JERUSALEM: Dozens of Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli police that erupted yesterday when the Al Aqsa mosque compound was opened to Jewish visitors, witnesses said.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that Palestinians threw “stones and firecrackers” at police when they opened the walled compound’s gates.
Police responded with stun grenades, Rosenfeld said, and closed the complex to the Jewish visitors after a small number had toured the site.
Witnesses at the scene said dozens of Palestinians were wounded by rubber-coated bullets and stun grenade canisters, and were staying inside the Al Aqsa mosque out of fear they would be arrested when leaving. The compound also houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
situation ‘calm’
Rosenfeld said the situation on “Temple Mount,” the Jewish term for the complex, was “calm again” and police had left the site. He noted that in a separate incident elsewhere in Jerusalem’s Old City a police officer was lightly wounded by stones thrown by Palestinians.
Non-Muslim visits to the Al Aqsa complex are permitted and regulated by police, but Jews are not allowed to pray at the site. Jews are marking Passover, a seven-day holiday which in ancient times was marked by mass pilgrimage to the Temple Mount.
On Monday, police arrested five Jews suspected of intending to sacrifice a goat at the Al Aqsa mosque complex, in a bid to reenact an ancient Passover ritual.
AFP
