Jerusalem, September 28: Tensions ran high on Monday after clashes erupted in occupied Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday at Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a site revered by Muslims and Jews that has been a major faultline in the Middle East conflict.
Palestinian youths – living under illegal Israeli occupation – hurled rocks at Israeli forces, who were deployed throughout the winding narrow streets of the Old City, and the Israeli forces retaliated with stun grenades, witnesses said.
Israeli forces said 17 security force members were wounded in the clashes and 11 people arrested. Witnesses reported seeing around a dozen wounded Palestinians.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Israel was deliberately raising tensions “at a time when President (Barack) Obama is trying to bridge the divide between Palestinians and Israelis, and to get negotiations back on track.”
“Providing a police escort for settlers who are against peace at all costs, and whose presence is deliberately designed to provoke a reaction, are not the actions of someone who is committed to peace,” he said.
In Cairo, the Arab League expressed “extreme anger” over what it called a “premeditated aggression” by Israeli security forces who had allowed “Zionist extremists” into the mosque compound.
Jordan summoned Israel’s ambassador in Amman in protest at the Israeli “escalation.”
By early afternoon a tense calm reigned in the historic city, with dozens of police officers patrolling the narrow streets and barricades erected at some of the main gates along the city’s 400-year-old walls.
“There is a large police presence in the Old City … In general, things are quiet,” Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
Israeli police calimed the unrest erupted after a group of tourists entered the mosque compound, known to Muslims as Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Initially the police said the group was made up of Jewish settlers, but later said they were French tourists.
“The group attacked by stones at the mosque compound was in fact a group of non-Jewish French tourists who visited it as part of their trip,” said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby.
The visitors were probably mistaken for Arab-hating Jewish extremist because a group of 200 mostly religious extremists and right-wing Jews had gathered in the early morning at the gate through which police allow tourists access to the holy site.
“There was a large group of Jewish settlers who gathered outside Al-Aqsa and tried to break in,” said Abu Raed, a Palestinian witness.
“Some of them entered and went all the way to the heart of the compound, where there were people praying … They were Jewish settlers dressed as tourists,” he said.
After entering the sprawling compound, the group was confronted by about 150 Muslim faithful who chanted and eventually threw rocks, at which point the police pulled the tourists out and closed the gate, Israeli police said.
“The policemen came out and said to us ‘this is your fault, if you wouldn’t come here, the Arabs wouldn’t throw stones’,” said Yehuda Glick, 43, a religious Jew who was waiting outside.
Immediately after the clash, police blocked off the compound as speakers from mosques in the Old City urged people to gather at the site.
The democratically elected Hamas movement ruling Gaza slammed the “dangerous escalation” and called for protests. “The occupation bears full responsibility for all the consequences and developments that will follow from this crime,” it said.
Al-Aqsa mosque compound is on the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, and has often been the flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, erupted there after former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit in September 2000.
Palestinian East Jerusalem has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel’s capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel’s capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions.
In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides.
Declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions.
—Agencies