe diplomatic row in decades between Israel and the United States, which has been struggling to revive peace talks.
Police fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas at protesters who hurled stones and petrol bombs, and set up barricades with dumpsters and burning tyres in several neighbourhoods.
Eight Palestinians were taken to hospital, with fractured bones, eye and stomach injuries, and dozens more were treated on the spot, according to the emergency services of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said six officers were taken to hospital and 42 Palestinians arrested.
There were clashes near Jerusalem’s Qalandia checkpoint with the West Bank, in the Shuafat refugee camp and in several other parts of east Jerusalem which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.
Clashes also broke out in the nearby city of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
As the rioting was under way Hamas deputy politburo chief Mussa Abu Marzuk called for a popular Palestinian uprising.
“The intifada must enjoy the participation of all of Palestinian society,” he told Al-Jazeera television. “Every Palestinian should rise up... against the forces of the (Israeli) occupation.”
In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip thousands of people took to the streets, chanting: “With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice for you, Jerusalem.”
Anger was high among Palestinians over plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem. The reopening of a synagogue in the Old City further fuelled tensions.
Meanwhile, A US envoy’s postponement of his Mideast trip appeared Tuesday to deepen one of the worst US-Israeli feuds in memory — even as Israel’s foreign minister signaled his government had no intention of curtailing the contentious construction at the heart of the row.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio that demands to halt Israeli construction there “are unreasonable” and predicted the row with the US would blow over, saying neither side had an interest in escalation.
But Washington notified Israel early Tuesday that envoy George Mitchell had put off his trip indefinitely. Mitchell had planned on coming to wrap up preparations for relaunching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But now it’s not clear when the indirect talks, to be mediated by Mitchell, will begin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for the timing of the project’s approval, but he has not said it would be canceled. On Monday, he defended four decades of Jewish construction in east Jerusalem and said it “in no way” hurts Palestinians.
The feud is feeding already high tensions in east Jerusalem, where Jews and Palestinians live together uneasily.
The violence also threatened to spread to the West Bank. At the main checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem, dozens of Palestinian teens threw rocks and a few firebombs at Israeli troops, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
In east Jerusalem, security forces, some on horseback, charged a group of more than 100 youths, who had set garbage bins afire and lobbed rocks at police. Palestinian merchants shuttered their stores, and Palestinian schools in the city were closed.
The Palestinian rescue service said six people were lightly injured. Israeli police said 39 people were arrested, including eight minors.
Palestinian officials called on the public to defend Muslim religious interests in Jerusalem following the rededication Monday of a historic synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City.
The rededication has stoked recurring but unsubstantiated rumors that Jewish extremists are planning to take over the hilltop shrine at the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The site, known to Jews as Temple Mount, was home to the biblical Jewish temples and is Judaism’s holiest site. Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary and it hosts the Al-Aqsa mosque complex, Islam’s third-holiest shrine.
But the outbreak of violence also appeared to reflect deeper frustration amid a yearlong standstill in peace efforts.
Palestinians, who number about 250,000 in east Jerusalem, see the building of new settlements and the presence of some 180,000 Jews there as a grave challenge to their claims to the territory.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. Most Israelis accept the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as part of Israel, and previous peace proposals have allowed them to remain in Israeli hands.
But the international community does not recognize the annexation and considers the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem as illegal settlements.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the growing crisis has highlighted Israel’s defiance of the international community.