Riots Israel

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian in an exchange of fire Saturday after a day of demonstrations in which Israeli Arabs joined Palestinians to protest severe Israeli travel restrictions. Palestinians opened fire on soldiers south of Bethlehem, and the troops fired back, wounding one of the attackers, the army said. Israeli paramedics treated the wounded man, but he died.

In a tense day of clashes at Jerusalem's most contested holy site, Israeli police stormed the Al Aqsa mosque compound Sunday after Palestinians stoned Jews marking a solemn holiday with prayer at the nearby Western Wall. Several hundred Muslims remained holed up inside the mosque all day until they were dispersed by police at sundown. It was a repeat, in many ways, of the violence that ignited a bloody uprising exactly 10 months earlier.

In the worst internal strife in years, Palestinian battled Palestinian on Monday as Yasser Arafat's police opened fire on a huge rally by Islamic fundamentalists supporting alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Enraged Palestinians then stormed through Gaza Strip refugee camps, trashing police stations and other symbols of Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Suddenly, old fears of Palestinian civil war were revived by U.S.

Reacting to more than a week of deadly riots in Palestinian territories, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday ordered an abrupt halt to a new and promising round of peace talks being held in Sweden. Barak recalled the Israeli delegation from Stockholm "in light of the situation in the West Bank and Gaza," where clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops have killed six Palestinians and injured hundreds of people from both sides in the past week and a half.

The Jewish enclave here was engulfed for three hours Saturday by rioting and fistfights between Jews and Arabs, an eruption that could reverberate on the peace summit at Camp David, Md. Five Palestinians were hospitalized. Palestinians said the Jewish settlers, known to be the most adamant opponents of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peacemaking efforts, started throwing stones at Palestinians in the afternoon, accusing them of disturbing their Sabbath rest.

Israeli military commanders insist that the war they are fighting against Palestinians in the streets is an outburst carefully orchestrated from on high by Yasser Arafat--the "instigated moves in the chess game of negotiations," as one senior officer put it. Palestinians insist otherwise--that the clashes raging since Thursday started as the spontaneous eruption of a furious and frustrated people who have given up on talking about peace.

After battling thousands of demonstrators in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, Israel pulled a small force of troops out of a disputed holy site in Nablus, saying it hoped the move would ease tensions. Paramilitary border police had come under heavy fire each day at Joseph's Tomb, a small site in the midst of a Palestinian-controlled city, since riots erupted in Palestinian areas and Jerusalem on Sept. 28.

Israeli troops battled thousands of demonstrators in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday as the militant Hamas movement pledged to start a new bombing campaign inside Israel. At least eight Palestinians were killed in the clashes. Hamas, which had been largely on the sidelines during more than a week of violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel, turned out hundreds of its supporters in mass demonstrations in the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared Saturday that Israel is in a fight for its life after Palestinians tore apart a Jewish shrine in the West Bank and violence spread to the northern border, where Lebanese Islamic guerrillas captured three Israeli soldiers. Barak issued an ultimatum to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to end within 48 hours the pitched street battles that have raged for 10 days in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

With the United States abstaining, the Security Council approved a resolution Saturday condemning the "excessive use of force" that has left about 80 Palestinians dead. In the bitterly fought-over resolution demanded by the Palestinians, the council called for an immediate resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and backed "a speedy and objective inquiry" into the fighting. The council also said it deplores the "provocation" at Jerusalem's holiest shrine Sept.