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| By Associated Press March 17, 2005 |
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| AP |
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Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia on Thursday warned that a fresh outbreak of violence would erupt if Jewish extremists go ahead with plans to force their way into a disputed holy site in Jerusalem in an attempt to sabotage Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank.
Israel's Channel Two television aired footage Wednesday showing a meeting of extremists, including rabbis, where they discussed sending thousands of Jews to the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The purpose would be to draw the army and police away from evicting settlers from Gaza and the northern West Bank this summer.
The site, in the walled Old City, is the most hotly contested in the region -- where the Al Aqsa Mosque, marking the site where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, is built atop the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples.
The current round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict erupted just after Ariel Sharon, now Israel's prime minister, visited the site in a demonstration of Israeli sovereignty when he was opposition leader in late 2000.
"We warn the Israeli government and the international community that if any attack targets Al Aqsa, the situation will explode," Qureia told reporters after talks with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Avi Dichter, head of the domestic Shin Bet security service has said that along with an assassination attempt on Sharon, the threat of an attack on the Al Aqsa compound is the most worrying of potential actions by extremists as Israel prepares to withdraw from Gaza.
Police have warned that extremists could attempt to fire a rocket at the mosque, which is clearly visible from the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.
In light of new threats, Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco has ordered more patrols around the site. Some 700 officers, including regular police, paramilitary border troops and undercover forces, are regularly assigned to the Old City.
Police on Thursday said they had no immediate plans to arrest or interview participants at the meeting, among them well-known extremist rabbis Yisrael Ariel and Yosef Elboim.
"If the government sees that there are more Jews than Muslims on the Temple Mount," Elboim said on the video, "it will be forced to recognize the reality that it cannot carry out the evacuation of Jewish settlements.
The report said 30 Jewish groups are cooperating in the takeover plan and intend a "dry run" in three weeks, when they will try to get as many Jews onto the site as possible.
Israel captured the site along with the rest of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, but because of the sensitivity of the hilltop, Israel turned daily control of the site over to the Waqf, or Islamic Trust.
Most rabbis forbid Jews from entering the site because of ritual purity issues. Also, Israeli security officials banned Jews from visiting during most of the current four-year conflict with the Palestinians. In recent months, small groups of Jews have been permitted to tour the site.
It was unclear how the extremists planned to get large numbers of Jews into the site, since it is located inside the Old City, and access is through heavily guarded gates.
Under the pullout plan, Israel intends to dismantle all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank this summer, the first time Israel would remove veteran settlements from those territories.
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