JERUSALEM — The Israeli police shot lifeless an Arab man early Saturday in disputed circumstances in entrance of an entrance to probably the most distinguished holy website in Jerusalem, in an episode that risked escalating tensions within the metropolis at an already risky time.
A police spokeswoman mentioned that officers had stopped the person for questioning as a result of he was contained in the Aqsa Mosque compound, a website sacred to each Jews and Muslims, after it had formally closed. Seconds later, the spokeswoman mentioned, the person seized and fired a police officer’s gun, main them to kill him in self-defense. The police described the person as a terrorist.
In a conflicting account, the Palestinian information media reported that he had been killed throughout a scuffle after intervening to stop the assault of an Arab girl. Neither model may very well be instantly corroborated. The police spokeswoman mentioned that no girl had been current, and that it was not doable to supply video proof, as a result of there was no close by surveillance digicam and the officers didn’t have time to change on their physique cameras earlier than the scuffle started.
The capturing occurred on the Chain Gate entrance to the compound, and the lifeless man was recognized by the police as a 26-year-old from Hura, an Arab city in southern Israel.
His capturing risked setting off a brand new spherical of unrest on the website, which each Israelis and Palestinians take into account an important a part of their nationwide narratives. The location has been used as a mosque for greater than a millennium however is understood to Jews because the Temple Mount, as a result of it was the placement in antiquity of two historic Jewish temples.
Clashes often happen there throughout moments of wider tensions within the area — notably through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began every week and a half in the past.
Confrontations on the website in Might 2021 contributed to the outbreak of an 11-day warfare between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militia that controls the Gaza Strip.
For months, diplomats and officers have warned of the potential of one other flare-up on the compound throughout Passover and Ramadan, which this coming week will converge for under the second time in three many years. The overlapping festivals will entice extra Jews and Muslims to the positioning than regular, elevating the chance of confrontation — notably if the police proceed to permit Jewish activists to wish there, in contravention of a decades-old conference.
Israel captured the positioning from Jordan through the Arab-Israeli warfare of 1967 and later annexed it. For years, the Israeli authorities prevented Jews from praying there, leery of angering Muslims. However lately the police have begun to tacitly enable it, heightening Palestinian resentment.
Jews take into account it the holiest spot in Judaism, whereas Muslims imagine it was the place from which the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven.