Dozens Injured in Fresh Clashes Between Israeli, Palestinian Forces in Jerusalem

First modification: 04/29/2022 – 18:16

Jerusalem lived this April 29, its last Friday of Ramadan, in the midst of new violent clashes in the Al-Aqsa mosque.

At least 42 Palestinians injured, around 20 hospitalized and three arrested is the balance of the latest outbreak of violence in the place revered by both Muslims and Jews, as confirmed by the Red Crescent and the Israel Police.

According to Israeli authorities, their forces intervened, firing rubber bullets and stun grenades, after dozens of Palestinian youths hurled stones and fireworks at the site, including in the direction of the Western Wall, where Jewish worshipers gather.

“We will continue to act resolutely against rioters and outlaws for public safety,” the police institution said in a statement.

According to some witnesses, the clashes ended after the intervention of other Palestinians present who convinced both sides to withdraw.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest place in Islam, only after Mecca and Medina. However, the complex is also significant to Jews who refer to it as the Temple Mount, believed to be the location of two ancient temples of their religion.

Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of the wave of clashes in Jerusalem

In recent weeks there have been several clashes of this type in the Esplanade of the Mosques. Israeli police accuse the Hamas group, which controls the Gaza Strip, of encouraging young people to organize riots aimed at angering the Muslim world against the Jewish state.

For their part, the Palestinians are against the police presence at the site and accuse the Israeli authorities of restricting Muslim worship there without doing enough to enforce a longstanding ban on Jewish prayer there, visited by groups of Jewish pilgrims during the recent Passover festival that coincided with Ramadan.

The government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett rejects these accusations.

Violence had subsided in recent days after Israel halted Jewish visits to the vast esplanade that houses the 7th-century gilded Dome of the Rock and the 8th-century Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, the clashes returned on April 29.

Ramadan ends next week, but this is the last Friday of the fasting month when large crowds gather, especially in Al-Aqsa.

The complex sits atop the plateau of East Jerusalem’s Old City, which Israel began to control from the 1967 war and annexed in a move that has not gained international recognition.

Jerusalem is claimed by the Palestinians as the capital of their eventual future state, but Israel also claims it as its own. Formal peace talks between the two peoples are stalled.

Added to the clashes in Al-Aqsa are the individual attacks in which at least 15 Israelis have died, as well as the raids against suspects of these crimes in the West Bank, in which at least 14 Palestinians have died in recent weeks. And more recently, on April 25, Israel and Lebanon exchanged the launch of projectiles against their territories.

This is the time of greatest violence in the region since the war between Israel and Hamas in 2021, for which the UN called for calm and restraint.

With Reuters, AP and EFE