Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli police in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM, Sept 8 (Reuters):  Scores of Palestinians rioted in East Jerusalem on Sunday after hearing that a youth from their neighbourhood had died of wounds suffered in a clash with Israeli police last week.

Protesters in the neighbourhood of Wadi al-Joz close to the walled Old City threw rocks, petrol bombs and flares at passing cars, and riot officers responded with rubber bullets during an afternoon of clashes that lasted for several hours. There were no reports of serious injury.

Mohammed Sinokrot, 16, succumbed to a head wound suffered during a protest a week ago but the circumstances of how he sustained the wound were in dispute.

His father, Abdel-Majid, said his son had been hit in the head by a rubber bullet but Israeli police said Sinokrot had been hit in the leg with a foam projectile and had fallen and hit his head while running away from officers.

The body was taken for a post-mortem examination in Tel Aviv and the Israeli Justice Ministry's police investigations unit was examining the circumstances of the case, a police spokesman said.

In another incident, Palestinians attacked a petrol station in a Jewish neighbourhood in East Jerusalem adjacent to their own quarter of the city. They damaged fuel pumps and attempted to torch the station's convenience store, police said.