MIDDLE EAST: Twenty Palestinians were slightly hurt and 14 were arrested on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City yesterday, during some of the worst clashes with police there in years.
Stone-throwing by first dozens, then hundreds of Palestinian youths, was countered by hundreds of Israeli police using stun-grenades, tear-gas and rubber bullets.
Hours before yesterday's violence, Israel's Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon said in published interviews that the PA President Yasser Arafat, along with the Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, might also be targets for killing by Israel, as would "anyone who kills a Jew or harms an Israeli citizen, or sends someone to kill Jews." Mr Arafat, he said, was "the obstacle" to peace and "has no insurance policy."
However, Mr Sharon is said to have assured the United States that he would not harm Mr Arafat.