TEL AVIV — Palestinian protesters and Israeli police officers clashed late Sunday in an East Jerusalem neighborhood where the city plans to raze 22 Palestinian homes to make way for a tourist area, drawing attention to a disputed development on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.
About 200 to 250 Palestinian youths threw stones, bricks and Molotov cocktails near a house where nationalist Israeli Jews live in the neighborhood of Silwan, just below the Old City walls of Jerusalem, the police said.
Six police officers were wounded lightly by the stones, said Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman.
Tensions have been running high in Silwan since the Jerusalem municipality gave preliminary approval last week to plans for an archaeological park, shops and housing that authorities hope will become a major tourist attraction.
Palestinians object to any Jewish development in East Jerusalem, which they view as the capital of a future state. In addition, the plans include leveling 22 Palestinian homes, which the government says were built illegally on public land. The archaeological site, believed to contain the ruins of the City of David, a landmark of Jewish history, lies in the shadow of Al Aksa Mosque, which is revered by Muslims.
Israel, which captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war, considers the entire city its capital.
Israeli development in East Jerusalem has stoked tensions between the United States and Israel in the past few months. In March, during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a government announcement of more than 1,000 Jewish homes planned for East Jerusalem derailed indirect, American-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians.
The talks resumed in May, but the new construction projects could set off another round of recriminations. They are sure to be a topic of conversation when Mr. Netanyahu visits the White House next week.
In another East Jerusalem neighborhood, construction began Sunday on a different Jewish housing development, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported.
The building of 20 housing units for Jewish residents in the Shepherd Hotel compound of the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood was approved in its final form in March. The predominantly Palestinian neighborhood includes a shrine believed by Jews to be the tomb of Simeon the Just, a Jewish high priest from the days of the Second Temple.
Stephan Miller, a spokesman for Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, said he could not confirm the Channel 10 report but said the developers had been granted the building permit.
“They are allowed to build, just as anyone in the city can build, regardless of nationality, creed or religion,” he said. “We will continue to issue permits to Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the city of Jerusalem to ensure that Jerusalem can grow.”
Hamas Raids Gaza Bank
GAZA — Seven Hamas police officers raided the Palestine Islamic Bank in Gaza on Sunday, seizing $16,000 at gunpoint.
A bank employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the officers demanded all the cash in the account of an educational organization whose assets had been frozen by the Palestine Monetary Authority, the central bank of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. When the clerk refused, the officers seized the money by force.
The banker said that the group’s assets had been frozen under a plan to fight money laundering.
The police said in a statement that a Hamas court found the authority’s action illegal and issued a warrant for the seizure.
The raid was the second such action taken this year by Hamas, which controls Gaza. In March, Hamas raided the Bank of Palestine and seized hundreds of thousands of dollars from another account the authority had frozen.
