Israeli police voluntarily surrendered control of Jerusalem's Temple Mount for Friday Muslim prayers yesterday, leaving plain-clothed Palestinian security personnel to try and maintain order when the thousands of worshippers emerged from the alAksa mosque.
Towards evening, the police forced their way back into the compound, firing stun-grenades, drawing outraged protests from Palestinian leaders.
The decision earlier in the day to vacate the area, which infuriated the Israeli right-wing opposition, did prevent bloodshed atop the disputed Mount itself. But immediately outside the compound, two Palestinians, one aged 13, were shot dead in clashes with the police.
A police station was torched, and several policemen were hurt in the confrontation. Clashes raged for hours on the Via Dolarosa. And the ongoing violence, on what the Palestinians had designated a "Day of Rage", saw at least six more Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll for nine days of fighting to 77, with some 2,000 injured; almost all of the casualties have been Palestinian.
Israel had clamped a closure order on the West Bank, to reduce the numbers streaming to the Mount - known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, or Haram al-Sharif.
And for much of the day police chiefs opted to stay away from the compound itself - the most sensitive religious site in the region, holy to Jews as the location of the two Biblical Temples, and to Muslims as the spot from which the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.
"The concept of being wise rather than being strong proved itself today," said the Jerusalem police chief, Mr Yair Yitzhaki. "If we had gone onto Temple Mount, it would have ended in bloodshed."
An Israeli cabinet minister, Mr Matan Vilnai, asserted that the police withdrawal had "no political significance". But Israeli opposition leaders, and even some centrists, denounced the move as capitulation. "Our leadership has become utterly confused," protested Jerusalem's right-wing mayor, Mr Ehud Olmert. And after a brief outbreak of stone-throwing from atop the compound had forced police to evacuate Jewish worshippers from the Western Wall plaza below, Mr Dan Meridor, a former ally of the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, said: "We've been reminded again that if we don't control the Temple Mount, we can't pray at the Western Wall." And that, he said, was unthinkable for Jews.
The dispute over the status of Temple Mount - where Israel has claimed sovereignty since 1967, but which the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, insists must come under Muslim control - was the factor blocking progress at July's Camp David peace summit. It was the visit of the Likud leader, Mr Ariel Sharon, to the site nine days that led to this round of fighting.
Yesterday, Palestinian flags were raised atop the Mount, symbolising the altered status, and as they left the compound after prayers, some Palestinian worshippers celebrated the "reconquest" of the site.
In an implied assumption of authority, aides to the Mr Arafat issued statements guaranteeing the safety of the Jewish worshippers at the Wall.
As night fell, however, Israeli police burst back into the compound, dispersed Palestinian youths who were throwing stones, and removed Palestinian and Hamas flags. "They've broken all the rules now," protested Mr Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab Knesset member and former adviser to Mr Arafat.