A Palestinian pushes a burning tyre during clashes at a protest near Ramallah against an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque.
DPA Tel Aviv
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war against Palestinian stone- and Molotov cocktail throwers, vowing yesterday to treat them henceforth as “terrorists.”
He spoke after an Israeli motorist was killed on Sunday, the eve of the Jewish New Year, when a suspected Palestinian threw a rock at his car in East Jerusalem.
Rock- and firebomb throwing has been on the rise in tense Jerusalem, where Jewish-Muslim relations have worsened amid the lack of peace negotiations.
Hardline members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have called for tough action.
Palestinian worshippers have also clashed with Israeli police on a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
“We are going to toughen the rules of engagement,” Netanyahu told reporters while inaugurating a new railway in southern Israel.
He also said he would introduce minimum sentences for stone- and Molotov cocktail throwing and heavy fines for the families of minors who take part in assaulting Israeli motorists with rocks and firebombs after school.
“We are going to change policy and wage war against stone throwers, bottle throwers, bullet firers and rioters,” warned the right-wing premier.
“Whoever does this will pay a heavy price,” said Netanyahu.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that under the current rules of engagement, police use stun grenades and tear gas against stone throwers.
He said that on Temple Mount, they have not been using rubber bullets while trying to push back rioters who object to Jewish visitors to the holy site.
The site houses the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrines and is the third holiest site in Islam. It also contains the ruins of the Biblical Jewish Temple and as such is the most sacred in Judaism.
Israel captured East Jerusalem - including the historic Old City where the disputed site is located - from Jordan in 1967.
Under a status quo arrangement since then, Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray on the elevated site.
But Muslim youths have protested such visits for the Jewish New Year with stones and firecrackers.
