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GAZA CITY, Oct 1 (AFP) - Islamist militants called on the Palestinians Sunday to step up violence in a holy war against Israel, after Israeli forces killed more than 20 Palestinians in clashes.
"Only jihad (holy war) can preserve the holy sites of Al-Qods (Jerusalem)," said Islamic Jihad, which called on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to cut off negotiations with Israel.
Hamas, responsible for numerous anti-Israeli attacks since the 1993 Oslo accords between the Palestinians and Israel, declared a general strike Monday "to defend Al-Aqsa," the mosque in Jerusalem around which seven Palestinians died Friday in clashes with Israeli forces.
Hamas also called for "an increase in resistance against Israeli soldiers."
"We invite our people to take up anew the arms of the Intifada like rocks, slings, Molotov cocktails and knives," Hamas said in a statement referring to the Palestinian uprising of the 1980s.
The clashes with Israeli soldiers mark the beginning of "a new holy war," Hamas spokesman Ibrahim Ghosheh said earlier on Iranian radio.
"The clashes are going to increase and it has now been shown that the Palestinians will never accept the Zionist enemies' domination over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Palestinian land," Ghosheh said.
Ghosheh, speaking from an unspecified location, also called on "all Muslim and Arab countries to come to the side of the Palestinian Muslims, in their holy war for Al-Qods."
Twenty-nine Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces since Thursday, when right-wing Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Jerusalem mosque compound, a site sacred to Jews as well as Muslims and the most bitterly contested spot in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
JERUSALEM, Oct 1 (Reuters) - "Beware of dying a natural death," said the posters plastered along the alleys of Jerusalem's Old City announcing the death of Osama Jedda.
"Do not die but in a volley of gunfire."
As violence between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers flared for a fourth day on Sunday, it seemed a fitting eulogy for the youth whose family now calls him a martyr as one of 19 Palestinians killed in the clashes.
As the bloodiest violence since 1996 between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers raged, Jedda's family held a wake in his memory next to Al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites.
"As a Palestinian he always dreamt about independence in his own country," said Osama's uncle Mahmoud Jidda, as mourners gathered inside the old stone hall beneath black flags and pictures of the slender, dark 23-year old youth.
His face contorted with efforts to restrain his emotion, Osama's father, his head wrapped in an Arab shawl, received queues of mourners who kissed him on both cheeks.
Grim-faced helpers circulated with trays of coffee and dates to refresh the men who came to call, sitting quietly in a circle as recorded Koran prayers resounded from loudspeakers.
"Our message on the posters was that you don't just live to die. You have to have a cause," said Mahmoud.
The Old City swarmed with Israeli soldiers for the fourth day since violence erupted on Thursday after a visit by right-wing Israeli leader Ariel Sharon to al-Aqsa.
On the roof above the wake, five soldiers took up positions, presumably in case of any violence. The Arab family on whose roof they were staked out screamed in vain at them to leave.
Emotions were high for the fourth day as Palestinians hurling stones and petrol bombs squared off with Israeli soldiers fighting with live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets throughout the West Bank and Gaza.
The violence in Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron, and Bethlehem made a mockery of peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, whose negotiators last week were trying to bridge differences to reach a final peace deal.
When history is written about the path to any peace deal, it is unlikely that the names of Khalid Warasna, Azam Abdin or Hussein Othman will figure. But they have paid.
At Mukassad hospital in Arab East Jerusalem, Warasna lay in bed mumbling incoherently, as doctors displayed x-rays they said showed where a high-velocity bullet pierced his abdomen and fragmented internally, hitting his internal organs.
Abdin, one socket purple and swollen to the size of a golf ball, was blinded in his right eye when a rubber bullet fractured his skull, damaging an optic nerve.
Othman lost his left eye to a rubber bullet. His family sobbed into handkerchiefs at his bedside as he lay shaking.
Nearly 700 Palestinians have been wounded in four days.
Two Israeli soldiers have been killed and dozens hurt.
Up the street from Mukassad at Augusta Victoria Hospital, Israeli soldiers sat idly, slicing tomatoes for lunch as Palestinians rode by on camels and donkeys before noon. The streets were littered with debris from past street clashes - chunks of concrete, bottles, spent bullet casings.
Rudolf Hinz, a director affiliated with the hospital, tried to get the soldiers to leave before violence started.
"What we found on our property was not just rubber bullets and tear gas, but live ammunition. They use this kind of inappropriate retaliation against youths who throw stones," he said. "We feel they attract aggressiveness."
Hours later, the Israelis were on their feet, squeezing off tear gas rounds at Palestinian stone-throwers.
"I'm really shocked by what I've seen, the use of live ammunition and high-velocity bullets which explode in the body," said European Parliament member Joost Lagendijk, who toured hospitals. "This is not a usual place."
