LAST UPDATE | 17 Apr 2022
MORE THAN 20 Israelis and Palestinians were wounded in several incidents in and around Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, two days after major violence at the site.
The latest clashes take the number of wounded since Friday to more than 170, at a tense time when the Jewish Passover festival coincides with Ramadan.
They also follow deadly violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank in late March and early this month that has killed 36 people.
Early this morning, “hundreds” of Palestinian demonstrators started gathering piles of stones, shortly before the arrival of Jewish visitors to the site, the police said.
Jews are allowed at certain times to visit – but not to pray – at the site, also known as Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam.
The police said its forces had entered the compound in order to “remove” the demonstrators and “re-establish order”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its medics had treated ten wounded.
“Eight people were wounded in the (police) incursion and two others by rubber-coated bullets,” it said, adding that three were taken to hospital.
An AFP team near the entrance to the compound saw ambulances, heavily armed police and concrete blocks smashed into smaller pieces.
Elsewhere in the city, Palestinian youths threw rocks at passing buses, lightly injuring five Israelis, according to local media and the police, who said they had arrested two Palestinians.
All three Abrahamic faiths mark major festivals at this time: Jewish Passover, Christian Easter and the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Weeks of mounting tensions saw two deadly attacks by Palestinians in or near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv in late March and early April, alongside mass arrests by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
On Friday morning, police clashed with Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa compound, including inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, drawing strong condemnation from Muslim countries.
The violence wounded some 150 people.
The United Nations has called for calm, a year after the last major conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
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