JERUSALEM: Israel eased restrictions at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque yesterday after US Secretary of State John Kerry announced agreement on steps to reduce tensions at the flashpoint compound.
The site, which is holy to Jews as well as Muslims, has been the focus of months of unrest in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, that has spread to the occupied West Bank and Arab communities across Israel, raising fears of a new Palestinian uprising.
The Palestinians have been infuriated by a far-right Jewish campaign for prayer rights at Al Aqsa that threatens an ultra-sensitive, decades-old status quo.
The violence prompted Kerry to holds a flurry of meetings with the two sides in neighbouring Jordan on Thursday, after which he announced unspecified confidence-building measures to ease the underlying tensions.
Men of all ages were allowed entry for the main weekly Muslim prayers at Al Aqsa for the first time in “months”, an Israeli police spokesman said.
“No age limit on the Temple Mount, we’re hoping things will be calm and quiet today,” spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.
He was using the Jewish term for the Old City holy site that has been the scene of repeated disturbances. He added that “extra police units were deployed in Jerusalem this morning to prevent any incidents in and around the Old City.”
Rosenfeld linked the decision to lift age restrictions to Kerry’s talks in Jordan with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II.
“Firm commitments” were made to maintain the status quo at the compound, Kerry said at a press conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.
Israel and Jordan, which has custodial rights at the compound, also agreed to take steps to “de-escalate the situation” in Jerusalem and to “restore confidence”.
“We are not going to lay out each practical step. It is more important they be done in a quiet and effective way,” Kerry said.
“It is clear to me that they are serious about working on the effort to create de-escalation and to take steps to instil confidence that the status quo will be upheld.”
Kerry also met separately in Amman with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who he said also committed to help calm emotions.
“President Abbas and I... discussed constructive steps, real steps — not rhetoric but real steps that people can take -- in order to de-escalate the situation and create a climate where we can move forward in a positive and constructive way,” Kerry said.
“President Abbas strongly restated his firm commitment to nonviolence, and he made it clear that he will do everything possible to restore calm and to prevent the incitement of violence and to try to change the climate.”
Netanyahu has said repeatedly that his government has no plans to change the status quo at the compound which allows Jews to visit but not pray.
But his reassurances have failed to calm Palestinian anger that has also been fuelled by his government’s vigorous expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said on Wednesday he would order the installation of metal detectors at the entrances to the compound along with facial-recognition technology.
Sheikh Azzam Al Khatib, head of the Islamic Waqf which runs the compound, rejected the idea.
An Israeli human rights group on Friday accused the police and paramilitary border police of “serious irregularities” in dispersing Palestinian protests in east Jerusalem. An 11-year-old Palestinian boy was wounded in the Issawiya neighbourhood on Thursday when a so-called sponge round fired by police hit him between the eyes during clashes, medics said.AFP
JERUSALEM: The stench of tear gas, burnt tyres and “skunk” riot control liquid fills the air in an east Jerusalem district shaken by months of clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces.
Along with the foul odours there is a sense of despair in Issawiya, a neighbourhood of 20,000 people where a lack of prospects for young Palestinians fuels frustration and violence.
“The youths here have no future. The town has no future,” local council member Mohammed Khader Abu Al Hummus said.
Issawiya, which lies in a valley east of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, has been the scene of near-daily clashes since July, when Jewish extremists burned alive a Palestinian teenager in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Then a 50-day war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, almost a quarter of them children, as east Jerusalem was rocked in protest. Local activist Raed Abu Riyaal said that since July, 150 youths — including minors — had been arrested for violent clashes with police.
Fearing a wider outbreak, police have combined forces with the Jerusalem municipality to crack down, fining residents for previously ignored misdemeanours, from parking and traffic to business and construction violations. But far from quelling tensions, the Israeli measures — along with the police closure of three of the district’s four entrances with concrete blocks — are perceived as unjust punishment for the youth uprising.
“This is collective punishment,” Abu Riyaal said, noting the difficulties the town’s 3,000 youths now face on their way to high school. Residents have appealed to Israel’s supreme court against the closure, with the state due to file its response by Wednesday.
A surveillance balloon, recently launched by the Jerusalem municipality, loomed in its fixed spot overhead.
A senior policeman was telling local leaders in Arabic that parents were responsible for their children and they must keep them at home to prevent clashes.
Residents of the district had traditionally been farmers, but Israeli expropriations of lands for nearby settlements and roads have reduced their lands from 3,100 acres (1,250 hectares) to 500 on which they live.AFP
