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The Dome of the Rock mosque is seen in the background as Israeli police stand guard in East Jerusalem. Photo: Reuters

East Jerusalem braces for a youth intifada in wake of killings

Israeli-occupied east of city has been seething since Jewish extremists killed a teen, with many predicting an uprising by young Palestinians

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Tariq Abu Khdeir has been arrested twice this summer. The first time, Israeli police accused the 22-year-old of participating in the riots in July in East Jerusalem's Shuafat neighbourhood, following the kidnapping and murder by Jewish extremists of his 16-year-old cousin, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, whose burned body was found in the Jerusalem Forest.

Last week, the police came again, this time at 1.30am, accusing him and two other cousins of throwing stones at the light railway trains that run through East Jerusalem - a charge he denies.

Tariq Abu Khdeir is one of more than 700 Palestinians from East Jerusalem, 260 of them children as young as 13, who have been arrested in the continuing crackdown on what those on both sides have called the beginnings of a "kids' intifada".

However the events are defined, the situation in Jerusalem is as tense as it has been in years, a state of affairs that has worsened since Mohammed Abu Khdeir's murder, carried out in revenge for the kidnap and murder of three Israeli youths in the occupied West Bank.

The focus of the problems has been the city's east - the areas captured by Israeli forces in 1967 which, despite being claimed by Israel as part of its "undivided capital", are regarded by the international community as under Israeli occupation.

If many of the more serious outbreaks of violence have had proximate causes, many now believe they are becoming part of a pattern of a newly heightened antagonism in the city.

Palestinian community leaders say that since Khdeir's murder, parents have been keeping their children indoors at night.

The tension has also meant a change in behaviour for Israelis living in areas such as the settlement of Pisgat Zeev. "It's going to explode in our faces, like the tunnels in Gaza," Yael Antebi, a Jerusalem councillor who lives in Pisgat Zeev, said this month.

The latest flare-up occurred after a 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Sunuqrat, died on September 7 after being wounded by an Israeli rubber-coated bullet in a clash the week before.

Unrest in Jerusalem has become a high-profile issue in the Israeli media, including most recently in the right-wing , alleging the disturbances were being "organised" - an allegation most discount.

The simmering tensions are also being exploited, however, by those with their own agendas - not least on the Israeli right, like the author of the piece, David Weinberg, who has said Israel was losing its "sovereignty" over East Jerusalem.

Framing the issue in stark terms he, like others, has demanded the "re-securing [dare I say re-liberation] of Jerusalem", calling on the government to "wield a big baton against Arab insurgents that are threatening the stability of the city".

For Palestinians in flashpoint areas, the situation is defined differently: by what they say is a heavy-handed police presence and by the almost daily arrests.

In Silwan, a neighbourhood of steep, narrow streets beneath the walls of the Old City, Jawad Siyam runs a youth project.

"It won't stop," Siyam says of the pattern of arrests and disturbances. "There has been a growing feeling in East Jerusalem that people do not want to live under occupation. We want to be part of a Palestinian state. There are other causes: the increasing number of settlers who have been coming to the Aqsa mosque. Everyone said a third intifada would start in Jerusalem. For us it has already started."

Siyam says many of those involved are also increasingly critical of the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas on the West Bank, accusing him "of protecting the occupation".

This has all contributed to a growing sense of political separation of East Jerusalemites from the Palestinian political leadership on the West Bank.

"I don't think it will calm down," said Abdul Majid al-Ramadan, a community elder - or - from Beit Hanina. "Young people have lost hope."

Tariq Abu Khdeir, who was released last week, and his 63-year-old father, Abdel Aziz, agree.

"The pressure has been growing for years," Aziz said. "But the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir was a very ugly act. Something like that should spark a third intifada."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Jerusalem braces for a youth intifada
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