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| 10 April 2005 | Sunday | 30 Safar 1426 |
Hamas warns Israelis against Al Aqsa rally: 3 Palestinians shot dead
The shooting and tensions over the mosque compound are both threatening to shatter a fragile ceasefire in place since the end of January, with the radical Hamas calling the shooting a ‘manifest violation of understandings’.
Witnesses said two of the boys, both aged 15, were killed by machinegun fire from an Israeli armoured vehicle which shot at five teenagers playing football in an army no-go area. The third boy, 14, later died of his wounds.
An Israeli military source confirmed the incident in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, near the Egyptian border, but denied the story about a stray football.
“Soldiers spotted a group of five suspects crawling toward the border. Suddenly they began to run toward the border, despite warning shots being fired,” the source said.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zughi reaffirmed the right of “our people and its armed groups to respond to this dangerous aggression”.
Armed wings of the main Palestinian groups have already warned that the unofficial truce with Israel is threatened if extremists, whose plans to hold the Sunday rally have been denounced by Israel, enter the mosque compound.
Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra reiterated that the gathering would be barred, saying the “Israeli government will not permit under any circumstances any provocation that could disturb the peace”.
Mr Ezra, speaking on public radio, was referring to Revava, a recently formed group dedicated to building a third Jewish temple on the site of the Al Aqsa mosque.
Earlier this week, the group said the aim of Sunday’s demonstration was to bring some “10,000 Jews to the heavily restricted Temple Mount to spark Israeli dialogue about reclaiming the holy site from its Muslim custodians”.
“Revava has called on its supporters to converge in force on Temple Mount, with Muslims organizing to protect the site,” Mr Ezra said. “That would cause trouble not only in Jerusalem but in the entire Middle East.”
“They will not enter Temple Mount, nor will we allow them to assemble at the Kotel,” the adjacent structure known as the Wailing Wall. We have mobilized very significant police forces” to prevent them.
In effect, the authorities have ordered the compound closed to all non-Muslims on Sunday.
The site, known to Muslims as Haram Sharif, is also considered holy by Jews, who know it as Temple Mount.—AFP
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