About 9,000
police will protect gay pride marchers in Jerusalem,
the biggest internal civilian security operation in
Israel's history, the police commander said Wednesday.
The plan follows a week of riots by ultra-Orthodox
Jews who are threatening to attack the parade.
Jerusalem police
chief Ilan Franco said permission was granted for 5,000
gay activists to march Friday through a nonresidential area
away from the city center and to hold a closing rally
in a university stadium there, while 20,000 religious
protesters demonstrate about a mile away near the
Jerusalem central bus station.
Other antigay
demonstrations are expected at main road junctions in
Jerusalem and around the country, he said. The police
deployment is codenamed ''Operation Colors of the
Rainbow,'' reflecting the gay movement's rainbow flag.
''There will be
8,500 to 9,000 police physically present in Jerusalem,''
Franco said. ''That number is unprecedented in its size in
any district of the Israeli police to this day.'' A
year ago 9,000 police took part in the evacuation of
Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Franco said that
should serious public disorder erupt in Jerusalem, as
many as 12,000 police and paramilitary border police could
be deployed in the city of 700,000, which is
considered holy by Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
Leaders of the
faiths have called for the gay pride event to be banned.
Israeli police
are already on high alert in light of threats by
Palestinian militants to carry out suicide bombing attacks
in revenge for Israel's shelling of a residential
neighborhood in Gaza Wednesday in which 18 people,
most of them women and children, were killed.
From Thursday
night, preparedness will ratchet up one more notch to its
highest level, generally used only during major Jewish
festivals when there are fears of major terrorist
incidents such as a bombing during Passover
in 2002 when 29 Israelis were killed.
On Friday police
will be faced with possibly violent attempts to stop the
parade, the potential of antimarch protests at other sites
getting out of hand, and the real danger that crowds
of Israelis on the streets could be a tempting target
for Palestinian militants.
''The whole
police force will be on the highest level, a precaution
which is only taken a few times a year,'' police
spokesman Micky Rosenberg said. ''We're ready to deal
with the possibility of terrorist attacks.''
Ultra-Orthodox
Jews who say the gay event in the holy city is ''an
abomination'' have rioted on Jerusalem streets for the past
week, stoning police and civilian traffic, blocking
streets, and setting tires and garbage bins on fire.
A total of 88
people were arrested and brought before judges, and 29 were
remanded in custody, Franco said.
On Thursday in
the deeply Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood, the
burned-out shell of a pickup truck still lay on its roof in
the road, and scorch marks showed where burning tires
had blocked main roads the night before. The glass
panes of bus shelters were shattered, and the stench of
burning garbage still hung in the air.
During a gay
march last year in Jerusalem, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed
and wounded three participants.
Police had warned
that Friday's march posed a danger to public safety
that outweighs the damage to free speech that would be
caused by its cancellation, but Israel's
attorney-general ruled that it must be allowed.
Organizers agreed
to reroute the march away from its originally planned
path through downtown districts. It will now be held in an
area of government offices where it can be more easily
secured away from main roads, the police said. The
offices are closed on Fridays. (AP)