Israeli police raided Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City early Wednesday and attacked Palestinian worshippers, Palestinian media reported, raising fears of wider tension as Islamic and Jewish holidays overlap.
The incidents sparked a wave of Palestinian protests, condemnations and violence. The Israeli military said sirens warning of incoming rockets sounded in Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip.
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 the Muslim holy fast month and the Passover.
Such confrontations at the contested holy compound, the third holiest shrine in Islam that is also the most sacred site in Judaism and referred to as the Temple Mount, have sparked deadly cross-border wars between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in the past, the last was in 2021.
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 both Muslims and Jews.
The 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. The Israeli police said it used force to evacuate worshippers who were holed up at the mosque with fireworks, rocks, and sticks. They added that an officer was injured in his leg by a stone and that dozens of “rioters” were arrested.
Read the article in Sight Magazine.