ISRAEL has reopened a contested Jerusalem holy site and deployed more than 1,000 security personnel following clashes between Palestinians and Israeli riot police that had ratcheted up already heightened tensions in the city.
Small groups of Palestinian worshippers made their way through a series of Israeli checkpoints to the site - known to Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - under grey skies and pouring rain.
The holy site has been a flashpoint between devotees of the two faiths for decades, underscoring the incendiary nature of the religious component in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A visit there by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000 set off the last Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, and it remains a potent symbol for the two peoples' competing territorial claims. Israeli authorities had said they were limiting access to the site to Muslim men over 50 in an attempt to dampen the prospects of violence triggered by the killing on Thursday of a Palestinian man suspected of attempting to assassinate a hardline Jewish activist.
Israeli-American rabbi Yehuda Glick was shot three times late on Wednesday but his condition is now said to be improving. Mr Glick has campaigned for more Jewish access to the site, a cherished cause for religious nationalists who resent Israel's long-standing prohibition on allowing Jews to pray there.
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