Israel to restrict access to holy site

? Israel said Wednesday it would severely limit the access of Muslim worshippers to Jerusalem’s most volatile holy site during the holy month of Ramadan, claiming it could collapse. Violence flared overnight as a series of Israeli airstrikes left five Palestinians dead in Gaza.

Angry Muslim clerics dismissed Israel’s claims, saying Arab engineers assured them the Al Aqsa Mosque compound was stable. They accused Israel of exaggerating the danger in hopes of increasing its control over the site, which is administered by the Islamic Trust.

Israeli police and archaeologists warned that because of a recent earthquake, part of the compound, Islam’s third holiest shrine, might collapse under large crowds of believers during Ramadan, which begins this weekend.

The sacred hilltop, revered by Jews as the site of their biblical temples, is one of the most sensitive spots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and riots there in 2000 escalated into the current round of fighting. Israeli attempts to restrict the number of worshippers could lead to more Palestinian protests.

In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli platoon commander was suspended on suspicion he emptied an ammunition clip into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl from close range after she had already collapsed under army fire.

The officer was not charged in the Oct. 5 incident near the Rafah refugee camp, but came under investigation after fellow soldiers said he engaged in an illegal practice known as “verifying a kill.”

In another incident in Rafah on Wednesday, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed and his 7-year-old cousin shot in the stomach by army fire, hospital officials said. The witnesses said the fire came from army vehicles south of the refugee camp.

The Israeli military said the boys were in a no-go zone.