Jerusalem, March 26: Israeli police will allow young Muslims to attend weekly prayers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday, lifting a ban imposed during clashes with Palestinians earlier this month.
Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby told AFP on Thursday that restrictions limiting attendance to women and to men aged 50 and above would be lifted.
The hilltop compound, Judaism’s holiest place and the third holiest site in Islam, has seen fierce clashes of late between Palestinians and Israeli security forces which have spilled out across mainly Arab east Jerusalem.
Dozens of police and protesters have been injured and scores of Palestinians arrested since Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new homes for settlers in annexed east Jerusalem inflamed tensions which are never far below the surface.
Tempers were further frayed with the opening of a rebuilt 17th century synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, a few hundred metres (yards) from the mosque compound.
–AFP