Hamas urges firm Palestinian stand on Jerusalem

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) -- Thousands of Islamic Hamas militants demonstrated in the West Bank Friday, urging Palestinian negotiators not to compromise over their goal of gaining Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

"With our blood and soul we will sacrifice al-Aqsa," chanted about 3,000 demonstrators in the West Bank town of Nablus, referring to the Jerusalem mosque that Muslims regard as the third holiest site in Islam.

Protesters also burned an effigy of Israel's most politically powerful rabbi, who earlier this month lambasted Palestinians as "snakes" and "evildoers."

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, made the comments in a sermon delivered to his followers.

Carrying Palestinian and Islamic green flags, protesters took to the streets after Friday Muslim prayers to commemorate the 31st anniversary of an arson attack on the al-Aqsa mosque by an Australian tourist.

They called on Palestinian officials to "resist American and Israeli pressures."

"Any agreement that gives up any span of al-Aqsa, we will fight and resist it," said Jamal Salim, a Hamas leader.

He urged all Muslims to "visit Jerusalem and protect it from the danger of Judaisation."

Jerusalem was one of the main stumbling blocks in last month's U.S.-sponsored Camp David peace summit between Israel and the Palestinians that ended without an agreement.

Israel captured and annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war in a move not recognized internationally. It regards the city as its "united and eternal capital."

Palestinians want the eastern sector of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Hamas opposes the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and all subsequent agreements. It has tried to derail the peace process by carrying out bombings that have killed scores of Israelis.

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