Israeli Roadblocks Prevent Mass Prayer Demonstration Arafat Had Called For Huge Protest, But Arabs Prevented From Reaching Jerusalem Mosque

Israel used roadblocks and a heavy police presence Friday to frustrate Yasser Arafat’s call for a mass prayer demonstration at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque.

Palestinians had predicted that more than 100,000 people would respond to the call by the Palestinian Authority president, which was intended to underline claims to the eastern half of Jerusalem and to protest recent Israeli actions, including a slowdown in the peace process.

But fewer than 8,000 people - about one-third the normal Friday turnout - managed to reach the mosque inside Jerusalem’s walled Old City, according to several worshipers and a guard at the main entrance. Inside the cavernous mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, many places were empty.

“This has proved our main argument that Palestinians have no freedom of religion and no freedom to reach the city itself,” said Faisal Husseini, who is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee and is responsible for Palestinian policy in Jerusalem. “They have no right to keep our people from reaching their own city.”

But hard-line members of the Israeli Parliament said the low turnout illustrated Arafat’s diminished hold on the Palestinian leadership.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has angered Palestinians with several recent actions, including its decision to allow the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and its failure to resume substantive peace talks.

Palestinians observed a four-hour general strike Thursday, shutting shops and restaurants in the first such work stoppage in more than two years. Arafat then called on Palestinian Muslims to attend prayers at the mosque Friday in defiance of Israeli restrictions on most Palestinians.

Under a closure imposed after a series of suicide bombings in February and March, most Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been barred from entering Israel proper, including Jerusalem. But security was even tighter Friday, with dozens of new roadblocks set up to turn away would-be worshipers well before they reached Jerusalem.

The troops also barred entrance to the city not only to West Bank Palestinians but to many carrying documents that identified them as residents of Jerusalem.

But some managed to slip through, climbing over walls and making their way through unblocked alleys to reach the city. A few others, even without permits, said Israeli soldiers let them pass, apparently in deference to their age and evident desire to attend prayers.

Along with the troops, about 2,000 Israeli police were deployed in the Old City and throughout east Jerusalem during noon prayers. Police on horseback waited just outside the Damascus Gate.

“It’s a big mistake for them to stand here, because it’s like they’re preparing for war,” said Badawi Sanduqa, 24, a Jerusalem laborer who gestured toward the mounted police. “Why are they trying to provoke us?”

Sanduqa accused Israel, through its army and police, of trying to turn the Friday prayer session into a political confrontation but then conceded that Arafat himself had done so with his request to Muslims to hold the protest prayers. “But Israel is making it more of a political thing, with all the police,” he said.