JERUSALEM – Tens of 1000's of Muslims flocked to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on the primary Friday of Ramadan for midday prayers, which handed peacefully regardless of considerations a couple of repeat of Israeli-Palestinian violence that erupted throughout the Muslim holy month final yr.
From early morning, residents of cities comparable to Bethlehem and Ramallah within the occupied West Financial institution lined up at Israeli checkpoints to go to Al-Aqsa.
After two years of COVID restrictions, Israel has allowed some Palestinians from the West Financial institution who maintain a journey allow to enter Jerusalem.
However tensions are once more excessive within the metropolis holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims. A Palestinian gunman shot useless two folks at a Tel Aviv bar on Thursday, the newest in a string of lethal assaults in Israel.
“We thought they (Israel) gained’t allow us to enter as a result of final escalation, however thank God the whole lot is okay,” stated Hussein Abayat from Bethlehem. “Al-Aqsa is probably the most precious factor we have now, we do the whole lot in our energy to go to it and the remaining is as much as God.”
Israeli forces are on excessive alert throughout the nation and there can be “no restrictions” of their battle to “eradicate terror”, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated in an announcement.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Thursday’s assault whereas cautioning in opposition to “persevering with the repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque and the provocative actions of extremist settler teams”, the Palestinian WAFA information company reported.
Days earlier than the beginning of Ramadan, far-right Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, identified to Jews as Temple Mount, in a transfer seen by Palestinians as a provocation.
Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits atop a plateau within the coronary heart of Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis, is without doubt one of the most delicate websites within the Center East battle.
Final yr noticed nightly clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police throughout the fasting month. Threats of Palestinian displacement in East Jerusalem and police raids at Al-Aqsa Mosque helped ignite an 11-day Israel-Gaza battle that killed greater than 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 folks in Israel.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in a 1967 battle, later annexing it, in a transfer not acknowledged internationally. Palestinians need East Jerusalem because the capital of a future Palestinian state.
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