Israeli police in full riot gear have stormed a sensitive Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims after Palestinian youths hurled stones at a gate where they were stationed.
The renewed violence at the site came despite Israel temporarily halting Jewish visits, which had been seen by the Palestinians as a provocation. Medics said more than two dozen Palestinians were wounded.
Palestinians and Israeli police have regularly clashed at the site over the last week at a time of heightened tensions following a string of deadly attacks inside Israel and raids in the occupied West Bank. Three rockets have also been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
The string of events has raised fears of a repeat of last year, when protests and violence in Jerusalem eventually boiled over, helping to ignite an 11-day Gaza war and communal violence in Israel’s mixed cities.
Tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers are expected at the site later in the day for the main weekly prayers as they observe the holy month of Ramadan.
Palestinian youths hurled stones toward police at a gate leading into the compound, according to two Palestinian witnesses. The police, in full riot gear, then entered the compound, firing rubber bullets and stun grenades.
Israeli police said the Palestinians had begun stockpiling stones and erecting crude fortifications before dawn.
The police said that after the rock-throwing began, they waited until after early morning prayers had finished before entering the compound.
Some older Palestinians urged the youths to stop throwing rocks but were ignored, as dozens of young masked men hurled stones and fireworks at the police. A tree caught fire near the gate where the clashes began, possibly ignited by the fireworks or the stun grenades.
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said at least 27 Palestinians were wounded, two of them seriously.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City is the third holiest site in Islam. The sprawling esplanade on which it is built is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of two Jewish temples in antiquity.
It lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and clashes there have often ignited violence elsewhere.
Palestinians and neighbouring Jordan, the custodian of the site, accuse Israel of violating longstanding arrangements by allowing increasingly large numbers of Jews to visit the site under police escort.
A longstanding prohibition on Jews praying at the site has eroded in recent years, fuelling fears among Palestinians that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it.
Israel says it remains committed to the status quo and blames the violence on incitement by the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza.
It says its security forces are acting to remove rock-throwers in order to ensure freedom of worship for Jews and Muslims.
Visits by Jewish groups were halted beginning Friday for the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as they have been in the past.
This year, Ramadan coincided with Passover and major Christian holidays, with tens of thousands of people from all three faiths flocking to the Old City after the lifting of most coronavirus restrictions.
The Old City is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognised internationally and considers the entire city its capital.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in all three territories and view east Jerusalem as their capital.
