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| Israeli riot police arrest a Palestinian protester during clashes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiya yesterday |
A Palestinian Red Crescent spokesman said nine people needed medical attention, including 16-year-old Milad Said Ayyash, who suffered serious internal bleeding after being shot in the flashpoint neighbourhood of Silwan.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said no live ammunition was used, either by security forces or by Jewish settlers who have scattered enclaves in Silwan.
He said the circumstances of the teenager’s wounding were under investigation.
A second youth from Silwan was hit in the genitals by rubber bullets, the Red Crescent spokesman said, but did not give details about the other casualties.
A police statement said three people causing disturbances were “very slightly hurt” by sponge rounds fired by anti-riot police. The foam rubber ammunition is designed to deliver a heavy, stunning blow without penetrating the body.
Three police officers were also lightly injured in clashes with protesters who threw stones and petrol bombs.
An AFP correspondent saw at least four Palestinians hurt as police fired rubber bullets at stone-throwing youths in Silwan, with clashes also reported in Issawiya, Al Tur and Ras Al Amud—all flanking Jerusalem’s Old City.
Police and youths also clashed in the city’s Shuafat refugee camp, where demonstrators burnt Israeli flags, a camp official said.
An official at the Palestinian Makassed hospital on the Mount of Olives put the injury toll higher, saying “nearly 30 people” were injured in the clashes which broke out following the weekly prayers.
Thousands of police have been on high alert across Israel, especially in Jerusalem, fearing an outbreak of violence in the run-up to tomorrow’s commemoration of the “Nakba” or “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation.
Police said around 8,000 worshippers turned up for Friday prayers at the flashpoint Al Aqsa mosque compound inside the Old City.
Hundreds more were left outside the gates of the Old City, with police refusing to admit men under 45 who did not hold a blue Israeli identity card.
At Damascus Gate, around 500 young men who had been refused entry staged impromptu prayers.
Police said they had arrested 34 Palestinians youths in Jerusalem yesterday.
In the West Bank, about 500 people, mostly supporters of the Islamist movement Hamas, marched to a square in central Hebron carrying posters marking the Nakba and pictures of keys to homes from which they fled or were forced out in 1948.
Several dozen youths tried to march on a nearby Israeli army checkpoint but were blocked by Palestinian police.
Further north, about 20 Palestinians threw stones at troops in Qalandia near Ramallah, with the army saying it used “riot dispersal means” to disperse them.