New clashes at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound

New clashes at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound

JERUSALEM: Clashes erupted between Zionist police and Palestinians at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Thursday, after a 10-day cooling of tensions at the holy site, Zionist police said. The police said they had repelled “dozens of rioters” who had been “throwing stones and other objects” at the security forces. An AFP correspondent said there was a heavy police presence in front of the mosque as groups of Jewish worshippers returned to the site for the first time this month.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said two people had been injured in clashes. The clashes came on the anniversary of Zionist entity’s 1948 independence and followed a tense period in which the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the Jewish festival of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter overlapped.

Some 600 Jewish “extremists” converged on the compound, the sheikh of Al-Aqsa mosque, Omar al-Kiswani, told AFP. The Palestinian foreign ministry labelled the Zionist entity actions a “declaration of religious war” while Jordan condemned Zionist entity for allowing Jewish “extremists” to “break into” the compound. The site is Islam’s third-holiest. It is also Judaism’s holiest place, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Palestinians have been angered by an uptick in Jewish visits to the compound,