Gaza (AP) - Israeli helicopter gunships on Sunday fired a series of rockets at the Palestinian secret service building and paramilitary units in Rafakh near Gaza, according to Palestinian sources.
At least one person was killed and 65 injured when the helicopters fired dozens of rockets at the building, Palestinian radio reported. So far the attack has not been confirmed by the Israelis.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinians waged running gunbattles with Israeli troops Sunday, including a shootout near an Israeli enclave in a West Bank town that helped push the three-day casualty toll to 23 dead and 700 wounded.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat tried, but failed, to ease tensions in a Saturday night phone conversation, and clashes resumed Sunday in the worst Arab-Israeli violence in four years.
Rooftop gunmen, crouching behind a wall, fired automatic rifles at Israeli forces from a house less than 200 yards from Joseph's Tomb, a tiny Israeli enclave in the Palestinian town of Nablus in the West Bank.
At least 10 armed Palestinians took part in the firefight, and other demonstrators lobbed firebombs that set ablaze Israeli tents in the enclave. One Palestinian policemen was killed and at least seven Palestinians were injured, according to doctors.
The tomb houses what some believe to be the burial place of the biblical figure Joseph, holy to Jews and Muslims alike. It was also the scene of ferocious firefights in 1996, the last major outburst of fighting between Palestinians and Israelis.
In a second shooting, Palestinians and Israelis exchanged heavy fire at an army post near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. About a dozen Palestinians, both in uniform and civilian dress, brandished assault rifles, while hundreds more Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers. Two Palestinians were killed, hospital officials said.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has traditionally focused on their political dispute, but the current rioting also includes emotional appeals to religious differences.
The battles erupted after Israel's hard-line opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, on Thursday visited a bitterly contested Jerusalem religious shrine sacred to Muslims and Jews.
"This is a war between religions and I'm participating because I'm Muslim," said Khaled Abu Araish, a 25-year-old demonstrator in Hebron.
The violence has set back prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, which were stalled even before the latest confrontations.
Sunday's clashes also spread to Israeli Arab towns, including Nazareth. In the town of Jesus' boyhood, hundreds of youngsters, many with their faces masked, threw stones at Israeli police who fired a steady barrage of tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets.
The town's main road, which was blocked with burning tires, is near the Basilica of the Annunciation built on the spot where tradition says the Angel Gabriel foretold Jesus' birth.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian leaders traded sharp words."We have solid ground to believe that (the clashes) were in great part orchestrated from above," said Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's police minister, in a reference to the Palestinian leadership.
"Such a course is as dangerous as riding on the back of a tiger." Ahmed Qureia, speaker of the Palestinian parliament, called on Israel to withdraw its troops, "because the troops represent a point of friction, and a symbol for the continuation of the clashes that took place in the past three days."
Throughout the West Bank, shops and schools were closed as Palestinians observed a general strike for a second day. The strike spread to Arab Israeli communities inside Israel on Sunday in a show of solidarity.
Arab Israelis are sympathetic with Palestinian political aspirations, though they didn't take part in the recent clashes. But today there is a feeling of "great anger, great rage," said Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab member of Israel's parliament.
Palestinian officials on Sunday confirmed two additional deaths from Saturday's clashes. One of the dead was Jihad Aloul, 20, the son of Mahmoud Aloul, the governor of Nablus.
A total of 23 Palestinians have been killed in three days of rioting, and more than 700 injured, according to Palestinian officials. Israel says 11 members of its security forces have been wounded.
In several tense areas, huge crowds gathered for the Sunday funerals of Palestinians. Mourners carried the coffins through packed streets, and Palestinian gunmen fired into the air.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, accused the Israelis of using excessive force, saying this "is matched with a huge number of casualties."
Palestinians say the riots are a spontaneous response to Sharon's visit to the disputed hilltop shrine known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram as-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. Sharon dismissed charges that he was to blame.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are hung up because of rival sovereignty claims to the shrine, which was once home to the biblical Jewish Temple, Judaism's holiest site, and now houses two major mosques that mark the spot where tradition says the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
The walled compound is the third holiest site of Islam. Neither side wants the other to have full control. U.S. compromise proposals have been rejected so far by the negotiators.
The violence is the deadliest since September 1996, when 59 Palestinians, 16 Israelis and three Egyptians were killed in three days of gun battles.
The latest clashes came as Israelis marked their two-day New Year's holiday on Saturday and Sunday, a time of festive family gatherings.
RIYADH, Oct 1 (AFP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat warned in an interview published Sunday by the Saudi newspaper Okaz that he was ready to use "any option", including war, to face up to Israel.
"We are ready for any option that circumstances throw up (at us)," Arafat said in a telephone interview Saturday from Cairo, where he was meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"We are always looking for peace, but if we are forced to defend ourselves, we will not hesitate" to wage war, Arafat said.
