Police Arrest Palestinians in East Jerusalem
Israeli police arrested at least 23 Palestinians in east Jerusalem overnight and during Monday, Palestinian officials said, in the latest crackdown after months of violent clashes in the Holy City.
But a police spokeswoman confirmed only four arrests, without accounting for the number of people who might have been arrested by other security services.
Those arrested were from Issawiya and Wadi Joz -- Arab neighborhoods in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem -- as well as the Old City, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said in a statement.
On Thursday, police shot dead a suspect in the attempted murder of a rightwing Jewish rabbi, sparking a day of clashes between stone-throwing Palestinians and security forces who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
The latest arrests came on top of the detention of some 111 Palestinians since October 22 over east Jerusalem violence, according to police figures.
Police have tightened security around east Jerusalem, and on Monday in the neighborhoods of Issawiya and flashpoint Silwan, roads were barricaded with makeshift checkpoints, local activists said.
Violence soared in the tense eastern sector of the city during the summer, after the brutal July murder of a Palestinian teenager by Jewish extremists in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank, and during the ensuing 50-day war in the Gaza Strip.
Clashes have picked up again over the past few weeks, focused mainly on tensions around the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a disputed holy site sacred to both Muslims and Jews in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City.
The Prisoners Club says some 7,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including 550 under administrative detention whereby prisoners can be held for six-month periods that can be indefinitely renewed by a court order.
Source: Agence France Presse
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