Security measures were increased on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem following a clash between Arab youths and border police in the Old City Friday. Mohammed Ahmed Joneidi, 24, of Hebron, was fatally wounded and another youth from Tulkarem was shot in the leg.
Police claimed that Joneidi was hit by “warning shots” when a police patrol was pelted with rocks and bottles in a narrow alley of the Old City. “The patrol fired a number of warning shots, hitting two persons. One was dead on arrival at the Old City Hospital and the other was treated for thigh wounds,” a police communique said. Joneidi was buried at Tulkarem yesterday.
As a result of Friday’s incident, classes were disrupted and demonstrations were held yesterday in a half-dozen West Bank towns. Youths set up road blocks and burned tires in Ramallah, El Bireh, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Nablus. Israeli security forces did not intervene.
The weekend’s disturbances, the first in a number of months in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, were in protest against the closure of Arab lands on the West Bank. The Israeli patrol was attacked following the traditional Friday prayers at the Al Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount. A record number of 40,000 worshippers attended to observe the last Friday of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan. When the services ended several hundred Arab youths ranged through the nearby streets shouting anti-Israel slogans and attacked the patrol, police said.
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