Police break up Islamist meeting in Jerusalem

JERUSAELM, Aug 22 (Reuters) Israeli police broke up what they said was a gathering of Hamas and an Israeli Islamic group in Arab East Jerusalem today.

Members of the paramilitary border police threw several stun grenades onto a rooftop where the meeting took place and one of the participants, Sheikh Raed Salah, a prominent Israeli-Arab Islamist leader was taken to hospital on a stretcher but was later released.

Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organisation and bans the group and the Palestinian Authority from conducting political activity in east Jerusalem.

Police said in a statement that about 30 people, including Hamas members, took part in the gathering.

After refusing police orders to disperse, ''a stun grenade was thrown, and the meeting broke up,'' the statement said.

Police did not say whether any arrests were made.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 West Asia war and annexed the area as part of its capital in a move not recognised internationally.

Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

REUTERS CS BST0300