Jerusalem police kill Palestinian suspected of shooting Temple Mount activist

Israeli police yesterday shot and killed a Palestinian man suspected of an assassination attempt of a hardline Jewish activist in Jerusalem, threatening to further enflame the already high tensions in the city.

Jerusalem has seen near-daily clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police, particularly around the contested Temple Mount/Holy Sanctuary site in the Old City that is holy to both Jews and Muslims.

Yesterday, Israel closed the site to both fearing an escalation in violence - an unusual move which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman called "a declaration of war on the Palestinian people."

On Wednesday, a gunman on a motorcycle shot and wounded Yehuda Glick outside a conference promoting Jewish access to the site, a hilltop compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary. The gunman approached Glick and spoke to him in "heavy Arabic-accented Hebrew", according to Moshe Feiglin, a lawmaker with the Likud party.

The man then opened fire at point-blank range, shot Glick three times and fled the scene.

Glick, an American-born activist and a well-known advocate for greater Jewish access to the site, remained in hospital and in serious condition yesterday.