Israeli Police Storm Mosque At Prayer Time Netanyahu Criticized In U.N. As Death Toll Continues To Rise

After two days of fierce fighting between Jews and Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the battle moved back into the Old City of Jerusalem Friday, where Israeli security forces stormed the city’s holiest mosque at prayer time, killing three Palestinians and wounding nearly 100.

The assault on the al-Aqsa mosque compound by more than 3,500 police in flak jackets and helmets came as thousands of Muslim worshipers were finishing their prayers shortly after noon.

During the raid - which Israeli officials said was necessary to stop Palestinian youths from throwing stones down onto religious Jews at the Western Wall - soldiers shot into the crowd and roughed up a group of elderly women who were taking shelter below an arched gate inside the mosque, eyewitnesses said.

“We were on our knees praying when they came in. I heard the shooting before I saw them,” said a 38-year-old Palestinian woman who gave her name only as Imen. “I was in the courtyard under the olive trees, and a man near me said his ‘salaam aleikum’ to the right and just when he began saying it to his left, a bullet hit him in the head.”

As word spread of casualties at the mosque, new confrontations broke out on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip between Palestinians and Israeli troops, despite appeals for calm by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In the U.N. Friday, Canadian, European and Asian foreign ministers joined with the Arabs in criticizing Israel for provoking the crisis since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took power.

The two sides remained far apart on whether to negotiate the issue. In the town of Tulkarm, two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian were killed during a gunbattle between Israelis and Palestinian police. In Jericho, two Palestinians were killed when they stormed an Israeli army post, witnesses said. In both Nablus and Ramallah, where fighting has been intense in recent days, Israeli troops were backed up Friday with tanks and, in Gaza, a Cobra attack helicopter shot into the crowd.

“In the last couple of days, the whole structure of peace has been seriously undermined by the Palestinians,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference here Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, however, spent the day on the telephone to the Mideast and is very hopeful that Netanyahu and Arafat will meet - perhaps as early as Saturday night - to try to end the latest violence, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Friday night.

At least 67 people - including 14 Israeli soldiers and 53 Palestinians - have been killed since Tuesday, when Israel opened the tunnel near Al Aqsa, which Palestinians believe could weaken the foundations of ancient buildings surrounding the mosque and undermine their control over Islam’s holy site.

In an unprecedented escalation, Palestinian police have engaged in firefights with Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem and Tulkarm. It is the worst fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in decades; Friday, 50 funerals were held in Israel and the occupied territories.

“Why are they doing this to us?” asked a woman named Ranya, who lives next to the Al Aqsa mosque compound and watched the soldiers storm in from her roof. “If we were donkeys or deer, then maybe the international community would care if we were shot down - in the name of preserving wildlife.”

Netanyahu and his top aides blamed Arafat for the violence, saying he “cynically” incited his constituents to violence in order to pressure the Israelis to speed up peace talks.