"We are ready to defend ourselves at any moment," he stressed, adding that "the Palestinian people have several options at their disposal, and their history is full of sacrifices."
On whether the peace process with Israel could be continued after three days of violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, Arafat said he was obliged to carry them through.
But he said the meetings sporadically organised between the two sides since the collapse of July's Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Camp David were "not negotiations but simple contacts. Everyone knows that it's simply contacts."
A visit Thursday by Israel's right-wing Likud leader Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in eastern Jerusalem triggered bloody clashes that have left 27 Palestinians dead and some 700 injured in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ramallah, West Bank (AP) - Fresh clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces erupted Sunday in a fourth day of bloody unrest that has swept the Palestinian territories.
The violence claimed at least one more life on Sunday - a Palestinian policeman shot dead by Israeli soldiers in Nablus - while two Palestinians died in hospital of gunshot wounds to their heads after being declared clinically dead on Saturday.
More than 60 people were injured in the new street fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday. The Nablus death brings to 23 the number of people killed in clashes over the past three days, according to Palestinian Health Minister Riad Sanun.
The disturbances started in Jerusalem Thursday after a visit to the disputed sacred site in Jerusalem, known as Temple Mount to Israelis and Haram al-Sharif to Moslems, by rightwing Israeli Likud leader Ariel Sharon.
A total of more than 600 people are believed to have been injured in the clashes. The first seven fatalities came when the violence escalated on Friday. The Israeli army has also said dozens of its men have been injured.
Most of the dead were buried Sunday afternoon with Palestinians turning out in large numbers for the funerals. Among the victims was a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was caught in cross-fire between Palestinian snipers and Israeli soldiers.
The incident prompted authorities to order the closure of all Palestinian schools until Tuesday to keep schoolchildren away from the street violence.
The renewed unrest erupted Sunday immediately after the burials. On Sunday morning demonstrators clashed with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Sharon's visit has also been criticised as provocative by Arab leaders. Jerusalem's holy sites have been a major stumbling block in the ongoing peace talks.
Israel says it will not give up sovereignty after its occupation in 1967 while Palestinians say they will not accept any peace solution that would not return Arab East Jerusalem, including Al-Haram area, to their sovereignty.
The Arab League was due to convene for an emergency conference in Cairo Sunday to discuss the situation. Arab League chief Esmat-Abdel Meguid said after a meeting with Arafat in Cairo that the organisation would discuss a unified stance of the Arab world in the face of "Israel's violation of the holy sites in Jerusalem".
TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct 1 (AFP) - Israel's acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami on Sunday blamed the Palestinian Authority for the clashes that have killed 26 Palestinians over the past few days and called on the authority to come to the negotiating table.
"We have solid ground to believe that in great part, the riots were orchestrated from above," Ben Ami, also Israel's security minister, told a press conference here.
"People in the Palestinian Authority thought this serves a political purpose, maybe a public relations purpose," he said.
Referring to an appeal made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Saturday night to end to the violence, Ben Ami regretted that "clear-cut instructions do not percolate all the way down."
The minister defended Israel's use of force against the demonstrators, saying that while "Arab citizens are entirely free to demonstrate their feelings, it is our obligation to enforce law and order."
Twenty-six Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more injured in clashes since Thursday, when Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon visited Jerusalem's mosque compound, the most bitterly contested site in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Ben Ami declined to denounce the visit by Sharon, an opponent of his government, saying that the compound -- known to Jews as the Temple Mount, their most sacred place -- was under Israeli sovereignty.
"I am not saying that his visit was helpful," Ben Ami said.
But "Jerusalem is on the table. There is no need for violence to show that it is an issue in the talks."
Ben Ami, a head negotiator with the Palestinians, said a long-awaited peace agreement "continues to be possible even today" and appealed to the Palestinian Authority "to stop the violence and to ensure that (its order) percolates down to the people."
"My main message today is not to judge what happened but to restart the negotiations," he said.
NABLUS, West Bank, Oct 1 (AFP) - Two Palestinians, including a 10-year-old boy, were killed during a shoot-out with Israeli forces near a Jewish shrine in the West Bank town of Nablus on Sunday, hospital sources said.
Their deaths brought to five the number to die on Sunday, the fourth day of bloody clashes and gunbattles raging across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and 29 since Friday.
The two dead were identified as Samr Samir Tabanja, 10, who was shot in the heart, and Hossam Bakhit, 18, from Balata refugee camp near Nablus. They were hit during clashes near Joseph's Tomb, a site revered by Jews.
Earlier Sunday, a member of the Palestinian security forces was shot dead in the same area.
In the Gaza Strip, another 10-year-old boy was declared clinically dead after being hit by a live bullet in Rafah near the border with Egypt, while a Palestinian man was killed in a gunbattle near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim.