Since the Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem at the beginning of April, alarms have sounded again in the Gaza Strip and on the borders with Lebanon and Syria. The Middle East is tense for another year as the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims coincides with Pesaj, the Jewish Passover.
Jerusalem, the eternal city split in two, is once again the epicenter of tensions that radiate to all the hot spots in the region. The violence that began in the Esplanade of the Mosques and the Al-Aqsa temple, when the Israeli riot police broke into one of the holiest places in Islam in the middle of the month of Ramadan, has had consequences in the Palestinian territories and in countries like Syria or Lebanon. Here we explain the keys to understanding the conflict.
What happened in Al-Aqsa the first week of April?
Two raids by Israeli riot police in less than 24 hours marked the beginning of the holy days for both Jews and Muslims as, this year, the celebrations of both religions coincide.
After some 80,000 worshipers attended evening prayers at the mosque on Tuesday, April 4, hundreds of Palestinians barricaded themselves inside overnight to pray. Some said they wanted to make sure that extremist Jews did not carry out animal sacrifices to celebrate the first day of Passover, as they had announced a few days earlier. This ancient practice is expressly prohibited by the political and religious authorities of Israel.
When the Palestinians refused to leave, Israeli police entered the mosque and stormed the Al-Aqsa prayer hall, where they detained more than 350 people, calling them “rioters.” Again on Wednesday, crowds of Muslims gathered in and around the mosque for Ramadan night prayers.
According to the Israeli police, “dozens of outlaws, some wearing masks, fired fireworks and stones at the mosque.” On their side, Palestinian sources denounced an “excessive use of force” by the Police and stressed that the number of detainees exceeds 500, in addition to recording at least 25 injuries.
The images of these violent incursions were widely criticized by countries in the region and the world. A UN-backed complaint, whose and Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, declared: “I strongly condemn the excessive use of force by Israel against the Palestinian Muslims who pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan and its violations of the ‘status quo’. This recklessness risks further devastation on both sides of the Green Line.”
In 2021 and 2022, the Israeli police had already entered the Esplanade of the Mosques during Ramadan, acts that were especially offensive to the Muslim Palestinian population, to which these acts of violence are added. In 2021, tensions escalated to bloody clashes that lasted ten days between Israel and Hamas.
Why is Al-Aqsa so important to Muslims and Jews?
The name Al-Aqsa designates the complex that houses two important places for Islam: the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Aqsa is located in the Esplanade of the Mosques, or Noble Sanctuary, which is the third holiest place for this religion after Mecca and Medina. It is part of East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the holy city occupied and annexed by Israel.
The Esplanade of the Mosques is built on what the Jews call the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism for being considered the last vestige of Solomon’s Temple. Jews worship at the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall.
The government of neighboring Jordan has considered itself the official guardian of Al-Aqsa since Israel annexed the territory, and delegates its management to the Islamic Waqf foundation. The site is open to Christian and Jewish tourists for four hours a day, five days a week, but only Muslims can pray there. This is stipulated by the informal rules, known as the ‘status quo’, established after the 1967 war in which Israel seized East Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa compound is located, along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians consider Al-Aqsa the last vestige of their homeland not under Israeli control and fear that Israel plans to one day seize it or divide it. The Israeli authorities say they have no intention of changing the ‘status quo’, but the country is currently led by the most right-wing government in its history, with religious ultra-nationalists in high positions, who are advancing policies clearly in favor of continuing to annex Palestinian territories.
What does Al-Aqsa have to do with the missiles in Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip?
The violence at the Al-Aqsa compound sparked anger among Palestinians outside of Jerusalem and throughout the Arab world. From the same Wednesday, a wave of rockets fell on Israel from the Gaza Strip; the next day, 30 more shells hit Israeli territory from Lebanon.
Israel claimed the unclaimed shooting from Lebanon was “Palestinian” and most likely from the Islamist movement Hamas, which is in power in the Gaza Strip. The number of rockets fired from Lebanon was the highest since 2006, but no fatalities were reported from the attacks in Gaza, Israel or Lebanon.
Israel did not wait for its response and shelled both Gaza and southern Lebanon on Friday.
Lebanon and Israel are technically in a state of war after several conflicts and the ceasefire line is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL), deployed in southern Lebanon.
Tensions also escalated on the Israel-Syria border. Despite the fact that Israel usually attacks targets linked to Lebanese and Iranian armed groups in the neighboring country, this time it was rockets launched from Syria that hit Israel on Saturday night in the Golan Heights, a strategic region annexed by the Jewish country. .
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is suspected that they could be armed groups linked to the Palestinian jihad and supported by Iran.
This Sunday, Israel counterattacked by land and air. No fatalities were recorded.
In addition, the tensions unleashed by the events in Al-Aqsa are also felt in the West Bank, where on April 8 a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli police. However, the violence in crescendo for months.
Since January, at least 19 people have been killed in attacks by Palestinians or Arab-Israelis, while at least 94 Palestinians have been killed in various violent incidents with Israelis. This has been the deadliest start to the year in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2000.
With AP, EFE, AFP and local media
#Jerusalem #Syria #keys #understanding #escalation #tensions #Middle #East