JERUSALEM - Israeli police commandos stormed a contested Jerusalem shrine Friday, ripping down a fluttering Palestinian flag, and nine Palestinians were killed in gunbattles with Israeli troops throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The day started with both sides endeavoring to enforce a U.S.-brokered truce, but its quick collapse underscored how far apart the two sides are.
A combative Prime Minister Ehud Barak spoke, for the first time, in terms of war.
''With the same determination we had in leaving no stone unturned to find a way toward peace, with the same determination ... we will fight and defend our soldiers and our citizens, even if it is against the whole world,'' he told Channel Two television.
Barak has resisted international pressure to allow a U.N. commission to investigate the latest outbreak of violence, which has taken 77 lives and left more than 1,900 hurt in nine days of fighting.
Aside from the nine slain Friday, a tenth Palestinian died of wounds suffered earlier.
While the fighting raged Friday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat spent the day away from the region, traveling first to Tunisia and then on to Spain. Near Tunis, about 10,000 people joined Arafat and Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali at a rally in support of Palestinians.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian gunmen kept up attacks on another flashpoint, the isolated Netzarim settlement, and for the first time besieged other Jewish settlements, drawing heavy Israeli responses.
In the West Bank, settlements near the Palestinian controlled town of Ramallah reported coming under heavy fire from the city. In Nablus, gunmen attacked the Israeli-controlled Joseph's Tomb outpost and drew heavy fire.
It was a dramatic change from the day's hopeful start. Seeking to calm tensions, Israeli police coordinated closely with Palestinian security on handling Friday prayers at the Noble Sanctuary, the mosque compound built upon the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples, and abutting the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.
The site, called the Temple Mount by Jews, has become the epicenter of the conflict, and scuttled hopes for a breakthrough at Camp David talks last summer.
Prior to the prayers at the mosque compound, Israeli police left security checks at the entrances entirely to the Islamic guards, assisted by Palestinian security officials. They also appeared to try to keep a lid on any Jewish extremists.
''No one comes out for now!'' a policeman standing guard outside the Ateret Cohanim seminary shouted at a student pleading to be allowed out to do his pre-Sabbath shopping. The Ateret Cohanim movement seeks to supplant the Old City's Muslim population with Jews.
Israeli police had been stung by accusations that heavy-handed tactics last week led to the outbreak of violence. On Sept. 28, thousands of uniformed police had accompanied Ariel Sharon, the leader of the hard-line opposition Likud party, when he visited the site to protest the government's proposals to share sovereignty of the sanctuary with Muslims. That sparked rioting the next day, and police stormed the site, killing four protesters.
Earlier Friday, Palestinian authorities also endeavored to discourage violence. Preachers at the compound's Al-Aqsa mosque celebrated the absence of the Israeli police and urged worshippers ''not to give them an excuse'' to come back. As soon as prayers ended - normally the cue for stone-throwing - Palestinian security officials tackled youths heaving stones over the mount's parapets onto the Western Wall below.
Apparently emboldened by new symbols of Palestinian sovereignty, Palestinian youths stormed an Israel police station just beyond the northern end of the Temple Mount, away from Palestinian security.
They tossed a firebomb in a window of the police station at St. Stephen's Gate. Police moved in quickly to evacuate the policemen trapped inside, and then retreated from a barrage of stones, dragging away a bleeding colleague.
The rioting youths exulted, chanting ''With our blood and souls, we will redeem you, Al-Aqsa!'' and ''Slaughter the Jews!'' They scaled a post near a corner of the compound and flew a Palestinian flag. Within minutes, four other flags were flying atop the mount.
Police fired back, at first with rubber bullets and then - under orders - only with tear gas. ''They won't let us use rubber bullets!'' one policeman said.
One 12-year-old boy was seriously injured by a rubber bullet wound to the head. Doctors said Mohammed Juda suffered massive brain damage. Protesters carried the boy's limp body out of the mosque compound shouting ''Martyr, martyr!''
Later, one man stood outside the compound, holding the boy's New York Yankees cap aloft and pointing at the bloodied bullet hole, shouting ''Barak promised us peace!''
The site of a Palestinian flag fluttering over Judaism's holiest site was too much for some - even among those who support Barak.
''Since when has order there been in their hands?'' said Dan Meridor, a member of Barak's shrinking coalition.
Later that evening, police commandos in plain clothes stormed the site and removed the flags. The encountered relatively little resistance, as the site was mostly empty of worshippers.
In Nablus, Palestinian leaders had urged gunmen to keep away from the Israelis - but that fell apart when soldiers protecting a nearby settlement fired on a crowd of demonstrators, killing a youth.
''We asked all the gunmen to keep away from the demonstrators, but when the first boy was killed ... they became angry and they didn't obey our orders,'' said Bassam Naim, a Palestinian leader in the town.
