Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, injuring dozens of Palestinians before dawn on Friday as tens of thousands gathered for prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said at least 31 Palestinians were wounded, including 14 who were taken to hospitals. A police officer was hit in the face by a rock and taken for medical treatment, the police said.
Israeli police entered the compound and fired tear gas and rubber-tipped bullets at stone-throwing Palestinian youths. Israeli police said the Palestinians, some carrying Hamas flags, had begun stockpiling stones and erecting crude fortifications before dawn. The police stated that after the rock-throwing began, they waited until after early morning prayers had finished before entering the compound.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency (AA) that Israeli police unleashed a barrage of rubber bullets and sound bombs against Palestinians in the complex after storming it from the Al-Silsila and Al-Mughrabi gates.
A number of Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli police forces stationed in the Bab al-Silsila area. Others tossed stones and fireworks at police forces, who responded with rubber bullets and sound bombs. A fire broke out in a tree near the Mughrabi Gate in the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Islamic Endowments Department crews worked to extinguish it.
The violence subsided later in the morning after another group of dozens of Palestinians said they wanted to clean the area ahead of the main weekly prayers midday, which are regularly attended by tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers. The police withdrew to the gate and the stone-throwing stopped.
Hundreds of Israeli settlers have stormed the flashpoint compound since Sunday under heavy police protection to celebrate the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday. Israeli police, meanwhile, imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian youths to Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform the dawn prayer.
Tension has been high across the Palestinian territories since Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards and attacked worshippers, injuring hundreds last week. Daily settler incursions into the flashpoint site to celebrate the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday and arrest raids in the occupied West Bank have further inflamed the situation. Israeli warplanes had struck two sites in the Gaza Strip early Thursday belonging to the military wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
A Palestinian youth who was shot earlier this month by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank died of his injuries on Friday, according to Palestinian media. The Palestinian news agency WAFA said 20-year-old Ibrahim Lebedi was seriously wounded when Israeli forces raided the town of Al-Yamun near the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank on April 18.
The string of events has raised fears of a repeat of last year, when protests and violence in Jerusalem eventually boiled over, helping to ignite an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, and communal violence in Israel's mixed cities.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times. Since 2003, Israel has allowed settlers into the compound almost daily.
Israeli settlers' incursions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound "won't change its Islamic character," said Hamas' political chief on Thursday. In a statement, Ismail Haniyeh said recent events at Al-Aqsa Mosque will "shorten the (Israeli) occupier existence and that they will eventually be expelled from the Palestinian lands."
He added that the Israeli occupiers labor from the delusion that they can change the Islamic status of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by occupying it.
Palestinians and neighboring Jordan, the custodian of the site, accuse Israel of violating longstanding arrangements by allowing increasingly large numbers of Jews to visit the site under police escort. A longstanding prohibition on Jews praying at the site has eroded in recent years, fueling fears among Palestinians that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it. Israel says it remains committed to the status quo and blames the violence on incitement by Hamas.
Visits by Jewish groups were halted beginning Friday for the last 10 days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as they have been in the past. This year, Ramadan coincided with the weeklong Jewish Passover and major Christian holidays.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move never recognized by the international community.