Israeli police stated they moved in after “a number of law-breaking youths and masked agitators” introduced fireworks, sticks and stones and barricaded themselves into the mosque. Police stated the youths chanted violent slogans and locked the entrance doorways.
“After many and extended makes an attempt to get them out by speaking to no avail, police forces have been compelled to enter the compound as a way to get them out,” police stated.
Video launched by police confirmed the repeated explosions of fireworks contained in the mosque. One novice video taken by Palestinians confirmed police struggling with folks and beating them with golf equipment and rifle butts as a girl’s voice could possibly be heard shouting, “Oh God. Oh God.”
Exterior the gate, police dispersed teams of youths with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
Police stated one officer was injured within the leg, whereas some 350 folks have been arrested. They launched photographs of fireworks and at the very least one massive stone that appeared to have been hurled.
Talab Abu Eisha, 49, stated greater than 400 males, ladies and kids have been praying at Al-Aqsa when the police encircled the mosque.
“The youths have been afraid and began closing the doorways,” he stated, including that police forces “stormed the jap nook, beating and arresting males there.”
”It was an unprecedented scene of violence by way of police brutality and intention to harm the youths,” he stated, denying police claims that younger males have been hiding fireworks and rocks. He added that the police prevented all males beneath 50 years previous from passing by way of the Outdated Metropolis’s gates resulting in the compound for the daybreak prayers Wednesday morning.
Palestinian militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, setting off air raid sirens within the area as residents have been making ready for the start of the weeklong Passover vacation.
The Israeli navy stated a complete of 5 rockets have been fired, and all have been intercepted. Hours later, Israel responded with an airstrike in Gaza on what it stated have been weapons manufacturing and storage websites belonging to the Islamic militant group Hamas. Extra rocket hearth and airstrikes continued after dawn.
Tensions have been steadily rising since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right authorities took workplace late final 12 months. The federal government is dominated by non secular and ultranationalist hard-liners, and the overlap of the Jewish and Muslim holidays — when tens of hundreds of worshippers make their option to contested Jerusalem — has raised fears of violence.
The police drive is overseen by Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist with a historical past of violent rhetoric and actions towards Palestinians.
In Gaza, Hamas referred to as for big protests and folks began gathering within the streets, with calls to move for the closely guarded Gaza-Israel frontier for extra violent demonstrations.
The Palestinian militant teams Hamas and Islamic Jihad additionally referred to as for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, the West Financial institution, and Israel to collect round Al-Aqsa Mosque and confront Israeli forces.
Ziyad al-Nakhala, chief of Islamic Jihad, stated the state of affairs at Al-Aqsa was a “severe risk.”
He stated that Palestinians have to be ready “for the inevitable confrontation within the coming days.”
Within the occupied West Financial institution, the Palestinian management condemned the assault on the worshippers. The spokesman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, warned Israel that such a transfer “exceeds all purple strains and can result in a big explosion.”
The federal government of Jordan, which serves because the custodian of the mosque, condemned the Israeli raid “within the strongest phrases.” The Overseas Ministry warned “of the results of this harmful escalation and held Israel accountable for the protection of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
As violence was unfolding in Jerusalem, the Israeli navy reported preventing in a Palestinian city within the occupied West Financial institution. It stated residents of Beit Umar, close to the unstable metropolis of Hebron, burned tires, hurled rocks and explosives at troopers. It stated one soldier was shot by armed suspects, who managed to flee.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Palestinian suspect stabbed two Israelis close to a military base south of Tel Aviv, police stated, within the newest incident in a yearlong spate of violence that reveals no signal of abating.
The Magen David Adom paramedic service stated first responders handled two males for severe and lightweight stab wounds within the incident on a freeway close to the Tzrifin navy base. The lads have been taken to a close-by hospital for therapy.
Israeli media recognized the 2 victims as troopers.
Police stated that civilians on the scene apprehended the suspected attacker, who was taken into police custody for questioning.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged over the past 12 months, because the Israeli navy has carried out near-nightly raids on Palestinian cities, cities and villages and as Palestinians have staged quite a few assaults towards Israelis.
At the least 88 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli hearth this 12 months, in response to an Related Press tally. Palestinian assaults towards Israelis have killed 15 folks in the identical interval.
Israel says many of the Palestinians killed have been militants. However stone-throwing youths and bystanders uninvolved in violence have been additionally among the many lifeless. All however one of many Israeli lifeless have been civilians.
