Israeli police raided al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City early yesterday and attacked Palestinian worshipers, Palestinian media reported, raising fears of wider tensions as Islamic and Jewish holidays overlap.
The incidents sparked a wave of Palestinian protests, condemnations and violence.
The Israeli military said that sirens warning of incoming rockets sounded in Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip.
Photo: AFP
Tension has already been high in east Jerusalem and the West Bank for months, and fears of further violence were fueled with the convergence of Ramadan and the Passover.
Videos on social media purportedly showed Israeli police officers beating Palestinians with batons and rifle butts at the mosque in the contested hilltop site revered by Muslims and Jews.
Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that dozens of worshipers, who spend all the night in Ramadan praying, were injured when the police raided the mosque.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the violence.
Israeli police said they had entered the mosque to dislodge “agitators” who had barricaded themselves inside with fireworks, sticks and stones.
Israeli police have released video footage showing what appear to be firework explosions inside the mosque and people throwing rocks.
Another police video shows riot police with shields advancing through the mosque under a barrage of firework explosions.
The footage then shows a barricaded door and boxes of fireworks on the floor, as well as police escorting at least five people outside with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Talab Abu Eisha, 49, said more than 400 men, women and children were praying at al-Aqsa when the police encircled the mosque.
“The youths were afraid and started closing the doors,” he said, adding that police forces “stormed the eastern corner, beating and arresting men there.”
“It was an unprecedented scene of violence in terms of police brutality and intention to hurt the youths,” he said, denying police claims that young men were hiding fireworks and rocks.
He added that the police prevented all men under the age of 50 from passing through the Old City’s gates leading to the compound for the dawn prayers.
Palestinian leadership condemned the attack on the worshipers.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Israel that such a move “exceeds all red lines and will lead to a large explosion.”
In Gaza, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also called for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel to go and gather around al-Aqsa Mosque and confront Israeli forces.
The Israeli military said Gaza militants fired two barrages of rockets toward southern Israel. Five rockets were intercepted and four landed in open areas. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian suspect stabbed two Israelis near an army base south of Tel Aviv, police said, in the latest incident in a year-long spate of violence that shows no sign of abating.
The Magen David Adom paramedic service said first responders treated two men for serious and light stab wounds in the incident on a highway near the Tsrifin military base. The men were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Israeli media identified the two victims as soldiers.
Police said that civilians at the scene apprehended the suspected attacker, who was taken into police custody for questioning.
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