Israeli police have shot dead a Palestinian man suspected of shooting a prominent Jewish activist, leading to clashes in East Jerusalem.
Photo: A Palestinian woman shouts at an Israeli policeman in the old city of Jerusalem. (AFP: Menahem Kahana)
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Moataz Hejazi was suspected of shooting and wounding Yehuda Glick, a far-right activist who has led a campaign for Jews to be allowed to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Jerusalem's most sensitive site and holy to Islam and Judaism.
The area around Al-Aqsa, also known as Temple Mount, was closed to all as a security precaution, an act a spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas denounced as "Israeli aggression" and was "tantamount to a declaration of war".
Hours later though Israel said the compound would reopen.
"It was decided to restore [the compound] to normal," Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Ms Samri said it would be reopened on Friday "for dawn prayers" but that the decision remained subject to security developments.
Rabbi Glick, a US-born settler, was shot as he left a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Centre in Jerusalem and his attacker was seen fleeing on the back of a motorcycle.
Doctors said the 48-year-old rabbi remains in a serious but stable condition.
The rabbi and his supporters argue that Jews should have the right to pray at their holiest site, where two ancient Jewish temples once stood, even though the Torah forbids it and many rabbis consider it unacceptable.
Israeli police helicopters circled East Jerusalem from the early hours of Thursday as special units looked for the suspected gunman.
Abu Tor and the neighbouring district of Silwan have been the scene of nightly clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in recent months as tensions over the Gaza conflict and access to the temple surged.
Israeli police swoop on gunman
Residents said hundreds of Israeli police and special units were involved in the search for 32-year-old Hejazi. He was tracked down to his family home in the winding, hilly backstreets of Abu Tor and eventually cornered on the terrace of an adjacent building.
"Anti-terrorist police units surrounded a house in the Abu Tor neighbourhood to arrest a suspect in the attempted assassination of Yehuda Glick," Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
"Immediately upon arrival they were shot at. They returned fire and shot and killed the suspect."
Photo: Masked Palestinian youths hold rocks during clashes with Israeli security forces in east Jerusalem. (AFP: Ahmad Gharabli)
Locals identified the man as Hejazi, who was released from a decade in an Israeli prison in 2012.
His father and brother were arrested and taken for questioning.
Israeli police fired sound bombs to keep back angry residents, who shouted abuse as they watched the drama unfold from surrounding balconies.
One Abu Tor resident, an elderly man with a walking stick who declined to be named, described Hejazi as a troublemaker and said "he should have been shot 10 years ago".
Others said he was a good son from a respectable family.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups, praised the shooting of Rabbi Glick and mourned Hejazi's death.
"We praise his martyrdom that came after a life full of jihad and sacrifice and which responded to the call of holy duty in defending Al-Aqsa mosque," Islamic Jihad said.
Abbas praises Sweden's move to recognise Palestinian state
Meanwhile, Mr Abbas has hailed a decision by Sweden to officially recognise the state of Palestine, his spokesman told AFP news agency.
Photo: Rabbi Yehuda Glick was shot and wounded as he left a conference in Jerusalem. (Reuters: Emil Salman)
"President Abbas welcomes Sweden's decision," Nabil Abu Rudeina said, adding the Palestinian leader described the move as "brave and historic".
"All countries of the world that are still hesitant to recognise our right to an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as its capital, [should] follow Sweden's lead," Mr Abbas spokesman quoted him as saying.
It follows a recent successful vote by British MPs to recognise Palestine as a state. The non-binding motion carries symbolic value for Palestinians in their pursuit of statehood but does not alter the government's stance on the conflict.
East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and has been occupied since, has been a source of intense friction in recent months, especially around Silwan, which sits in the shadow of the Old City and Al-Aqsa.
Jewish settler organisations have acquired more than two dozen buildings in Silwan over the years, including nine in the past three months, and moved settler families into them, in an effort to make the district more Jewish. Around 500 settlers now live among approximately 40,000 Palestinians residents.
That process, combined with the tensions the Temple Mount, the third-holiest shrine in Islam and the holiest place in Judaism, have led to the most-fractious atmosphere in East Jerusalem in more than a decade, locals say - since the second Intifada or uprising that began in 2000.
Reuters/AFP
