Palestinian Arab media claim four rioters dead in violent clashes with Israeli security forces Friday in eastern Jerusalem.
According to the report, a 17-year-old Palestinian Arab was killed in clashes with security forces in the Ras al Amud neighborhood south of the Old City following the Friday Muslim prayers that took place at the entrance gates to the Temple Mount, with Muslims refusing to enter the site by way of the metal detectors placed at the gates by police.
Another Arab was critically wounded in clashes at A-Tor outside the Old City and has apparently died of his injuries. Two others are claimed to have been killed in other areas where Arabs clashed with police.
Riots were reported in the Salakh A-Din, Ras al Amud, A-Tor, Rockefeller areas and Arab villages close to Jerusalem.
Four police officers were injured by rocks and firecrackers hurled at them by rioters. Some of the rioting Palestinian Arabs threw Molotov cocktails and other objects at security forces. They were dispersed through the use of crowd-dispersal equipment.
In Wadi Joz, close to the Lion's Gate to the Old City, protestors set trashcans on fire. Law enforcement forces used measures for crowd-dispersal, including water hoses, to scatter the rioters.
At the Salakh a-Din thoroughfare near the Damascus Gate to the Old City, Arabs attempted to break thorugh police barriers and hurled stones at security forces.
The police reported that rioters have been dispersed and order restored to the areas where disturbances occured.
Rioting occurred at the police barrier in Hevron and the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem. Riots involving tens and sometimes hundreds were reported in Kafr Kadum in Samaria, Naalin and Sinjel north of Ramallah, at Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and at the villages of Beit Omar and Arab Tekoa in Gush Etzion. In Tekoa two Israeli vehicles were damaged by rocks and one passenger was treated for shock at the site.
The Arab Red Crescent emergency response services claim 193 injured in today's clashes with security forces, 41 of them in Jerusalem, six in Hevron and the rest in other areas in Judea and Samaria.
Photo credits: Flash 90, Jonathan Sindel and Hadas Partosh.