JERUSALEM: Israel sealed off the West Bank on Friday amid tension in Jerusalem over controversial plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers and fears of fresh violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Israeli police also barred men under the age of 50 from prayers at the site of the mosque compound, which is holy to both Muslims and Jews.
A few isolated incidents broke out after the noon prayers.
Four young Palestinians were arrested after several youths hurled stones near Jerusalem’s Old City, where the mosque is situated, police said.
Security forces used stun grenades to disperse the protesters, one of whom threw a brick that smashed the windscreen of a car in which a family of settlers was traveling.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak earlier ordered the army to seal off the Israeli-occupied West Bank until midnight on Saturday, an army spokesman said, citing a heightened risk of attacks.
Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Israel has sealed off the West Bank ahead of major holidays, but only rarely on other occasions.
The closure was announced one day after US Vice President Joe Biden concluded a visit of the West Bank and Israel aimed at promoting renewed peace talks but marred by an announcement that 1,600 new settler homes would be built in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem.
The announcement infuriated the US administration, ignited international condemnation and cast doubts over the outlook for the indirect talks which the Palestinians had reluctantly agreed to hold after a 14-month hiatus in negotiations.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Thursday called Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who is on a visit to Tunisia, to press him to go ahead with the planned talks, a Palestinian official said, asking not to be named.
But Abbas demanded US guarantees that Israel first freeze the project to build new homes in the east Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo.
Abbas told US officials that “it is very difficult for us to go to any negotiations, direct or indirect, without the cancellation of the Israeli building project, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP on Friday.
The US State Department insisted on Thursday it had not heard anything to indicate the Palestinians had pulled out of the planned talks. It said the talks could still go ahead and pointed out Mitchell was due back in the region next week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday apologized for the timing of the settlement announcement made as Biden was holding a day of talks in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Biden welcomed a clarification that construction would not start for several years, saying this would give negotiators time to tackle the issue, but he also reiterated condemnation of Israel s go-ahead for the project.
The Palestinians, however, dismissed the statement, saying the issue was the plan itself, not the timing of the announcement.
The international community considers all Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, to be illegal.
Under US pressure, Israel imposed in November a partial, 10-month moratorium on settlement projects in the West Bank, excluding east Jerusalem.
Israel, which seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community, considers the city its eternal and indivisible capital.
The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
