Israeli Police Raid Jerusalem Mosque; Transient 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.

The violence on the Aqsa Mosque compound within the Outdated Metropolis, recognized to Jews because the Temple Mount, led to the accidents of a minimum of 37 Palestinians and two Israeli officers and the arrests of a whole bunch of Palestinians. Officers and diplomats had been warning in current days that the overlap of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish vacation of Passover, which begins on Wednesday night, might 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 have been contained to some exchanges and leaders on either side telegraphed that they weren’t searching for army escalation.

The state of affairs nonetheless remained unstable. On Wednesday evening, armed police swept by the compound for the second time within the day, forcing out scores of worshipers there.

The most recent spherical of violence started early on Wednesday after the Israeli police compelled their manner into one of many two foremost 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.

Video circulated early Wednesday by Palestinian information retailers confirmed police beating individuals contained in the prayer corridor with batons, and a few Palestinians setting off fireworks. The police mentioned it was unclear whether or not the video was from Wednesday or from incidents in earlier years. The New York Instances couldn’t instantly discover the identical movies posted on the web earlier than Wednesday.

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

In current 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 have been anticipated to go to the positioning just a few hours later.

On the eve of Passover, larger 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 they’d raided the mosque early on Wednesday after extended makes an attempt to steer the worshipers to go away. They mentioned Palestinians additionally threw stones at officers, and Palestinian information retailers mentioned the police had fired tear gasoline and sponge-tipped bullets and overwhelmed these contained in the mosque.

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

Roughly two hours after the raid, armed teams in Gaza launched a minimum of 9 rockets towards Israel, 5 of which have been intercepted by the nation’s air protection system. The others landed in open fields, based on the Israeli army.

Hours later, Israeli fighter jets carried out various airstrikes on army websites in Gaza, based on the Palestinian information media and the Israeli army.

By late morning, Jewish guests and vacationers have been strolling across the holy web site beneath 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, referred to as for a stronger Israeli response to the rocket hearth. However the Israeli army launched a press release saying that whereas it was prepared for any state of affairs, it was “not considering an escalation.”

Hamas launched a press release 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 historic Jewish temples that have been on the coronary heart of Jewish follow in antiquity, and it’s thought-about probably the most sacred web site in Judaism. Centuries after the temples have been destroyed, Muslims constructed a mosque complicated there. They consider 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 beneath worldwide regulation.

For many years, Israel prevented Jews from praying there to keep away from aggravating tensions. Lately, nevertheless, 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 current days, these fears have 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’d not enable such a sacrifice, however the calls aggravated Palestinian considerations a few Jewish takeover of the compound, notably as extra Jews have been anticipated to mark Passover by praying there.

In response, Palestinians had urged worshipers to return to the mosque on the compound and keep in a single day to hope, a practice 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 retailers mentioned the person had been killed throughout a scuffle after intervening to forestall the assault of a Palestinian girl.

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