Israeli Police Storm Mosque Compound

Thousands of Palestinians today barricaded themselves inside mosques at one of Islam's holiest sites after Israeli police stormed worshippers who they said had been throwing stones at officers.

Officers entered the al-Aqsa mosque compound after some of the Muslim worshippers who gathered there for Friday prayers began throwing stones at police deployed nearby, according to an Israeli police spokesman cited by the Associated Press.

About 20 people were wounded and nine arrests were made as police moved in, firing plastic bullets, stun grenades and tear gas in an attempt to disperse the alleged stone-throwers.

But mosque authorities denied any stones had been thrown, and Palestinian worshippers expressed anger at the police tactics.

Ramsi Jamil, 18, told the Associated Press: "We were still praying. The next thing we knew dozens of police were in the compound. They started firing stun grenades and tear gas."

Ismail Ibrihim, 35, said: "We didn't get a chance to finish our prayer ... While I was praying a tear gas canister went through the door into the mosque."

Mohammed Hussein, a senior official in the Islamic Trust, which administers the mosque compound, tried to calm the situation, urging worshippers to go home, witnesses said.

Most left, but several hundred alleged stone-throwers remained behind, prompting a tense stand-off with Israeli police. Many other Palestinians, fearing the clashes outside, stayed holed up in two mosques inside the compound while police were negotiated with Muslim authorities to remove them.

The stand-off lasted two hours, until police allowed all those inside the mosque to leave, promising no further arrests.

Adnan Husseini, director of the trust, said: "No one threw stones. They (police) started doing this every Friday to scare elderly worshippers as younger ones are already banned. This is flagrant violation of freedom of worship."

Witnesses cited by Reuters said stone-throwers also targeted Jewish worshippers at the nearby Western Wall, and that the worshippers had to be evacuated by police. But the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, told Israel Radio that Palestinians threw only one stone at the Jews there and that worshippers had not been evacuated.

The mosque compound is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of biblical Jewish temples. The walled site is revered by Muslims and Jews and is one of the flashpoints in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A Palestinian uprising began in 2000 after Ariel Sharon, Israel's opposition leader at the time and now prime minister, visited the compound.

Israel seized East Jerusalem, including the ancient walled Old City - where the compound is located - in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognised internationally. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of the state they hope to establish.