Israeli Police Raid Jerusalem Mosque; Brief Flare-Up With Gaza Follows

The Israeli police raided probably the most delicate holy web site in Jerusalem earlier than daybreak on Wednesday after Palestinians barricaded themselves inside a mosque there, setting off a quick trade of rocket hearth from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes into the territory.

The violence on the Aqsa Mosque compound within the Previous Metropolis, identified to Jews because the Temple Mount, led to the accidents of at the least 12 Palestinians and two Israeli officers and the arrests of a whole bunch of Palestinians. Officers and diplomats had been warning in latest days that the overlap of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish vacation of Passover, which begins on Wednesday night, may result in clashes as extra worshipers head to the positioning.

Israeli raids on the mosque compound in Might 2021 led to an 11-day struggle between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian faction that dominates the Gaza Strip. However tensions on Wednesday didn’t instantly seem like transferring towards such an all-out confrontation; the rocket hearth and airstrikes had been contained to some exchanges and leaders on either side telegraphed that they weren’t searching for army escalation.

By midmorning on Wednesday, the unrest on the holy web site, which had unfold to different elements of the Previous Metropolis and the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, had calmed.

The most recent spherical of violence started after the Israeli police compelled their method into one of many two primary prayer halls of a mosque on the holy web site. The police mentioned the Palestinians had locked the doorways of the prayer corridor, the Qibli Mosque, from the within and barricaded the entrances, hours after the nightly prayers for the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which started two weeks in the past.

Staying in a single day on the mosque is banned by the Israeli police besides on particular events akin to the top of Ramadan.

In latest weeks, the police had not stringently upheld that ban. However a police spokeswoman mentioned that officers determined to implement it on Wednesday morning as a result of they feared that, if allowed to remain contained in the mosque, Palestinians would confront crowds of Jews who had been anticipated to go to the positioning just a few hours later.

On the eve of Passover, higher numbers of Jews usually go to the positioning as a type of pilgrimage. To Palestinians, the presence of the Jewish worshipers is taken into account provocative, partly as a result of many are hard-line activists who hope to construct a brand new temple on the positioning.

The police mentioned that they had raided the mosque after extended makes an attempt to steer the worshipers to go away. They mentioned Palestinians additionally threw stones at officers, and Palestinian information shops mentioned the police had fired tear gasoline and sponge-tipped bullets and overwhelmed these contained in the mosque.

The police mentioned that they had arrested and eliminated greater than 350 Palestinians from the compound; a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group mentioned greater than 400 had been arrested.

Roughly two hours after the raid, armed teams in Gaza launched at the least 9 rockets towards Israel, 5 of which had been intercepted by the nation’s air protection system. The others landed in open fields, in accordance with the Israeli army.

Hours later, Israeli fighter jets carried out plenty of airstrikes on army websites in Gaza, in accordance with the Palestinian information media and the Israeli army.

By late morning, Jewish guests and vacationers had been strolling across the holy web site underneath police safety, and there had been no airstrikes or rockets for a number of hours.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister for nationwide safety, known as for a stronger Israeli response to the rocket hearth. However the Israeli army launched an announcement saying that whereas it was prepared for any state of affairs, it was “not all in favour of an escalation.”

Hamas launched an announcement condemning the Israeli raid and calling for Palestinians to display in response, however it stopped in need of calling for a army confrontation.

The mosque compound is a frequent flashpoint for violence as a result of it’s central to each Israeli and Palestinian nationwide narratives.

It was the situation of two historical Jewish temples that had been on the coronary heart of Jewish observe in antiquity, and it’s thought-about probably the most sacred web site in Judaism. Centuries after the temples had been destroyed, Muslims constructed a mosque advanced there. They imagine it’s the place the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, making it the third-most holy web site in Islam.

Israel captured the positioning from Jordan within the Arab-Israeli struggle of 1967, and considers it an integral a part of its capital. However many of the world considers it to be occupied territory underneath worldwide regulation.

For many years, Israel prevented Jews from praying there to keep away from aggravating tensions. In recent times, nonetheless, the Israeli police have allowed Jews to quietly worship on the fringe of the compound. That has angered many Palestinians and Muslim-majority states within the area, and amplified Palestinian anxieties about rising Jewish affect on the web site.

In latest days, these fears had been exacerbated by efforts by hard-line Jewish activists to sacrifice a goat on the compound to mark the beginning of the weeklong Jewish vacation of Passover.

The Israeli police have repeatedly mentioned they might not enable such a sacrifice, however the calls aggravated Palestinian issues a couple of Jewish takeover of the compound, significantly as extra Jews had been anticipated to mark Passover by praying there.

In response, Palestinians had urged worshipers to come back to the mosque on the compound and keep in a single day to wish, a convention that’s practiced particularly throughout Ramadan.

On Saturday, the Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian citizen of Israel at one of many entrances of the mosque compound. The police mentioned the person had seized and fired a police officer’s gun after being stopped for questioning. However Palestinian information shops mentioned the person had been killed throughout a scuffle after intervening to stop the assault of a Palestinian lady.

Hiba Yazbek contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel.