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A Muslim girl prays in front of the Holy Dome of the Rock mosque in occupied Jerusalem
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, November 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Around
150,000 Palestinians flocked peacefully to occupied Jerusalem Friday,
November 8, for the first weekly prayers during the holy month of
Ramadan, as Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the West
Bank.
Israeli
troops shot dead a Palestinian Friday as he drove to a mosque in a
village near Nablus, saying he violated a “curfew”, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) said.
Ahmed
Ramadan, 32, was killed and a passenger wounded when troops opened
fire on his car in the village of Tel.
A
passenger was also wounded in the shooting incident, which the army
had no initial comment on.
Earlier
in the day, another Palestinian was killed by Israeli troops in
Tulkarem
The
Israeli army claimed 25-year-old Radi Balawni, from Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, was on its wanted list for anti-Israeli
attacks. He was shot dead as the army entered the refugee camp to
arrest him.
The
deaths bring to 2,652 the number of people killed since the
Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation began in September
2000, of which 1,962 were Palestinians and 641 Israelis, according to
an AFP tally.
In
another incident, two Palestinians were wounded, one of them
critically, when an Israeli armored unit entered the Khan Yunis sector
in the southern Gaza Strip to raze the home of a Palestinian activist
who killed two people at the Rafah Yam settlement where he worked.
In
Occupied Jerusalem, an Israeli Jew wearing a traditional chequered
Palestinian headdress tried to get into the compound passing as a
Muslim, but was arrested, Israeli army said.
Increased
police presence was visible Friday morning in occupied Arab east
Jerusalem and in the city's western part, an AFP reporter observed.
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| Palestinians pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied Jerusalem on the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan |
The
road outside Jaffa Gate, one of seven entrances to occupied
Jerusalem's Old City, had been closed to traffic.
The
Al Aqsa compound is Islam's third holy site after Mecca and Medina in
Saudi Arabia.
Muslims
fast from dawn-to-dusk during Ramadan, one of the five pillars of
Islam, which marks the revelation of their holy book, the Koran, and
is also a period of alms giving.
Meanwhile,
two Jewish settlers chased Palestinian olive pickers away with dogs in
the West Bank on Friday but Israeli police later intervened, the
police said.
The
settlers, an adult and a minor, were questioned by police after they
set the dogs loose on olive pickers near the wildcat Jewish outpost of
Havat Gilad, a police spokesman said.
Extremist
settlers have been intimidating and harassing Palestinian farmers
during the month-long olive harvest, according to Israeli and
international aid workers.
Meanwhile,
the issue of dialogue between Israel and a Palestinian resistance
movement was also raised again Friday by the former head of Israel's
spy service.
Former
Mossad chief Efraim Halevy said he was in favor of talks between
Israel and the Islamic resistance movement Hamas in an interview
published in Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.
It
may be the case that "if a political alternative were offered to
Hamas, if it realized we are ready to talk, it would stop"
carrying out suicide bombings, he said.
Hamas,
which has claimed responsibility for the majority of resistance
attacks against Israelis since the beginning of the 25-month uprising,
has said it would consider a truce if Israel withdrew from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, occupied in 1967.
On
the Israeli political front, fresh opinion polls showed differences on
the prospects of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon staying as head of the
right-wing Likud party in its upcoming primary.
According
to a survey published by The Jerusalem Post, Sharon challenger
Benjamin Netanyahu would defeat the Israeli premier 40.9 percent to
40.5 percent. The rest said they favored neither candidate or were
undecided.
However,
a poll published in the daily Maariv gave Sharon a 10-point lead over
Netanyahu at 48 percent against 38 percent, with 14 percent expressing
no opinion.
Polls
conducted earlier this week forecast a landslide victory for Israel's
right-wing, with Likud taking the lion's share, in general elections
that could be held as soon as end-January.
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