Jerusalem: Israeli police raided al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City and “attacked Palestinian worshippers” on Wednesday, Palestinian media reported, raising fears of wider tension as Islamic and Jewish holidays overlap.
Israeli police said the operation in the early hours was a response to rioting.
“I was sitting on a chair reciting [the Koran],” an elderly woman told Reuters while sitting outside the mosque, struggling to catch her breath. “They hurled stun grenades, one of them hit my chest,” she said as she began to cry.
Israeli police said in a statement that it was forced to enter the compound after “masked agitators” locked themselves inside the mosque with fireworks, sticks and stones.
“When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators,” the statement said, adding that a police officer was wounded in the leg.
At least nine rockets were fired from Gaza overnight (Gaza time), prompting airstrikes from Israel which struck what it said were Hamas weapon production sites, setting off ground-shaking explosions heard across the blockaded coastal strip.
Witnesses said Israeli tanks also shelled Hamas positions along the border fence in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald (AP,Reuters).