A total of 217 Palestinians have been injured in clashes with the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Saturday, a Palestinian minister told reporters.
Fourteen, one of them an ambulance driver, were seriously wounded, health minister Riad al-Zaanun said.
The injured also included three policemen, he added.
Zaanun said the Israeli army was "using live ammunition and dumdum bullets which are banned internationally."
Earlier reports said that 32 Palestinians were injured in Gaza city in clashes with the Israeli forces, according to Abu Dhabi TV channel.
Meanwhile, fifteen Palestinians were slightly wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets fired by the Israeli army in three different areas around Bethlehem, witnesses told AFP.
Ten Palestinians also were injured in the Beit Sahur area south east of Bethlehem, three in Abu Nujaim, east of the city and two near Taqua also east of Bethlehem.
In hebron, hospital sources said that eight were slightly wounded in Hebron when the Israeli army fired rubber-coated metal bullets to disperse the angry crowds protesting Friday's deadly clashes in Jerusalem.
Several hundred Palestinians demonstrated in three different locations in this flashpoint town in the West Bank where some 400 Jewish zealots live.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad group responded with fury to the killing of seven Palestinians Friday by Israeli security forces at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
"The blood of the Al-Aqsa martyrs will not go without punishment," warned the group Islamic Jihad on Al-Jazeera TV, according to AFP.
"The Palestinian people are going to burn the territory under Israeli occupation," Islamic Jihad said, calling on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to break off all peace talks with Israel.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the Islamist resistance group Hamas, meanwhile called on Palestinians to continue their armed struggle against Israel.
"We will pursue our path: either victory or martyrdom to win back our rights from occupation. The restoration of peace will not be achieved except by resistance and force," Sheikh Yassin said by telephone to some 3,000 people assembled in Amman, said AFP.
"The Palestinian people cannot accept abandoning one sole inch of Jerusalem or Palestine," the Hamas leader said.
Palestinian minister Hassan Asfur accused Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Internal Security Minister Shlomo Ben Ami of a premeditated crime, saying they would have to answer for the blood of the Palestinians.
Seven Palestinians were killed Friday and 220 wounded in Jerusalem's mosque compound, which includes Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, when Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and live rounds at stone-throwing Palestinians, according to a Palestinian toll.
Lebanese Muslim leaders also called for the destruction of Israel.
Violence first flared Thursday when Ariel Sharon, the hawkish leader of Israel's opposition Likud party, visited Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to AFP, the Israelis said that security forces responded Friday after Palestinians stoned Jews praying at the Western Wall.
King Fahd of Saudia Arabia said that Israel was making a grave mistake in its policies.
"Israel is wrong to imagine that by its obstinacy it can eliminate or marginalize Palestinian rights," Fahd said in a statement carried by Saturday's edition of the Saudi al-Watan daily, said AFP.
"It is even more mistaken in hampering the peace process," he charged. "For Arabs, the aim of the peace process is to eliminate coercion and injustice." - (Several Sources)
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