Israeli troops fire on student protest

A Palestinian security official said that three of the seven had been wounded by live fire and the others were hit by rubber bullets.

The security official said that the demonstrators - mostly students from nearby Birzeit University - were hurling rocks at the checkpoint in protest at Israeli settlement construction in occupied east Jerusalem.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said one soldier had been lightly wounded during the incident in which around 70 Palestinians were throwing stones.

She declined to say whether live rounds had been used to disperse the protesters.

Tel Aviv has deployed thousands of police in Jerusalem's Old City and has closed the al-Aqsa mosque compound, or Temple Mount, amid fears of violent protests against recently announced Israeli settlement expansion plans in east Jerusalem and the reopening of a 17th-century synagogue near the al-Aqsa mosque.

Israel has also imposed a lockdown on the West Bank.

Top US officials have lined up in recent days to condemn the Israeli plan to build 1,600 apartments in east Jerusalem, the sector of the holy city that the international community has earmarked as the future capital of the state of Palestine.

But yesterday Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that his administration has no intention of backing down.

Addressing a meeting of his Likud Party, Mr Netanyahu said: "The building in Jerusalem and in all other places will continue in the same way that has been customary over the last 42 years."