Dozens of Palestinians, using iron bars, pickaxes and hammers, demolished a Jewish shrine in the West Bank city of Nablus after the Israeli army pulled out of what has been a deadly flashpoint in the past nine days of violence, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
They were among some 2,000 people who swarmed past Palestinian police posted to protect the site and ignored the governor of Nablus, Mahmud al-Alul, who said the shrine was also holy to Muslims and called on them not to damage it.
"It is an Islamic place and holy for us," Alul said in vain. "Muslims built this place, so it belongs to us. Israel will not return to this place."
Some among the group gathered the furniture, books and other items left behind, took them outside and set fire to them.
After several hours, only the outer walls of the small, round, five-room building remained standing.
That section of the building which housed the tomb was in flames, but there was no immediate indication of what started the fire.
Demonstrators hoisted an Islamic flag over the site, bearing the words "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet."
The army's withdrawal had already drawn an angry comment from Israel's right-wing Likud opposition party, which called it a "new and shameful surrender" by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
It was at dawn on Saturday that the 12-man detachment, made up of soldiers from the Arab Druze minority, withdrew from the site, which is located in an Israeli-controlled enclave of the Palestinian-ruled town of Nablus.
One soldier was injured during the pullout, but the circumstances were unclear, Israeli public radio reported.
The army described the move as a temporary measure, adding that the Palestinian Authority had committed itself to "respecting the integrity of the building and preventing the Palestinian population from entering."
But once news of the army's departure spread, a continuous stream of cars, many honking their horns, brought thousands of Palestinians from Nablus and nearby Arab towns poured into the the site, located in the northern part of the city.
An estimated 100 Palestinian police on the scene did nothing to prevent the crowd from entering the building and sacking it.
Amin Maqbul, an official from Arafat's group, Fatah, told the crowds: "Today was the first step to liberate the Aqsa (mosque)."
He was referring to the Jerusalem mosque site that is at the center of the deadly violence that has rocked the Palestinian territories.
"The Israelis will not ever return to this place," Sadi Naji, an official from the Palestinian National Security service, told AFP.
Six Palestinians and an Israeli border guard have been killed in fierce gunbattles and clashes at Joseph's tomb -- one of three main combat zones in the Palestinian territories -- since the violence was unleashed on September 28.
Many historians dispute the claim that the site is the tomb of Joseph and say it actually contains the remains of an Arab sheikh and had previously been a Samaritan holy place.
Regardless of the historical reality, the site is of great importance to many Jews. A synagogue and a religious study institute were established there in the 1980s by religious Israel ultra-nationalists. Israel continued to control the site, even though it officially withdrew from Nablus in 1995 -- NABLUS, West Bank (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
