Israeli security forces patrolled near Muslim holy sites Friday to prevent Palestinian rioting over a decision to allow a Jewish presence in an Arab neighborhood of disputed east Jerusalem.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, two dozen Palestinians responding to events in Jerusalem threw stones at a Jewish settler enclave. Palestinian police pushed the youths away.The latest tension in Jerusalem was sparked by 11 Jewish settlers who moved Sunday into two buildings in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood in east Jerusalem, the sector claimed by the Palestinians as a future capital.

They moved out Thursday evening, in line with an agreement between the government and their patron, Miami millionaire Irving Moskowitz.

Several of their supporters remained at the site, part of the deal that allowed 10 Jewish seminary students to stay on as security guards and renovation workers.

The Palestinians condemned the arrangement as a capitulation that sanctioned a new Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, and Israeli security officials braced for Palestinian riots.

In Jerusalem, hundreds of police and paramilitary border police sealed off streets today, barring motorists from reaching the walled Old City. As a helicopter hovered above, troops at roadblocks checked the identity cards of Palestinians making their way to noon prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City.

"We've got forces from all over the country, mostly to deter those who are even thinking of rioting," said Yair Yitzhaki, the Jerusalem police commander.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had hoped the deal with the settlers would satisfy both Palestinians and right-wing members of his parliamentary coalition who had threatened to bring down his government if the settlers were expelled forcibly.

Netanyahu promised the deal would not set the stage for the establishment of a larger Jewish enclave, saying in a statement: "This is not the time to settle families in Ras al-Amud or build a new neighborhood in the area."

However, Netanyahu was contradicted by Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, who said today he was certain a Jewish enclave would eventually be established there. "It is an irreversible process," Olmert told Israel army radio.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said swapping the settlers for seminary students was "a trick, not more than that."

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The Palestinians' angry reaction made it increasingly unlikely for peace talks to resume anytime soon.

Even though 160,000 Jews already live in parts of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967, most reside in a ring of outlying new neighborhoods - not in Arab-populated neighborhoods and villages.

Moskowitz owns 31/2 acres in Ras al-Amud and wants to build a larger Jewish neighborhood of 50 to 70 apartments there, a plan that has been blocked by the government.

Among the activists was Yuval Rabin, the son of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had negotiated the first peace agreements with the Palestinians.

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