Dozens of Palestinian worshippers were injured after Israeli occupation forces raided the Al-Qibili prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, early on Wednesday.
Raising fears of wider tensions as Islamic and Jewish holidays overlap, the Israeli police claimed that they were responding to ‘rioting’, reported Aljazeera.
Soon after the incident took place, videos on social media purportedly showed Israeli police officers beating Palestinians with batons and rifle butts at the mosque in the contested hilltop site revered by both Muslims and Jews.
Israeli forces stormed into the mosque with gas bombs along with sound grenades creating terror following which they thrashed Palestinian worshipers who were present in the mosque.
Though people getting injured was known, the number of worshippers getting severely hurt in the attack remains uncertain.
Palestinian Red Crescent, in a statement, said that Israeli forces were preventing its medics from reaching Al-Aqsa.
Tensions have been persisting in east Jerusalem and the West Bank for months, and fears of further violence were fueled by the convergence of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan and the Passover.
Such confrontations at the contested holy compound, the third holiest shrine in Islam and also the most sacred site in Judaism and referred to as the Temple Mount, have sparked deadly cross-border wars between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in the past, the last was in 2021.
The reason that sparked the violence is not clear. However, the Israeli police reasoned that they were forced to enter the compound after ‘masked agitators’ locked themselves inside the mosque with fireworks, sticks and stones.
Police further added that one of their officers was injured in his leg by a stone while they were dealing with the rioters.
The violence in Jerusalem triggered protests and condemnations from Palestinian groups who condemned the latest attacks on worshippers by describing it as a ‘crime’.
Hamas, in Gaza, called for large protests and people started gathering in the streets, with calls to head for the heavily guarded Gaza-Israel frontier for more violent demonstrations.
The spokesman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, warned Israel that such a move exceeds all red lines and will lead to a large explosion.
Palestinians are also worried about far-right Israeli movements that want to demolish the Islamic structures in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and build a Jewish temple in their place.
In Gaza, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also called for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Israel to go and gather around Al-Aqsa Mosque and confront Israeli forces.
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